The Law of Attraction in Action!

Jasper has been talking about having a quad ATV for quite some time. Just recently though for some reason he became infatuated with having a dirt bike. It is almost, literally, the only thing he has talked about for the last four weeks. He made up his mind that he was going to get one for the trip and that was that. He has been online looking at pictures of them. He signs on to ebay motors and craigslist and searches for them so he can sit there and fantasize about having one and riding it across America. He walks up to us and calls other family members and says things like, "Hey, Drew, want to come over and talk about dirt bikes?"

He was hanging out with his sister last night and by the end of the night she had to tell him as nicely as possible, "dirt bikes are not an interest of mine, could we stop talking about them?"

He has watched "The Secret' with us several times and believes as we do that it is possible to manifest what you want through the power of "The Law of Attraction". So he has learned very early on how to exercise that power for himself.

He saw a quad the other day outside of Mickey Finn's on the Berlin Turnpike and as we drove by he asked if we could stop there on the way back. So, on the way back we stopped and we happened to be talking on the cell phone at that time to one of his sisters, so he got out and went into the showroom by himself. He came out pretty quickly though, as he really wanted us to be in there with him. He waited somewhat (Jasper like, 9 year old) patiently while we finished the call. Then we all went in and looked around. We got a sales person over to answer some of our questions and we put Jasper on top of a bike that was his size and speed. He was like a 9 year old boy in a dirt bike shop. His face was glowing with the possibility that this could be his. He was also very excited to learn that it was within his budget regarding the money he has saved and he started doing the math (and continued all the way home) of how he could get it and how awesome it would be to have it for the trip just like he imagined.

I was still not having any idea where or how we would carry it, even if I tought it was an OK idea and could convince his MOM into thinking it would be OK for him to have it. But none of this had any effect on Jazz or his visualization of realizing his dream of riding that dirt bike where ever we were on our trip.

I started talking about maybe getting a used one instead as his first one and not spending so much money up front incase he didn't like it or broke it or got tired of it. This seemed OK to him and he started looking again on EBAY and talking to everyone about getting the used dirt bike.

One of those people was his brother Drew. Drew told us and him that his girlfriend's brother had two dirt bikes and one of them was not being used and hadn't been for quite a while. He told Jazz that he would talk to him about it and see if he could get it for him for a good price and take him over there so he could see if he actually fit on it and to make sure he could hold it up.

Well on Sunday, completely enthusiastic and with the patience of a puppy around a kid, Jasper went with his big brother to see the bike and get on it to see if it would work for him. His girlfriend's Dad was there and told Jazz the best news that he could probably have heard. He said that he thought it was not worth much beacause it was seven years old and hadn't been used for 6 of those years and would probably need work to get it back to running right again and that if we said it was OK, "He could just have it for free."

Jazz came home with his dream realized and he got it for no expense. Not only that, but they gave him all of the riding gear that the son had used that no longer fit him. Jasper walked through the door, back at home, with all of his gear on looking like a space invader. It turned out that it was a good thing he had the helmet on as he was floating so far off the ground that he bumped his head on our ceilings a couple of times.

If you ever wonder if the law of attraction works or not, just ask Jasper.

He made up a new diddy about how he's all about working it all out and doing it for free!

Realization Frenzy

We were supposed to leave for our trip TODAY - Monday!

We haven't even decided what clothes we're bringing on the trip or put any personal items in the RV yet to make it sort of ready to go.

We pushed the launch deadline to Friday the 30th to give us more time, but we didn't sense any relieve from the pressure, it seemed to just make us more busy. We had to ramp up yet again, trying to stay motivated to keep going and get all the chosen necessary and required tasks complete before we left.

Our final session of coaching was Friday the 23rd. We scheduled it to happen here at our house so that we would not lose time traveling to and from her office in Hartford and could continue to work on the house prep items to make it ready for us to leave. Chris had also graciously offered to stay on after our session that afternoon and help paint the upstairs as we got ready to rent out the house while we were gone (thanks Chris). Our coaching sessions culminated Friday with an extended 4 hour session (sorry Chris) where we realized that we still were not any where near finished with the tasks that we had planned to complete and kept finding more of, prior to our departure. 24 full weeks of intense personal coaching, constant reorganization and futzing with the details to try to make them fit into our self imposed, fabricated launch date, countless hours of frustration because they weren't fitting and we couldn't get them too no matter what we did, increasingly regular sessions of bickering about that and then there's the wondering about which one of us was the cause of both the bickering and the delay, led us all the way up to Friday's late night declaration that, we would just sell the f''in RV and be done with this whole crazy idea of taking a year off.

The crazy making (also self imposed) and the lack of enjoyment and the complete absence of personal freedom in the preceding months was enough to drive us over the edge and have us throw in the towel. We even talked about taking a break from each other. Like maybe we need to see if we are the problem and not all the details that we had decided were so ultimately important. We subscribe to this philosophy, that if you are doing what is in alignment for you/us, then that is when our life will work the best. So, if that is true how could it be that we were doing the right thing (the trip) and having such a miserable time in the process. There is that saying that the journey is really the trip not the somewhere you are trying to get. If we took that verbatim, to heart, then this journey was not working for us. Our interpretation of this made up truth was very discouraging and disheartening since we had put so much effort into making this boat float.

We spent a couple of hours sitting on and standing around the stairs to the second floor Friday night, beating this thing up and desperately and simultaneously giving up and trying to find out what we were doing wrong because we did not really want to give up (I guess). I talked about my chagrin and concern about not knowing the RV very well at all. And how I was not having much great luck driving it as I have now lightly grazed two different objects on two separate occasions and felt like an idiot both times. Then there was the fact that, at that moment, there was the outstanding issue of there being no power in the coach from the batteries that supply power when we are not plugged into electricity. No lights, no water pump, nothing. The little issue that arose after showing the unit to family and friends after eating the feast Thanksgiving day, that I could not seem to figure out. We talked even more about how we had spent so much of our physical and mental energy making ready that we had just exhausted ourselves in the spin and thus left nothing in the way of time, energy or desire to be with each other for even one more moment in the process. Somewhere in the conversation Megan adamantly stated that she didn't have any attachment to leaving on any particular date, she just wanted to stay until it was all done (all that we said and felt right to have done) before we left. I heard that and felt a twinge shock in my soul. I was not sure if I was mad at her for that or thinking that would be a relief. More likely, I was probably thinking that she was being weak and that we must stick the announced deadline or we would look and feel stupid. Why did I feel it was so important to pick a date a stick it? What was I afraid of or concerned about if we didn't hit the date anyway? At just about the moment when we were at the place of resigning to throw in the towel having been succumbed by the details and absorbed in heaviness, complaint and weariness, Sara and Jasper walked in from having been at the movies.

Although she has been doing great in college academically, Sara has been having her own share of trials and issues living in NYC this past semester. She had left the dorms at the beginning of the year to strike out on her own getting her own autonomy via a room in a shared apartment in Brooklyn in August. After two months that wasn't working for a couple of important reasons. So, she found another apartment where she would have an entire floor to herself and we moved her for the third time this year. Within a month this place wasn't working either due to landlord difficulties and the fact that getting to the city was a very long commute. She was also feeling lonely and disconnected there so she needed our assistance in figuring out how to handle all that she was trying to manage. This was appearing as just one more damn thing for us to attempt to deal with in the midst of an already compacted and screwed up schedule. We all sat down, with the best of attitudes (as you could imagine), very late Friday night in the living room and began listening and debating the best way to handle this. We were there till almost 1 AM.

Right near the end of this conversation and I know this will be hard to believe, I became very frustrated with all of the things that just weren't working. Including the hour of this conversation and the fact that we have tenants moving in on Saturday and now we have to move her on Friday. How can more just keep coming? On top of my/our own, Sara's issues were the icing on the cake. Friday,the 30th, being our rescheduled leave CT date was also coincided with Sara's end of month, have to be out of her apartment date and subsequent have to move again date. I started blowing steam and yelling, "If it's not working then you should just stop. You can't keep trying to force it to work by doing the same thing and complaining over and over again. Change something! Pull out of school for the semester, retract yourself from the city, commute from CT, just do something different to give yourself a fresh perspective and time to deal clearly with what you really want and set it up so that you can be successful." Megan was looking at me like a little bobble head doll that some people put on the dashboard of their car, with her head rotating from side to side. I would find out later that she was listening and wondering if I was talking to myself, us or Sara. The prescription I was spouting to Sara seemed, to Megan, to be what I/we needed to hear and put into practice. Exhausted, we all headed to bed, but not before Sara had a moment of clarity and insight and told us that maybe she should take the semester off as she was not really feeling challenged at her school and look into applying to FIT for the Fall of 08' . We would work on these details in the morning.

When we awoke, we were all pretty beat and morose. Except Sara, who seemed to be on her way to altering her attitude and making changes that fit better. Megan and I had to hustle to get Jasper taken care of so that we could be on a job site by 8 AM. We made it by 9! On the way down though we had our own epiphany. This is when Megan told me that she wondered if I was talking to us or Sara when I said, "Stop what your doing and change something if its not working." Right then, we transported ourselves to the transformational moment of this part of the journey. We were determining that we were beating our heads against the rock that we kept dragging into the room for the express purpose of beating our heads on. I declared, in the next minute, that I would give up trying to force us out of here on any particular date and that I felt in agreement with Megan's previously stated desire of staying until we got it all finished and then we go. We would still have to hold the outside date of being in Florida on the December 29th to pick our kids up at the airport as they arrive to celebrate the holidays with us there. But, we knew that this was very doable since we had kicked our own asses so hard up to this point that we were literally only a week or so away from declaring completion and moving on in the adventure.

The air cleared and we looked at each other as if we were seeing each other anew from the past 6 months and it became very easy to breath again. All of a sudden and just like that, we went from panic about getting things done to seeing that each thing we did got us one step closer. The pressure had evaporated and we were light with each other again and started taking and laughing as we spoke.

The growth moment?
Maybe.
It looked like and felt like surrender to me right up to the very moment of my declaration of the release of the have to date.
Now it just felt like relief and the right move.
DUH!

Thanksgiving Day 07'

I really enjoy this day!

I like that people spend so much physical and mental energy to get back to family, to reconvene and spend time together. Maybe one reason we had so many children (by current standards) is so that we could have large family gatherings through out the year and not just on recognized celebration days.

I also enjoy celebrating the abundance and well being aspects of our world. Focusing on and sharing this vantage of abundance and well being and assisting in creating it for others wherever and whenever is a way of fulfilling one of my life long desires.

I hope that today serves as a fulfilling reminder of family and the abundance of all that it provides for you in your life.

Quixotic!

That's the word for the day that describes, for me, our adventure that we will fully engage in on Friday, November 30, 2007.

For the first time ever we will celebrate our anniversary in an RV traveling in the US somewhere "On The Road". However we will be writing our own personal story and traveling to our own "beat". - Jack Kerouac - (read the original scroll if you can and if you haven't.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac

We will stop in Annapolis on the way down to be with our very most favorite Maryland family, then we're to be in Clemson, SC on the 5th. Then over to the North Carolina shore for a couple of weeks and probably Christmas before we head to Florida to be there on the 29th when all of our kids and their significant others will meet us for a week in Orlando and celebrate the beginning of 2008.

On Jan. 5th we will be heading to the Dominican Republic for one week and visiting with our friends in Puerto Rico while in transit to the DR. We will return to the Florida on the 12th and spend some time with family there before we head out to shores of Alabama. We will visit breifly with a new freind there, from Madision, Wisconsin, who I met online researching RV stuff. Then we are off to our 2nd home or is it 3rd at this point, Louisiana. Making longer stops in Lafayette and Lake Charles, we will join up with our two friends and executive directors of the local Rebuilding Together http://www.rebuildingtogether.org/ affiliates in both of those cities and lend our assistance in particular rebuilding projects there. (they are still in the rebuilding process of hurricane's Rita and Katrina) It is a blast to be with them and to be able to have immediate impact and make a difference there. If you have any interest let me know and I will be more than happy to assist in getting you connected to the right people.

Then we are going to Laredo and Brownsville, Texas for a while to help out there in some Mexican family communities. We are not sure exactly what we will be doing there but we will lend a hand and get to know some of the families and then head out for the rest of the winter season to New Mexico and Arizona.

Ahh! Warm!! I can hardly wait!!!

Enjoying The Countdown To The Beginning? Maybe

Road School

We have pushed back our leaving date to Nov. 30. Mainly because we have not finished some of the essential things we have declared essential and then there are the things we never thought about. Like making a cake in the shape of an RV (aptly named "Road School") for Jasper to bring into school tomorrow for his final 1/2 day with his classmates in the 4th grade.

He is very excited. We are caught in the middle some where as this has been a great year for him and he is progressing nicely with his studies. I am sad, a bit, as this is a very social year for kids this age and Jazz actually has his first girl friend. She is really cute. It feels kinda odd to be taking him away from all that experience and growth in spite of the experience and growth he will have on the trip over the next year. I am certain it will all be more than fine as soon as I stop being emotional about it!

His teacher Mr. G has been just great for him and for us and we are very appreciative for the exceptional support that Jasper and we have received as part of this school. We have loved being involved and enjoyed all of our interactions and all of the teachers, staff and administrators that we have been involved with.

Our other details, like renting our house out for the trip and completing on business projects, choosing what we are taking with us, finishing the house, setting up people to help and support the house and the people living here while we are gone, how they will park, how we will get our mail, how we will collect the rent and pay bills and many hundreds of other Blah, Blah, Blahs, have been consuming.

Although we have had some fun in this process... it has been more work than play. Most likely due to the way I envision how it should go and look for evidence of how its not going that way. Also, as Meg pointed out today, for me it has not lived up to some mental image of what I held it should be like when you are getting ready for something like this trip and from my perspective I actually look a lot to her to see how she is doing to gage if we are having fun yet. If she having a good go of it then we must be having fun. I find myself not bringing fun to the process and worrying about it simultaneously. Thus I have had some disappointing thoughts and some despair regarding our lack of ongoing joy and lightness. Lowering my expectations can often occur as giving in to me so it has been a challenge. Maybe It will get clearer as we get on the road and I can view it in the rear view mirror of my life. Perhaps you will get to read about it in a future short written dropping. I hope so, I could really use a fresh perspective on this issue, which seems to be part of my conditioned way of being, my hard wiring. It is so challenging to be an observer of your own ways. But this is one of those things that interests me the most.

One of the funnest bits!!

The set up and taking of these photo's today of Jasper,s class and him with this teacher was definitely one of the fun moments and touching too.

My Big Tow!

Monday night, Drew and I spent from 5:30 to 10:40 installing an electric brake controller and the 7 pin wiring harness and plug in on the RV. This will allow us to attach the tow dolly onto the back of the RV and pull our Prius on it with the added safety of electric brakes on the tow dolly.

It was cold but really warm to be able to spend time with him watching him do what he is an expert at. It was such a cool experience to see him take any of the worry and guess work out of this wiring situation. Which means that I knew nothing about installing the thing or auto DC wiring and he knows a lot. I spent hours in research trying to learn and figure out the process.

He told me last week that he thought I was just making it more difficult than it actually is. Of course he was right but that what we do when we don't know what the heck we are doing with something. This brings me to having the people who know what they are doing do the job or just have fun doing what ever you are up to.

I did both and I had fun being with Drew.

Thanks for your help and for taking the time to do the project with me and for getting us to the next step that will allow us to fulfill on our dream trip. Your the very best!


By the way, as I am sitting here writing the first snow fall (flurry) of the 2007-2008 season has begun falling from the sky. Wow, isn't it pretty!!

We really need to get out of the North East,

FAST!

Those College Neighbors!!

You can double click on the picture below to enlarge them and see the fillings in his teeth!

Yesterday, after laying in bed,
fooling around with my Blog, reading Caterwauled.blogspot.com and watching You Tube
(This Lap Top can paralyze me if I am not careful. Megan actually made breakfast and asked me if I wanted it in bed) (I knew right then and there that I was spending too much time on the computer) I got up and ate. I went in to take a shower and decided that we should go and help Steve and Monica put their IKEA kitchen together and get some installed. It only felt right after we had received so much assistance on Saturday from so many.


So, we sauntered over to the College House bearing sandwiches and drinks for lunch, ate for a while, assessed the situation and got to work. We did amazing things in the next 4-5 hours. All the cabinets got built, seven got installed (curse those pantry cabinets), the fridge was moved into place, problems got resolved and we enlisted the help of a local Doctor and his family for the really tricky stuff that us mere mortals were having trouble with.
Upon his review and assistance throughout the afternoon we were able to wrap it up knowing that we having given the day our best. (Thanks to Jen and Sonya)



We retired to the Court House for sustenance and then called it a Very Good Day!!!!
(We even got the kids to bed on time)