Appreciate your reality

Recently someone has shown me a video depicting nutritionally-empty mud cookies being made, sold, coveted and consumed by people in a society where food is extremely scarce. It reminded me of an old saying, “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”. We in the West are revolving in a stressful reality we ourselves have created. It helps to slow down and consider how lucky most of us are.

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Puzzle: Passion Flower

Passion Flower, med

Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 30.02 cm x 48.26 cm
Producer
: Mega Puzzles, Vibrant series, 2014, No. 51410ABN, A 04034 LP
Photographer: Johnnyraff

Puzzle: Lovely puzzle to make — not extremely difficult, but not completely trivial either. The bright colours and clear boundaries split the image into several logical areas, and repetitive elements add challenge. An easy place to start is the three-pronged purple stigma(?) on …

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Puzzle: Provence

Provence, med

Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 67.95 cm x 48.10 cm
Producer
: Mega Puzzles, Vibrant series, 2014, No.51420ACN, A12054LP

Puzzle: This puzzle does not have a title or specify where exactly this place is. If you know, please do share.

Another one from the Vibrant series, this is a well-done puzzle with beautiful imagery. It combines bright colours and subtle shades, clear borders and soft transition, as …

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Unpacking after a move

From the time I’ve first mentioned to people that we were moving, I got inundated with an intake of breath and some variation of “Oh, you’ll be living from boxes for the next year”. I refuse to give in to this attitude. Unpacking does not need to take months! Take control and be done sooner, with less stress.

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How to organize children’s clothes

Over the past five years, we have accumulated a collection of several garbage bags chock-full of children’s clothes, from newborn to size 5, three boxes of shoes and boots, and bulky winter coats of various sizes. This is the reality of a mother with more than one child, where the clothes are being used at two different sizes by two children. With the recent move, I have been faced with the need to arrange all of them into some semblance of order. Here is what I did…

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Ride the uncertainty

To be resilient in the face of changes, one must let go of the need to cling to familiar and give in to uncertainty of life. Just as with good sex or a good birth, feel the rhythm, follow it, listen to your senses, and ride that wave. Let go and you’ll be more in control and feel more pleasure from the process than if you try to resist the flow. You cannot control life circumstances. You can control how you respond to changes and integrate them into your life.

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Be flexible

Many people are under the impression that, once you have children, the days become a never-breaking routine, leaving no space for adventure in your life. In my experience, with children around, the routine can turn into an adventure at any moment. This is where free-form organization and flexibility shine. Let me take you on an adventure of moving with two young children…

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