Welcome to our Blog!

I can't believe it's taken me so long to start one of these! This would have saved me so much time (and lost emails). But better late than never. I've already done all of my major travelling... I'm not the transient I once was... but once a traveller, always a traveller. I am temporarily "grounded" by this job but I needed some grounding! It gives me a chance to embrace my new role in life - full time Mummy and Wife (almost)! Life is going quite well. I have been living here in Mount Maunganui for almost 10 months (and that's a LONG time for this girl!) still caring for dear Mrs. P. I have recently set a date to get married to my partner Brian on December 30th 2006. His two girls (Natalya age 9 and Chantelle age 8) are going to be my little bridesmaids. I should say "our" two girls... because they are.

I love living here at the Mount. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else right now. Life is simpler and I couldn't be more grateful. This is how it's all meant to be. I'm so over the hustle and bustle of busy life. I can't believe it once used to fuel me. I was addicted to it. I was also addicted to consumerism. I'm such a different person today.



As I write this I am looking out of our picture window upstairs (at Mrs. P's place) overlooking the harbour. There's a great big palm tree in the centre of my view and sailboats are swaying in the breeze. There's a fishing boat heading out to sea to catch it's quota for the day. It's overcast today but it doesn't distract from the view. It's lovely no matter what the weather.

I will now keep everyone up to date on my new experiences at being a "mum" to an 8 year old and 9 year old. Brian and I were watching Super Nanny last night and we realize just how lucky we are to have two well behaved girls. But we often wonder if we are too strict. Both of us have similar parenting styles (thank goodness!) and we run a pretty tight ship around here. We notice that other kids seem to have less rules - but then again they are little brats! On the other hand, we want the girls to have a lot of freedom. So when other parents are driving their kids to school everyday or taking them to the park or beach (which is across the street), we have our girls ride their bikes all by themselves and go on their own. Some of our friends think we're mad. But we want the girls to be independent. Sure there are a lot of crazy people out there - but who wants to live in fear? I certainly don't. I think we're raising a lot of fearful children who won't have the courage to leave home or travel around the world! I want these girls to have the same kind of life experiences that I've had. Freedom is such a necessity. We are all claiming that we live in a free country - yet we're chained up by fear. It's ruling our lives and how is that going to affect the next generation?


And I also thought it would be fun to write about all that happens here with Mrs. P. She's a box of birds and shares so many stories with me and I really feel like I should share them. She's just gotten her first laptop (at age 94) and I am trying to teach her how to use it and explain to her how the internet works (she can't understand why I'm using her computer when I have my own... and I am trying to explain how the internet works and how it doesn't matter who's computer I use). This will be good for her... good for us. It can get a bit boring sitting up here all day. I hope one day she'll write a blog entry herself!

I hope you all enjoy our stories.