Grateful: Exhale slowly

The last seven days have been so full on and exhausting. With so much negative, stressful and painful “stuff” crammed into one week I feel especially grateful to come out the other side to another Friday and a weekend on the horizon.

These seven days included physical pain beyond belief when I sliced the side of my finger off;  a (near) repeat of 2011 as we were bombarded by rain and winds for days causing power outages, flooding in places and the loss of a handful of lives; the start of school and attempt at returning to routine (why do I only need to wake children on school days – all summer they woke early).

Among the stress and challenges I felt immense gratitude.

This week I am grateful for:

my husband agreeing to push at work so that he could stay in Brisbane this week. He was here to help me haul the kids’ school supplies to school and 8 million other things I needed help with. He has to return to Sydney again starting Monday, but I am grateful for the extra few days he is here. This long distance commuting thing seems to be our new normal and I just keep focusing on his having a job at all as we hear over and over of redundancies and negative forecasts. We need to hang on tight and ride this out.

coming through the storms unscathed. We had branches down and water under our house. There are trees pulled out by their roots all over our neighbourhood. On the first day of school we watched as several schools within 10 minutes of our house did not open due to power still being out. We have friends across town who had to evacuate again. Friends feeding their children by lamplight. Friends and their families living in worse affected cities and areas.  If it was not storms it was bushfires elsewhere – I am thinking of all those affected around Australia right now.

a great start to school. I was worried about my year 3 daughter as she has the one teacher I did not want for her, based on what I have seen and heard in the past. Thankfully she has reported back that she is not “the mean one” (ahem – she is pointing the finger at the teacher next door who also has a bad reputation). I will trust that as long as she is okay with the teacher I will be okay with her.

My year 4 daughter has the loveliest teacher who already has 1:1 meetings with parents before school. She went through a 6  page document that communicates everything we need to know (love!). She has them doing daily relaxation time that uses their senses and her guiding them (5 minutes to start and building to 20 minutes eventually), a fruit/veg break, focuses on life skills, has a word of the week (this week’s focus is on “flexibility” and she is teaching them how it is important to be able to bend in changing situations). This is all wonderful for my sensitive, artistic child.

I feel that as this week comes to a slow close I can exhale slowly as well. A friend of mine from primary school is in Australia on holiday and we are heading up the coast on Saturday to share and enjoy the house she has rented. I have not seen her in 30 years and feel a little anxious, but am grateful for the chance to get away and breathe deeply before starting the new week on my own.

What are you grateful for this week?

Find your simple,

Deb

Image credit: flickr user Kat B

Linking up with 52 weeks of grateful at Village Voices