A bit hard. A bit sweet.

I'm here. In our new office. Having meant to sit down and do some studying for a program I've just registered in. I'm not doing it. 

Our office is pretty much set up. So is the rest of the house. Sure, there are bits and pieces that still feel kind of unsettled, but for the most part, our house is as it will be for a long time.

The office is full of white desk space, mason jars of pencils, markers, scissors, pencil crayons. The computer sits boldly on the desktop. The files that we had stuffed for years into an old decrepit filing cabinet have been sorted and placed into a new, fully functional one. The closet is full of homeschool resources, craft supplies, instruments, cleaning supplies, batteries, cables and cords. The piano sits happily against one wall. Chalkboards line the desktop, awaiting each weekday morning's plan scribbled in fancy writing. Alphabet banners line the wall up high.

It looks pretty good. It looks like a nice home. It feels set up and pretty and nearly complete. But it has yet to feel like HOME. 

I had a bit of a cry today. (Okay, there may have been some big ugly sobs in there.) I was feeling lost and disoriented. I miss our friends from our little city by the sea. I miss our church community, which we are still a part of but which feels much further away now. I miss the ocean. I miss our dear ex-next door neighbours. I miss our street. Our house. Our clerk at the grocery store. Our mail carrier. I miss the streets that were so familiar. I miss the farms we often visited with people we love living on them. I miss spending time chatting, picking up milk and cheese, spontaneously having tea, seeing the girls poke at the chickens, keep their distance from the cows, and wander through the orchard. I miss often staying longer than we intended. I miss the feeling of HOME.

I guess this is to be expected. A change so big as a move had to have a big impact. I suppose it's okay that it will take time to adjust to this new city. 

I was babbling to God at one point in my breakdown and had to say out loud some of the positives of this place. Here they are, in no particular order.

- This co-housing community and all the people here. They are really great. I mean it. Good people. Fun and loving and totally weird. Just like us.

- The beautiful natural beauty that is practically outside our door. We could bike to the forest. We can hop in the van and drive for 3 minutes and reach the river. Loads of parkland that has trails and beautiful scenery. 

- The proximity to my sister and her family, who we love and get to see so much more often now.

- The central-seeming location we are in now. Previously it took us an hour to get into the main city. Now it's 1/2 an hour. That includes Ryan's commute. Excellent.

See? Looking at the positives helps! I am feeling better already!

Okay, so the reality is that this is very up and down. I have all but lost sight of why the hell we did this. And then Ryan reminds me that he wants us to have our values displayed visually in the house and I thank God again for how there seems to be an ebb and flow to our ups and downs, and how when I'm down, Ryan seems to be up, and when Ryan's down, I seem to be up. Merciful.

And this is today. I am tempted to go out and mingle with some of our new people right now, but I think I'll get back to what I was setting out to do when I sat down here. STUDY. Bring it on.

A little bit of crazy to keep it real.

We had a date night recently. Went for a walk. This is the result. Us crazy kids.

What if?

In the business world, in order to experience success, organizations spend countless hours focussing on a very specific task. This task sets the pace for the ethos and drive of a business and those who do it well see their employees united and content, their businesses thrive.

This task? Defining the organization's values.

It's a theme with us, right? Yeah! And it's time we take it to a whole new level.

Organizations put huge effort into choosing their values, wordsmithing them to just the right lilt and tone, and rolling them out to the employees. The process is invaluable. It's great for business. Why? Because it helps create a clear direction resulting in a much better atmosphere for employees.

Let's sit with this idea here for a minute (while I clean up the wine I just dribbled all over my shirt...) and think about something else. Why do we leave it all at work and trash it when we enter our home lives?

What would happen if we transferred these ethos-improving, atmosphere-augmenting, direction-building ideas from a business setting to a HOME?

I mean, it's not that we don't have values as individuals and families already. We do, buried deep under our decisions and lifestyle. Sometimes they even creep onto our walls in cute and nerdy plaques hung above our kitchen sinks. "Your mother doesn't live here. Put away your dishes." "Eat, Laugh, Love." "Home is where the heart is." Admit it. You've got one or two. Yes!! Haha! I can hear you laughing! 

But really, these things don't define our life direction, do they? (I hope not!) Why is it that when it's business time, direction and values make perfect sense, but when we live our out-of-work lives (which we, ahem, value more, generally speaking) we seem to go from whim to whim without a glance deep into ourselves in order to examine what drives our direction?

I mean, what would it be like if in our home we had actual values stated, displayed, referred to at each turn of our journey? What if we displayed them on the wall just like a business would, to keep ourselves and those who live with us remembering what the core of our life direction is? What if?

Okay, let's cut to the chase.

What if...

...we put business-quality effort and energy into choosing values for our families?
 
...rather than relying on a 'general feeling' of what we value as a family, we carefully chose specific ones and started to evaluate our decisions and the way we live using them as a framework?
 
...we had those values hanging up on our wall next to our kitchen table?

How would that impact the decisions we make? How would that impact our kids? Their sense of belonging? How would it equip them to make their own decisions? Would it help us all get moving in the same direction?

I think it would.

Instinctively I think we all have a general sense of what our personal values are. But, we, after having gone through the process of selecting and writing them out, and trying to consider them in every decision we make, can assure you...

...it is hard work... 

...but it is so worth it!