bloom...

I love this photo. It reminds me that even if everything around me is falling apart...I can still bloom.

And I need to be reminded of this sometimes.

I really believe that in everything I have a choice...trials can weaken me or make me stronger. I choose.

It all depends on how I look at it. The past few years I have been working on finding beauty in the little things and enjoying the journey. I have been setting priorities, discovering who I am and what I want out of life. I've made some mistakes along the way but I have also learned a lot and am getting ever closer to who and where I want to be.

The hubby's first and last semester of architecture school will soon come to an end and a new chapter will begin...I begin packing for another big move...and I feel happy.

Just a thought...

It is interesting to me to read and listen to people's comments on my last post. They are many and varied. My day has been a little stressful actually. It is hard sometimes to stay focused with so many different opinions pressing themselves on me. I read a quote tonight that made me feel a little better and I thought I would share...

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." -Woodrow Wilson

I was thinking about all the people I know of who live their life this way and I was wondering: what if everybody thought this way...what if striving for this rather than money was the primary focus...

something to think about.

happiness...

The hubby and I have been formulating plans for our future...our Plan B future.

I've been reading old journals, looking at family photos and reading my old blog posts.

As I think about our future while looking at our past, one item stands out...

When the hubby and I were engaged, I would bring home tourism brochures from the travel agency I worked at. We would look through them and talk about all the places we could live. We were young and the whole world was available to us. The thought that we could live anywhere in the world was exciting. After looking for weeks at brochures for a reason that I do not know we settled on Prince Edward Island. It seemed perfect. We talked about it for weeks, months...but I had a mortgage and a good job and after we married, we stayed where we were.

Nine months into our marriage, I was given the opportunity to take a business trip to New Brunswick. The tourist board flew a number of us over and showed us why we should send our clients to New Brunswick. If I had been single without a mortgage, I would not have returned home. I loved it. Each place I went I fell more and more in love. I remember the last night of the trip standing outside the Algonquin hotel in St. Andrews by the Sea. It was very late at night and tears were running down my cheeks and for the first time in years, I felt like I was home. I missed my new hubby but I did not want to leave. I spent an hour on the phone with him trying to convince him to drop everything and meet me there. We could open a BandB or something, right? We could make it work. I loved the few days I spent in New Brunswick and talked of it often over the next decade.

When my hubby mentioned graduate school in Nova Scotia...I jumped at the chance!

FINALLY...I would get to live in the maritimes.

 We spent two years there and as I look back at our pictures at the smiling faces of my children playing on the beach I realize that (aside from the long commute that my hubby had) we were happiest there.

 We loved the ocean, the day trips, the museums, the galleries, the history, the architecture, the slow-paced lifestyle.

 The maritimes suit us.

The past few weeks we have spent hours discussing and more hours pondering and praying about what we should do. Looking at our photos...of the house we lived in (that is owned by my mother-in-law and rented out) and available to us...it did not take us too long to decide where we should be.

Plans are in the works for a more permanent summer move to Nova Scotia...we feel relief, peace and happiness...no more lobsterless summers for us!

Plan B

Time in Vancouver has not been going well which has resulted in my lack of posts.

I do like Vancouver. But the past few months have been full of trials, troubles and hopefully growth and learning.

Life is filled with trials; there really isn't anything we can do to escape them. Sometimes we need to focus and push on down the path we have chosen; work through the problems and wait for things to work out. Other times we  realize that the path we have chosen is not the right path for us. This is when we need to be brave, admit we have made a mistake and turn around and choose another path.

The hubby and I are experiencing a wrong path. Even though it is something we have worked on for years...now that we are here, it has become very obvious that this is not our path. Architecture school is not turning out to be what we thought it would be in so many ways. My husband has wanted to be an architect for more than twenty years. We have been working in one way or another to get him to architecture school for fourteen years...we are working on plan B...

Autumn in Vancouver

For some reason I am having a really hard time adjusting to our new life in Vancouver.

I don't like the traffic both in vehicles and pedestrians or the extremely busy schedule we have had since our arrival.

I have been trying to find some peace, quiet and tranquility.

It has been very difficult. 

The one thing I have been enjoying is the beautiful fall colours and mild weather...

 

I have been struggling with the question...what do you do when you spend years working towards something and when you arrive it is not quite what you were expecting. I may be experiencing a little of the "be careful what you wish for" blessing/curse. 

For now, I am practicing patience, perseverance and tolerance.

I am trying to appreciate the beauty that is around me and I have been focusing on my studies. As I am reminded daily by signs all around campus, I am living in a "Place of Mind"...

I have experienced many changes to my lifestyle since I have been here both good and bad all of which take some getting used to...

I'm not sure what the next few years will bring, but I find myself repeatedly thinking about the saying: that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger...

I am hoping for the latter.