S  l  o  w  l   y

It’s something I’m learning about.

I’m usually more of a quickly sort of person.

Yesterday morning I drove over to Belconnen to get my car serviced. If I had got there by 8am, I would have been able to catch the courtesy mini bus into the city, but I decided 8am was a bit early so I thought I would just hang around Belconnen until the car was ready. They told me it would take about 3-4 hours so I walked down to the local very large Westfield shopping centre. On the 10 minute walk there I considered my plan of action…

There was no need to rush. No jobs to do. No list of things I needed to buy. No one to meet at a certain time. No panic to get somewhere. No anxiety about what order I needed to do things in to make everything happen as efficiently as possible.

Pretty new concept to me actually.

As I said, normally I am a quickly sort of person. My most used phrase to my kids when they were younger was “Come on, quickly, quickly.” I hate not being the first to get something finished. The greatest complement you can pay me is to say “Wow you are so fast at doing…” Even when I was a child myself It was all about being fast. My school reports often said “needs to slow down and do things more carefully”. I have learnt to do things properly AND quickly as an adult. It makes me feel successful and effective.

The reality is that always doing things quickly is not necessarily a good thing.

My brain is always on the go. What order do I need to do things in? What is the most important thing to do first? Then some factor changes… re-order, re-list, re-decide what to do next. Get things finished, start on the next thing…Hurry, hurry, quickly, quickly.

Going to sleep is often a challenge, though exhaustion often plays a part. Getting back to sleep, now that is a big challenge. Sorry to any of my staff who get middle of the night emails!

This last month or so there has been far less need to rush. Getting the breakfast made served and cleaned up quickly, well there is just no advantage really. There’s not a list of things to do next.  There’s no point me being up, dressed, fed and out the door in 20 minutes in the morning like I would do at home. Not when Dave is still asleep and there’s no where urgent to go.

At the shops yesterday I decided to just wander slowly around, glance in shop windows and see what the current clothing trends were, have a coffee and drink it gradually, no rushing.

It was actually VERY nice. No raised heart rate and brain overload. No one cared what I was doing and I wasn’t worried about what others were doing. It was good.

Speaking of   ” s  l  o  w  l  y ” Dave is slowly getting better. The side effects of the second treatment were probably about 30% worse than for treatment one. I imagine they will continue to deteriorate. We are over the worst days  for treatment two. Four more to go. Its certainly not going to be good. Bur today he is up and smiling, super keen to see his favourite daughter in a few hours.

What shall we do with her today? Not sure.

I have booked my very favourite Canberra Restaurant “Boathouse by the Lake” for the three of us for dinner. (Click on the link and you can see all about it including the fabulous menu)  She will love it I’m sure. Nothing better than Mum and Dad taking you to a flashy restaurant for dinner, and paying! Whilst Dave has really come to enjoy and appreciate his food much more over the past 20 years, Victoria is a real ‘foodie’ and I love sharing food experiences with her.

Then we will need to plan tomorrow. Bus depot Markets? Canberra ‘hand-made festival’ maybe? Shopping? A walk around the lake? So many options! Or maybe just sitting around and enjoying each others company, slowly 🙂

By the way, we did get out for a brief drive yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately it was spoilt rather dramatically resulting in the need for 2 new tyres on my car. Its a story for another time. I still have at least 100 days to write posts for 🙂

Todays cover picture – A fantastic SMS I received from my super lovely sister Bek yesterday morning. She had stopped in at my house in Wagga on her way to work. Thank you Bek, I love you (and Darryl). Why is there dirt everywhere on the deck in the background???

Have a great long weekend everyone xx