Tired, sick and grateful

We have been in Switzerland for a week now. The trip here was long and tedious with our first flight being cancelled, forcing us to rebook everything else behind it, but nevertheless we all made it, including the luggage, so no harm done.

However less than 24 hours after arriving I woke up with a bad case of torticollis (stiff neck) combined with a cold. This only got worse over the following day, so finally my brother got me an osteopathic appointment. In the true fashion of things needing to get worse before they get better, after the one hour treatment where the lady did all she could, I am sure, it got to the point where I could barely walk and not extend my arms or turn my head at all.

Now, four days later, it is definitely on the mend. My cold is still here, and I am trying to limit my medication intake, only taking Neo-Citran in late evenings when I can just pass out afterwards. The neck is a bit better, I can now move relatively freely, only turning my head represents a bit of a problem.

I went to see my normal osteopath this morning (she was not available on Friday, unfortunately) and she told me that she could sense all the stress in me. In her words "We had to get rid of that armour that you put all around you. There was lots of stress but there is also lots of vitality, so you must be doing something right." How nice is that?

Also, yesterday Vince and I went into Nature et Decouvertes which is one of my favourite shops, selling natural products, toys, camping gear, anything really to reconnect with Nature. Before we went to Sudan, I was quite a bit into natural, hollistic and homeopathic things. With Sudan bringing things back to the lowest level of the Maslow pyramid, I let go of all that and focused on the here and now. That "survival" perspective obscured my other aspirations. Walking around in the zen section of the shop, I picked up a Nomadic Essential Oils Diffuser working with either two batteries or on a USB cable, along with some nice mixes of essential oils. What an absolute treat... It is now gently humming beside my computer, diffusing a mixture of ylang-ylang, sweet orange and lavender. Even with my nose slightly blocked, it does have a positive effect on my general mood.

Tomorrow we are heading to Scotland. I need to pack and organise things. But I am so incredibly grateful to be able to reconnect with stuff deep inside of me that I had forgotten about.

Scared of the dark

Today is a better day than yesterday. Yesterday I was panicking. Things started to hit home and everything somehow became big and scary. Where are we going to stay? What are we going to live on? What will happen to the dog and the cat? How often will I be able to shower? This whole plan became a monster with many tentacles and no clear beginning or end...

So last night Vin and I sat down to the drawing board (well, some scraps of paper) and started all over. What are our objectives? What do we feel comfortable with? What puts us off? What can we afford? What are the various options? I am sure than in terms of brainstorming we could have done better than that, since we both had a long and exhausting day and were pretty tired by that time of the night, but at least we came up with a much clearer plan with many less unknowns. I sent a few emails and skype messages immediately last night to mitigate some of the known unknowns (George W. rocks!) and I am awaiting feedback on those. We also made some phone calls at 10pm (time difference can be a wonderful thing) to confirm some other stuff.

So now we have a more compact plan with some clearly defined objectives. With a bit of an effort I could put the whole lot into a logframe, break it down into outcomes and assign a couple of SMART indicators. A Gantt chart is also a possibility. If you have no clue what I am talking about that is because you have never had the infinite joy of drawing up a humanitarian project proposal.

And since we are talking about proposals, I guess we could mention something on the budget. This new and improved version of the plan only leaves us three months without any fixed income which is quite manageable.

The objectives still need worked on. I feel that if we are going to make sacrifices in terms of time and money, we should get some bang for our buck, right? Some purpose, something that we can actually aim for. We have a few ideas, some more general ones, some more specific. I'll report back on those later.

PS: I am still messing with the layout. Bear with me.

Die hard

After faffing about for hours, I finally came up with a design I liked only to realise that it was actually VERY similar to my old blog... I guess that is just human nature for you, we gravitate back towards the familiar.

So, I picked a random background that is totally different from my old blog in its colour scheme. I kept the same fonts and the basic layout, but the colours are different and I included some transparency.

I will now stop messing about this for a while. I locked the blog down because for now I want to keep it private, so there aren't too many people to complain about the visual aspect. I will now focus on the content and then get back to the drawing board about the layout in a few weeks.

Out with the old..?

Yes, I wanted this blog to be TOTALLY different. Completely shining new. And in a way it is. But I also realised that it is still ME and just as when you move house you still appreciate curling up in your old armchair, in the same way I needed to find something familiar in here to be able to truly feel at home. So yes, it IS different. But it still bears similarities. The layout is not finalised just yet, I might still change the background and the font colours. I might even shuffle around the widgets a bit. But I will keep some of the elements that I learned to love in my old blog. I like the idea of the background, the crisp, easy to read text and the brightly coloured post titles. It needs to be streamlined and appealing while reflecting the changes we are going through. Bear with me, details will get tweaked and the blog might look unrecognisable at the first glance, but just like me, you will eventually feel that weird deja-vue and realise that this is a familiar place after all.

So grab a cup of coffee and curl up.

Starting afresh

I have wanted to create a new blog. Well, it turned out a bit more complicated than initially planned. I wanted to move platforms and put it on wordpress, but that did not work out for now, so I am back to blogger, at least until I can figure out how to migrate things into a meaningful blog somewhere else.

I wanted this blog to look totally different from my previous one. I loved the way Under this blue sky looked and it was perfect for my mood and situation then. For those of you who have not visited, it was grey with a picture of cracked earth as background, only lightened up by some orange letters.

I am setting up this new blog for a new start. We will be doing different things in different ways. It scares me, but it is all so exciting at the same time. I have been trying to find a format I liked. For now I settled on some organge twirls, but that will need to be changed when I get the time to play around with it properly. It is really hard to find something I like and that will reflect whatever this blog is meant to be. It will be about kids and travel and discoveries and faith and love and education and experiences and places and family and friends and lifestyle and changes, all combined into one.

The one thing I wanted here is colour. I want this blog to be happy because I this is what my mood is and this is what I want it to remain.

We don't know where we are going. We don't know how we will get there or what we will see along the way. But we are stepping out in faith, trusting that we will grow as individuals, as a family and as friends.

Let the journey begin.

Running for my life

I think by now I have successfully managed to use up any patience or goodwill my real and virtual friends have had with me regarding my running regime by telling everyone how much I enjoyed running and how much I ran and that they all just *had* to know about those zombies that chase me. So I think I will not post on facebook anymore about the number items I have managed to collect or show copies of my base on my phone to those poor souls who actually happen to meet me in person. If I do, just slap me.

But this is MY blog, so I can post as much as I want about running, collecting underwear and escaping 16 zombies. If you don't want to hear about any of this, you can stop reading now, I will not hold it against you. I do understand that it might bore some people and totally frustrate others who think that somehow I am trying to tell them that really exercising is easy and they should get their buttocks into gear and lose those flabby bits.

Well, rest assured, I don't proselytise. I love running and I like talking about it but I honestly do not expect any of you to follow my example. I know firsthand that exercise can be boring and tedious until you actually find something that you enjoy, for whatever reason. Some people like to be on a team or build muscles or learn new complicated moves and they will choose some kind of activity that gives them the fun they are looking for.

Running is a very repetitive movement, too much actually to qualify as proper exercise. In all reality, I should be doing some other exercise alongside to even pretend reaping any kinds of health benefits. So I do not run because I want to be fit or I want to lose weight or I want to be healthy. I run because I need to. It gives me a headspace like nothing else does. It frees my mind to wander wherever it wants while my body provides the framework for it. I don't run until I am tired because then I'd stop after 30 seconds. I run until I start smiling and that can take anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes. Or more.

I am not a good runner. I don't run gracefully or fast. I just run. Although truth be told, these last few zombie chases I discovered that actually I can do pretty nifty running and at a rather good pace, reaching 18km/h when needed. But that is only for a few seconds before slumping back into a rather comfortable 8-9km/h cruising speed. And yes, I have an app that does the maths and stats for me, thankfully.

So now regarding that app... it is pretty great. It is called Zombies, Run! and it combines a game with a running regime. It tracks me with GPS, provides stats on where I went and how fast, sets zombies on my trail and lets me collect items to build my base, such as underwear and fuel. It is loads of fun and perfect for people who think that running is boring. It gets me to run 40 minutes and come back thinking "gee, that was such a short run". Best of all, I ran 10km the other day collecting supplies, the most I have ever run in my whole entire life. On the downside, I must say that it is harder to "zone out" when I am getting chased by random zombies and my teammate is developing a cough that sounds like the first sign of turning into a zombie... "You know the drill, first a cough, then a moan..."

So, I love running and I love blogging. They are both a way for me to process reality and make sense of things. And today I managed to combine both. It will probably happen again, so please bear with me.

Friday night entertainment

They came for a visit. She asked for tea. I went to make it. She decided to go to the bathroom while waiting. She closed the door. She shouldn't have. I made the tea. She tried to open the door. She couldn't. They went to help. He got tools. They pried. They pushed. They dug. It would not give. They unscrewed. They pulled. They turned. They kicked. .... 30 minutes later... it opened. She came out. She had her tea. They giggled.

Not sure they will ever come back again.

/ˈdʒetˌlæɡ/, /ˈkɒfi/, /ɪnˈsɒmniə/ and Jeremy Clarkson

It is 4.30am on Thursday morning. We have been in this time zone for eight days now and the darn jet lag just does not go away. I am kind of awake in the morning, cannot possibly keep my eyes open from 11am to 2pm, but then luckily by 5pm (which is 8am Canadian time) I am fully operational and ready to face whatever comes my way. And it stays that way until midnight, or 1am or 4am like today...

To be honest I was a bit dumb on this one. We had a guest last night and my husband prepared his famous espresso coffee to finish off our delicious meal. I found myself staring at the bottom of the cup before I fully realised how bad that idea was. And now six hours down the line I can fully confirm that it was indeed a very bad idea.

Once I have exhausted all the possible positions of trying to get comfy in bed, I strive to be creative to occupy my mind and exhaust it enough to let my tired body sleep. The kids' lunchboxes are all prepared in the fridge and I am up to date with all the latest gossip thanks to the Daily Mail. I drank quite a bit of water to dillute the caffeine, although admittedly it is a bit hopeless. I checked my emails and facebook. I also discovered that while "jet lag" is two words, "jetlagged" is one.

Now what?

Luckily when all else fails, I have my secret weapon against dark sleepless nights: The World According to Clarkson. I really enjoy Jeremy's style. Oh yes, he can be rude and rough and uncouth, but he is also totally original and hilarious and I love the way he writes. I still don't get any sleep, but at least I learn new words, new expressions and - most importantly - have a good giggle instead of feeling endlessly sorry for myself.

The bumps

Today as I was driving down our street, Zina declared: "They growed (sic) even bigger bumps!"

Cleaning sewers, Khartoum style

Indeed, they did. Our street has never been what you'd call "flat". It is a dirt road that gets reasonable traffic. On one end, we get all the deliveries for a big restaurant, as well as the neighbours' leaking water tank, while on the other we have a bunch of OCD-ridden people who believe that washing their six cars two times a day is an absolute necessity for their survival. Since the soaping and rinsing happen on the street, that end is flooded 24/7 even in the driest of the dry season. To boot it all, a big international organisation has their headquarters smack in the middle of our street, complete with a  fleet of 348 vehicles and an equal number of stray dogs.

So we have always had bumps. Once a year someone sends a grader and they shave the bumps off. Last time - and that was a while ago - this operation was such a success, that they managed to level the whole street to where it should have been in the first place, leaving the end-of-the-street car-washing lunatic unit with their parking spots about 80cm above street level. That was quite amusing until they started parking their cars on both sides of the street, making it nearly impossible to get through.

Also once a year some other people come and dig out the sewer that runs along the road, leaving everything that came out in the middle of the road, letting it slowly become part of it as the cars drive over it. I do wonder what any functioning public health department would have to say about that...

I guess the final blow to our street's surface was the exceptionally heavy rainy season that hit Khartoum this year. There have been no rains since we came home which makes me quite disappointed but no doubt provides relief to all the other inhabitants who have first seen dry land in the last two days.

Conclusion: yes, they did grow even bigger bumps. And mark my words, they won't get any smaller either.

You are dead to me

Now I don't usually get hyped up about music videos, but this one had me giggling the whole day. I like Train as some of their songs have been dedicated to me by various people and bring back good memories. So when I heard this on the radio the other day (in Canada right, because here we are singularly lacking stations playing anything else than Middle-Easterm "Habibi-central" music), I figured I might as well look it up on youtube.

The story line is simple: the singer gets ditched by the blonde girlfriend (as it happens) and instead of owning up to it, he comes up with various excuses to explain her sudden disappearance to his mates, thereby taking both denial and "you are dead to me" to brand new heights.

This five minute clip boasts a sunbed, a cement mixer, the Grim Reaper, a rabbi, a lion, a beheading, a mariachi band in the canned goods aisle, a pig foot, some tomatoes, a Katy Perry look-alike stealing the dead woman's shoes and ... drum roll... David Hasselhof who (much to everybody's relief) is neither running on the beach in his red swimming trunks, nor trying to sing.

Classic.

And the look on Hasselhof at 4:06 is absolutely priceless.

Always look on the bright side of life

Being on holidays gives you time to think about the meaning of life and where we are and where we want to go and why we are here in the first place... You know, all these philosophical questions that people have been asking themselves since the dawn of times, never really coming up with an answer that would bring total satisfaction and explain all factors. So we keep asking. Or at least I do. And it made me stressed out and worried.

I mentioned this to one of my friends this morning (name withheld), and their answer was "Meaning of Life... Too deep for me. I just want sex and food... And the odd game of golf". I laughed, but it did make me think.

For a few days now I have been reading a book by Richard Wiseman called "Rip It Up". It explores the power of "doing as if", basically saying that emotions are created by our actions and not the other way around. So the quickest way to feel happier is to smile even if we don't feel like it to begin with.

Then I came across this, as millions have at the London Olympics closing ceremony. 

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.

When you're feeling in the dumps

Don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle -  that's the thing.

    And always look on the bright side of life...

    Always look on the light side of life...

How can you argue with that? It puts a grin on my face just listening to it. Talking about dancing, supposedly it is impossible to be sad while engaging in that activity. I guess this might be somewhat contested depending on who you happen to be dancing with, but in any case I am now determined to sign up for zumba classes which is the closest to dancing it will get here in Khartoum.

So I guess, at the end of the day it all boils down to taking it easy. One day at a time. Smile. Laugh. Be grateful for what you have. Do things for fun.

And a final piece of advice from Monty Python:

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth. 

Here again

I haven't been around for a while now. Haven't even checked on my blog or jotted down ideas. Just let it slip into oblivion. I didn't feel like it. I had no inspiration. I had other things to do and other things on my mind.

Then two days ago I logged in and looked at it. It is still grey with some orange highlights. It has words written by me a long time ago. Feels like eternity. It almost seems like they were penned by someone else. But unexpectedly from somewhere deep inside came the longing. The desire to be back here, to share thoughts and facts and feelings and emotions, to exorcise them by putting words onto them, to linger and let myself be immersed, to play with the language and polish it as I go. It was almost like feeling home sick.

So here I am again. No inspiration. No ideas. Not much writing skills. Just because I want to be here. I need to be here. It is my armchair by the fireplace on a cold rainy day, complete with blanket and hot coffee. A virtual home. Somewhere I belong.

Haboob season full-blast

Last night was our fourth haboob in four days. If you have been reading this blog, but still don't know what a haboob is, you need to turn to the Ultimate Source of All Knowledge and find it out for yourself. (Seriously, why did they name it "wiki"? It should have been usak...)

Haboobs are not really liked around here. To begin with, they are dusty. This is probably understating the obvious and by now some here will claim that I should have been born  British. The dust they carry is very fine and gets in through all the possible cracks. Their rapid penetration and coating of all available surfaces is greatly aided by gale-force winds that sound downright ghastly when blowing through air-coolers and air-conditioners.

So, you wake up in the morning and you can see your footprints on the floor. Then someone spills a glass of water and now you are dealing with mud all over the house. Everything you touch is covered in dust, even if you clearly remember having handled it the day before. The yard is an entangled mess of thick sand, fallen leaves and garbage blown in from the street. Everytime someone goes out, they bring some of this back in. It is not pretty. Not to mention that you get this constant sand taste in your mouth, even when you are not eating.

But despite it all, I enjoy it. First of all, because we have windows that actually close. Believe it or not, this is a rare feat here in Sudan. We do get the dust in, but it is localised to a few specific spots, such as the front door. And then obviously we get the dust that lingers in the air and that no one can avoid. But other than that, the effects of a proper haboob are not that visible in here.

Secondly, haboobs provide an interesting change of weather pattern. When you get 360 days of sunshine per year, with temperatures only varying by 25 degrees between the hottest and the coldest days, you do get bored out of your wits. At least I do. So haboobs cater to the same kind of fascination as a hail or thunderstorm back home, something uncontrollable and different.

Driving through a haboob is a bit like going through a very thick snowstorm or a fog accompanied by blowing winds. It is great fun, as long as you manage to keep safe. Also, haboobs make the temperatures drop, a little bit dampening the summer heat.

Four haboobs in four days. I feel for all those poor souls who spent these four days looking for a shelter from the winds and dust and then cleaning up the mess, only to get their efforts blown away by the next batch of sandy gales. I know that for 99% of people haboobs are a calamity. But there is still something in them that lifts up my spirits.

Mornings

I am not what you'd call a "morning person". My hubs either, but he gives it  a better shot than me.

So, we have this task division thing for the morning when the kids must get ready, eat breakfast and head off to school by 7.15am. He does the breakfasting. He prepares bowls of cereal or toasts or eggs or I don't know what, since I am rarely present for this part of the proceedings.

As for me, I feel my way into the kitchen and prepare lunch boxes. They are usually lacking a bit of creativity, but it is wholesome and healthy food, so I reckon that it's not such a big deal to have cream cheese sandwiches three days in a row. Right?

Habits and character

Tyron Edwards said "Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny."

To be honest, I had absolutely no clue who Tyron Edwards was until the Ultimate Source of All Knowledge (aka wikipedia) informed me that he was an American theologian from the 19th century who became famous(???) for compiling the "A Dictionary of Thoughts".

Now that we got this out of the way, let's get back to our subject here: the importance of habits. Now I am not a routine person. I mean, not naturally. Some BO (born organised) people just seem to get on with  life's intricacies seamlessly and without effort. Their house is clean, their mental to-do list completely ticked off every night (because obviously they don't *need* one on paper), their smart phone does not ring every five minutes to remind them of something and despite achieving more in 30 minutes than the rest of us would in two weeks, they are always impeccably turned out.

As mentioned, that ain't me, folks. I am more on the SHE (side-tracked home executive) side of life. I need checklists and things to tick and reminders and timers. I need to force myself to focus on one thing instead of multitasking 24/7. But I am trying. The Flylady was a great find a few years back and her ideas really help to keep things running. Cozi organises our family calendar, shopping list and meal plans and graciously makes them available on all our mobile devices. TripIt runs my travel schedule, keeps my booking references and reminds me of check-in times.

All this conscious effort seems to have paid off, as "very organised" (sic) was mentioned as one of my strengths in my last performance appraisal. Yip, that's me.

And now for the latest find: the Habitualist. (No relationship to The Mentalist, which is a TV show from what I hear.) Anyways, this new website lets you track the actions that will build your habits. You can decide at what frequency you want to do what and then track if you actually managed to get around to doing it.

You are probably wondering why the heck this is relevant here. Well, kind blog-reading masses, if it wasn't for the Habitualist, I would not be writing today. But you see, a few days ago I entered the habit of "blog every 2-4 days" and today it started flashing in red. So I just *had* to get it done. Therefore my character is in construction and soon you will see regular blog posts from me.

Quod erat demonstrandum.