new year, new challenges...and, well.

We've got some goals for this year.

I want to read twelve classics - one a month.  I'm still finalising a list, but I've started with The Pilgrim's Progress.

Lb wants to be able to read by the end of the year.  He can read already, he just doesn't know it.

We are also going to make sure that this year, with the exception of shoes and underwear, is the year that we don't buy anything new for ourselves.  It's not going well, as Mr Wah needed a new pair of work trousers, and he succumbed to TK Maxx...but it is like a jumble sale, and it is much cheaper so it kind of counts?

Then there is the big change.  The one that has been bubbling along behind the scenes for a while.  I hesitate to even start talking about this one as it is still not official and still might not happened, but if I want to start blogging again, I have too otherwise it will just seem strange.

...and I'm babbling again.

Well.  You know how we moved here in October 2012, and that is a lovely big old house.  Well it is.  It is lovely.  It is big.  It is old.  And with those things come rather hefty heating bills.  We've installed wood burners and fitted secondary glazing where we can, but it hasn't made the huge difference we had hoped for.  We rattled through last Winter, which saw snow on the ground in mid March, and we layered up and kept as warm as we could.

We had a beautiful Summer, and did lots of work to the outside of the house - fixing a leaky roof, sanding layers of paint off of windows and door frames, weeding and planting up the gardening, and felling a huge old tree that was precariously close to the front of the house.

Then we stayed with friends at the end of the Summer who lived completely off grid, and something very odd happened.  It just kind of flicked a switch in me, and, upon talking to Mr Wah I discovered it did very much the same to him.

So we talked.

And talked.

And talked to the kids.

To the point that we were going to sleep talking about it, waking up talking about it and...I think you can get the idea.

We didn't share these conversations with any one.  Not even the friends we stayed with.  Then Mr Wah and I started to look at land websites.

Then we found the perfect piece of land for Mr Wah's hastily sketched but much talked about off grid cabin.  The kids loved it, we all loved it.

We made and offer and we didn't get it.

We saw another plot, and we didn't get that either.

We came home - by now it was approaching Winter again, and we half heartedly looked around but there was nothing that fitted our dreams and budget.

We got brave and before Christmas, we talked to a couple of friends - including those we stayed with - and told them of our possible, maybe-one-day plan.

Then I found some land, and it was the most unsuitable bit of land - it was too big, it was too expensive and we could not afford it.

So we talked - pie in the sky sort of stuff - and day dreamt some more.  Now here is where I fully disclose my hippyness.  I talked about it out loud to the universe.  I asked the universe to show me where we were supposed to be.

Then we did some working out and realised, with quite a bit of sacrifice and some creative financial planning, we might, just might be able to make an offer on that land.

Which is where we are now.  We are about to make an offer.  I hesitated to start blogging our journey at this point, because it would be tidier and neater to start blogging once we had the title deeds to somewhere in our hands, but I want to start at the beginning, and this is it.  We might not get it, we might be outbid at the last minute (yes, that can happen in Scotland, despite what people say to the contrary.)

It means that at some point we will be moving again in the future, back to woods and fields and streams, but still near to where we currently are.  Still in Scotland.  I'm still not sure how I feel about the physical move, but I envisage a slower, creeping move rather than the all or nothingness of the last one.  We will have to build the eco house (ugh...I really hate that term :: Eco house, but this is what it will be, so unless anyone has a better term??)

Once the tiny house is built (it will be tiny because we don't have much in the way of funds) we will put what we need into storage and sell the beautiful big house we are in.  We've given ourselves two years from land purchase date to get everything done....but it took Mr Wah three years to tile a kitchen, so we shall see.  The plan is that once the big house is sold, we will have funds to add an extension on to tiny house.  Then we will be debt free and laughing.  I am aware there is an alternative reality which sees us in debt up to our eyeballs and crying...but I'm spending crazy amounts of energy on the former possibility and ignoring the terrifying alternative.

Here is the thing, good people:

You have one life in the body you are in, and there are many, many things I want to do.  There are probably many, many things you want to do.

So do them.