Making Plans

Yes...the blog still exists. I've been hemming and hawing about writing simply because I didn't know quite what direction I was planning on taking. Honestly, it's still a bit of a craps shoot. But, I've flown by the seat of my pants plenty of times before, so why should now be different?

Where I've Been

It's actually been a bit of a crazy fast two months. Life moves too swiftly sometimes and the days just start blurring together. 2016 has been interesting, to say the least. My life is so incredibly different than it was just a year ago...in a lot of good ways. I'm happy. Really happy. And after a few years of a lot of stress and indecision, that is a wonderfully good thing.

I got out of a relationship that wasn't good for me. Things had been fading for the last couple of years and I had been struggling to keep it together, but it became clear that neither of us was benefiting from being with one another. It was painful and terrible and somewhat messy, but leaving was the right thing to do. And in the end, I found someone who truly values me for who I am and who treats me incredibly well. He is kind and generous and loving and I am incredibly lucky to be able to be with him.

I also discovered that getting out of a profession that I didn't love was one of the best things I could do for myself. It was a decision that wasn't completely voluntary thanks to some medical issues, but I made some major changes that let me leave that life behind. At this point, I can honestly say that I don't miss dentistry. I do miss some of the people, but I don't miss the constant stress and the physical pain that came from trying to make every day work despite my illness. Luckily, I was at one point smart enough to prepare for the fact that I might one day not be able to work in the field, so I don't now have to feel like it owns me. I worked very hard for the thirteen years I ran my practice and now those years have become something that was a good investment.

Where I'm Going

As for where I go from here in the professional department, that's still a bit up for grabs. My good investment is paying off in more ways than one. Life has arranged itself in a way where I am stable enough to not have to work in a formal profession for the foreseeable future, so I can take my time and decide what I really want to do when I grow up. I've been attending college courses for the last two years and working on my English and accountancy degrees, but...I think I may shift things slightly once more. I'm good at accounting, but (much like dentistry) it just isn't something I love. Writing, on the other hand, has never failed to be something I enjoy. I'm considering taking next semester off, but I plan to continue to pursue some form of English education (and potential employment) -- formal or otherwise.

In the meantime, I have myself a pending new job. It's one that I'm terribly excited for. In just a few months, I should officially have myself the job title of Mommy. Amazing really.

I've always wanted to be a mother, but it just wasn't in the cards. (I'll likely write more about that at a later date.) After a trip back to Idaho to clean up some details from closing the business this past summer, I found myself terribly nauseated on the flight back to Minnesota. The feeling continued for days afterwards. A week later, I was surprised to learn that I was, in fact, not getting sick, but pregnant. It was a bit of a shock, but a really good one.

It's been a pretty good pregnancy thus far. I really can't complain. We've been getting excited and slowly accumulating things in preparation for his arrival. We still have a lot of work to do, but we're plodding along.

The house we live in is an old farm house that we have been planning on renovating. Originally, that was intended to be a slow-paced project, but a few things have needed to be accelerated since there will be a new baby in the house. Part of the new journey for the blog had been planned for following our home improvement projects, so now we're getting a bit of a jump start on that.

Right now, the projects are primarily focused on stripping wallpaper from two of the bedrooms and repainting. We'll be putting flooring into what was the storage room so that it can become our bedroom and the room we're currently in will become the nursery. The color palette for his room has been all picked out and he'll be decked out in foxes. (I'll share more about the house and our plans in a later post.)

Currently, we have about 11 weeks to get our act together and have everything somewhat prepared. Wallpaper has been removed from one of the rooms and it's ready to paint. We're moving boxes around to clear it out and then the fun begins. Once that paint is finished, I'll start removing wallpaper and painting the other room, while flooring is installed in the first. After that, it's furniture moving and assembly. With any luck, things will start really coming together over the next month.

In addition to the house projects, I'm taking an active part in running our farm. We raise Belted Galloway cattle (Oreo cookie cows) and Berkshire pigs (black pigs with white feet that have superior meat quality). We're likely adding some poultry and lambs in 2017. I'll be in charge of our blog (coming soon...) and our marketing/social media presence, in addition to helping with the day-to-day activities required to keep our little herds going. I'm very excited for what the next year could hold for us in that direction. It has some great promise and it's a life I really love. I'll be sharing bits and pieces of that here on this blog, but will mostly be directing that information to the upcoming new farm blog. (Keep an eye out for that in the next month. I'll be posting about it here.)

My goal with this blog for now is just to keep it going. I'm going to be making myself a new posting schedule to keep me in line and (with any luck) should be able to start having things to share over the next few weeks. The plan for now is to try and post at least once a week. Writing will be centered around a hodgepodge, per usual. There will be project posts, to be sure, but there will also be posts about books as in the past along with some farm stuff, some mommy stuff, and ... just life in general.

I realize that this has been a long and full post, but I needed to get myself caught up a bit so I had a place to start. If you've stuck with me this far, thanks. I'm really looking forward to sharing some of this new and crazy life with you. There is so much that it potentially has in store. Life is truly amazing. You can never quite predict what you're going to get.