a courier that doesn't work weekends

Hahaha turns out Loomis doesn't work weekends. So on Friday night I darn near squeed with excitement at the fact that they finally were in possession of my passport/visa around midnight, local time. Earlier in the day the person I spoke to on the phone said it's pretty much overnight. What he neglected to tell me was that they don't work weekends.

Thanks, assholes.

Well, we spent most of yesterday packing up the truck which mostly took my mind off the fact that my visa still had not arrived.

We had about 20 cardboard boxes of books which Dan carefully individually wrapped with Saran Wrap, and they went under the platform where the kitty box is.

We don't know what kind of weather we'll be encountering, but we are sure to be driving through snow and rain at some point, so we need to keep things dry. So the big plastic lock box will contain blankets, Sam's litter box, and her food and water. We call it the kitty condo. This serves a number of purposes. It is the only place where the litter box can go. It gives Sam a place to hide, or for us to put her while we are fussing with the cab of the truck. She will come and go through a hole cut in the box, through the sliding glass window in the back of the cab.

Not a great photo with all the reflection, but hopefully you can see where we would slide the window open and the kitty can go in. It will be much more comfy when the blankets are in.

I can be a bit spastic and controlling at times, particularly just before a big move like this, which ends up just paralyzing me. Luckily Dan is here to take the reins and direct me, and I am good at just carrying boxes, especially if they are heavy. Moving is stressful, and I have been receiving tons of phone calls and messages asking "what's happening?" - and fair enough - but it is really just adding to the stress. I have to relax a bit and let events simply happen, since I have no control over when I will get my visa, when we can actually leave. I haven't been sleeping, which at first was due to adjusting to sleeping with someone who snores, but even that fades and I'm just awake awake awake for hours in the early morning, thinking and wondering why the hell this is all taking so long. I'm having a hard time relaxing and it is definitely wearing on me.

So we have another day in Victoria. And it's practically half gone already. Dan is working on the final structure for the truck, which entails plywood and tarp and bungees to secure and rainproof our things. Almost everything is packed, except for the things we'll need for a week of driving. I have time to do another load of laundry. Maybe we'll watch a movie this afternoon - there is no shortage of entertainment in this house.

I'm looking forward to being able to relax, which will hopefully be just after we cross the border tomorrow (please let it be tomorrow). If we do get there, we should be in Missoula by midnight, if the winds are with us.

Daily thankfuls

Years ago I had a spiritual teacher who told me about a little nightly ritual she did for herself as a small form of worship. It is, quite simply, just going through the events of your day just before bed and thinking about all the things you have to be thankful for. I don't recall if she had a name for it but I have always referred to it as my daily thankfuls.

In these months that I have been here in Cowichan Bay at the Backyard Feast retreat center, I certainly have a lot to be thankful for. No matter where I am, I always say to myself I am thankful for the roof over my head, the food in my belly, for clean air and safe drinking water. These are things that we may take for granted but I am certainly aware that not everyone in the world has these things. I am thankful for my friends Toni and the Skipper for taking me in like this (I thank the heavens for them every night). I am thankful for the healing chickens (just watching them inspires love, it is amazing how pure and powerful that feeling is). I am thankful for all the learning I am doing right now about gardening, livestock, food experiments, baking bread and pizza.

I am also thankful for my husband. It was five years ago today that he proposed. We did not make a big production out of it, we had only been together for a month at that point, but we both knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. I remember Dan had told himself that he was going to wait until we had had our first fight (and recovered from it) before he would propose, but if he had held to that we would still be waiting. (Sure we have had disagreements, and even been mad at each other, but we love and respect each other so much that our conflicts are easily smoothed over). It turned out that we had a mildly stressful evening, and Dan must have decided he didn't want to wait, that the time was right to ask me.

No one believed us at first. I had gone through several romantic entanglements that seemed promising at first but none of them amounted to anything. Here I must admit I had a penchant for drama in my relationships (if that is still true, I am denying it:-)), so it was no surprise to me that no one really believed us. But then we moved in together (I had never lived with a boyfriend before). We took a road trip to Alberta for Dan to meet my sister and her family. It was a year later that we had our first wedding ceremony (first of two - one was the public ceremony officiated by friends, the second was the legal ceremony with the marriage commissioner). So when people ask how long we've been married, we usually say "we were married when we met".

Working my way back from that unintended digression, let me now tell you about my nightly thankful routine. I settle into bed, Sam arranges herself nearby. In my mind I cast a circle of protection around my space, with the intention of wanting to be free from negativity as I sleep. I ask for a peaceful and restful slumber. I list what/who I am thankful for. Then I make my nightly wishes, the first always being I wish to be reunited with my husband. It's not a long list, usually, because really all that I want is to be in North Carolina with Dan and my green card (and kitty too, of course).

And sometimes I don't even make it that far into this nightly ritual - sometimes I fall asleep before I get to the end. I'm okay with that; it's a good thing. I am someone who used to resist sleep, and it used to take me an hour and a half or more to fall asleep. Once I got together with Dan and adjusted to the snoring (we won't say whose), sleep came much more easily. I am thankful for that too. :-)

sometimes I listen

I sure thought I was coming down with a flu. I had the pain with swallowing and the all over body ache on Thursday night. I called in sick for Friday, waiting for the onslaught to come.

I let myself sleep in on Friday morning, and was surprised that I didn't feel as bad as I thought I would. Went to bed very early on Friday night, got a full ten hours of sleep, and felt absolutely refreshed this morning. So yay for not being sick! Turns out, my body just needed sleep, lots of sleep, and I listened.