I have always loved weather.  Where we are now, up on a hill on top of the world, you can see weather coming from miles away.  It will be storming and raining in the city, and we'll be in the middle of sunshine. 

This is the view from our door.  The sky seem so BIG today.  Like it goes on forever.

There was a wee little patch of blue looking the other way,

But it has since been swallowed up by the clouds.

It looks like there's some more blue sky coming from the other side of the city.

But not so much from this angle.  (That's our tree lined driveway there, and our front yard.)  ((No, you can't move in.))

Oooo, another patch of blue beyond the garden...  but look at the wind whipping that walnut tree.  It's a good thing those beasts are sturdy.

I love it out here.  I love that we can see forever.  I love that we can see everything coming at us.  I feel the peace out here.  The peace of the Lord, the peace that He has generously given to me.  Sometimes I need to go outside and just look, just be, just to feel Him... just to remember.  Sometimes, I simply need to be still.  Even when nothing around me is.  With the wind rushing, and the trees blowing, and sometimes a child hollering for a drink, I still need to take that moment of stillness, just to remember.

"Be still, and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10

This, this is joy.

 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. Psalm 28:7

In our house we have 'moo' and we have 'milka'.  There is definitely a difference between the two seeing as how one comes from Momma, and one comes from a 'dow'.

With that, I give you, the moo song.  Which is sung to me whenever moo is desired.

I've been taking 'crazy pills' now for...  oh, almost two years.  I was put on them back when I was just three months pregnant with Talya.

It was a good decision at the time.  I honestly could hardly cope for a long time WHILE being pumped full of their feel good medicinal qualities.  I have a history of post partum depression, with the last two kids, and once the warning signs hit, my doctor lost no time in getting the drugs into my system before it got really bad.

And you know what?  It was worse this time...  and yet it was better too.  Ja understood more.  We knew what to expect.  Our support level before the baby was born was through the roof.  Some days I simply cried... and he simply held me.

We are so incredibly blessed that Ja, also known as Wonderhusband, was able to take about ten months off of work for parental leave.  Ah, how I love living in Ontario!  Having him home was wonderful at first.  He really got a taste for how it is to be home all the time.  He looked at me one day after he had been home for about a week and said, "How do you do this ALL. THE.  TIME."  It was a good moment for me!

In the past month or so I've felt that the drugs that I'm on, Wellbutrin, weren't doing their job anymore.  It seemed to me that I had a worse time coping, a worse time with being high up and then low down when I took them than when I didn't.  I was only on the crazy pills for about a year after Ephraim was born, and this time I was in absolutely no hurry to get off them.  I was afraid to go off them.

Now I know it's time.  I started weaning off by taking one pill every other day, then just expanding the time between taking the pills.  I thought I was doing so great, this weekend was the one week marker of no drugs, and I was feeling pretty good.  Ja and I talked about it, and even he said I seemed steadier.  We were both pretty happy with the decision, ready to move on, although always keeping an eye out for the clouds that could smother the family at any moment.

And then Saturday happened. 

It started out okay.  We were going seed planting.  We went, bought some seeds, and I was going to get some gardening gloves.  No troubles, right?  Ja suggested we wait til we stopped at his store for the gloves, because he can get them at slightly above cost.  That's all good.  I knew I was starting to feel a bit panicky...  I'm not sure why.  Well, three kids in a small and cramped seed store is never a good thing, I suppose. 

We got to Ja's store, and he made me go in, even though I just wanted to wait in the van with the kids.  Then they didn't have any gardening gloves.  And I quietly said I was going to take the baby back to the van and wait.  I got back to the van and lost it.  I don't know why I was so hurt that he thought I wanted the expensive gloves in the first place, or why it bothered me so much that they didn't have any gardening gloves at his store, but it seemed to strike me to the core.

The rest of the day simply didn't go well.  I lost it when we were trying to plant the vegetable garden because it was so not ready.  I lost it when the baby would not leave me alone.  I lost it when...  well, there were a lot of times.  And the stupidest thing?  Didn't even realize it was probably withdrawal going on until late that afternoon.  Like after dinner.

Poor Ja.  He didn't think of it either.  Just thought that his wife was some kind of crazy loon, I think. 

We did turn the day around a little.  Went for a walk to the creek, had a little splash.  Snuggled with the kids.  As soon as I realized that it was the withdrawal going on, it was like I could keep a handle on it.

Yesterday was better.

Today will be better still.

I will beat this.  WE will beat this.

There's something about family that makes you need their approval.  That need for approval is also what makes that little piece in you die a little when they don't seem to care about your life.  That little piece that gets hard when you aren't included in a gathering, when joy isn't shown for something that makes you incredibly joyful.  When sorrow isn't shared.

It hardens a person, makes them wonder why they bother making any effort at all.  Makes them wonder why God blessed them with such trials to make such relationships work.  Why He made us so differently in the first place.

In my family, when there's conflict or when plans change, it's simply ignored.  I am certainly not informed of things if people think it might make me angry.  Which is odd, in a way...  because I just get more angry that I haven't been informed of something changing in the first place.  It makes me feel as if I'm not worthwhile, not worth being clued in.  That my time isn't worth anything compared to their time.  That it's okay for me to sit around and wait for that email or that phone call, and it doesn't matter that I maybe could have done something else instead.  It makes me feel like an outsider.

I understand that sometimes things happen.  Sometimes things need to change, even last minute.  I totally get that.  Yes, I may be disappointed, annoyed even, but I would get over it.  I have three kids, it happens to us pretty much on an hourly basis. 

Apologies never happen in my family.  Unless it's an "I'm sorry, but... ((really it's all your fault))."  That has been a really difficult aspect for me to 'unlearn'.  I don't want my kids to avoid things when they screw up.  I don't want to avoid things continually when I screw up.  Ja and I make a concerted effort to apologize to our children (and others, as the case may be) when we do screw up.  Believe me, there are a lot of apologies flying through our house at any given time.

Sadly, we are all human.  We all screw up.  We can learn from those mistakes, but we need to acknowledge that mistakes were made in the first place.  That is certainly not an easy thing to do.

I have screwed up plenty on my own with my family.  It is very easy to fall into the 'no confrontation' trap.  It's what I grew up with.  It's what I KNOW.  It's relearning an entire way to live.

But you know what?  It's worth it.  It's worth it to be able to learn from mistakes that I've made.  It's worth it to know that I am not passing on a lack of personal responsibility to my children.  It's worth it to know that while I can't make a difference in some way, with some people, I can impact my own small family in ways that can impact the world.

And while our extended families may exclude us, may not inform us of special things, may avoid confrontation at all costs, what matters right here and right now is us.  Ja, Keyzia, Ephraim, Talya, and Jamie.  I am worth it.  My children's and my husband's smiles and love tell me that every day.

Whoops!  What is this here thang that I've been ignoring for about a month now?  Oh yah, it's a blog!

Moving sucked.  Sucked big time.  There were multiple melt downs in the last two weeks before m-day... and the kids were out of sorts too. 

But!  We are here!  In the country!  With the cows!  And It.  Is.  AWESOME.

It is so quiet.  My chidlren ARE the noise around here, not competing with the noise.  I would be sleeping at night, but for the smallest hooligan who thinks that Momma should get up two or three times a night.

We have SPACE.  We can run, there is dirt, there is a creek.  There are cows to watch.  It's raining today, but when it isn't raining I hardly see the children, they are outside all.  the.  time. 

Our landlord is truly a gift from God.  He is super sweet, takes the hooligans for rides on the tractor.  Teaches them how to do chores.  He's awesome.

So, we're here, and the biggest downfall is that we now have dial up internet 'access'.

Which means no pictures.

Which means no blog surfing for me.

Which means that I don't get half the emails sent to me.

2 months til wireless... 

...on the flip side.

It's moving day, and we will be without internet OR phone for about a week.

We all blow you a kiss until we connect again!

...  will shovel ice, snow and slush for his wife...

In his shorts, boots and toque.

((He totally get bonus points for posing for me when I said I was going to blog this!))

(((Damn, he sure is hot!)))

((((I totally married him for his legs.))))

The lovely OMSH has decided to do another colouring un-contest! 

So, I was waiting patiently until I could get downtown to get some more black ink for the printer, and it just never happened.  Well, I made it down there, but forgot the ink cartridge and was foiled!  It's unfortunate, because these contests usually occupy the children for at least five minutes allowing me to go pee by myself.

So, the story in pictures.

Keyzia and Ephraim got right down to work.  This is serious stuff, you know, a colouring contest.

Talya is at that age that she MUST be included in every.  single.  thing.  Or there is screaming.  Much screaming.

She lost interest fairly quickly.

"Tummy!"

I've always thought that the feel of nice waxy crayons on my tummy was soothing.

The finished product.  Note the fake smile and the name scrawled in the corner.  Also note how every last bit of the paper is coloured.

More of the fake smile, along with Eph's insistance that he colour the back of the page too.

Another fake smile, and very carefully chosen colours.  Zi took the longest and the most care to finish.  She's very particular about this kind of thing.  She also wanted it to be known that she will be six in 12 days, so it's okay with her if she goes in the six year old category.

Oh yah, that fake smile is MUCH better.

Talya wasn't interested in posing with her picture at all.

In fact, after this shot, I believe she threw her picture on the floor, sat on it, and took a bite out of the crayon.

Heather, I'm not terribly sure that she DESERVES to win.

"Bulls will kill us."

"Oh?"

"Mmhmm, if we pull on their fur, and then they chase us and knock us down, and then they kill us."

"Really?"

"Yup.  And then they eat us."

I had no idea that we were moving to a place with human eating bulls...