Binned!

I just finished the book Power of Now by Vancouverite, Eckhart Tolle. I must say, I think this book has had a bit of an impact on me.

In the past, I have been quite a reader of the "spiritual growth" type books, but soon tired of them once most of them started saying the same type of thing... while I occasionally stumbled upon something helpful, the majority weren't really doing it for me anymore.

A very good friend of mine gave me "The Power of Now" for a birthday back in 2004 and for whatever reason, I just wasn't in the right place to read it back then. Even still, I basically only plucked it from the bookcase, because I had nothing else to read one night, while sitting with one of the kids as they fell asleep.

Tolle's words are helping me to let go of the anger I have too long held anger over the SIL and MIL incident. His words are helping me move on from past disappointments and hurts, especially about the career I planned, but never had. His concepts are really helping me let go of "stuff", which is symbolic I think, of this release of emotional baggage. I feel more capable of going with the flow, regardless of the uncertainties that still reign unclear at the present moment. I am reminding myself "in this exact moment, everything is perfect"...because it is. The past is gone, both 15 seconds ago and 15 years ago, and the future has not yet happened, this moment really IS perfect.

We have been sorting through all this stuff. We don't have that much stuff really; we are quite minimalistic people. But man...there is still all this....stuff. I love sorting through stuff I no longer need; clearing the path so to speak. It seems like it is just stuff, and yet it has always felt so freeing for me to do that.

We are having a garage sale in a couple of weeks and so there are piles of miscellaneous goods stacked in the corner of our lounge room. Tonight we have gone through the office cupboard. Every house, it seems, has a dumping ground. My parents chose their pool table. We tend to throw papers and foreign objects into the office cupboard with the intention of sorting through the clutter and filing it properly, in the ill defined time of later.

Tonight, while going through a stack of notebooks and paid bills, I found, yet again, the diary I kept while in year 12; I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago - the one that was filled with teenage angst and unintentional hilarity. I threw it out. I don't need it. Yeah, it holds some of my history in it. For sure, it talks about the emotional pain I was in at the time. It talks about parental frustrations, school struggles, boyfriend issues, stupid pranks played on school friends, bad poetry and other stuff, but why keep it? For 18 years I have kept that diary as a reminder of my youth; as a material snippet of my journey thus far; perhaps even as a testimony to or evidence of my very existence.....I don't need it anymore.

Ducks in a row

Presently I am frantically trying to organise myself and, as the expression goes, trying to "get my ducks in a row".

Over the past couple of weeks we have seriously been trying to organise the big move back to Australia from Canada ,and also plan a bit of a life for when we get there.

We have gotten the dogs sorted for going back to Oz, which is probably the part we really must have our wits about us.

Australian quarantine (AQIS) requirements are among the strictest in the world, if not THE strictest in the world. I understand this; our geography means that our industry and natural resources have been fairly well protected from outside nasties, but due to global factors and the ease of our modern transient lifestyles and international business, it also means that an infestation of some forest eating parasite or similar threat, can more easily and unwittingly be transported if we are not careful. This also means, if we were to decide to pack up and leave tomorrow, and chuck the dogs on a plane bound for the land down under, they would end up spending a torturous six months in quarantine in Melbourne. Since we are planning our move back with plenty of time on our side, we are starting the quarantine process now. By getting all the checks and vaccinations done well in advance, fingers crossed, they will only have to spent the mandatory minimum 30 days in quarantine...so the dogs are sorted. They are booked to go with the delightful people at Worldwide Animal Travel.

I have also been busy getting quotes for shipping our life back to Australia. I have one quote and am awaiting another, so a decision is closing in on that one.

We have also been preparing the house to sell....as opposed to what we WERE doing, which was preparing the house to live in. We have a realtor lined up now, and a price and date for putting it on the market - end of August.

I have been perusing the online discount airfares; smart fares seem pretty damn good; four one-way tickets from Vancouver to Adelaide via LA for under $3500 - total.

We have also been checking out schools for Mister. The Australian school year finishes up, very soon after we get there. He will be going into reception in February (or kindergarten as the Canadians call it), and we would like to visit the school we are considering, prior to enrolling him. I would feel better having had a taste of the vibe while kids were still present, and also the attitudes of the teachers. While this is all good in theory, we do sort of need a place to live within the designated school district. Consequently, we have also been obsessively viewing Domain and Real estate Australia, to see if our meagre budget will actually get us a place, without us having to sell our souls to the bank.

We have also been trying to find a reliable car that won't break the bank...we try to avoid loans as much as possible. I HATE debt. I am entirely SICK OF IT.

Thanks to Scotty, I should be able to resume my frenzied walking activity. He sent me a great running link, which outlined the contact details of a mass of Australian running groups and affliated associations. I have contacted one of them - Race Walking Australia. I got an email back from a guy to runs the Adelaide group, inviting me to his club. For me, it is important I line up exercise groups before hand, because I know, in the chaos of a big move like the one we are planning to embark upon, the fitness momentum will become lost and eventually so will my motivation; then it will start to get darker at night and colder, and next you know, I am making all kinds of lame excuses as to why I couldn't be bothered joining an exercise group, then come spring I will HATE myself for not continuing with the fitness regime, having undone all my hard work...you know, all that hard work I am planning on doing until we leave...in November.

All in all it is a busy time; but then again, I revel in the opportunity to organise all this stuff, the only problem is that I am pretty much done for now. There isn't much else to do until August now, when we do one final prep before putting the house on the market. I don't mind. I prefer to be ready.