Moving and out of touch...

Hello to all my lovely blogger friends!

So sorry to have been absent for the past several days, but we are in the midst of moving and so have been without internet for quite a while. 

I will be continuing the settling in process for the next couple weeks, so will try to get by and say hi to all of you as soon as I can, but it may take a while.

Miss you all!  I will post pictures of our wonderful new home as soon as I can.

Sunday Sketches - Brittany

This week I have had hardly any time for art.  We are still getting ready to move and signing on our new house tomorrow!  Very excited. 

So this is a 'just started' sketch of my oldest daughter, Brittany, as she looked when she was much younger.

Still enjoying these 'Zen Portraits' a lot and I find them very relaxing.

Hope all of you are having a relaxing and wonderful Sunday!

Smiles

Please head over to Sophia's place to enjoy more great Sunday Sketches.

Sunday Sketches

'I walked into the forest and found a bower of flowers...

I twined them in my hair and let their spicy fragrance wash over me...

NATURE, you are my constant companion, YOU soothe me always...

A lifetime spent in YOUR company will teach me more than an eternity

without ever having known you...

Oh, carry me on your knarled boughs, escort me through your waving grasses, lay me down with a bed of blue 'forget-me-nots' beneath me.'

You can find more wonderful artists at Sophia's place.

A bit 'Much'...

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Sometimes life gets to be a bit much, don't you think?

This past two months has been like that.

Much much.

We have been attempting to buy a home for the past 4 months.  In this economy, it is tough enough to accomplish that unless you are bringing cash to the table, which we are not. 

The regulations and restrictions have tightened so significantly that you basically have to explain every single aspect of your life to your mortgage broker.  That would be ok as we really don't have very complicated finances in our family, but add to that a somewhat shady Seller, who did not disclose all that was wrong with the property, and what you get is a long, drawn-out mess!

After negotiating and renegotiating and signing extensions and anxiously watching as yet another deadline comes and goes, we were poised to close on this property this week. 

In steps the regulators to tell us that the Appraisor THAT THEY HIRED did not do his job correctly and they are unwilling to accept his appraisal.  Even though it came in at the sale price.  So now a mandatory second appraisal has been ordered, another extension signed, the moving crew for this weekend put off yet again, and the box of LIMBO that we have carried around with us for the past four months unpacked and set back up in the middle of our lives.

You would think this would be enough 'Much' wouldn't you?

There's more.

We have also been in the middle of some custody issues with my step-daughters, as well as getting five children settled in three different schools, and trying to manage our business around court dates, property inspections, meetings with contractors, realtors, mortgage brokers...you get the picture.

This is life.  I accept that there are times when the ride is challenging to say the least.  And I'm a driver for sure.  I am out front with Craig, juggling all of the different aspects of raising these children, loving them, guiding them, and supporting them, helping with homework, practicing cartwheels, cheering on as they embrace each day with that wonderfully contageous childish exhuberence that I love so well.

I find the best way to handle the 'Much' that life can steer your way is to look each day for the little things; a cup of hot tea and a freshly baked cookie, while snuggled under a cosy blanket with my sweetie.  Pushing my 2 year old on the swing and laughing as he shouts with absolute glee.  That incredible feeling of comraderie that I get when Craig walks in the door at the end of the day and it turns from 'Me' to 'Us'.  A hard-won B+ from my step-daughter who has had a tough time with schoolwork in the past, but who is really working hard this year.  Watching my other step-daughter as she just charges into reading, one of my lifelong loves, and catching her with her younger brothers, all snuggly in the rocker, reading together.

Life and family and history and baggage and challenges - it's all there.

But it truly is 'the little things' that make it work.  I remind myself continually, that NOW is where it's at.  That moment I am in or that just passed, that is the one to savor.  And in doing this, I find the 'Much' recedes a bit into the background, and 'Life', sweet, rewarding, sometimes painful 'Life' is given wings.  And what an incredible journey!

                                                                             photo credit