After moving in this house, we got very busy with cleaning at the other place. We spent two weeks cleaning that place out and on top of it all I had a cold. It was not the start to our new life that I had imagined. It left me a little bit upset at life to be honest.

Amidst sicknesses and minor setbacks, I always try to see the positive in life. When dealing with a head cold it’s hard to think straight sometimes. Also our  homeschooling plans got derailed for a little while, but I took it all as a sign that I just needed to relax into the moment and settle into this place before we got started into a new routine.

Sitting back and reflecting upon things (which I had a lot of time to do as I was stuck in bed for 2 days with a real bad migraine), I realized a lot of things about myself that have changed. Sometimes changes are occurring in us at such a slow rate that we don’t even notice them happening. We send out prayers and petitions to the universe and we don’t even realize how those prayers and petitions are being answered in the background of our everyday lives. Even through things that seem less than positive, like a sickness, we are learning and we are growing and perhaps it’s even in those times when we are finally quiet enough and we give up control enough that spiritual beings are able to intercede for us and make things happen.

Losing my ability to smell and taste was a pain, but I still baked and cooked for my family and we enjoyed meals together. We went out for walks on the prairie roads and we relaxed together in our new home. Even though it wasn’t what I imagined it should have been according to my mind, it was still wonderful. It made me realize that often times we have these ideas in our heads about the way things should be and when they’re not the way that we want them to be we get upset so easily. I worked on this one for many years, but still, I realize that there’s a bit of that inside of myself. Whatever you want to call it perfectionism or idealism or whatever, I think it’s a pretty human-nature type of thing to want things to go our way.

Another less than positive thing that happened to me last weekend was stepping in a thistle patch. It took forever to get the thistles out of my feet. With a flashlight and a needle and a pair of tweezers I dug through my skin trying to find the tiny little fibers that were embedded into my soles. Again it was another lesson to just slow down, be in the moment and not freak out about anything. I got them one by one, slowly and surely. I had to practice in my mind not getting upset about that because upset doesn’t help the problem. It only makes it worse.

And so through these experiences I’ve had in the past couple of weeks and also through reading more Buddhism books about mindfulness and meditation I’ve come to remember again to practice watching my thoughts. I have felt that I’ve been fairly good at it but of course we always have a long way to go. Life always presents different circumstances to us to test our  ability to train our minds and certain situations as well.

Life will never be 100% perfect or how we perceive perfect to be in our imaginations at times. Things happen that are out of our control but what is in our control is how we allow our mood to be and our reaction to be to the situation. We can choose to think negative thoughts or we can choose to try to see the positive and the lessons in  everything. There’s always a positive to every seemingly negative.

But this isn’t a post just about the setbacks or the perceived setbacks in my life the last couple of weeks. I also want to talk about the positive. The last few days we’ve gotten back into reading classic books together. It has been a long time challenge because Serafina  is very much hyperactive. We cannot do crafts or things when she is around too often because she’s kind of always on the go. Reading is okay if she’s around sometimes because she may just do her own thing, but often times she needs a lot of undivided attention. Add a toddler to the mix and it can be quite a distraction to try to read a book together aloud. But we’re doing it! And I’m proud of that! We chose Robin Hood. This is the second time we have read it. It’s amazing to me how 4 years can go by and yet it seems like it was just yesterday. Reading the words on the pages takes me back to the moments that we spent reading those four years ago when Kesa and Autumn would sit in bed and knit or sew and I read.

When certain nostalgic things happen to our minds we realize how much has changed in that time. It can be a bittersweet moment when we realize that that past is gone. That’s another thing that I’ve been having trouble with for a while in life. Life moves forward and sometimes I tend to cling in my mind to wishing for those days back again but in doing so I miss out on the now. So all I can do is be here with my children now, no matter what the circumstances. In sickness or in health, to enjoy every day and every moment.

We aren’t promised anything more than that are we?