When we last spoke 18 months ago, my life was inexplicably turning upside down. My beautiful and amazing son very suddenly started to have social communication and health issues. I’ve struggled to get through some days, weeks, months. However, here we are in 2023, older, a little wiser, and on the right track. In 2022, my spouse, MxT2FI, and I decided to extend our house to avoid the dreaded house-move. While I’m glad we did, our new room is light and airy, and we spend most of our waking home-spent existence in it, the build itself was horrendous. If you renovate houses for profit, hats off to you, you are a saint. Every two steps forward came with one step back. What’s that? The project is finished, but the roof is a 13-degree pitch, not the legally mandated 15? Of course it is. Our little family of three has travelled far and wide in the last 18 months. Spending a whole month in the gorgeous French countryside in August. Inspired by Brad and Jonathan over at ChooseFI, we cancelled all of our side hustles for the month and focused on each other. MxT2FI and I both felt like it was a mini-retirement, and even though we have always had summer holidays as teachers, the ability to completely switch off from our jobs has always eluded us. Cycling through rural Aisne, my son on the back of my bike singing nursery rhymes, is etched into my memory forever. My job and side hustles are fairly consistent with 18 months ago, I became a mentor and coach for trainee teachers, both in voluntary and paid capacities. I’ve enjoyed these two roles across the past two academic years, but in the past few months my extremely busy existence has become a strain on my life, and so I will stop the voluntary role at the end of June. My tutoring has varied across two years, the highest hours per week was 16, but I’m now at a more reasonable 8. MxT2FI and I have been talking about both of us lowering our weekly out-of-work commitments to spend more time together.
2023 travel plans have been made, so far we’ve booked Copenhagen and a longer trip to Germany. I’m travelling to Geneva later in the year with school, and that might end up being extended into a family trip too. For now, you will find me, once again, sat at my desk, dreaming my way through each day.
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AuthorI'm a mother, wife, teacher and tutor in NW England on the road to Financial Independence. Archives
March 2023
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