First, I must say, my how priorities change.

Despite my best intentions to navigate my life, health hiccups are defining this year for me. I’m laid up with a broken ankle for the second out of three weeks of complete bed rest, and another four weeks without being able to walk. I’ve been too out of it to write much beyond the occasional FB update and respond to selective emails.

I was coming online to finally post an update about the beach houses, when I glanced at the statistics: 50,000 pageviews! Even though I haven’t been writing frequently in months, the site is still averaging over 3,000 hits each month. And this post is the 450th that I’ve written since . I was originally inspired by my twin sister’s DINKs Finance Blog (which she recently bought back…), which is now has 1,000,000 hits. So even though my blog stats still feel puny, I feel it’s important for me to celebrate this blogging milestone. 

Regardless of my health circumstances, I haven’t had a will to write prolifically since our family trip to Denmark. I haven’t been motivated to truly define my/our new goals (on top of a becoming beach house owners and a busy pdx family.) I’ve been frustrated at work, and needed to reconsider my career goals lately, and I’ve honestly been fantasizing about not working lately. And no, it’s not because I’m enjoying being laid up, it’s more like a seed that keeps growing inside. When I think about my priorities, it’s really about spending time raising my children/family, creating my personal community, writing, volunteers, and contributing to society in meaningful ways. 

“Not working” really doesn’t categorize how I imagine spending my days. Rather like my current “days off,” I rarely sit down the whole day, and when I do, it’s with a to-do list in hand. 

Yet, fantasizing is very different that committing to, such as my good friend Kim who is blogging around the world.  I ‘ve had a great deal of my identity wound around being a working mom, as has my family. I don’t even know if Hubby could get his head around the idea being the only breadwinner, regardless how relatively close that aspiration might be if we really made it our goal. I’ve been reading The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future . It’s very inspiring to make me just want to go for a variety of ventures, without putting all my eggs in a heap.

So, I’m still in the research mode about what exactly might lure me away from devoting myself as a public servant, but I’m pretty certain that I’m ready to make the transition to entrepreneur. I’m ready to make my own hours, take time to write, be with my family, and take care of my body/soul.  

I know this transition will take a mental leap, but I’m feeling like risking it. For now I don’t have any big reveal about my plans, though it feels refreshing just dream out loud. Regardless of my eventual direction, the only way I’m going to reach the goal of reducing my hours and/or becoming an entrepreneur is to get my financial ducks in a row and write about the actions I take on this blog. With baby steps in mind, I’ll work to get a renewed view of our current finances, while defining what our lifestyle requires financially, as well as how we can living more simply through our values.

Wish me luck…both with my aching ankle and my fledgling dreams! 

Darcy

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Sustainable Family Finances 
The story of a family creating an abundant and sustainable life.