A new adventure, A New Earth...

I can't wait for the journey I have started to unravel.

So if you follow my blog, you will know that I have begun a very exciting journey by watching & listening to The Secret. I've been trying hard to follow it's philosophies in the past several weeks and it seems to be working for me.

AND, if you know me well you will also know that our pending move is also the beginning of the next chapter in my life. The only problem is that I'm not sure exactly what this next chapter holds for me - other than I am really excited. Although I will finally be living my dream of staying home to take care of my family and I have an even bigger dream. This dream is to live my life's purpose. But at this point in my life, I still have not figured out exactly what this is? My search to find my life's purpose began over 4 years ago as I watched my very premature baby boy (Joshua) cling to life and lose his battle over 17 excruciating days. As I watched my baby boy clinging to life, in my mind and admitted to my mother that if Joshua died I have to change the path of my life. I've since discovered that although I do not know what this is, I DO know that I want to align with what I am intended to do on this earth, to live my life's purpose. Since then, I knew I wanted to do this but have been stuck on figuring out how to get there. AND NOW, for this first time since my search began, I really feel like it is all starting to come together. I still don't know what or how I will 'get there' but I feel like at least on am beginning my journey and it's beginning to happen. I know there is something lurking around the corner for me....and I am just too excited to see what that 'something' is!

I first watched the DVD of The Secret on Monday, Feb 4 (because I had been in a very negative spin and I needed something, anything to help me through). I have to admit, at first I was reluctant to jump in and read, watch or listen to the DVD, the audio book or the 5 DVD set of teachers of the Secret for months now - but something drew me to this moment. Am I every glad I surrendered.

THEN, on Wednesday, Feb 6 to my surprise, coincidence - the Oprah shows topic was called 'Oprah, The Secret 2 years later' which included guests that have had their lives transformed by following the principles of The Secret! I was AMAZED. Toward the end of the show, there was a commercial with Oprah talking about this book that also enhanced the learning's of The Secret called A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose and shared with the world that she would (for the first time ever) be delivering an online Seminar (delivered with the author, Eckhard Tolle) to teach the principals of this book. The commercial spoke to me in a way that was utterly profound - I didn't even finish the advertisement, I paused the PVR, came directly to the Internet and ordered my book. I even paid $10.99 to have the book shipped next day - I was THAT excited! Needless to say, I have ALWAYS been a huge fan of Oprah and the title of this book spoke to me. I felt so inspired, as though I was meant to do this. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am to be able to take part is such a revolutionary world event - AND even more exciting is that it is with OPRAH, my all time hero!!

I am on presently on page 72 and so far I have to say that this book is interesting beyond words yet also very deep & somewhat confusing. Obviously, this appears to be a normal reaction from many readers so far otherwise the below (I don't think) would be listed on Oprah's Website:

Are you having a difficult time reading A New Earth? Don't be so hard on yourself. Even Oprah only read five pages at a time! These four suggestions will help you ease into your reading experience.

1. Be patient and easy on yourself as you read. A voice in your head may say you're not smart enough or spiritual enough to understand the concepts (or it may say you are too smart or too spiritually advanced!) Allow the voice to jabber on for a while, then notice it quiet down and let it go. Continue with the book and the course.
   
   
2. Have two markers on hand while you read. Highlight favorite sentences with one color and lines that confuse you with another.
   
   
3. Don't worry about skipping portions—flag them and come back to them later. As you read deeper into the book, some of the passages that may have confused you earlier will be clarified. You may be surprised to discover how quickly you will be able to understand terms and concepts.
   
   
4. Eckhart says A New Earth is about you. "It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless" (p. 7). How will you know if your state of consciousness is changing? There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.

So this is the beginning of my new adventure (our house NOT sold and all). I am PUMPED....please send me an email or comments if you too are taking part in this spectacular event or even just reading the book. Let me know what you think so far!

Some weekend fun - a little late :)

Last weekend was super BUSY - 7:00 am hockey, 10:15 am basketball, 12-2pm ATV show, 2:30 pm swimming - too much. Poor Noah didn't survive. When he got home from swimming, he had a really bad headache. He went to lay down around 5:30 pm to try and get rid of it - but ended up falling asleep for the night (and didn't wake up on Sunday morning until 7:00 am)!

(BELOW) This was the 2nd last game for basketball. It was the parents versus the kids. What fun for the kids! The rules - parents were NOT allowed to dribble or shoot from inside the crease - only passing allowed but the kids were allowed to play as normal! In our family, I'm not sure who had more fun - Noah or Daddy!!!

Got lots of shots - but again - VERY hard to get the right colours considering the lighting was EXTREMELY yellow!


Then, onto swimming. Noah's 1st class - he had a blast! Although he's been in swim class before, this is the 1st level of the levels you need to test to pass. Our hope is that he will learn to swim, without having to have his feet touch bottom as well as have some fun (while burning some energy). He's a brave little man - the lessons are mostly in French (however, the instructors DO speak English if needed)!

He was so adorable - every lap he would do - he'd look up to the observation deck (where we were sitting) and make some cutzie little boyish grin - knowing full well that Mommy was taking lots of photos! What a little ham!
Now this weekend we have another busy one - Saturday - basketball (the last game & pizza party) & swimming and Sunday - hockey & swimming. Hopefully, all of us will survive this week!

MORE snow...

Oh YES, it is VERY possible. AND we had another snow day (that is - I think - 8 in total this winter 'so far') today!

I managed to take some GORGEOUS photos of Noah - capturing his beautiful BLUE eyes - love it, love it!!!

As well as snapped some MORE photos of our extremely high snow banks. Trust me, snow blowing is getting VERY interesting. I have to be truly creative to figure which direction to blow and what angle to position the blower! Thankfully we are lucky enough to have a snow blower - so you won't hear complaining from me!!!

Noah & I played some hockey (of course, he was goalie). I managed to shoot 4 goals but then got too cold - so we had to come inside for some hot chocolate and a snack! The whole 'no electronics' punishment worked out OKAY today - he 'took it like a MAN'! I'm impressed! He found other activities to keep him occupied - which tells me, once we get electronics back - I will be integrating more and more 'other' activities and enforcing them as well! Just call me 'Military MOM'!!!

Snow, snow and MORE snow!

That's right - another 20 cm last night (but thankfully we got an extra day with Jacques - he worked from home today and will leave Tuesday morning).

Check out our NEW for sale sign...it's almost buried. Actually, very soon we will no longer see our neighbours and our tree will be COMPLETELY buried!

I pulled out my camera tonight specifically to take some photos of all the snow...then I looked over and Noah looked particularly 'angelic' so I snapped a few photos. Of course, the 'devil' decided to poke his head out a few moments later when Noah threw the cushion out of frustration and broke my 2 glass candle holders - NICE!!! "STRAIGHT TO BED - Mommy said" Yup - 6:00pm or not!

Oh and we did still have special cuddle which included a nice long chat about:
1. his punishment (no electronics for 2 days - no DS, no XBOX, no computer, no TV - I only pray the 20 MORE cm of snow coming on Wednesday does not result in a snow day - or it could be a VERY long day)
2. dealing with frustration and
3. throwing things

I am almost certain he got the message LOUD & CLEAR!!!

So that's about it for us here!

I have a SECRET....

Okay - so I've officially gone off the deep end! All week, I have been injecting myself with the ideas, concepts and lessons of the SECRET (the law of attraction), to live a happier life that is free of negativity & stress!

Despite going off the deep end:
1. I've learned some 'stuff' in Adobe Photoshop.
2. I have a positive attitude
3. I feel happier than I did last week

So, what's wrong with that???

In this photo - I am visualizing our house being SOLD!

The next 2 photos - I'm visualizing how we look in front of our new house (even though we have NEVER had our photo taken in front of our new house)!

How do we look?What I did:

Took photos of us - removed the background and moved 'only us' in the front of a photo of our new house. This is so cool - I've wanted to learn this for so long - now I know!!!

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Basketball - almost forgotten (oops)

It had been a few weeks since we attended Noah's basketball practice (or games) since we had been away for 2 weekends in a row....but never fear, basketball was near this past weekend.

With all of our excitement with the sale of the house, I almost forgot to post these photos.

Noah had a game Saturday morning - and played great (amazing since we had missed 3 weeks in a row). We are so proud of him and his love of TEAM sports. Our good friend Isabelle and Owen (Noah's best friend) came to cheer Noah on! Thanks Isabelle & Owen - it means so much to Noah!

Here are a few shots (again, playing with my new lens - which I appear to have a learning curve going on with low lighting)!

I officially can't handle this.....

It's just growing too tired on me. The bottom line (re: the post below) - the offer fell through. Basically, the buyers were cheap pricks - came in at $15,000 below the asking price (and wanted a 2 week closing - which we were going to accommodate), we went back at $2,500 below the asking price then they came back at $10,000 below the asking price PLUS they wanted all the appliances (which our agent was NOT impressed with - as this is basically the same offer), we went back at $5,000 below asking price and they said NO. FINE....we're not going to give our house away. But it was nice for the weekend to think that my family may have been back together by the end of the month.

WHATEVER.......

So that's the scoop.

AAAAAHHHH - I can't sleep!

Talk about stress....so here's how our day went. Woke up to prepare house for a viewing this morning at 9:15am. At 8:50 am, I discovered WATER in our basement.....AHHHHHH! Okay...so it turned out that it wasn't THAT much but enough soaked into the carpet RIGHT at the bottom of the stairs - a section about 9 inches deep by about 1.5 feet long. I mean - GIVE US A BREAK - we've been in this house for 4 years now and NO water AT ALL - EVER, why today, why this weekened? Okay.....so we had the most extreme weather that we had EVER seen on Friday overnight since we've been in the house (10cm of snow, the freezing rain, the DOWNPOUR rain fall) so it's not surprising but still - AAAAAHHHHH! Naturally, we paniced....as we have a busy weekend with a viewing this morning and an open house tomorrow. So what should we do - take the high road and confess our issue with our agent or take the low road and try to cover it up???

After drying this section up - we go on our merry way - breakfast, basketball, groceries then head home (the whole time praying that there wasn't too much water or at worse case that these people viewing the house didn't discover it)? About 30 minutes after we get home, our agent calls us and the first question she asks is 'so how is everything okay with the house?' Then the internal dialogue starts to talk "holy crap, how does she know, what do I say, how do I handle this" so my response was 'Ummmm...okay'. She said, "can you be out in 1 hour because the couple that came through the other day is really interested, wants to come back for a 2nd time and is interested in a quick closing?" HOLY SHIT! I said 'okay but I have to confess, we have a little bit of water in the basement and I swear on Noah's life that we've NEVER had water before like we told you before'. She said ' HOLY F&*K - okay, don't panic.....and we figured out what to do. We pushed back the visit for 1 hour to buy us time to clean up our little problem.....

Jacques went out, purchased the BIGGEST and BEST wet/dry vacume and we started SUCKING. There really wasn't THAT much water but we made sure it was completely dry and left NO evidence of dampness. As Jacques was out, my dear sister in law called to invite us for Chili on Superbowl Sunday I accepted and told her about our whole problem. Along with some MAJOR sympathy, she made me promise to get off the phone and 1. take many deep breaths and 2. ask God to take it into His hands. OKAY, I'm sorry Denise I didn't do exactly what I promised :( BUT, while listening to the VERY LOUD new shop vac running, I did close my eyes, take my deep breaths and pray while I was sucking! Talk about a feeling of relief and release - THANK YOU Denise!!

So as we were leaving, the HUGE snow plow made his rounds and left many boulders (one of them specifically was about 1 meter round) at the end of our driveway - AHHHHHHH! Jacques (my HERO) flagged him down, made him turn the tractor around and scoop it up for us! YIPPY, now we have one KICK ASS pile of snow on our front lawn. Let's just say that I would be nervous if Noah tried to climb it (I'll try to take photos).

The long and short of it - the family (that we heard from our neighbour) came back for a 2nd visit and apparently like the house. By mistake, the agent left his binder and in it was an OFFER to purchase our house (details to follow - as we are going to counter and stuff tomorrow) - HOLY SHIT! TO BOOT, we couldn't even get ahold of our agent because she was at the Michael Buble concert.....AHHHHHH! We went to bed at 9:00pm and at 9:30pm we hear 'ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong' - Jacques runs to the door and it was the other agent - STRANGE, right? Totally weird....and he made us feel really uncomfortable asking us questions that we had no idea about (and frankly stuff he should have been dealing with OUR agent about) so we finally convinced him to contact our agent. And so he left......AHHHHHH! Our agent finally called us around 11:15pm, we chatted then she called the other agent. She called us back around 11:30pm and made arrangements to get together tomorrow to talk about details - closing, price, etc! How exciting - and NERVE RACKING......AHHHHHH!

So now I can't sleep.....AHHHHHH! And TO BOOT we have a hockey practice at 6:50 am OUT OF TOWN (the alarm is set for 5:15 am) and I have NO IDEA how I will ever wake up for this practice with so little sleep and so much running through my mind. So, naturally I went downstairs to get the laptop and I am now sitting in bed (listening to Jacques snore, which I guess I'll have to get used to again!!!!) doing what I do when I get stressed - WRITE.....AHHHHHH!!!

So for now....until we have more details - nighty night!!!