Sometimes things don’t go according to plan…

I had a fairly boring day planned – wake up, breakfast, take family out for coffee, work rest of day – but plans changed. We ended up going for coffee at a funky restaurant in town, taking a walk in the Green Point Park, and then taking lunch to a friend and visiting with her all afternoon. It was important and special time for me, time to detach from my desk and connect with my family and friends.

In the past I have often become frustrated when things have not gone according to the plan I have laid out in my mind for a day or space of time, but I have been working on being less attached to my future plans and more flexible and in sync with what is happening in a particular moment. I am also listening to the audiobook “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” and one of the things he says is that you can be efficient with things and effective with people, but not efficient with people. So I am trying to make sure I am flexible in all my interactions.

I have really been enjoying watching Grace have free play time with other children. It makes my heart glad to see her playing and interacting with other children, and exploring the world with them. She has recently started playing with other children, rather than playing next to them. She got to have some good play time with Isabel while visiting at Mel – swinging, climbing up the jungle gym, lots of sliding and looking at the fish. I want to give her more of that kind of play time. Something which we have failed to do while in Cape Town is to create community. We have amazing friends, but we don’t have a group of people (in a similar life phase to us) with whom our lives naturally intersect. There are many reasons for that, but that failure has an impact on Grace and her access to the type of play time I want for her. We will have to do something about that…

Isabel taking Grace for a walk around the farm