New Year…New Everything!

This post isn’t really budget-related. It’s been such a long time since my last post. It was sometime in June of 2022 when I last worked on my blog.

We’ve had some major life changes in the last six months. After losing both my parents and a step-parent in 2021 and 2022, Grampy and I made some big decisions.

Big Change Number One: We’ve moved!

We inherited my mother’s home. We feel incredibly blessed and are so looking forward to making many happy memories here. We’ve done a lot of painting, which is my favorite low-cost way to make just about anything pretty.

I’m hoping to share some of my DIY adventures here on the blog. Making things pretty on a budget is what I love to do. We are updating my mom’s little house and plan to live here until we are old and gray. Well, we’re already old and gray, so I guess until we are older and grayer. 🙂

This home is a much better fit for our family of five (Grampy, myself, our younger daughter and her two children). We are happy to be in the same town as our older daughter and her family. Both our girls are happy that their kids will be growing up together.

I love living in town. Everything is just about five minutes away, instead of a half hour. We have great neighbors. And having a smaller property to care for will be nice as well. There are so many things we are excited about. I’ll share a photo of the area I’m planning to turn into a garden when the snow melts. It’s going to be lots of work, but I have a vision! 🙂

Big Change Number Two: Grampy has retired!

Yep! Grampy is officially retired. It hasn’t been super-relaxing for him just yet, as we’ve recently gotten a ton of snow and he’s been busy shoveling and trying out his new roof rake. He’s definitely getting his exercise. He’s originally from Colorado and he’s glad to be back, even with the snow. He has many plans for his retirement.

We’re still working on fixing up the new house, and we still have things to move from our old house. He has a wonderful little workshop that he’s setting up as his “man cave.” We live near a park with a great trail system, so he plans to take the dogs out for walks. He will have more time to pursue his hobbies of woodworking and photography. And of course, the grandkids will keep him busy.

Big Change Number Three: I’m opening a Home Daycare Business!

I think I mentioned when I first started this blog over two years ago that my dream was to have a home where I could operate a small family childcare. Our new home is going to work well for this. I’m a lot like my dad in that I would rather work for myself than work for someone else. I’m going through the process of obtaining a childcare license and will open by April at the latest. I currently have my youngest grandson every day. One of the reasons we decided to move here was so that I could take care of him so that my daughter could go back to work. Soon he will have friends during the day.

The Adventure Begins!

It’s been a hard couple of years for our family. We are looking forward to this new beginning. I’m nervous, because moving and retiring and starting a business is a lot of new stuff all at once, but we know this is the right thing for us to do. I hope you’ll follow along as I share the big adventure of us settling into our new life.