Ramblings from the House of Pox!

Ok to say I am an absent blogger would be an under statement. I have been so lapse with keeping this up along with my laundry, personal filing, exercise regime, healthy eating notions and a whole ream of other items on my "to do" list. I am currently trying to figure out which items on my "to do" list are in fact "to shoulds" and if so which are "good shoulds" (would they make me happy - I should take myself to the spa more, I should spend more time in my studio) or are they really "other people tell me I should" (all those guilt driven items that make me cringe when I see them). I don't think I will really up date you from where we left off as life has pretty much been predictable with new baby, 4 year old issues and daily life commitments. We were however supposed to be on a plane today with the whole family to embark on the big "Poppy Tour" so that family and friends of both my husband (Ontario) and myself (England) could meet our new bundle. That trip has now been cancelled due to the poor Noisy Boy contracting Chicken Pox (despite immunization). I was disappointed to say the least and heartbroken when breaking it to the Grandmas And friends - but today - I have to say I am more reflecting on the words of Mike Jaggar when he said "I can't get no...satisfaction"...ha ha, no ..when he says "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime..you might find..you get what you need". What I have needed since Poppy was born was calm, peace and space for our family. What I created for myself was stress, busyness, more stress, exhaustion and various forms of mild sickness. Life with 2 kids is busy - it is rather inevitable - life with 2 kids and a self-employed husband whose busy period is April - Dec gets somewhat stressful, life with 2 kids, self-employed husband and a limited company year end gets even more interesting and then add in a house on the market / viewings, a small craft business, Christmas, a need for social interaction and you end up with a life that feels a little like some high speed car careering into a wall. I have never enjoyed "busy" - I know some do, but I like steady - I like to start and finish one task before I move onto the next. When I see a job that says the applicant must enjoy tight deadlines and multi-tasking I run a mile. When I worked in a little Deli before I had Jack I remember a woman asking me abt how I had moved here etc and then she gave me a big nodding smile and said "and are you busy?" as if being busy was the goal I should have, a definition of happiness. So here I am today on my fifth day of quarantine with the boy, the girl, my husband and a lot of time, space and peace. Maybe I had planned a wonderful trip rushing around with the kids to see everyone and do everything we could in a month - maybe that had been what I really wanted, but maybe the fact that we haven't really stopped and spent much quality time together, alone since Poppy was born - means that a good bout of contagious chicken pox was what we needed. It is funny when I look back on rather momentous occasions or decisions in my life - many of them do come from a very easygoing process. They are not the decisions that I worried over and fiddled with endlessly. I decided to travel to Australia after watching a documentary one day and there had a fabulous time and met my future husband. I agreed to marry my husband after one month of distance dating. We moved to BC from Ontario after a quick phone call to my husband at his work - "we should move to BC" I said - after a slight pause he said "Ok". We bought this house (after viewing what felt like hundreds of homes) the first day we saw it - in a town we knew nothing abt, I wrote "I love it" on the details within a second of being inside and my husband has built his whole business around answering an ad "gutter cleaner wanted" 7 years ago. The list feels endless when I mull it over (I have the time these days) and it makes me smile, it makes me realise that life doesn't always need to be this frantic, forcing of worries and decisions - sometimes life has a way of opening paths for you without you even knowing. I guess the trick is to try and quieten down the day just a little, if you can, just to check and see where some paths maybe opening up for you. We will get to see everyone we need to later this year - I am sure - "we will re-build" as they say, it just won't be the plan we had in mind. We will just try and enjoy this quiet period of time together, focus on getting the boy (and maybe the girl) well and enjoy the sweet little packages that arrive on our doorsteps from our dear friends here!