Grateful for comings and goings

Happy New Year to you all!

I can hardly believe that I actually took a real break from blogging and social media while I was in the States with my family. I had planned to take a half-break – post a few times a week, check in on Facebook once a day etc but thankfully it just did not happen. I was too busy most days, too tired other days and only had wifi when in our hotel for the night or based with family (and then I found the last thing I wanted to do was write or think).

How are you? I hope each of you are doing well, had a good end of the year and are raring to go for 2013.

Me? I found my break stirred me up inside. I will never know if it was the long break from blogging and social media or being back on meds or quality time DOING and LIVING instead of being on my computer or phone, but no matter the cause I like the result.

I had room to breathe, room to think, room to hit the reset button and room to dream again.

2012 was such a mixed year for me.

I fell in and out of love with blogging.

I was a stay at home mom, but also spent much of each day writing here, creating and leading 2 runs of the self care blueprint, writing over at Kidspot (a highlight for me!) and looking at returning to work.

I exercised and gave up sugar and attempted to be healthier and yet my health was one of my most troublesome issues, often making me feel old, cranky and in pain.

I shared how to” find your simple”, but my life stopped being simple – this was where I fell out of love with blogging.

Thankfully this trip gave me the gift of distance, clarity, space to imagine again, reconnection with myself and disconnection from my smart phone (which I actually lost on the trip).

So this week I am grateful for:

Losing my smartphone - I had been using it to take photos for a while on the trip. Then I packed it away / stuck it in a bag (or who knows what) and let my husband and kids take most of the photos while I walked, looked in windows, watched dolphins, swung on bench seats, ate many amazing meals, read (oh how much I read!), and talked to strangers everywhere.

I was worried about the cost of breaking my contract, but found out yesterday that they can send me a replacement sim card which I can use with my old (NOT SMART) phone until my contract ends in June or when I re-sign and get a new phone in March. This means for the next 2 1/2 months I will revert to the old days pre-blog (when I got the phone) and no longer be able to check emails while out and about, no longer look at comments on the blog until I can actually answer them, and continue my hiatus – sometimes bad things really are good things – I always look for the lesson or silver lining – trust me they are there if you stay open to them.

Coming home again - both the coming home I did to the USA (seeing family and friends, eating favourite foods, riding Splash Mountain at midnight with my husband and kids at Disney and more) and the coming home I did here this week (it was such a long and deep break that I had forgotten the name of our main street here – it sounded strange and wrong when I said it, and when I walked into our house it looked different – I had actually forgotten what my house looked and felt like)

For my whole trip – I feel truly blessed to have that time with the people who are important to me. Whether it was dinner with two of my favourite people from high school or lunch in Chinatown with most of my family (a party of 17 people!), a photo shoot in the NYC studio of my oldest friend (can’t wait to post photos including updating my head shot), meet ups with mothers who became my online friends when I needed them most and now crossed into IRL territory, snuggles in bed with my girls or my husband as we slept in every configuration possible (including one hotel where my 9 year old BEGGED for some space and a room of her own so I granted her the king bedroom while I shared a double with her sister while hubby slept in a double beside us and grandma in a bedroom of her own).  So many” firsts” for my kids on this trip that we will be talking about it forever. Sights, sounds, food, people, time, distance, drives, train, planes and love. 2013 is a year of uncertainty for us thanks to a change in the economy and my husband’s work, but I am grateful that we head into it with this in the bank (not money, but this trip). Whatever comes we can draw on this account and smile and laugh and connect with each other.

LOVE!

 

What are you grateful for this week?

 

Find your simple,

Deb

 

Linking up with Bron for 52 weeks of grateful (starting again for 2013 so join in!)