Category: 366 days of novice motherhood

Place: hotel

Poison: cookies and cream icecream

Favorite things: thinking fondly of home…

Tonight is our last night of 5 nights of Babymoon bliss.

The plan was; sleep, hang, communicate, rest, recover, swim, walk, eat and mostly enjoy each others company before a little Viviers is in our world for the rest of our lives!

And that we have done with abandon.

We have had the most amazing 5 days, enjoyed reading, sleeping in, talking about our hopes and dreams, discussing parenting culture, family boundaries and so much more.

Surrounded by the most amazing restaurants and food options, we decided tv and cookies and cream icecream in bed was the perfect end to a glorious week.

Sometimes its the simple things and enjoying one another’s company that can truly make our everyday brilliant!

Brilliant!

So happy

A

Place: dunsborough

Poison: green tea

Favorite things: sleep ins

Every heart was created to long…

To pine, to dream, to wish and hope for something more.

It gives the human heart a reason for existence and the potential to believe for something more.

What happens though when your longing is delayed?

What happens when the desire of your heart tarries?

That longing hurts, that longing burns, that longing wanes…

Today is a day that I know too well, a day where for years hope became dim and my heart tarried.

Valentines day is a beautiful expression of love that should be displayed daily, but for one day a year is brought out into the foreground to creatively express thankfulness for love.

However I know the pain that many would be feeling today, because for many years I felt like the last man standing, I felt like that longing in my heart would never be consumed, I felt rejected!

What do you do when it seems like everyone around you is valentine-ing?

What do you do when the last thing you want to do is put on a happy face and text your girls and tell them you love them just to have a fit in and feel that you have expressed something?

What do you do with the disappointment that stares you in the face on V morning, declaring the many possible reasons why you find yourself single again?

I don’t want to be trite, because I know the depths of this despair I felt the many years I awoke with no red card in my mailbox. Even the years where I checked just in case, knowing that walk to the mailbox was futile.

Today I want to encourage you dear friend though, to increase that longing, even though it is painful, even though it seems pointless. Don’t shut down, switch off and remove yourself from the world. Press in, engage and grow that part of you that not many people see.

Increase the longing…

I know it hurts, but there is nothing more unattractive than a bitter, twisted, unforgiving soul who hates the red shaped world with passion.

Find a way to hope again.

Believe that you can interact with people and let the past go.

Hope for a better future, because my dreams did come true, but not without pain or perseverance.

I truly believe there is a person for everyone!

It’s whether you have the guts to confront your weaknesses and deal with your past and pain, leaving behind your yesterday and stepping boldly into your tomorrow…

Deal with the dark recesses of your heart, that are shadowing your potential for tomorrow.

Learn how to communicate effectively and presently.

Let go of defensive behaviors that push people away.

Let your brilliance shine!

Hope for a better tomorrow dear friend.

Forget about valentines day and allow its heartache to create a longing for a better tomorrow.

What can you change?

Then start with that.

Hopefully one day you will be able to sit with me and confidently say ‘Longing fulfilled!’

All my love,

I’m thinking of you today.

A

Place: hotel

Poison: water

Favorite things: outdoor cinemas

Tonight we went to the outdoor cinemas in a winery. Aside from the discomfort of a massive 8 month and a bit belly, it was truly beautiful.

Taking time to communicate with my husband on long drives in the country, quietening ourselves before the blackened landscape from the recent bush fires and talking in depth about the movie we just watched, are just the
beginning of wealth we are storing up in our marriage this week.

The movie tonight was called ‘the descendants’ a George Cloony reality check imbued into our minds from the romantic climbs of Cape Mentelle.

The plot is very real and thankfully not Hollywood styled. It didn’t finish with a neat, nice soppy ending, it created an opportunity for a reality check for every viewer if they were willing to undertake the scrutiny.

From teenage drug taking to infidelity, to workaholicalism to child appropriate conversations, to the shortness of life, loving without conditions and forgiveness or living without regret.

These are just some of the themes that subtlety bubbles throughout the movie and provoked a long stream of conversation between us on the drive home.

The biggest theme that confronted me was this question ‘what am I doing in my today, that is going to adversely affect my marriage tomorrow?’

In the film, it was an affair for the wife and workaholic disposition for the husband. For the family allowing children to disrespect their parents and behavior that created the disrespect in the first place…

These are tough circumstances, but if a reality check had have happened in any of their lives five years earlier, the consequences of awry decisions may have been avoided.

What is in my today, that is going to severely impact my tomorrow?

Is it my self esteem?
Is it my defensive nature?
Is it unforgiveness?
Is it regret or bitterness?
Is it an inability to let the past remain there?
Is it a critical spirit?
Is it a need for work to fill a void in my own self perception?
Is it a lack of reverence for a higher being?
Is it selfishness?
Is it spite?
Is it judgmentalism of others?

I could write the list all night…

Everyone of us have conditions of our heart that will ultimately enable decisions to be made that are beneficial for our future or catastrophic…

Search my heart and know me, find if there is any wrong in me and lead me to everlasting life.

I want to guard my heart above all else, so the decisions I make in my today build fresh hope, love and peace into my tomorrow.

If there is anything that has the potential to bring bitterness, strife and unforgiveness, I pray I would have the courage to change.

A

Place: dunsborough

Poison: toothpaste

Favorite things: my husband reading the action bible. (a bible in action heros and cartoons)

Today is day one of our Babymoon and we drove past one of our favorite wineries, a memory made because of a afternoon of brilliance on our honeymoon.

It made me think about my last few weeks though…swings and roundabouts baby!

It’s been a really tough couple of weeks, but now I find myself in a place of rest, tonight going to the most stunning concert at Leeuwin Estate (a fabulous winery), so in love with my husband, ready for a dream to come true very soon; our first baby to be born!

Swings and roundabouts. Everything, every situation, every circumstance, as dire as they may seem has the potential to swing around and change right before your eyes, I think it’s all about perspective.

What is happening in your life right now that you are allowing to trouble and weigh you down?

Swings and roundabouts; find a way to twist its perspective the hold you have on it and see what changes can come about…

Not every change in our world is easy, but swings and roundabouts provide opportunities to see it from a new perspective…

Help me God to allow these swings and roundabouts, to wash away the last few weeks and find you in the midst of my perspective.

Looking forward to a week of perspective shifts!

A

Place: home

Poison: water

Favorite things: a ordered house.

One of my closest friends came and spring cleaned my wardrobe and our bathroom cabinets today, with the promise of my kitchen ones to come.

With such a small apartment, the demise of clutter was taking over the lightness of my soul and I really needed help.

She told me something she does at the beginning of every year. She cleans out every cupboard, she does a full blood test and doctors all over,she goes to the dentist and gets a skin check. Then she doesn’t need to remember when she last did them all. They are all in January.

I thought that it was a really great practice as I get older to bring order to my health and life.

My husband has been trying desperately today to finish off the little things, (that ultimately become big things!) in our pursuit of renovating before Baby V comes. Finishing off detailed and annoying jobs is never an easy task, when it’s more exciting and rewarding to move onto the bigger and more dramatic jobs that bring visual pleasure.

None of you have ever seen my wardrobe or my bathroom cabinet, so it’s not really a priority to clean out the old and create space for new.

None of you would notice our roof in our bathroom needs to be reprinted, but finishing off a job properly right to its last conclusion brings deep satisfaction.

What little niggleing jobs are hiding as clouding the recesses of your mind?

I have a box of journals that needs to be cleaned out.

I have photo album after photo album that need to be sorted and compiled into a smaller and more beautiful compilation.

I have my wedding album that’s not finished.

I have the most terrible pile of craziness going on under my sink.

Then there is my husbands clothes cupboard.

Nesting plus renovating plus delightful friends makes for a pretty satisfying Saturday.

Try it!

It makes any cloudiness definitely clear away…

A