Dreaming...................

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.'  Goethe

Things are unsettled around these parts.  There are a few facts that are adding to the unsettledness (is that a word?) namely:

• Debt.  While not adding to it, we are not doing a very good job of reducing it.
• Being fed up with being part of the Rat Race (still makes you a rat).
• Wanting to live a simpler life.
• Being fed up with living in 'rabbit hutch road'

Now I realise that we are healthy and we LOVE each other, and we are truly lucky in those things, and I don't want to sound moaney, I am just writing to myself here, but this life is here for the taking.  I believe we only get one shot at it, so better make it a good one. Hence I find myself needing to do something about the above in order to make myself (and therefore 'us' I hope, feel better about things).

I confess I have never really had a proper life plan.  I know people who have five and ten year plans, tbh this always seemed a bit anal to me, I preferred to see what happened as I trotted through life. However, as I have gotten older, I see that there isn't really that much time just to trot through, if I want to make changes I need to plan for them in order for them to happen. Simple really. It just took me a (long) time to realise this.

For the past 12 or so years, since I went back into education, I have tried to make decisions by asking myself if I will regret doing something or not having done it when I get to the age of 70.  Whilst it may seem trite to some it has caused me to make some of the biggest decisions of my life (hello baby no. 5), and I have absolutely no regrets so far (well, I could have lost a few pounds more but hey, no one is perfect).  While this works really well I need to be a bit more focussed. There are a few things I can recognise here:

• While we are not fostering (another post) we can't pay off any debt - fact
• I am on the way to fixing the above problem
• which will mean that hopefully by 2012 we can start to repay debt
• which will mean that we can have a plan to do so - working out how long it will take
• which will mean that we will be nearer to living our dream

I have determined that we will not increase the debt for anything, especially Christmas. Therefore, each of the children will have a very small present this year.  I have told the older ones who are fine about this. I think or at least I hope that this may lead us back to the true meaning of the Season, rather than the commercial crap that usually takes over.  I don't think that our friends and families will mind contributing to food etc if they are coming to our home and if they love us they will understand.

We would like to need much less money to live on.  This will probably mean selling our house and down sizing.  I don't think this will be a problem for me, however for those of us less inclined to visualise things working out as we hope, this may pose a few problems.  I am a glass half full kind of person, haven't always been but life events (one specificly sad one 21 years ago) changed my perspective on life as I knew it and with regard to optimism I haven't looked back since. Others however are not so blessed and may be trickier to win over.

I will keep plodding on