Already Over!

In late June, I fulfilled my dream of signing up for horseback riding lessons. I intended to take eight to ten classes, depending on how much time I had available to me.

Last night, I completed my eighth and final class. My, how the summer has flown by!

I can now saddle a horse on my own and do such wonderfully exciting things as trot in a circle while standing up in the stirups and holding the reins with one hand. Yeehah cowgirl!

RV Inspection, Redux, and Goals

Yup, the guy wants to sell. He emailed me earlier to say that if I'm still interested in the coach on Monday he'll take it in for a QC inspection and not to worry myself about getting any information on that. Since the inspection results in paperwork he'll need to hand me, I am comfortable with pawing off this task on him. He's going to cry when I make my offer, but I won't be surprised if he comes crawling back to me in a month or two begging to sell. In the meantime, I'd keep looking for something else. Anyway, I need to keep taking this one step at a time. Soon as I saw the cost for a satellite system and the work involved in setting up solar panel, I realised that I need to slow down and breathe, LOL!!!

While I'm telling people that I'm hitting the road for a year, I know that's not true. I'm aiming for this change to be a permanent one. My biggest goal for the year is to prove to myself that I can make a very good and reliable living without having to rely on an 8-4 job. So, I want to find a good balance between taking time for my (currently shamefully neglected) online business and outside work.

I've always wanted to learn self-sufficiency of the off-grid kind. How often have I said that I dream of a home that's off the grid? I want to be able to 'boondock' for weeks at a time so I don't have to rely on pricey parks with hookups. My goal for my trek to BC is to only pay for accommodations once per week, and only if needed to recharge my batteries and/or empty and fill tanks. If I do this, then my only major expense for the trek will be gas. I can already see myself outside the big store with the red, white, and blue sign going "Home, sweet Wal-mart." *ggl*

Life is a marvelous thing, is it not?

When Did It Happen?

This change of priorities that has come over me, I mean?

I've journaled my entire life, so I can understand the gradual little shifts and assume they must be 'maturity.' But how does one go from wanting land and a house filled with stuff to realising that land and a house filled with stuff is to trade your idea of freedom for that imposed by society?

I do want a home filled with lovely things, to wake up surrounded by nothing but prairie, to make my living from the earth. I've always wanted this. I'll always want this. But it's time to let it go. How foolish I feel, looking back on past entries in this blog. One idiot's tale indeed.

My goal for the time I would spend in this house has been met, only not in the way I envisioned. In finding myself, I have lost myself, too. As I take my first steps into yet another new life, I mourn and rejoice.

In the past, when I'd reach a moment like this, I would wipe the slate clean by starting a new journal. Not this time. I like this blog; it is the clearest and most honest record of my path.

And, so, the journey continues, if not as before, at least as it seems it is meant to.

to-do list

Maybe if I publicly post my to-do list for the weekend I'll actually get through some of it?

In no particular order:

-deep clean the bathroom; (done Friday evening)
-deep clean the kitchen; (finished Saturday afternoon)
-deep clean the catbox area; (done Friday evening)
-wipe down all mouldings, window sills, door tops, etc. in the house; (upstairs done Saturday morning) (finished Saturday afternoon)
-vacuum the whole house and wash all the floors; (upstairs done Saturday morning) (finished Saturday afternoon)
-get through my darning pile (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha);
-find a vegetarian sausage recipe and make huge batch of it;
-go grocery shopping (big, need to fill up the pantry, trip); (done Friday night)
-hang the curtains in the living room; (started Saturday afternoon, gave up again)
-get through all the laundry; (done Saturday morning; let me point out that we're talking a mere 3 loads here!)
-take the huge and very full 'for charity' box I have been tripping over in the bedroom for three months and *gasp* drag it up two blocks to the nearest comptoir familial; (done Friday night; mental note for next time: just post an add to Full Circles!)
-buy a shredder and shred the huge and very full 'for shredding' box I've been tripping over in the library for three months; (shredder bought Sunday morning, stuff shredded Sunday afternoon)
-finish organizing my tools in the basement;
-go pick up more cat food (quite the expedition); (ordered for pickup tomorrow! picked up between doing the laundry and cleaning the upstairs; also got litter; one hour field trip total)
-start working on my final paper for my university course. (Saturday morning, looked at the details required)

'Traditional Values'

I became an aunt for the second time today. My sister now has two strong, beautiful, perfect little boys.

For me, I think the time to have children might have very well passed. People scoff at that because I haven't even reached thirty yet, but that strong urge I had in my early twenties is all but gone.

There are so many things that would be lovely about having a child, like being able to raise it in my faith and to share with it all the wonders I've seen.

Having children today involves too many decisions when it was just a natural and expected process until just a few generations ago. I simply could not imagine myself having a child in my current circumstance, unless one were to fall out of the sky for me; that is I was made the legal guardian of an older child or something along those lines.

Apparently, my values are very 'traditional', even 'Christian' by Wiccan standards. Others may do as they please and will think neutrally of their decisions, but for me to bear a child, it would have to be in wedlock; if a man wants my child, he can darn well slip a ring on my finger!

Another thing is that I cannot see myself raising a child in a world of daycares and babysitters. In fact, the only way I truly see myself as a mother is that of a homemaking and homeschooling mama tending her brood of eight (plus or minus a few!) on her family's partially self-subsistent homestead where hubby brings home the proverbial bacon.

I'm told that's not exactly the most 'feminist' viewpoint out there. *snorts* I'm all for feminism if it gives me the choice to be what I want. Single, I want to travel around the globe and be selfish. Married with children, I want to be glued to the hearth.

Starting to feel like work (but in a good way!)

Balancing my expenditure transactions with my bank account, that is. It reminds me of the days when I worked for accountants and had to reconcile accounts.

Work has been on my mind this week.

I have a job the likes of which I never, as a child, imagined myself having. I work in an office and stare at a computer for 8-12 hours per day analysing legal documents for the federal government. The job has its moments, but it's usually tedious, frustrating, pointless, boring, and irritating. I wouldn't have hacked it two years (and plan to keep hacking it for another year or two) if I didn't have an incredible work environment with the best boss ever. The pay cheque doesn't hurt, either.

It wasn't so very many years ago that I worked at my dream job, a job I stuck at way too long because I loved it, even though more than one financial adviser informed me that I wasn't being paid enough to live. But that was okay; work was my life and I hacked it out until the job environment became unbearable and I realised that it would nice to be able to eat on a regular basis, take vacations, buy clothes, pay down debt instead of accumulating it....

The decision was tough to make, but it was made, and I've been working in an office now for three years. I'd done some office work before, but it was not my full-time job and there was always the chance of being able to spend time outdoors.

A friend said to me a few weekends ago that she remembered a chat we had, way back when I was in school, in which I adamantly said that I would never work in an office and do the nine to five grind, and yet there I am today.

Yes, there I am today. Older, wiser, and more cognizant of the kind of life I want to lead. The life I had before, with that dream job, was just half of the life I want. The life I have now is still just half of the life I want. But of the two jobs, this current one is the only one capable of putting myself on an expedited path to the whole life I want.

One door closes... and the whole of the universe beckons

My father died three weeks ago.

It was expected and I was blessed to have had the privilege of making my peace with any unresolved issues we had before he left. I was there in his final days, caring and nursing for him, assuring him that it was okay to move on to the next part of his life, to sail to a better and easier place.

He did not have a good life. It was one of limitations, abuse, toil, disillusionment, and bitterness. But the little joys he did have, he savoured. His accomplishment was His Girls, who learned from his lessons and built a richer, happier existence for themselves. When he knew that he would be sailing in short order, he was able to accept this because he would be leaving His Girls enough to build a solid foundation for their lives. He wanted us to truly live, to see and do things, to have a lot of stories to tell him when we met up with him again on our own journey to the next realm.

My father worried about me a lot, living as I did in the middle of nowhere with a long commute to work. He was pleased to learn in his final weeks that I'd finally made the decision to return to The City. During his final lucid hours, three days before he sailed, we spoke giddily about the new urban life I would be starting, the pretty house that would be a far cry from the mousehole I was currently miserable in, the extra time I would have now that I would not have a commute. He made me promise that I would make good use of what he was leaving me, buy a house, travel, have something to show for his life as reflected through my own values and dreams. We made plans for the future even when we knew that we would soon be separated, not knowing when our souls would be reunited.

The last five years have been very difficult for me, the last two easier, since I've embraced my faith. I'm currently in the process of making up for years of money mismanaging and have a plan for getting myself out of debt by 2012 (not including a mortgage) and a looser plan to retire by the time I'm 45. My father's death has brought forth options in 2007 that I thought would not be available until 2010 at the earliest. I plan to make full use of them.

My new life begins April 1st and I am giddily planning for it. Now that I will not be wasting so much time commuting and repairing plumbing (especially since I lost my 24 hour plumbing helpline), I want to go back to the urban lifestyle I had late last century, when I had time for homemaking endeavours and the world still seemed filled with possibilities instead of limitations.

My goals for the next year are simple: to start and keep a housecleaning routine, to cook more, to be more proactive in my faith, to continue paying off debt and build up my savings, to be more frugal, and to travel.

I've always journalled and I'm hoping this blog will serve as a chronicle of my journey.