Have you ever gone to buy a house? Hunt for an apartment you were planning to live in for a really long time?
It's a big deal. You spend hours and hours trying to figure out what you want.
You make a list of everything that is important to you. Three bedrooms, one story, a big kitchen, a garage for two cars, fenced in yard, comfortable neighbourhood, close to a specific school... whatever is important to you.

And then you go look with an agent that shows you what seems like a million and one places.
Some are too close to the neighbours house. Others have bad floors throughout. And some don't give you the warm fuzzies even though they have all the attributes you want.
But then......
You just walked in the front door....
You haven't even seen all of it yet....
You found it.
Finally.
It is THE ONE!

Except, it's a two story house with a weird lay-out. And the tile in all the bathrooms is horrible. And the back yard comes up against a stream that has been known to overflow from time to time and it's not in the right school district.
Complicated.
But.... you can feel it.
Like it was made for you.
It is. The one.

You know that feeling, it's unmistakable. It's when your inner voice calls something "home". It's hearing the perfect song just when you needed to hear it. It's knowing you want to spend the rest of your life with someone even before you met them. It's knowing "your" car before you even know the price. It's pulling up to beach at just the right moment to see the green flash in that perfect sunset. It was made for you.
Made for you.


Most thing we evaluate in life - our hobbies, which company to work for, the right shoes for that dress - is usually done from the outside in. Strategic for the most part. Involving a concrete set of likes and dislikes, for most of which, compromise is NOT an option. Approaching from the outside, towards the center of a spiral. From the outside in.

But if you can hear even a little bit of yourself or you're at least open to listen..... every now and then, something comes along that starts from the inside out.
Smack dab right in the middle of the center and details you thought were important just fade into the background.
It is.just.right.

And perhaps, this unintentional and unintended backwards approach scares the shit out of you.
Maybe it involves having to change something you weren't anticipating.
Or perhaps you're terrified of that right thing BECAUSE you can't quantity it, because it makes no sense.
And how could anything that can't be explained possibly work out for the best?
And what if you try and then fail? Or turn out to be wrong at some point in the future and that right thing no longer meets your needs?

Yup. You're right. That could happen.

And there is but one way to find out.

Tile can be changed, can't it?

        

I don't ever recall feeling ignorant in life, but I will never forget the way I felt when I first came to Anguilla.
I was working 12 hours a day, barely saw sunlight, but as I sat on the beach here, looking into the most beautiful infinity pool I'd ever seen.... I heard a whisper from a very unfamiliar voice.

I was 32 and barely knew who I was.
Somehow, I had been living my life half asleep.
Between the decisions I had made, a transatlantic move at a young age, moves around many cities, an education, marriage, kids, divorce, more kids and a career... I had managed to completely neglect myself and hence was not able to hear, think about, nor make choices based on what spoke to me deep inside.

But how could this happen? How could a relatively intelligent person, miss something so fundamental?
For me, part of it had to do with living in the country of unlimited opportunities, that pace of life, work, that amount of "stuff" and activities readily available 24/7 to help you distract, and actually cover up that voice. 
But then, when I first heard that little voice, I didn't like what it had to say.
It said something was wrong and I wasn't fundamentally happy.
And who wants to hear THAT!
Much easier to cover it up with superficial things, friends and conversations.

Plus, more importantly, if you actually KNOW that there is something not in line with your core, then you actually have to DO something to change it and THAT would be scary.
People will get hurt, lives will be upset.
Easier to just stick your head back into the sand and go back to sleep.
 
But, if you're lucky, once you actually feel something that is just.plain.right, regardless of what that is, it makes it almost impossible to remain content with the status quo.

I'm not sure why I seem to be having this having this conversation with others on repeat right now. Perhaps it has to do with our age range, our kids getting older and needing us less and hence being faced with more alone time. Or perhaps, you don't really realize you've been living half asleep, until you meet someone or something that wakes you up.
 

Nothing that is not fundamentally grounded and balanced is sustainable.
Nothing.

        

Flying Pickle
Originally uploaded by akafrancie

Well, it was fun while it lasted, which was about two weeks.
Somehow, I managed to get a few grains of sand in the seal of my new Panasonic Lumix water and sand proof camera and after that Sunday at Sandy Ground, there was a tiny bit of water in the camera by the battery.

I let it sit in a warm place, put it in a bag of rice for a week, but nada.
it just tries to turn on, makes a scratching sounds and that's it.

Am seriously heart broken as it's been a while since I had a camera I loved that much and even on days when I wasn't in a good mood, getting behind the camera always makes me look at everything from a different perspective.

Oh well, back to my old Canon.... or is it an Olympus.... meh, whatever.

        

Non-Stop Action
Originally uploaded by akafrancie

In case you haven't heard, I got a new camera and I LOOOOOVE it!
My new Panasonic Lumix affords me much needed flexibility around here, since it's water, sand and shock-proof.
Not only does that grant me a new perspective, but it also helps me relax more as the camera most likely won't break if the kids get a hold of it and break it.

I've been testing the camera in various conditions, low light, bright light, underwater etc and I am pleasantly surprised with the high quality of the pics. The BEST part though are the high definition videos it takes which look GORGEOUS and stay reasonably pretty even when uploaded to YouTube.
Check out my first attempt here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTT9cIiePM

The last camera I was in love with, was my Kodak V610 Dual Lense camera. Actually, that was also my first camera I was ever in love with as I frankly didn't know you could be in love with something that has an on or off switch before.
The Olympus Stylus I had after that just wasn't the same. It was ok. Did it's job, but nothing remotely what I would describe as "love", much less "great enthusiasm".

Thank you Volker for telling me about the Lumix.
I love it and the wonderful moments is allows me to capture!

(for more pics click on the pic or go to http://www.flickr.com/franciewhitlock)

        

Sorry if the pink and black panthers snook up on you and scared you.
Here a few pics of our efforts to bring Halloween to Anguilla.



The kids had a blast trick-or-treating in the dark (it's dark here by 6pm) with the full moon above and the ocean glistening in that gorgeous silver colour.

Sadly enough we didn't see any Ghoats though. Nor goats.
Boooo!

        

        

While this blog was on hyatus, we moved....

...to a cute yellow house on top of a hill with a rainbow above it... (note the open hood of my yet-again broken down car on the left)


....with plantain palms that I can reach, and coconut palms that I cannot.

Thew view from the house is truly awe inspiring, even at night, where you can see tousands of stars as there is no ambient light to our East whatsoever.

Check our our 260 degree ocean view!


Also, my oldest turned 12, which is sort of odd.


We had an great housewarming party...

...and all the kids are back in school now.

Since we live on a dead end road, the kids can roam around as they please and since they all got new bikes, there are times when I don't know where any of them are, which is quite stunning, if you ask me.

Hurricanes Ana and Bill and TS Erika did not hit us and merely brought rain, lots of wind and empty grocery store shelves...


...but at least we still had very expensive, very happy Cherries.


The kids absolutely love the new house and continue to be creative, inventing toys and games, such as this awesome see-saw...

...and they also found a way to harvest coconuts


Our new house is still dependant upon rain water collecting in our cistern, which we then boil, as there is no central water system in Anguilla. Since the recent set of hurricanes brought rain, we have about 5000 gallons in the cistern right now, which all were trying to escape into the ground after our water pump blew up last night....

...until I figured out the prefect thing to the gravity feed into the pump stop...

...our very own Pyrate rum (cork) to the rescue!

        

Meanwhile, we're all moved, not even close to unpacked, and FINALLY online again.
Ana turned out to not be a big deal at all, however Bill is pretty damn big, but hopefully moving more North than West.
(lovely visual brought to you by wunderground.com)

        

To celebrate our move to our new house with the 260 degree ocean view..... Mother Nature decided to (possibly) send a little welcoming party on (probably) Monday. 

        

The girls found this random suitcase at the beach this morning...





...we opened it and it appears to be someone's long lost luggage!

(click on the pic to read the notes)