Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Moving

From the Tao of Healing:

The pendulum swings to and fro...
The sage had found the stillpoint between;
Remaining neutral
She teaches by living a simple, honest life;
She creates by allowing, 
She feeds without forcing,
And gives by receiving.
She heals by perceiving
One's inner wholeness,
Then let's go.
Because she lets go,
She's always in touch.

Moving is hard. Even moving across the neighborhood. I have experience with moving, and probably, as assumed, moving to a new country has been the hardest. Not bad, just difficult. Exciting, new, refreshing, fun; but difficult. 

Moving challenges parts of me that were hiding. It reminds me of the good things that I left. Friends, closeness to family, comfort, convience,my blue hoodie, etc. At the same time, moving can be somewhat easy. We purged our lives of lots of junk (literally) and set off on a family adventure that Josh and I have dreamily spoken about in the years we've been together. Here we have more quiet time, empty drawers and less piles, less laundry, less dishes. More time and space to be and be together.

Moving allows me to feel homesick. Homesick for gone/far-away moments; balmy Florida fall mornings, quiet moments setting up my classroom, building fires at Granny's or in my backyard, eating at Moe's, seeing fall and Halloween decorations literally exploding out of everywhere, making the quick 7 hour drive to my family, driving.

Moving demands for me to acknowledge to anxiety i feel. I'm fairly adventurous - sometimes laid-back and spontaneous, but moving makes everything new. New stores, new systems, new daily tasks, new weather. It can be tiring - which provokes the yearning for something that I already know.

Moving makes me a stronger person, wife, mama, friend, daughter, sister - all of those other things that I am...At the end of the day, I can reflect on the new experiences and then tomorrow, they'll be the things I learned how to do yesterday, and then they will become the things that I know.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

New school, New College

Zooey started school the other day.

So, apparently, the city of Oxford allocates 15 free hours of nursery to 3 year olds. Who knew? It has been one of the first things people we've met tell us. We started looking into it, because, as much fun as he and I been having together, and as many friends as we have made, I'm not a three year old, and Z has really been missing the structure of school.

His last school was awesome and did wonders for his extremely social self. Whenever we passed schools, he would ask if he could go there. So, we looked into the one right around the corner, contacted them, visited and they said he could start this week. He seriously walked right in and said, "bye, mom!"

I wanted to resist. I felt like it happened too fast, and that I hadn't given a proper try to homeschooling, which really for a three year old is playing, running, screaming and creating, tirelessly, allllllllll the live long day. When I saw how excited he was...well, oh, and then I realized that now I have three whole hours to myself every morning! I think we'll all be just fine.

Below are pictures from the weekend. We biked downtown as a family. Mommy does the real work. I now have a toddler seat on the back of my crappy bike that only has one gear. It's a bit of a workout, but fun.

We saw a movie being filmed. Z thought it was a parade that kept coming back and starting over. They yelled cut and reset several times.


We also visited New College. In case you don't know, Oxford University is actually made up of several different colleges. Each of them have their own history, old buildings, professors, and tours. 



The old city wall (above)

Below is the tree and courtyard that you may recognize from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! It's where Harry and Malloy argued and Mad-eye turned Malfoy into a weasel. Yep, I'm a Potter nerd.


As you can see, we're having fun and enjoying amazing fall weather. I thought they said it rained a lot here. :) oh, just wait...

- kelly