waiting

Yesterday, our friend Richard visited. It was totally a surprise, especially since he lives in Canada and we haven't seen him for 3 years. We've known Richard for a long time. Sarah was dedicated at his home when we were doing home church there, before we grew too large and became a real church. We hung out half the day, from Coffee Bean for breakfast, and then he wanted to see the store and we opened it for him. Later at home he had a craving for KFC so we all had an unhealthy bucket lunch. Apparently they don't serve Hot & Spicy in Victoria.
It was a refreshing, delightful way to spend our Monday off. He was up here doing some research and interviewing neurosurgeons for a programme he's working on and it was fun catching up. He shared stories about the kids,all grown up, Kiran and the beautiful house they're building. And he shared with us a bit about the message he spoke about at the little church in KL on Sunday. About waiting. How we're always doing and how much harder it is to wait than to do. Which reminded me about the time I was waiting on the runway, with all those planes. we were 4th in line, all orderly waiting for the word from the control tower. I remember thinking to myself how we had to wait , And if we went on before it was time, before it was our turn, we would surely crash.
At the time I was thinking about this in relation to a decision I had made. And Richard reminded me that we must wait. For the control tower to give us word. Waiting is kinda hard. We are so programmed to fix things, to get it done. 'Just do it'. But the consequence for 'doing' without waiting is "un-doing" And that's even harder, sometimes disastrous and usually not easily un-done. In the past couple of years I have made a few major decisions, which may have been the right ones but without the 'word' , and maybe it wasn't yet the time for me. Although some of it is still really good, I am struggling with the fact that remains, it wasn't time for me to take off.
So Richard left. But the word that he shared will remain in my heart. Like an arrow in the quiver, waiting for it's time.
Have a great week ahead! Be blessed =)

at the movies?

On date night, we went to watch Batman, The Dark Knight. We were in fact going to go to the movies last week but the flu came around to our place. Going to the movies, not a real big deal, you might think. But for me, it is! I can't really remember what movie I watched last. King Kong comes to mind, and I took my nephews to see Pirates , was that recently, or last year?? So anyway, I like Batman. I was told on the way that this was a part 2. What?!
We had the best seats, I bought the tickets in advance. =) It was a pretty good show, a little bizzare for me but I guess if you watch 2 movies a year, this was not too disappointing. No, not too shabby , You know, I think I need to get out more...

chill

A few people have been repeating to me, and agreeing with my sentiments about chilling out . I did this layout using Pink Paislee paper & coordinates. Quite fun but I found that it turned out really simple, almost unfinished but I could not put one more thing on it! Not even the word "Chill". So I left it.

We went to our favourite 'fishing village ' place for an early lunch before the store opened on Sunday and I took some pictures which i can't wait to work with. Wish the day was longer.

home alone

Everyone went to the movies and i am left with my own company. I hadn't realized that this hasn't happened for a while. with 3 hours on a Saturday night to do whatever I want, the possibilities are many and my mental list would have me needing another 72 hours at least. I spent the first hour doing some pricing. I have taken over about a third of the ground floor for smidapaper business. I use the dining table for pricing and photography, and have installed some shelves behind for stock waiting for inventory. The meal area by the kitchen has also been kidnapped and shelves again line two walls, for more stock and files...
this gives new meaning to the phrase 'taking your work home'. and yet I love the flexibility. In a perfect world my office, warehouse, store and home would be under one roof. That would mean living in a mall , so, the next option is to have as much of the stuff that you can do from home, at home. Still, when I go to the weekend store, I look like I'm moving house. But, I'm working on it and hopefully in a while things will flow better and I would be able to gain some extra time daily. Although I do love my office at the weekend store , too. ..
So an hour has passed, 2 hours to go. 15 minutes in the rainshower (which I swear I haven't used more than 5 times), then up to the studio to scrap. Maybe work on a sample for our 'chill out' challenge. How apt, I think I just might do that.

life | always changing

We ended up working all day Monday, which I regretted greatly. At 5.30 we tried to make it to the Spice Garden for my favourite ginger tea and just to stare at the sea but we were too late. At 1am on Tuesday I was suitably down, not having had a day off and not even stepping into my studio except to turn on the air con so my lovely supplies wouldn't die in protest and neglect. It seems that all the scrapping I do lately is for classes and samples. 1am is defiinitely a good time to sleep, but for me, I needed to scrap! Philip said to do a small page =) as if it would take a lot less time! So we don't need to know what time I actually slept but I did sleep well. I did an 8x8 and my journaling reflected my sentiments and my desire to give myself permission to slow down and set my own pace. After all, no one s holding a gun to my head. Sweet release! Scrapping as therapy? =)

Colour is very important to me in scrapbooking and interior design. Here I went with somewhat dull but still soothing colours and worked that as the theme. Still on my flower trip I was happy to use whatever I wanted without thinking about class budgets or if we had enough in the store for 8 people.

I stuck my layout in a brand new linen WRMK album. I intend to do more layouts like this. With thoughts and journaling about life, where I am, struggles and aha moments. No day off, but still blessed. life is always changing, don't miss one bit of the journey.