Family Encourager

Wishing you all a beautiful new year full of love, peace, health, and friendship! Reflecting back on this year and the ever looming questions. What have I achieved this year? What failures and successes did I face? What did I learn? What can I keep the same? What can I change? I am still working on the answers and looking back at my year. Connecting the dots, questioning, analyzing, and wondering if 2015 was a year to be remembered or one to file away and forget? Looking at the world around me and the terrible news from all over the planet, my feeling is humanity has reached an all time low. Yet, when I delve deeper, I understand ,that with all the death, mayhem, and destruction around me, there is a balance of love, charity, helping hands, and people willing to support others with no questions asked. I am blessed with family that I love and loves me, with friendships that have lasted the test of time and distance, a bountiful life full of more then I wil...

People that live down the street from their families, never have to answer the question, where can everyone stay? How many family members can we fill into our home for a week or a month? As I have said from the start, we are an expat family living abroad. I have never had the pleasure, in my adult life, to just visit my folks for a cup of coffee! Its either they stay with me in my home, or I stay with them back in my childhood room. When it was me alone, it was easy, I slept in my old room in my old bed. As my family grew, it started getting more complicated to figure out the logistics of the how and where? As newly weds, we also did not have the extra space for anyone to spend a night or two let alone a week or more. If we decided to book a hotel nearby, it was never the same. The kids did not get up in the morning and run to the grandparents room for a morning hug, they did not get a chance to ask for a special breakfast made by the special hands of ...

With the festive season fast approaching, I am giving a thought or two to what I want my children to learn from this time of year.  Living in a multi cultural city, with people from al walks of life, everyone seems to agree that this is an exceptional time of year. Even those that do not celebrate Christmas, find it a good time to catch up with loved ones, take a moment to reflect on their blessings, and to maybe think of giving back.  I grew up away from my country and extended family, and now my children are doing the same. My parents made sure we knew where we came from and what was important to our family. We integrated into our new "home" easily and adopted numerous local customs, while staying true to our culture. I give plenty of thought in my daily life to how I can remind my children of their heritage and their country of origin. While making sure they become "citizens of the world", accepting others and respecting differences, I would still ...

When I was single and childless, I once read this; "to choose to be a mother is to choose to have your heart walk outside your body forever". I did not understand what that meant. I did not even try to understand. Skip a few years ahead, my first child was born, and all I could think of was that quote. I remember turning to my mom right after the delivery and asking her how she ever let any of us walk out that door? To make the decision to become a parent is remarkable, enormous, mind boggling, a game changer, auspicious, and forever. For me, the decision was made for me when I was very young, I always knew I wanted to be a mother, never had a doubt in my mind. I was the kid who started babysitting when I was 11, the kid who volunteered to help out in the KG classes, and the aunt who always wanted to play with her nieces.  Lucky for me, my husband wanted babies even before I was ready! He wanted one, from the wedding night, I was the one that want...

In view of what has happened in the world the last two days, challenge may be a good topic to  touch on. I will not go into the huge subject of the craziness of our cosmos, I will touch on challenging an idea in partnerships. I was at a ladies event the other night, and the topic of husbands came up (doesn't it always eventually). The ladies at this event came from varied backgrounds, nationalities, ethnicity, and age groups, the one underlying thread was the anger at partners. When you are so frustrated you do not know where to go from there. You have been married for too long to count and you are still having the same discussion. Every few months this same topic comes up and no resolution is ever reached. You have a huge fall out over it or one of you eventually agrees to disagree (until the next time). My husband always accuses me of bringing up the past, and I agree, I do. There are certain matters that I ...

We promise on our wedding day "till death do us part"! What we do not grasp at that point, is its "till death do us part" or until the next argument, debate, discussion, fight, challenge, dispute, call it what you wish.  Marriage as a concept, is fairly difficult to comprehend. If beings from another planet where to land on earth, and you told them you met this guy 30 years ago and have been sharing your whole life with him ever since. How would they perceive it? Sounds like a science fiction story, a bit far fetched. In so many years of marriage, "till death do us part" has come to mean many different things on may occasions. When life is rosy and we are madly in love with each other again, it has meant exactly what it says. I could not imagine life without this guy.  When life is throwing curve balls our way in the appearance of a job loss or an illness, it has meant I need to be around for this challenging time, till we get over it, t...

So here you are married, settled into your new happily ever after bliss. You met the parents and liked them, you met the siblings and liked them too! You sigh a sigh of relief, first test of marriage passed. Maybe not! Now its time to meet the others part two. The "sub clan", and the one you will probably hang out with much more then "the clan". As I mentioned before, we are an expatriate couple not living in our home town. We dip in and out of there as often as we can, and meet up with old and dear friends as often as we can, there or anywhere else we happen to find them. Both my partner and I have maintained friendships since elementary school, we have a long shared history with these beautiful people. How do you merge that with your new love and life? What happens if you meet his friend and hate him? What if you meet his friend's wife and you can't stand her? What then?  I have met the friend who it took me a while to figure out, I met th...

Marriage, for many is the opportunity to redeem themselves in a relationship. To prove to the world and themselves, that they are worthy of love, partnership, and true commitment.  We all bring huge hopes and dreams into our marital home. We bring all the romance of novels, all the wishes of a lifetime, all the faith that this will last forever, all the promise of this one bond fulfilling all our emotional needs. Marriage has to begin with all of the above, or what chance does it have to survive? If this is not your grandest love of all, your path to ultimate happiness, your key to all things joyful, why get married at all? The above describes how my husband and I began our journey together. We believed in the ultimate fairytale.  That was before, job loss, parent illnesses, infertility, country relocation, home moves, and children. Like I said, the wedding is probably one of the last times your marriage is about you and him.  Many years later, we are still married and...

I guess the story has to begin at the beginning! If you are talking about families, the first step is, girl meets boy, girls falls in love with boy, well you get where this is going. After a few years of friendship and then a relationship, we did the big wedding and the bigger honeymoon!  Surprise, surprise, we managed to organize a wedding and agree on the color scheme, venue, guest lists, menu, and so much more with full agreement. How did that happen?  You may ask, has that happened again since? You will have to wait for that answer. You begin your life with the one true love of your life, thinking you are both invincible, that together anything is possible.  The fairytale has begun, how can the prince and princess not live happily ever after? That is what you have been taught, that is what every girl has grown up with, that is what every book and movie tries to sell you.  Until real life welcomes you with open arms. This is what I have learned: The wedding and...

The best part of getting married is growing your family! No, I do not mean having kids! I mean the fact that overnight you have a whole new family. I got engaged and married in less then a year! I lived in one country, my husband- to- be in another, and his family and the wedding in yet another. In all truth, I barely gave a thought to the fact that I am being adopted by a new "clan". It did not enter my "happily ever after" concept that I am now going to have to exist for the rest of my life sharing my sweetheart with those that have known him forever. The wedding was a dream and our "clans"got along beautifully, they do live in different countries after all! My mom and his mom became fast friends and had a good laugh or two at our account. The siblings shared a joke or two and many delicious meals (we love to eat). For both my husband and I the introduction to a new family was fantastic!  I am sorry to have to burst your bubble, but there will not be an...

As I have previously hinted at, marriage is a journey, shared by two, or so we all think. It's actually shared by a crowd! On the day I got married one piece of advise my mom gave me, was "its a good thing you will begin your marriage far away from your family and his family, you need time to figure out this marriage thing before everyone else gets involved." She was absolutely spot-on. I did start my marriage far away from both sets of families and it has remained that way for the duration. We  have made an attempt to figure out this "marriage thing", and I can honestly state, that we both do not have many answers, or a formula, or a magic potion to impart. The more married I stay the less I know about what works and what doesn't. All I know for sure, is that all the preconceived notions I had of marriage are all wrong, all the do's and dont's I had are all gone, all the beliefs of love and passion are different, and all the needs and wants are...

F amilies that stay to together happily has become a rare phenomena of our modern life.  I am someone that believes families that play together stay together. Today all family members are over scheduled, over tired, and over stretched. We have all forgotten what it means to just stop and BE rather then DO. When was the last time any of us talked to our family members with complete attention, with no interruptions or other demands pulling at us? When was the last time any of us shared a meal with our family without thinking of the next thing that needs to be done? When was the last time any of us enjoyed a leisurely day with our family without needing to be somewhere or needing to get chores done? People around me always mention that I am a marriage and family encourager, so I thought why not share what life has taught me as a wife and mom of two. Yes, I am all for mom and dad staying together and growing a family from the roots up. I am also for mom and dad being content in the l...

If you have never moved house or country in your married life, then you are a lucky one! We are an expat married couple, we do not live in our country of birth. We have had to move around a few times. Some moves were local and some moves intentional. It makes your relationship very interesting and exciting to move places! There is so much to do before you get the moving company and get packing. You need to scout the new country , find a new house, sort through years of junk you have collected, and of course actually get rid of said junk. Herein lies one of our major differences, my dear partner does not like to part with any items. We have moved boxes of "stuff" all over the world and we still have them in our home! What are they you make ask? I wish I could answer that! All I know is they have not been opened in at least 8 years. At the beginning of my married life, (going back to my previous blog entry), I  was all about pleasing my partner. The first move came along wh...