zen motherhood

I am not sure if it's because I don't have a lot going on, or that trash is a sensitive topic for me, but I really look forward to Trash Day on the island. I think it is partly the unpredictability of it all. Our current trash day is designated for Friday. However, since we have lived in this house, it has been usually Tuesday. Not always but mostly. When we moved here they said to us that trash day is not consistent and they just come when they come. So it's quite exciting when they finally do. I guess that is island life. Perhaps I need to share more so you can really appreciate my excitement for trash day. Living the island life you don't think we worry about such things as trash (some monkeys just magically come get it right?), but you soon start to recognize the benefits of a steady trash schedule that we took for granted state side. An anecdote I love to share (insert sarcasm) is when we first moved to the island, we were in a short term rental place. It had a sma

If you haven't already read it, you need to grab a copy of the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to really understand the humor for this post. It's based on a style called a circular tale. One action leads to another action which leads to another and then another and then another and finally, eventually brings you back to the beginning of the story. It's a lot of fun. I didn't find them all that fun to read when my youngest was little, and as I have also discovered, they are not that much fun to live out in reality either. I feel for the little boy in the story that followed that mouse around. So, if you need to pay your power bill, you will want to go on the line and pay it. If you want to pay 'on the line' you can either 1) Use a company called SurePay (like a Western Union and requires a local bank) or 2) Use your bank (must be a local bank) or 3) power company website.  If you are not up to this century in technology and live under a rock the

 In June of 2019 my husband found out that he has non-Hodgkins Follicular Lymphoma. A type of blood cancer that accounts for only 4% of the cancers in the US. There is no cure. I, on the other hand, do not have cancer. I do not have any diseases that I am aware of. I have some weird gluten intolerance but that is about it. But I felt the need to write about dealing with cancer as a spouse and moving to a new country during a pandemic and how that has impacted me emotionally. My hope is that other spouses/partners/family members who have someone close in the same boat may find some connection with this post.  The data is not conclusive on whether or not those with NHL are more susceptible to the corona virus. Because it's a blood cancer and because it can impact your immune system, there are theories on what could happen but not sure I want to test that out and become of the first data point if it there are negative impacts. The cancer attacks the lymph nodes and for my husband it h

Dropping off my youngest for daycare was always a battle. As a toddler I would need to perform the drop and run to 'trick' her. By the time she figured out I was gone,  a meltdown was past its prime delivery time so she would move on.  In recent years it has gotten easier. She rode a bus for a bit which helped as there were other kids there and she was still at the age that she would hug me and say good bye. Since my daughter has turned 12, the 'change' has set in. I don't mean the obvious one, but I mean the tween- teen-distancing-I-find-you-embarrassing change. We have set the ground rules though, the more you act embarrassed, the more we will be embarrassing. I think it's tied to Newton's third law, I'm not sure. We can't help ourselves as parents. I also don't care about looking foolish in front of other 12 year olds. That's the beauty of being a parent and almost 50. Your pool of people I-Get-Embarrased-In-Front-Of gets a lot smaller.  W

Husband: I watched you on Find Friends (Find My) while you were driving. Looks like you stopped for awhile outside of the school? Me: Oh yeah, I had to stop and wait for a goat to move out of the road and then a chicken. This was an actual dialogue exchange.  Driving in Barbados has been an adventure to say the least. It feels like rally car driving in an urban setting. The two major highways are in fair shape but the side roads are a force to be reckoned with where there are always spots of construction, erosion, and then there's the added obstacle of livestock. I didn't drive for the first few weeks. Husband is a great driver and I like to do a little recon before I venture into something dangerous. So I remained a passenger for a bit. Also, they drive on the left side of the road and you sit on the right side of the car. I felt I needed time to wrap my head around That. So the above exchange was on my first adventure, out on my own. I don't actually drive with my husband

I couldn't think of a catchy title for this post. However, I think it's appropriate for my final post about our move. Mostly because this whole post is about the one member of our family who has tried every ounce of my patience, stretched every string of tolerance I have, all the while securely wrapping my heart strings around his fuzzy little paws. There isn't a fancy title for that, it is just- The dog. He is, I am sure, the reincarnate of the little boy I never had. He never listens. He never obeys me. He sometimes eats what I give him but usually eats something else, like my slippers. He only comes to me when he's sad, sick, or needs to go outside. Which is typically between 2.30am and 3am. I open with all that to outline an understanding of our relationship. We are not close and I secretly think he loathes me and that I'm in the way of his true love, dad.  But I feel this odd sense of dedication and responsibility to this animal so getting the dog to Barbados w