Where I've been

You might wonder where I went. Or, more probably, you might have totally not even remarked on my absence from the internet and went about your days breathing and eating and loving without even a thought in my direction. ;)

I took an internet break. It was kind of unintentional. I just kind of felt the need to close down, turn inward, to quietly hibernate for a while. So, I was off Facebook, off Instagram, away from my blog, and hardly even answering my emails. I mean, you should see my inbox. Yikes.

My internet fast coincided with a big period of upheaval, so it was kinda basically perfect for me to turn away and focus on the internal, really. We got some major news, a big move dropped in our laps, we were traveling like crazy, and well, that required all of my energy. 

In the last six months, I’ve packed and unpacked our family of suitcases nine times. And boy, am I excited to finally move into an apartment, and ditch our luggage in the furthest reaches of our storage room.

Here’s a brief outline: My in-laws came to visit, and we all had a great little holiday with four kids five and under. Then one little cousin came down with the chicken pox, and ended up stranded with us in Jakarta for about 10 days extra. Then my mum came to visit, overlapping with our poor marooned cousins, and just as she was here, we found out we’d be moving to Shanghai. So I dropped everything and flew to Shanghai to have a look at schools. My mum, bless her, stayed behind and looked after my babies, including Hugo who had by then come down with his own case of the pox. I got back to Jakarta, and a few days later took off on a fairly epic (and wonderful, but totally exhausting) camping trip in the wilderness of West Java. Then, we came back to the city, I ran around like crazy wrapping up my business stuff. We pulled Stella out of school. I took off for Australia, attended a workshop of my dreams, then was joined in Australia by my family and I had an unbelievable two weeks with my little traveling tribe. We got back to Jakarta, unpacked, did laundry, and then the movers came. We packed up our little life, into 130 boxes, dealt with some last minute paperwork emergencies (there are always paperwork emergencies) and began a life lived out of suitcases. Thhhheeeen, my good childhood friend arrived in Jakarta to visit (a trip that had been planed before this sudden move) and so we spent our last days in the city exploring it with new eyes. Which, if you ask me, was kind of perfect. There were a few parties, a few tearful goodbyes and then we flew out the night my friend left. And then, Shanghai! Here we are!

You know, it’s funny, I told this friend when we were hiking out in the hills outside Jakarta, “I’m totally going to get sick the moment I stop to take a breath.” And, guess what happened? 

So, I got flattened by the flu the day after we arrived in Shanghai. Which was not ideal timing, considering the husband went to work right away, and I literally couldn’t move. And was in charge of caring for two small children strung out and emotional after a big upheaval and confined to one small hotel room. That went about as well as you could imagine. ;) (And by that I mean, the kids subsisted on a diet of french fries, ice cream and rancour. They also gave their best effort towards the goal of scratching each others eyes out while I was rendered immobile by fever, dehydrated and a bone shattering cough, and there was a brief period wherein I was pretty sure that if the flu didn’t kill me, the children surely would.) All of this is just a lesson, really, in maybe chilling the eff out the next time we have a move on the horizon. But we’re here! And fine. And slowly settling into a routine. 

And now that I’m finally feeling a little bit of energy returning, I’m maybe, just maybe, going to find the time to come back here once in a while and write some things. No promises tho, because you know me, k?