Yep. I'm doing it. Starting tomorrow. 10 days of silence, meditation, afternoon fasting. No books, music, technology, sugar, coffee, pens, paper.
Holy shit.
I am, at this stage, equal parts excited and nervous. Did you know that physiologically, fear and excitement manifest themselves almost exactly the same? Raised heartbeat, sweatiness, butterflies in the tummy. The main difference is the breath. When we are scared we tend to take short, shallow breaths and when excited larger, deeper ones. I'm trying to breathe well at the moment!
The only reason I am nervous is that I have taken on the trepidation of others. As so often happens, we are fine with something until we hear someone else's opinion of it! "Oh that would be so hard", " you are so brave", "that sounds like my version of hell!", etc etc.
I am sure it will be hard. But only if I believe in the concept of 'hard'. My truth is that I am excited to be quiet. So much of my life is spent externalising and expressing myself and filling all the gaps with music or writing or 'doing' stuff, that I am rarely still. And truly, how often do we get the chance to have a thought and follow it down the rabbit hole.....?
I'm nervous about the prolonged sitting. I am not a great sitter and even the 15 minutes of sitting during a yoga class causes me discomfort. But really, that feels like such a first world problem.
After 10 years of being a parent and being a human in this busy world, this feels like a pretty magical opportunity. I may sound naive and may have a completely different view in 10 days time, but for now, I am going to attempt to examine the belief that all the wisdom we need lies within us.
I am going to be with me for 10 days.
See you on the other side.....

Well actually the emperor. But with all the archery action and Robin Hood watching, I am getting my evil authority figures mixed up. Regardless, how awesome is my aim!!
Well, after 3 hours and a hundred arrows it was about time I hit something ;)
Yes, we have officially started archery classes with 'Feral Archery' at the Gosford show ground. Our first session was last Thursday and I learned many things. I am 'left eyed' which means I line up a target using my left eye to focus. In 37 years of using my eyes I never consciously realised that. I learned that after pulling a bow string back over and over and over again you get REALLY sore fingers. I learned that using a bow and shooting an arrow is both easier and harder than in looks. As is much in life....
Like being a brother.

We have been examining a concept of human life every week and this week it was 'brotherhood'. As I mentioned, in line with our archery obsession we have been watching 'Robin Hood' - a made for tv series. It is fairly low budget and hilariously camp but gave us a great way to discuss the concept of brotherhood. Robin's gang are an imperfect collection of misfits and vigilantes, flawed in their individuality and often conflicting as a group. They bicker and sneak around, they punch and humiliate each other, to the point of almost imploding as a collective. AND they rescue each other (repeatedly), stick up for each other, take risks and pay compliments and share with each other. They are a brotherhood, as are my two sons. Sometimes this brotherhood causes anguish as the tie seems inescapable to them. But then the safety and shared private jokes and sense of 'someone having your back' makes up for all the petty squabbles.
We are lucky to have a pretty good 'brotherhood' in our freedom farm neighbours as well. Here we are all going to a wedding on the houseboat. Yep, we went to a wedding by houseboat.

And at the wedding we were a gang. We sang karaoke, ate and drank together and danced up a storm! And when 'gangnam style' inevitably came on, our local little brotherhood of boys were at the centre of the circle whooping it up like nobody's business.
They were bound by a common love of cheesy dance moves as well as a true level of comfort with each other and and at that moment, all the arguments over Xbox turns and what was fair and unfair were forgotten.
Perfect brotherhood.

This is my view and it is beautiful. It is a wall covered with handcrafted artworks featuring retro styled shots of water activities, slightly psychedelic colour arrangements and palm trees. I can see many holes in the wall - the ghosts of artworks past and an indication that works do indeed come and go from this space, rather than stagnate and gather dust.
But the reason this view is so beautiful is really my state of mind....you see, I have a day off. One of those magical occurrences that as a homeschooling parent are truly rarer than hens teeth. Rarer than hens teeth dipped in diamonds sprinkled with moon dust! Don't get me wrong, I have a plethora of 'me time' (a phrase which I still find somewhat confusing - aren't we with ourselves all the time??), but is seems to come in the form of a few hours here, a night away with hubby there. Whereas today is a full 9 - 5 day all to myself.
I awoke and went for a swim at Pearl beach, watched pelicans fly in formation and walked around the rocks to bask in and salute the sun. I marvelled at the colour of the sandstone and thrilled to the sparkle of the light on the rippling water. I swam on my back and felt like I was 21 again swimming in the Mediterranean with all my life right here and now and nothing ahead but adventure and love.
Needless to say, Pearlie is my new favourite beach!
From there it was shower and a visit to my beautician for a quick wax and a slow massage. And now I am sitting at this uber funky and creative cafe 'The Glass Onion Society', Bob is singing 'Tangled up In Blue' and I have just lunched on a delicious roasted veggie and feta toastie.
My friend is coming to meet me for coffee and the cafe is surrounded by op shops and crafty stuff. My iced latte has just arrived and even this simple drink is bursting with freakin style.
I may well be dead!

No, I know I'm not dead, I feel very much alive. And just to clarify, a 'day off' means in this context, a day sans work AND sans children.
Don't get me wrong, I adore my children. But I would be a martyr if I told you that I miss them right now. I love home schooling them, and every now and then I don't love homeschooling them and I am loving not homeschooling them today!
And I am even more smug in the knowledge that right now they are having one on one time with my friend who is a primary school teacher of the Mary Poppins academy. Having heaps of fun and learning tons I'm sure.
So I'm going to sit back, read Rolling Stone and enjoy my moment. It has already made me a better mother because every second I sit here I can feel my battery charging, my chi building and my cup filling.
So that's my answer to this card's question:

The Powerhouse museum is always a cracking good idea, and especially when the Wallace and Gromit exhibition is on. These loveable inventors have inspired a wonderful collection of fun, interactive playthingamabobs, information on excellent inventions and awesome ways to create...along with our groovy homeschool friends, we have explored our way through:

A discoshower karaoke machine,

music production program's,

hilarious and patient claymation creation,

zero gravity simulator,

and everyone wondered how much this moon rock was worth. Can you put a price on moon rock???
We have laughed a lot. Especially when someone farted in the really small lift.....we still don't know who the culprit was, though I have my suspicions...

Now we are gorging ourselves on darling harbour playground and dessert choices....what a cracker of a day!