Dobidan: Got the right aTeatude

It's been a while, it often has been a while, I feel. Regarding staying connected with others ... oneself ... with life ... Mother Nature. Lots and lots has happened. We ended our 6 month stay in Mexico ... in tears partially. We had a lovely vacation in Europe after it. Now we are back to our "old life" in Montreal. It's back to the same routine, the same stable life ... hmmm or is it?

Before I get into what life back in Montreal has brought to me, I want to share a few pictures of smooth moments from our vacation.

Relaxing walk in my hometown Porvoo, where I grew up. Relaxing especially for me as while my husband was walking around taking these pictures, I was getting a massage in order to fix a very horrible stiff neck, before our travels continued.

Our Pura Vida travels continued with the ferry leaving Finland behind and going to Stockholm in Sweden.

In Stockholm we got to spend very royal time with my best friend and her special someone, visiting the Drottningholm palace amongst other things.

And from Stockholm to Turku

and then back to Helsinki.

In Helsinki our relaxing walks continued. Same concept, me at the osteopath getting a massage for the same darn neck problem and my husband walking around taking pictures. Nice team work.

Then we flew off to Madeira, Portugal on a nice family vacation including the company of Mother Nature in a very majestic way ....

It's an island where it's really easy to feel on top of the world. You just need to hike up there.

And we did indeed. We hiked up and got a very strong signal connecting us directly with Mother Nature. She is powerful and beautiful in so many ways and she whispered sweet, sweet words in our ears.

After you are up well you often must come down. We came back down and back to Finland enjoying calm waters at the country cottage.

The signal from Mother Nature here was just as strong. She whispered some wise words to me one fine morning. Something I already knew but had refused to understand or listen to when said to me by others. Addiction can sometimes blur our connection with ourselves like that.

I'm happy to announce that I no longer am a coffee drinker. It sometimes can be that easy to stop an almost life long habit. I'm now a very motivated tea drinker. Feeling I gave myself one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received.

My first day back in the grocery store in Montreal, dragging my feet, forcing myself to at least get enough things to make a breakfast. Thinking to myself; "oh crap, here we go again, back to this" and I suddenly light up of enthusiasm somewhere between the bred and the cheese; "Oh yes but I get to buy some tea". Since then I found myself big cosy mugs to drink from, tea for the morning, tea for the afternoon, tea after dinner and finally tea for sweet dreams. Life with tea makes even life back in good old Montreal joyful. A hike up Mont Royal and you are almost on top of the world.