Aside from the immigration, we’ve been facing a lot of other changes recently. Life, it seems, goes on. Even amid the chaos.

Kayla is *finally* going to school. Of all the changes, this is the biggest one. I’ve spoken about our troubles getting her enrolled in a kindergarten in Germany, and also mentioned how easy it was to find her a place in a school here. She’s been going since last Monday and the change is already visible. You should hear her budding Canadian accent. 🙂

After a week of daily meltdowns as I dropped her off at school, I’m happy to report we’ve had two tear-free days. I miss having her around, but I’ve forgotten how much I used to get done without a toddler at my feet.

Still, it gets lonely. Especially since Jan started going to the office again yesterday. With both of them gone, the house is super quiet. It’s strange not keeping time with Jan’s keyboard tapping behind me, and even stranger that there’s no giggling as Kayla crawls under my desk for a game of hide and seek.

But as I said, shit gets done now. 🙂 My workday has shifted to more conventional hours. I used to work whenever I had a free moment, but for the most part, my day only started as Kayla’s ended. And any work-at-home-mother will tell you, cleaning the house without children in it is so much easier. It used to be a case of cleaning most rooms twice, because Kayla ran away from the hungry vacuum-dragon and sought sanctuary in the room I’d just cleaned. And of course sanctuary-seeking means making a new mess.

Since I have so much time to write, run errands and finish chores during the day, my evenings have become much more peaceful. When Kayla comes home from school, I’m 100% hers and after she’s gone to bed, there’s no mad rush for me to write until after midnight. The writing is already done long before that time, which means every extra moment at night is one I can spend with my husband. And, you know, make some bonus words appear on my screen when the obsessive-phase kicks in. 🙂

As you can gather from the last paragraph, I’ve started writing again. The final feedback from the beta readers has reached me, so now it’s time to implement those changes. I really hope to have this novel done ASAP.

Meanwhile, I’ve started planning some paintings for our new home. I haven’t had much time to make art since moving to Canada, but I’m sure that’s going to change in the near future. It has to, my fingers are itching to hold pencils.

We’re also preparing for a long visit from my folks and looking forward to getting some sightseeing done. As I mentioned in this post, there hasn’t been a lot of time to explore – a fact that has remained unchanged since that post was written. I’m looking forward to updating our sightseeing status!

Thanks for stopping by and have a good rest of your day,

Yolandie