Emerging...

Hi.

 I feel like I have woken up from a deep sleep...at least I hope I have. You know in movies where someone wakes up, at least they think they do, but then realises it is just a dream within a dream?Yeah, crossing everything its not that!

I have been feeling varying levels of rubbish for the last two and a half years. I wrote about it in my last post, and it all seems to have began around here. I felt like I was slowly, slowly drowning in thick mud and there was nothing I could do, save from using all my energy to stop from going fully under. I didn't love the things I used to love *church, dancing, running, baking/cooking, blogging...you know...living*...and I couldn't find anything to replace them. I felt deeply heavy. I was stressed, angry and I just couldn't be bothered. I couldn't write because I felt so ashamed with how I was feeling. I was scared of being judged. I couldn't open myself to that. So I isolated myself at home. I absolutely felt I had little control over the spiral downwards.

It seemed to all come to a head this last 6 months when my physical health started to fail. Getting intensely sick over winter, the weird arthritis in my knee *it is still not any better, but I remain hopeful.* Although I had lost the desire to do the things I once loved - I now was completely unable to do some of them. You know, there is only so much crying and whingeing that you can do before you have to suck it up...hard, and just accept the situation. I have cried so much in the last 6 months - I am so bloody over it! The unknown terrifies me...and not knowing what was going on with my body or how long it would last...was awful!

I have no idea why any of this happened, although between years of prolonged stress *kids/law school/life* and some crazy stuff going on in my birth chart - Thanks Saturn in Sagittarius!! - it all makes a little more sense. *It turns out Saturn left Sagittarius on the 20th December 2017*

What has changed tho?

I kind of knew about the havoc Saturn was causing me but I wasn't really monitoring it or even really had the energy to figure out how to manage it. Last week something changed inside me, quite suddenly. I had a major assignment due, and although I was really enjoying the subject - summer school was killing me. I was really shouty, and I couldn't get into the Christmas vibe at all - my family was really suffering. I woke up last Wednesday morning filled with self loathing and a feeling of 'I am SO done with this!!!' was creeping in. I dropped my Financial Planning subject on Friday - I wanted to be more for my family for Christmas...and I needed a serious holiday!  I shopped, I baked and I cried. I really miss the person that I used to be.

Over the last couple of days I am starting to get some of those old feelings back. I have been craving a run soooo bad! I still, at the moment, cannot run with the condition my knee is in, and I have lost a lot of fitness not being able to do as much...but I can distinctly remember the feel of the road under my feet, how good it felt to push myself and have that regular personal head space,  and the absolute exhilaration I felt every time I finished a long run. I want that again! I also want to bake, to create, to blog! *to do all the things!*

There are some things that I am still not feeling though...as much as I love dancing, I don't, right now, feel like I want go back to West Coast Swing. *freestyle competition was just not right for me, I pushed too hard to make it fit...and my self esteem took quite a battering* Church wise, I still feel spiritually empty - and I am not sure what I want to fill that space with yet...I guess I will just feel my way and see what resonates with me.

Source: 'The Butterfly Transformation II' - Niklas Gustafsson

This image and title seems very appropriate. This is my second transformation. The first was when I first started this blog. *Interestingly its been almost 7 years exactly since I started writing - want to read from the beginning?*

As I emerge this time, I feel 'same same, but different' -  new, delicate and curiously wonderful!

Christmas....Part Two

It was so great to have Christmas fall on a Sunday this year. I was CRAVING it! I was in tears two days before because I had so much trouble wading through the commercialisation and the busyness of the season and finding Christ at the centre. Which was rather bizarre since we attend church every Sunday and strive to live a "Christ centred life". (I think it is a reflection of my lacking personal scripture study - a goal of mine for the new year)

It was good to be at church and to partake of the sacrament, sit with my family and just listen (as much as possible, there were two wards in one chapel - lots of child noise!).

My super studly husband sporting his new glassed and Christmas tie - post church

After opening our presents I finished making my sweet potato salad and we headed off to Michael's brother's house for his family's Christmas lunch. It was fabulous...meat, prawns and salads and great company. A very relaxed lunch. I loved it. (On a side note: Michael's brother and his wife were in my ward when I was growing up - although I never met Michael - and I remember wishing they were part of my family. His wife was in the Young Women Presidency and I loved her. Bizarrely, I got my wish, just not in the way that I though!!)


Post lunch we skyped Nana and other family interstate....loving technology! 


We then played a present game with the gifts we bought. We were required to each bring a $5 present, including the children. Then we all picked a number out of a 'hat' (the hand of Michael's sister), that was our order of gift selection. Once the first person had chosen a gift and opened it so everyone could see it, the next person had the option of 'stealing' a gift or selecting one from the unopened pile. I learned that my daughter valued a six pack of ginger beer over make-up (I should have put some in her stocking, note to self for next year), which alas she lost to Michael's sister-in-law (the one I love). She ended up, quite happily, with a massive tray of Maltesers.  Michael's son ended up with the make-up, but a kind hearted cousin (I think it was the one I want to marry my brother - it would be quite a lovely match methinks - shhhh, I don't think either of them read my blog) did a sympathy trade and he got a tie instead. 


During the game I committed a terrible gifting transgression - and I felt guilty for days! 

I chose my own gift!!!

Ugh....I couldn't help myself - it was this.....

Again: I couldn't help it - I desired it for myself as soon as I purchased it. Seriously, how good it Dr. Seuss?? Answer: Brilliant! Rhyming rocks my world...


I felt like I was slightly redeemed later in the week when Amelie wrapped up some of our Dr. Seuss collection (we had doubles...thank goodness) and gifted it to Michael other son (not the make-up/tie one) who we visited on Boxing Day. I still feel residual guilt at my Dr Seuss greed -I don't think I will be doing that again. 


Back to Christmas....


After gifting we all slept and the kids played quietly with their new toys - shock and bliss.....


That sure was my kind of Christmas  - I think I married into the right family


Have I posted my creative daughter's nativity scene?

Christmas.....Part One

It was our first Christmas as the Summerfield-Lawton family - which is kinda awesome in itself - it has been almost a year....I cannot believe it! And honestly its been awesome, amazing...etc

So....Yay for us! 

The highlight gift - a trampoline for the children, though perhaps more so for dear Husband. Although the size may have been a little extravagant. 16 ft!! Its takes up our entire backyard!!

Christmas Eve was with my immediate family - parents and three brothers and the fiance of one of my brothers. Roast turkey cooked in the Webber, prawns and cold ham and salads. I was super desperate, as I always am, to get opinions on my rose marie sauce. I thought it was brilliant! Chris made the Pavlova - I guiltily was a little judgmental of his recipe - he dared to deviate from Mum's tried and true recipe....sorry!! - it was yum and you did great!!

We tried out Uncle Matt's 3D TV and Michael and the kids watched 'Despicable Me'

And check out that chair....I mean seriously.....what??!!

and met the new addition to their family....

Meet Jax (the bulldog)- and Grandad....

Being the super organised person that I am, after returning home and putting the kids to bed, I still had presents to wrap and a pavlova to make (Take 2 - the first attempt got binned early in the day). Michael also had to finish the putting the trampoline up. It rained. So now Michael gets to tell the story of staying up until 2am, in the rain, on Christmas Eve putting together a present for the children. He loves it! What a champion!

I then decided I would set the table and make the lounge room all pretty for when the children wake up....

It lasted until after church when they were allowed to open their gifts from under the tree. (they got their stockings as soon as they woke).....

I don't know how they can trash a room so fast...

I am still cleaning up the mess!!.....

Spring Clean Anxiety....

I think I may taken on too much?!


Its 3.14pm. I cleaned for a couple of hours this morning, crashed out after lunch with the kids watching a Christmas movie ("Nativity" - its an English movie - twas good, what I saw of it)....now I am trying to motivate myself to keep going.

I know people do this all the time, but I do not and have not....Where I do like to keep the house reasonable clean and tidy (I am great for cleaning toilets!), and I grew up with a super cleaning mother and her yearly Christmas clean - I have, a number of times, found my self finishing the final clean before moving out of a house and thinking..."Wow, this place really looks great" and wanting to stay a little longer.

I don't know why I have never Spring/Summer/Christmas cleaned, I guess its just always seemed like too big an effort....and me being me, not knowing how to tackle it - just didn't. Plus it was easy to blame my 'unsupportive husband' (Not this one, he is brilliant), a demotivating drug problem and....babies (those last two sound terrible together, but alas, that was the reality of it) - I don't think those excuses cut it anymore...

But now I am doing it - that is, I have done lists! and laminated them (oh, how I love my new $18 laminator :)..... My son has done his room, and my daughter is half way through hers, though she has kind of given up a bit. I know I will have to step in and help with the culling process. (After my lamenting post previously on the kids and the holidays - yesterday was great, the children were awesome and motivated of my cleaning endeavour and we had a great day!) My kitchen is also...nearly half done?, maybe not quite but the success is all hidden. I think that is what is so discouraging. One wall of cupboards looks brilliant inside, but unless my husband notices the awesome cleanliness of the 'joins' between the floor and the cupboards (he won't) then you can't see anything!

Anyway I am trying to keep plodding along, reminding myself that if I work on something every day, then its bound to get down eventually!

Are you a 'cleaning aficionado'?? Got some tips for me?? Some super quick, barely any washing up, dinner recipes so I can keep up my mid-afternoon flow....I am thinking paper plates and plastic cutlery...

A Conversation About Conversations.....

Fun fact bout me, I love my local ABC radio station....more specifically I am seriously into the  "Conversations" with Richard Fidler program....

"On any given day Conversations with Richard Fidler might take you from a remote Chinese village, to inside the cockpit of a space shuttle, to a family home in the middle of a warzone, to a hospital on the side of an African volcano, to the mysteries of the human brain, or to the pitch of the MCG. Conversations with Richard Fidler is funny, provocative and often deeply moving."

Incredibly fascinating, you must check it out! I download the podcasts, and excellently I am currently listening to 'conversations from early 2010 - which means, I have 100's more get through....awwwwesome! :)

I quite often listen to them while I am doing the domestic goddess thing - cleaning, cooking, hanging out washing etc, but also while I run.....it feels amazing being intellectually stimulated/inspired at the same time as physically challenging my body (listening to General Conference talks is also most excellent on long runs)

Anyway I have found one of late particularly inspiring - a conversation with Elif Batuman, author of the books "The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books And The People Who Read Them". This was particularly  interesting for me because, being part Russian (through my mum's side, her parents immigrated to Australia at the end of World War II), I have never read a Russian novel! Whaaat?! Even more shameful is that fact that I was named after a character in "War and Peace" and I have no idea what it is about or who wrote it. I did own a Dostoyevsky novel a few years, a nice hard cover version, but I again didn't read it and no longer have it! *sigh* 

SO....with three weeks to go until an epically long university holiday, I have set two goals for myself - One I will read no less than 5 Russian novels - starting with, of course, 'War and Peace'. Secondly, I want to start learning Russian again - I did one semester when I attended university the first time when I was 17...it was awesome, and hard and I hardly remember anything!....and as I sit here totally overwhelmed and inspired by all things Russian - I want to host a Russian Christmas (January 7th) at my house this year - yes!!! That means lots of Russian cooking and craft as well for the holidays - no, no - I am not obsessive at all!! Hahaha.....its going to be wonderful! :) 

Now I would like to slightly veer of topic for a moment, in Elif's conversation she also made reference to the fact that most Russians are not very smiley. (I was also inspired on the topic of genetic characteristics by this conversation with Joe Bageant) It got me wondering what parts of my character are genetically inherited from my Russian background.....hmmm anyway, its all rather interesting, genetic culture -I may delve into this more at another time.

Matryoshka Dolls.....
I want some for my birthday!!! :) I used to own a cute set, but my children loved them so  much when they were babies they destroyed them!

Cue my Russian obsession! :) 

Sooooo.....The Bells Are Ringing.....

Wedding bells that is....:)

Yes, he popped the question....on Christmas day....It was hidden inside a Christmas card box, with a card on top so I didn't know what was inside (Lucky....as Jack found my gift stash the day before and unwrapped quite a few, including that one!). I was under the impression I wasn't getting much because I had already got a present from him - although I have to admit I was secretly hoping it was a ring, all the while thinking that it wasn't....I sat staring at the box, alone at 6am on Christmas morning, overwhelmed by the knowledge that I wanted to marry this man more than anything!

For me this was a big deal.....

I had been struggling with a fear of marriage for the last six months or so....we had looked at rings a while ago, and I totally freaked out. It had nothing to do with how much I loved Michael or even the 'tiny' *wink* age gap....it was more of the fact that I no longer had an ideal view of marriage and I had a million 'what ifs' going through my head - What if we fight and he doesn't talk to me for days? (even though from experience he never does that...) What if our values change? What if he can't handle the kids? What if he can't handle me?....What if it doesn't work out....? I know some fears are irrational, and some are real....and part of the journey involves taking a leap of love.....so hear I go.....;)

It's only been a couple of days and the plans are coming along super smoothly....the date is set for the 26th of February, a week before the dance cruise Micheal had booked for us ages ago - figured it would be pretty cool for it to be our honeymoon! My outfit/accessories/shoes are safely in the cupboard.....I feel so blessed/lucky to find everything so easily!! You are permitted to a sneak peak of my gorgeous shoes....

I got my dress/accessories from Kitten D'Amour one of my favourite stores which I have never been able to buy anything from before....Its Perfect!

The cake is in the works, the location is tentatively sorted......I am trying to keep it low key, and very reasonably priced, so far so good!!

I am kind of excited....did you notice? :) 

I Heart.....

....Funky Costume Jewellery!!

I don't have a lot - a bit from Diva (funky but terribly cheap and mass produced), although I am plotting a way to change that :) ....and last night I found this awesome site

I want it all!! Hahaha.....But mostly these gorgeous items:

Happy Advent!!!

The calendar is done dude!! 

Mind you, my shoulders ache, I am exhausted and there is glitter everywhere.....I freely admit I am getting lots excited! This years effort is a simple one, but I think the kids will love it - especially just knowing we will be doing a family activity every single day leading up to Christmas...(Ash is going to be stoked, he is always telling me I don't hang out with him enough.) I am just a little bit happy with myself for coming up with 20 different activities (repeating learning a carol, and watching Christmas movies). It does help that school and day care have Christmas concerts and parties we can go to together! :)

Found out today my university transfer has been accepted. Things are about to get crazy - I can feel it! Will start school investigation-ing this week. It is all happening early than I expected - which gives me a little more time to get the "big things" sorted....I feel rather blessed!!

Bring on the Season.