Did you think we dropped off the face of the earth?

So first, I need to apologize.  For those of you that follow my blog, I have not kept up with it since switching over to Blogger.  Blogger isn't the reason why, but it has happened.  :)

We have been continuing to home school, albeit a bit slower than before, but we're continuing.  It's taken a while to get back into a routine.  So, what's happened?  Let me fill you in a bit...

Hubby was involuntarily unemployed in May/June 2009.  I was involuntarily unemployed August 2009.  We have spent the last year and 1/2 alternately applying for jobs, traveling out of state for job opportunities and freelance work, considering building businesses, and working on our house as money allowed.  I started school, then took a break from school.  In January 2011, we both were offered full-time jobs.  This is exciting, as although we haven't accumulated a ton of debt while we weren't working (which is a big change for us, as we tended to accumulate a lot of debt before we became unemployed), we have been very behind on paying some bills, and they are bills that we really want to pay.  The other reason it is exciting is that they are both (hopefully) long-term jobs, not really subject to layoffs as our last jobs were, and they are close to where we currently live.  The concern here was that for both of us to work full-time, we were going to need to put the kids back in school, where we would prefer to continue homeschooling, and we would have so little time to make our dream life happen.  However, as fate would have it, we were able to both find jobs that will work for our lifestyle.  Each of us currently work full-time, 4 days/week, but only one day overlaps.  The downside is that we have no time off together, except for vacations or other days off that we will schedule.  Another downside is that I work weekends, which leaves little time for extended family visits.  The upside is that we are earning an income comparable to what we were earning a couple of years ago, without having to sacrifice what we want to do, long-term.

We're now making plans to a) rebuilt a financial base, hopefully better than the one we had before; b) buy some things to make some repairs/remodeling to our home which we didn't have the funds to do before; and c) get medical insurance, which means that we'll finally be able to get healthier again.

Some of our current plans include:
1)  Create a garden, for both aesthetic purposes, and frugal/healthy living purposes.  We want to start growing our own vegetables, which should help cut into our food bill, as well as encourage us to eat more fresh veggies.
2)  Finish remodeling our 4th bedroom, as well as do some other projects (extend our front porch, build a back porch, etc.) around the home.  We also need a new roof, a carport/garage, and some outside lighting, which will be hefty investments.  I'm looking into wind energy and solar, but those are further future projects.
3)  Purchase a utility trailer (my parents have graciously loaned us theirs, but we need one of our own)
4)  Purchase a (used) utility 4-wheeler.  We've wanted one for fun anyways, as we enjoy riding ATV's, but this one will primarily be used with a variety of attachments:  dump bed, mower, tiller, etc.
5)  We have been considering raising chickens, but haven't decided for sure on this one.
6)  Fruit trees/bushes.
7)  Purchase a used RV for family vacations on a frugal budget.  This one is also a little further down the road for us, but it's in the longer-short-term plan.  :)



Personally, I'm still trying to determine if I will go back to school.  There are so many things I want to do (the Scanner in me) that I haven't been able to decide what for.  My passion is writing, photography, and traveling, so I'm thinking that I might just start with a Fine Arts AA degree.  But then I realize that I am not even certain that getting my degree is what I want for me.  So I continue to debate.  I'm also still playing around with the idea of becoming a career coach, but not the typical career counselor, more like Barbara Sher, Valerie Young, or Barbara Winter.  More along the lines of helping develop entrepreneurs, and helping people find a way to earn money from their passions. 



It's nice to be able to make some plans again... now if I could just figure out what I want to do!  But, there's time to figure that out, and now there are options that we didn't have before!  :)

Have you figured out how to create your dream life? What are you doing to make your dreams come true?  I'd love to hear about it!