When life gives you lemons...

The running theme for today has been the topic of change.  I find most often children are the quickest to deal with change and make the most of seemingly horrible situations. Today the quiet Saturday afternoon was interrupted by a parade of dumpster trucks on a mission. The vacant lot at the front of the Cornerstone property has finaly been purchased and the new owners wish to fill it in with concrete and dirt before building on it. This will mean that the area being currently used as a basketball court and play area will also get taken over. Seemingly unbother the younger boys joined the neighbourhood children to explore the piles of "treasure" that was left behind. The older boys that were sitting with me on the balcony watching all this, simply turned to me and said... It's good timing this change. 

Life is full of change, our survival is dependent on how we view and react to this change.

 

The older boys ofcourse are far too civilised to be found playing in the dirt...they would much rather sit around at night and discuss "current affairs" over milo and snacks :) 

With Love from Cornerstone house <3 

 

FALSE ALARM !!!!

Sorry about the false alarm about moving blogs. This is my only active blog :)  The wonderful team at Blogpad pro were able to fix my glitches with my app to alow me to continue to use Blogspot with ease :)  Being dyslexic I prefer Blogspot as it allows me to write in colours and fonts that are easier for me to process.  Thanks for bearing with my indecisiveness :)  

Playtime is for building a childhood strong enough to carry us through our entire adulthood...

The task of helping an organisation in disarray pick up its broken pieces has proven to be challenging on every level imaginable. The details of which I'm not free to discuss in cyber space, but trust me this has been no walk in the park. Trading in the securities of the comfortable life that I'd spent the last decade creating, for the role of watching over 12 kids full-time (and another 9 part time) is not what I had in mind for my self at 27. Over the last 4 weeks I have come to realise the true weight of the decision I made for my self while at the same time I couldn't be more certain that I have made the right choice by these boys.

I love my Life with the boys, getting to bring back some sense of family and affection to a situation where it has been scarce, especially over the last year. I have known these kids for the last 8 years through Something for Change and have loved watching the grow into the current version of themselves. That said like all family life, it's certainly had me doubting my own sanity on many occasions. After all 16 of these kids are teenage boys (8 that live with me)...a species that I can't for the life of me figure out, with their mood swings, the bickering, the sulking, the teenage heartbreaks, who are constantly hungry and have the need to bring up girls/crushes into every conversation... whoever said teenage-boys were easier than teenage-girls to understand surely didn't know what they were talking about ;)

The four little boys are like little wind up toys, bursting with energy all the time. Just to prove it they love stirring the older boys for a reaction. Like all little boys they hate chores, bath times and bed. They would prefer to be out playing all day. Despite their rough wild-child exteriors they love to curl into you for cuddles. Keeping up with their imaginations is my daily dose of "childhood" :)

I admit there have been a few times where I've wanted to go back to the conforms of my old life, where the only human I'm responsible for is me. However more often I'm reminded that being here I'm allowing these kids the opportunity to build up their own childhood with memories to get them through the whole of their future adulthood. In turn these boys are helping me relive childhood memories with them to allow my weary adult self to replenish it's self :)

A win-win for everyone :)  

Dare to dream...

Not everyone has an amicable relationship with the process of falling asleep.
For some it is but a battle they must willingly enter if they dare to dream again.


The science of sleep...
Your heart lashes violently against your ribcage threatening to break out of your chest. 
Your pulse resembles a manic butterfly fluttering the length of your arm, scanning your veins for a weak point through which to escape.
your cells feel like a stack of little boxes bumping against each other in an energetic yet rhythmic manner; they almost mimics the low buzz of a live electric fence.  
your mind steps in by switching into hypersensitivity 
and everything else slows down...
occasionally the dreamworld might break into the conscious, projecting echoes of voices or a glimpse of a character.   
But everything continues to slow right down...
your consciousness turns blank 
and you are asleep.


The science of sleep bears the closest resembles my life these last few months.
My soul has journeyed a war-field of emotions and is finally encompassed in clarity,
A resounding urge to go be a voice for those who wouldn't otherwise be heard...

So here I'm, daring to dream...