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!

poetry and moving forward

While I enjoy reading Keats, Shelley, Byron and Tennyson among others, I must admit that my favourite poet is not so celebrated or sophisticated. Ever since I was a little girl I have loved reading the poetry of Shel Silverstein and now that I am a mother I have really enjoyed sharing that love with my children. I love sitting with my kids reading poem after poem as they ask for more. Yesterday I was really happy while we were waiting in the car and my oldest son sat and read from "A Light in the Attic" to his brothers. Listening to the laughter from the back seat was one of my happier moments as a mother.

"Where the Sidewalk Ends" was always a favourite of mine and I checked it out from the library regularly as a kid. One of my favourite poems is in this book and as I reread it yesterday I thought that it really summed up how I have been feeling over the past few years. I fully believed it as a child but then for awhile I became a little too serious and lost that belief. Over the past few years I have been working on regaining some of the beliefs and attitudes I had as a child. Today I thought I would share this poem with you.

It is called "Listen to the Mustn'ts"

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

Isn't that great...I really hope that my children can keep this belief as they grow up. ANYTHING can be - I really believe that it can and I've noticed that the more I embrace this belief the more I am shown that it is true. I think as I became an adult I assumed that if anything could be it meant that it would be easy. When things didn't come easy I thought they wouldn't come at all and so I settled for a life that didn't excite me or make me really happy. Now I know that work is involved and creating a life that I love takes action and that doing things differently can be difficult. But-it is SO worth it.

I always keep in mind what I read in a grad write up once (I can't remember who said it) "Live the life you will have wished you had lived when you are dying". When my husband was considering going back to school someone said to him..."the years are going to go by anyway. In ten years time you can be where you are now or you could be an architect...where would you rather be?"
Which has led us to our current belief of always moving forward. Picture what you want and move towards it...you'll get there eventually and it will be so much better than where you are now.