We rented our home!...and I finally found some time to put up a post.

We rented our place. It all fell into place a couple of weeks ago when a lovely family from the UK contacted us to negotiate a three month stay. As of February 13th our little home will have new occupants. This means that we'll be overseas until mid-May.

I think we found a perfect match for our house. The Abrams Family includes Claude and Jaime and their two children Kobra and Zenchai. They have been travelling all across the globe since 2009 and have to date been to well over 40 countries. Leaving a traditional lifestyle behind, the family has been on a journey of discovery and adventure. When I was reading their blog to learn a little more about their family, I connected with a statement that Claude had written in his bio - "More precious than money is time." It's a simple statement that Claude used to articulate the reason he decided to quite a job as a magazine editor and take to the road with his family. After becoming a mother, the concept of time takes on a whole new level of importance which is perhaps why those words have been playing in my mind for weeks now.

The first thing that seems to happen with a baby is that time disappears. I don't quite know where it goes or when I'll get it back but it seems to have moved on to another household...probably one filled with single people. These days I am grateful if I find the time to complete two activities during a day. One of those usually involves a mandatory household chore like shopping. Fascinating, yes I know.

Interestingly enough, this change is juxtaposed with an equally new notion: the long night. Not since the all-nighters of my university degree have I experienced both 'closing time' (3am) and sunrise (6am) in one day. This is coupled with the sensation that time is almost at a standstill and the night will never #$#&'ing end!

A last aspect of time I've been thinking about has to do with our trip to Thailand. One of the things that often comes up when we do interviews is a question about how we've adapted to living in a small space. Brendon was the first to identify that our home has helped to reinforce a lifestyle that is heavy on experience and light on stuff. It's hard to own more than six towels when you have no place to put them. So instead of things, we've been able to save the money that we might have used to buy things and trade them in for activities outside of the house. (Brendon reiterated this point in a recent interview with CBC which aired in French on National Television.) This has meant mountain biking trips, walks by the ocean, delicious food etc. We're now just getting the chance to take this to the next level by carving out three months of sacred time together with Oren in Thailand.

While we do not yet have beautiful pictures of Thailand to share with you, we do have copious amounts of pictures of Oren who is, of course, the most beautiful baby in the world.

Most people say Oren looks like me. Over the holidays, we tried to bring out a little bit of Brendon by painting on some eyebrows.