My days are shaping up a little differently year and I’m considering some shifts in what I do with my time

I have taken a break from my part in our home-schooling. As much as I love my kids and as much they tell me they enjoy my teaching, (I think they mean it…) I have become stale with it. Towards the end of last year I hit a wall and began to lose interest. Its not a pretty place to be and knowing myself I knew I needed to jump ship quickly before it started to show and before I ended up fudging and doing a shoddy job.

I am also in a place now where I can more effectively regulate how much time I put into my business.  With my friend B starting up as ‘Mr Retic’ I have been sending him almost all of the work and quotes that come in south of Joondalup and as a result my travel time is down, my  costs are lower and I am enjoying life a lot more because of it. This may change come the winter months and its harder to find work, but then again I may just work less.

Church is continuing at the same pace and together Danelle and I share a 3 day/week leadership role. Its great because we get to do what we are good at and because there is only so much that can be achieved in that time some of the peripheral or non-essential aspects of a church leader’s workload is shed and the priorities are seen more clearly.

So I am feeling like I have some extra time and that’s a nice feeling…

Some of what has been bubbling around in my head as possibilities are:

Writing – I have loved writing and in a conversation with my mum the other day we discussed that ‘what would you do if money was no object?’ question. My answer – I’d write. I have a couple of books in my head, one fiction and one non-fiction.

If money were no object… yeah… I reckon I’d probably give it a really good shake. What holds me back is that I sense and I hear that writing is not easy and I am not sure if I have the discipline to finish what I start. I began writing a novel on our trip around Oz 4 years ago, but that was a bad idea. Who wants to knuckle down on a lap top when you’re on the trip of a lifetime?

So I may write… I am in the ‘counting the cost’ phase at the moment, but I am thinking I’ll take 5 or 6 Monday mornings when I would have been teaching to see if I can get some momentum up. Two houses up from us in our street lives a woman is a published fiction author so I may even wander up and have a chat.

Owner Building – We love where we live, but we could do with an extra living area that is good for bigger groups. Right now our lounge is small and two families is more than it can handle. We do tend to have people over fairly regularly so its been a real consideration.

Probably the smartest and most practical thing to do would be to go up one level and add space up there. I could pay a builder to do it, but I am guessing there wouldn’t be much change out of $150K when all was said and done, or I could DIY as an owner builder and probably save $50K or thereabouts.

That would take some time and energy and would be an invigorating, creative project, but my biggest obstacle is the level of debt we would incur. I realise more and more that the big financial loss we took several back now has left a mark on me and made me both risk averse and skittish at the thought of increasing the mortgage.

Its a really bizarre situation and I can reason in my head that it makes sense, will be a good investment etc, but there is a ‘block’ within that refuses to say ‘yes’ to a project like this. I’d love to do it – I think we could really use it – and then we could possibly rent out the lower section of the house if we did a little remodelling.

So if we land up with a lotto win for $40 or $50K then it might happen but given we don’t enter lotto its a long shot.

Yanchep Mission Project – I mull this one around often and its slowly gathering a bit of energy. We have lived here for 3 years in July and right now there is one church in the area. Just one church to reach out to the Yanchep / Two Rocks area and I know we could do something of value up here. The Anglicans move out shortly to relocate to Alkimos and leave one ‘Foursquare’ mob to hold the fort.

Up to now I haven’t sensed any desire to plant a new venture and I can’t say I have sensed God calling us in that direction, but I am wondering if that is shifting. Its more a ‘wondering’ than a burning desire. There is also a part of me that simply says ‘just do it‘, but I’m conscious that isn’t always the ‘god’ part of me.

This would be a project that would take some creative and physical energy because I don’t imagine it would be in place of leading QBC, but rather alongside. So we would need to work out the hows and whats of it all if it were going to happen. We’d also need to form a team of people committed to the local area and I am not sure if we have those people at the moment.

But I like the thought of it… Anyone want to move to Yanchep and form a team?!

So there’s 3 projects that each require some level of creative, physical and emotional energy. I’m not sure I want to tackle all three this year…  but then again maybe that’s the way to change gears. Hit them all at once and charge like a rhino?…