shapeshifting

What Barack Obama carries for luck

(c) Brooks Kraft / Corbis for TIME

Dropping in quickly for TGIF (and I could probably do three or four of them today).

I am trusting that whatever happens with Charlie's employment (currently filed under T for Threatened  and M for Mad Despotic CEO) we will  find and flourish on the other side of an opening door. I really believe we will.

I am grateful for my eternal good luck. Seriously.

I am inspired by a young boy who has sent our organisation a heart-warming, eloquent and yes, inspiring piece of sponsored writing that has raised hundreds of pounds. He has selective mutism and has never done anything like this before.  Also by the messages that the people here sent to each other on the first anniversary of a friend and co-worker's suicide as we remembered the shining light that she was before depression took her away. We miss you Lisa.

Some days I  love my job. See: gratitude above.

I have a quiet day today - what Evie and I call A Nursery/Work Day - and tonight we're going to chill out, probably eat pizza and I'm going to watch something good on the telly.

In  the last two days we've signed our tenancy agreement (we move in on the 30th June/1st July), got house keys, web-cammed with twin sis, moved four loads of boxes to the new house and suddenly being back at work feels as if I'm living two lives. Both of them are pretty good, I have to say.

My quiet day at work is actually very busy with lots of deadlines to meet and then planning being away from my desk for two and a half weeks, but it's a good busy.

Lots of 'good' going on today.

Yesterday was an even better than good day. It started with my mum's regular check-up for the temporal arteritis she has been suffering with since last last year. She has been brave and resilient and lucky. Her progress is good and although the end is not yet in sight, we know there is an end and she'll probably make an excellent recovery. The physical effects of the high steroid doses that she's on have been harsh and she's coped with them far better than I would have done. Finally, her face is beginning to lose a little of the swelling so typical in these cases and she's been given a prescription for something that will help her hair thicken again. It was a good day for her and us.

After the hospital visit we went up to the cottage to drop off the first of many, many boxes. I went back again in the afternoon with Evie, collected my nephew J, and let the kids run around the house while I wheelbarrowed our belongings from the car to the house.

Evie has finally fallen in love with the place, largely thanks to the fact that her bedroom is painted in a pale pink. "You're not going to BELIEVE this," I heard her say to J as they scrambled up the stairs into the roof. "It's PINK! I'm so LUCKY!"

They played 'Sleepover' for half an hour (oh bliss...an entertained child) and then ate 'breakfast' of some chopped melon and orange juice, sitting in the middle of an empty kitchen. I had both front and back doors open, windows too, and the sun just streamed into the place with a light breeze. I stood in the living room and thought,"I cannot remember being this happy."

I know this is the easy bit. We're not living there and struggling with coal fires and draughty doors and mice in the kitchen and spiders (shudder) and longer drives to work and even less money but I agree with my daughter. I'M SO LUCKY! I'd forgotten what it means to love the place you live in. I'm such a homebody that I think I've been incomplete without that and it's been seven long years in a house that I tolerate at best.

I heard 'the click' as I stood in the empty living room, surrounded by sunlight and views of trees with the kids laughing upstairs. It is such a gift and I will try my best to remember that and be grateful.

I took photos. Tricky without a wide angle lens but I took them. Got home and realised I'd packed and moved my USB cable and Charlie's card reader wasn't playing with my camera. Nice. I think there'll be quite a bit of that going on over the next two weeks.

Hey it's Friday. Time for some TGIF:

This week I'm trusting in our decision to leap for this opportunity and that we'll be able to maintain our new life financially.

I am grateful for Charlie who believes in my seemingly crazy dreams and helps me make them a reality. I have never loved him more.

I am inspired by white walls and sunlight and the scent of orange blossom.

Have a wonderful weekend whatever your plan. I'm taking my sort-of- step-daughter to have some part of her head pierced. I think I may be in danger of becoming typecast in this family.

Brené Brown's readalong finished this week and I shall miss it. It's been such a pleasure having her 'company' for the these weeks and her work is so insightful. Luckily for us, Brené doesn't appear to know the meaning of time off so no doubt there'll be more WholeHearted goodies for us all soon.

TGIF is going to keep going and that's lovely because it's very much where my head is at the moment.

Here are mine for this week.

I am trusting our decision not to homeschool Evie. We will at least let her start school and see how we go. This decision comes from two places: one is that the local school (my old school) in the village we're moving close to is a very small, very good school. It's a Church of England school but it's also an eco-school. They have an outdoor classroom for good weather days. There are about 20 kids in each class. Evie's cousins will be there at the same time as she is. Going to pre-school in the village for a year, one morning a week will mean she goes to school with her friends.

I went to school here for about 12 months while the newer school was built. Yes I am 109.

The second part of the decision was harder. I accepted that I'm not cut out for homeschooling. I don't think I could do 24/7 without losing my mind and/or my income and we need for me to have both. Evie also needs a mum who is just her mum. And she's an only child who'll be living way out in the fields away from anyone but other kids who are at school all day. I'm not known for my sociable tendencies. She needs more than me and she already craves the company of other kids. I trust that this is the right decision. Despite the little kernel of guilt in my gut. More thoughts on this topic next week.

I am grateful for my whole life. This week I am overwhelmed by how lucky I am (and always have been) and how happy I am. The universe feels like a bright, open, expansive place to me right now and I am keenly aware that I am very, very, very fortunate to feel this way.

I am inspired, as ever, by Erin Vey's photography (and Gracie).

I am not inspired by the huge pile of empty boxes yelling at me from our hallway. So that's where I'll be this weekend. Getting ready for the next step.

Have a great weekend (and I hope the move goes well Pen*).