Summer musings

Days seem to pass more quickly in the summer. Why is that?

Since classes ended in April I have sewn a quilt, trained for the 10km Not Since Moses race (which I am running this Sunday on the bottom of the Bay of Fundy!), written a paper and an ethics proposal for my thesis project and then I recently completed and submitted the necessary ethics revisions. I spent the last week of May in Ontario for the CASID conference (Canadian Association for the Study of International Development) with my dear friend Natasha and stayed with my amazing cousins, David and Pat. When I flew back from that trip I met Alisha at the Halifax airport and filled the next fantastic week with "sister-to-sisterly-love-time"! (This is the term that Alisha so aptly used to refer to any special sister time/activity when she was little - and I guess it stuck!) I spent 2 weeks in Saskatchewan over the July long weekend so that I could spend time with Matthew and attend Angela and Ken's beautiful wedding. Upon returning to Halifax to allegedly write a few chapters of my thesis, I have continued with my regular running schedule, took a 2 day road trip to Yarmouth my sweet friend Melissa, and am currently house/dog sitting for my supervisor - and it is a Bullmastiff no less! And how much have I written, you ask? Precious little.

But the fun isn't over yet! In fact, it is just beginning. In just under 3 weeks Matthew will arrive back in Halifax with his parents and we will tour around Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island with them and see some beautiful things and make some wonderful memories. We will even take a quick stop at the Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick! Daryl and Janice will return to Saskatchewan on August 24th and then Matthew and I will be turbo-packers until we put our stuff into storage and fly back to Regina on August 30th. This will be our 5th move in 5 years, so we are semi-professional in the packing department. I'm confident we can get it all done in 5 days. We will stay in Regina for Matthew to work until we board a plane and fly to Zambia on September 25! We'll be there for three months. Yipee! A lot needs to happen before we actually get to that exciting point, but it feels so close! We have ached to purchase tickets to Zambia for years now - so it was a big relief when we were finally able to do it. We are going as part of my schooling - good idea, eh?! We will be doing research for my thesis project and Matthew will volunteer somewhere and hopes to get some Zam-nursing experience. We'll be based out of Lusaka for approximately 2 months and then we'll be visiting friends for the rest of our time. I can hardly wait!

All of these plans and our relatively crazy life lately has made me realize a few things. First, I find it exceedingly annoying to be at the stage in life where extended travel takes more hassle than it used to, because arrangements have to be made for jobs, debt, and (the most annoying of all) the storage of our ever growing amount of worldly possessions - especially house stuff, you know? Pots, pans, couches, photo albums, etc. (Kitchen stuff and books are my two ultimate weaknesses - I love both!) And now I have a dining room table to store too! Thinking about it just makes me annoyed. It really was a precious opportunity that I had when I went to Zambia for the first time - I only had the stuff in my room at my parents' house  and I just left it there for a year. Piece of cake! Ironically, the second thing I have been mulling over lately is that I actually can't complain about any of this! We are exceptionally blessed to have this opportunity and I must not forget that. Three months in Africa! Not many people get to do that. And not many couples do either - especially before retirement. Sure, this past year has been hard because of the whole long-distance thing, but we always had the end-goal of a grand adventure together. And in the meantime we have also been blessed with a permanent full-time position for Matthew on the unit where he has been working since Thanksgiving. We didn't even know to ask for this - it was really just handed to us. God knows what we need and He provides. I know this, but I have trouble remembering it. For example, a major variable in all our plans has been whether or not I will get a major scholarship that I applied for. I have been wait-listed and we were supposed to hear one way or the other by April. It is now July. This has been such a frustrating period because it is hard to make plans without knowing our budget. I have become an even more obsessive mailbox checker - sometimes 3 times a day - I just can't resist! Despite my added dose of crazy, we decided in May that we would just move forward with our plans for Zambia in September and trust that we will be provided for. I know we will be.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that days really do seem to go faster in the summer - and life seems to be zooming by lately. And for these reasons, I should really get off of this blog and back to drafting a chapter of my thesis before the time to board our Zambia flights suddenly arrives! ;) Wish me luck!