The end of a year... The very best year :)

So it's only 3 hours to go until 2015! Wow! Al and I have been talking so much about next year, we have so many plans and exciting things planned I could burst! But first a look back at our most amazing year ever... In totally random order (sorry about that!)

'the grumpy angel' as he's affectionately known when he sleeps... decorated with the standard
scrapes and bruises of the summer 2014

helping in the office

exploring with daddy

outside all year come rain or shine

watching him experience something new has to be my very favourite this in this world...

Santa at our market stall

dropping daddy at the train, fun for the 5 weeks of the market but the boy and I are sure glad we have him with us every day the rest of the year :)

This years continental market, which was amazing, again. Busy, exhausting, long hours, hard work but we appreciated every second and met so so many awesome new people who are helping to promote a bit of positivity with our products :)

Al and I left Ché Phoenix for the first time in october and stayed at a spa overnight - bliss

one from the summer

happy me :)

the day we met the duke at St.Georges market

wild and free spirited - trying to let him stay that way ;)

spring time family wedding

peeka boo

one from last month :)

summer time strawberries from our local farm stall :)

how our year started - a trip to South Africa, he loved the ocean

possibly the cutest pic of 2014?

just too cool...

my man and me, couldn't be happier than when I'm with him... and thats basically 24-7 ;)

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my beautiful sister (in-law) who i just just couldn't imagine my life without, her and her hubby james have become our best friends, our never failing support and the most incredible auntie and uncle you could ever imagine. This year would have been very different without them...

So thats a random mix of pictures from the last 12 months... 

Looking back I'm really proud of what we have done, Ché Phoenix's 1st birthday was wonderful time for us as parents, we were able to look back and see that for the entire first year of his life we parented exactly how we believed we should, we didn't make any compromises, and that was an incredible feeling, its not often in life you do something exactly how you hope to... We felt so proud :) As he's approaching his second birthday i can say i still feel that pride when i look at him, he is so healthy, so happy and secure in himself, has close bonds with other wonderful people in his life and he is far far to smart, i tell you its incredible! this boy was telling us all the colours at 18 months "blue reea brow yeaow green black paa puuul" lol being his mummy has just been the most incredible privilege this year....

Our business is expanding and still fulfilling us creatively and challenging us to keep learning more, this year we took on a volunteer who ended up being to perfect we're employing her full time come the summer when she finishes uni! 2015 is going to be huge for itty bitty book co and i think we've learned enough this last year and a half to enable that to happen whilst not take over all our time... Delegating and letting go will be key focuses for us i think :)

The last week or so We have been talking more of our dream home, our land and it feels close, almost within reach... tonight we are going to do a online search for land and start putting feelers out... today we lacked about all the awesome alternative housing options people come up with - shipping containers etc and it got us all excited and buzzing... being self employed does cause some problems in the mortgage department but we know where theres a will theres a way and we are psyched to start looking into it properly... who knows, next new year we may be living on our own piece of earth! :)

a few extra points for you guys who've been following my blog for a while...

- i still maintain that its a load of crap how much kids cost lol

- Breast feeding does kick ass for getting back to pre baby shape but it does not work if relied on solely for nearly 2 years *but hey thats what new years resolutions are for lol*

- we still use SFT's sealed pot and have no idea whats in it! will open it next time we're off down south as i know theres euros it it

- my 101 list is very much incomplete but I'm not worried, if i replaced each thing i didn't do with something amazing that i did do it'd be one hell of a fun, varied and exciting list :)

Please excuse the typos and such I'm on my second Jameson and am not gonna proof read tonight, so  signing off for 2014, what a year :) see you all in 2015!!!! Lots of love and wishes for happiness xxxx

Our plan :)

I've been missing writing on this blog, and the connection with people who know my 'journey' I often think about making time for it and sharing my journey again - we have come so far and there IS so much to share. I am just out of the habit of actually writing... Instagram is good (and bad) like that!

He literally takes me by the hand, pulls me down and pushes my face at the flowers! So cute!

So I'm sorry if this post is a bit all over the place but I feel like i just have to go with it and my flow will come back :)

Back to the beginning - our journey to a dream, I feel that Al and I have been really good at keeping our main goals in our head as this last year has progressed. Our marriage first, happiness of all three of us, family time, work time to be sure we are travelling in the direction of our dreams. We are becoming less focused on the 'dream' and more on the 'journey' lately. Maybe having your own family does that? I saw this clearly when a house round the corner from us came up for sale at a very reasonable price, it has only a small garden and so would have been dismissed by us in the past but we ended up chatting for a long time about it, and deciding buying a house like that would be great for us right now. We talked about how it'd be a good investment - its a great time to buy, maybe sell in 3 years or so, how we love the area where we live, how we plan to concentrate on growing our business over the next few years and how if we have another baby in that time we'd need the time we want away from our business to nurture our growing family :) Buying land to build a home this year and start our dream farm is just not the right focus of energy and time for us... Plus how would it even be possible, at this stage of being self employed? We want to keep working hard on Itty Bitty Book Co, it is bringing us so much joy and fulfilment :) We hope to be in a position to step out of the day to day running of the business and have the time to invest in our smallholding when we find it :)

We're happy with that plan, it feels right :) and its nice to write it down too, to share it with you guys :) I know theres a lot of smiley faces in this post but I really am smiling so :)

A rare shot of the 3 of us (all facing the camera!), at a lovely family wedding last Saturday :)

Ché Phoenix and I went on an adventure to find the sheep - I still love the closeness you get using a baby carrier, when he gets tired on our walks i put him in and he cuddles up to me and 'talks' and points at what he wants me to notice, birds, planes, cars... And I kiss his face every 2 seconds until he looses patience with me and then he starts telling me 'no nu' and shaking his head lol I love him so much... More on him in the next post :) 

I met a blogging friend - IN REAL LIFE!!!

Yesterday we went into Belfast for the 'late night art' evening and crossed something off my 101 list by meeting up with Linda from Hey! Homewrecker.

We have been following each others blogs for about a year now so it was so great to meet her in person. If you don't know her blog, it's worth checking out, she does some awesome posts like 13 ways to wear a jumper and she keeps ex-battery hens in her urban backyard, very cool.

Ché Phoenix loves the cute vintage owl she gave him, she made it herself from retro fabric - he thought it was perfect for chewing on - as is everything these days! 

Have any of you met up with a blogging friend in real life? I thought it might be a bit weird but it really wasn't, it was lovely! In a way it was like meeting someone for the first time that you have lots in common with and in another way like meeting an old friend that you have loads to catch up on with! It was lots of fun and I'm sure we'll be seeing Linda more in the future :)

My 101 challenges in 1001 days update

I made my 101 in 1001 list on Friday 9th December 2011 and I plan to complete each one before Friday September 5th 2014. Since I'm about a third of the way through I thought it was a good time for an update and to see how I was getting on. I have completed 33 out of 101 of the challenges/goals I set for myself. Not bad :) Quite a few of them are started or have 'so far so good' status too.

Heres my list as it stands today -

1. Do a pottery course and make some mugs.
2. Make some hair accessories.
3. Make some hand warmers/fingerless mittens. Made some with my new sewing machine! Post here
4. Sew some cute cushion covers.
5. Sew an entire outfit for myself. *nearly finished a skirt...
6. Stop buying cards - make them for all occasions. *So far, so good Post here
7. Make some new candles from my huge pile of wax leftovers.
8. Sell my handmade jewellery. Did on etsy but have moved onto new ventures now 
9. Create the wedding album thats in my head!
10. Do another furniture restoration project.
11. Learn to crochet or just knit better (like actual things not just scarves).
12. Learn how to develop some of my own photographs.
13. Try some mixed media art.
14. Make an off ground hen house. Post here, here, here, and link below 
15. Get some hens to live there. Post here
16. Make a top bar bee hive.
17. Get some bees to live there.
18. Get a milking goat :)
19. Build 2 more movable raised beds for spring 2012. Post here
20. Grow flowers for our home.
21. Not buy any lettuce for the whole year of 2012 - grow all our own.
22. Learn how to grow herbs well, so they don't die...
23. Make the most out of our growing space - even if we're still renting - its not an excuse. Post here
24. Prepare the space behind garage for planting next year. Post here
25. Make good use of the wild garlic season.
26. Make elderflower cordial.
27. Bake more healthy snacks. *So far, so good
28. Make good use of the black berry season.
29. Learn more about foraging and put into practice. *got a small guide book
30. Grow more sprouts and mung beans.
31. Learn to make good curries from scratch.
32. Stop adding salt to everything... *So far, so good
33. Get into the habit of drinking more water.
34. Bake bread/muffins/pancakes/soda every week so we don't run out.
35. Find out where I can buy ingredients in bulk.
36. Make pasta by hand.
37. Make pesto by hand (that I like the taste of).
38. Visit the Navan centre. 
39. Climb Cruach Phádraig (Croagh Patrick) on the west coast of Ireland.
40. Climb one of County Kerry's mountains.
41. Climb all of the Mourne Mountains.
42. Visit Lough Eske castle again (thats where Alan proposed).
43. Visit my friend Amy in Edinburgh and Dad and step mum in Glasgow. Post here & here & here
44. Visit Al's best friend in Plymouth and my wee sister and step dad in Barnstaple.
45. Stay in Derry for a couple of days, over Halloween.
46. Explore our country more - day trips, touristy things. Post here
47. Go for hikes every month. Post here here
48. Go camping in Galway like we did on our first ever holiday - camp in the same spot.
49. Spend christmas in South Africa visiting my family with our 1st baby.
50. Visit my Nana and all my Australian family and best friend with our 1st baby. 
51. Go on a romantic honeymoon to Paris.  Post here 
52. Climb the Eiffel Tower. Post here
53. Eat a chocolate croissant and drink hot chocolate at Parisian cafe. Done 10X over!
54. Get and use (for everything) a cash back credit card. 
55. Secure a mortgage that will enable us to pay it off in 10 years.
56. Buy dream land/home.
57. Reach target amount of savings for deposit on dream home/land.
58. Keep sticking to our budget and reaching our savings goal every month. *So far, so good
59. Keep on top of our savings account, check the best rates every few months. *So far, so good
60. Reach a salary I'm happy with at work.
61. Not stress out about money - ever. *So far, so good
62. Buy/freecycle/make a rocking chair. 
63. Make an inspiring creative studio where I can sew and make jewellery or cards. Post here
64. Buy/freecycle a dishwasher.
65. Buy/freecycle a slow cooker.
66. Make a rustic table and revamp chairs.
67. Buy/freecycle a sewing machine. Post here
68. Buy a solar panel and battery.
69. Add to my reference book collection - smallholding, DIY, keeping animals, gardening. Books I bought Al for christmas
70. Add to my recipe book collection - river cottage needed! Christmas present from my lovely hubby!
71. Help Al set up a dark room and focus more on his photography. *chosen a space and started clearing it out...
72. Do a car boot sale and ebay sale to get rid of the stuff in the garage.
73. Keep house tidier - at least a bit!
74. See an irish dancing show.
75. Make more of an effort to keep in touch with friends and family, visiting those we can. *So far, so good
76. Find a place to rent a bog so we can dig and turn our own turf (if we install our wood burner)
77. Have a real christmas tree in 2012. Post here
78. Celebrate thanksgiving by hosting a party.
79. Fly a kite.
80. Volunteer again or get involved with more fundraising (like children in need last year).
81. Do some fire dancing with my poi.
82. Make a 10 year time capsule before we have a baby.
83. Kiss in the rain. Outside our apartment in Paris :)
84. Kiss in the snow. 
85. Host a candle lit party (maybe for earth hour?).
86. Reach 101 followers on A journey to a dream. Thank you to all my followers, its wonderful to have you along for the journey, but a special mention to follower number 101 Under the milkwood tree which happens to know my family personally and has a beautiful south african blog about life and gardening, I highly recommend a look. 
87. Meet at least 1 of my blogging friends.
88. Start a family :) Post here
89. Find our dream land/home.
90. Play more board games. *So far, so good
91. Vote. *Got on the electoral register!
92. Learn basic Irish (fluency will take time!).
93. Get my Irish passport (have to be married for 3 yrs).
94. Make a snow angel for Dani from ecofootprintsa! Post here
95. Make new friends and meet more like minded people. *So far, so good
96. Build a massive sandcastle on the beach.
97. Go to the theatre.
98. Tie a note to a balloon and let it go.
99. Say 'I love you' to my husband at least 3 times a day, every day. *So far, so good
100. Celebrate an obsucre holiday.
101. Have a proper picnic with a hamper and a blanket.

I really love the 101 in 1001 idea and we all need a little push sometimes to do the things we want to do so putting it up on your blog not only means you'll not forget the little things but means you can get encouragement and/or cyber kicks up the butt from other bloggers to keep you on track LOL 

I love reading other peoples 101's too so if your inspired to write one or have one partly done, leave your link in the comments section!

Living the dream

'The dream' as I put it back in 2011 when I started this blog - 

"To stay as happy as we are now, to have the time we want together (and with our own family in the future) and to live sustainably on our own land. That's it really, the simple, good life."

Note the first 2 points, they are the most important to us and thats what this post is about :) 

We are definitely succeeding with the 1st one, in fact we are even happier, we laugh, hug, play, smile and joke around just as much. The 2nd point is always a balancing act, we want to work, to earn money for the 3rd point and yet we place huge importance on the time we have together since for us that is directly related to how happy we are - point 1! So both of us working full time for someone else, commuting and just being away from each other for so much of the week never quite sat right with us. We're soppy, I know :) 

Now with Ché Phoenix here too the time we spend together, as a family, is even more crucial.  

I have been working towards being, at least partly, self employed for a while with The Itty Bitty Book Company. That's going really well since being off on maternity and I'm loving spreading the positivity with them! I'm working on my time management, and getting better at it :) I'm finding little ways to be mum and business woman at the same time, like walking down to the post box with Ché Phoenix. That's my daily exercise and book dispatched in one :)

People said to us you can't do anything the 1st year of having a baby, it's crazy, you'll be exhausted, you'll have no time for yourself etc ect. We decided to ignore them! If your whole world is going to be turned up-side-down and re-arranged anyway then as you're finding your flow and settling into this wonderful new world with your baby, why not put it back together the way you want to? We knew it was up to us to decide how this first year was going to be and we decided we are going to make it amazing! It's our year of new beginnings in so many ways.

I'm not the only one making changes this year, Al has decided to start his own business too! He'll be doing freelance graphic design from home :) We are so excited about this :) This is such a special time for us, for our family and we'll never get it back so it's super important that we are happy and have no regrets about how we spent this time in years to come. Al is such a loving and dedicated father and husband and spending 11 hours a day (including commute) 5 days a week away from his son and wife during this time just wasn't acceptable to him. He's always been a courageous person who isn't scared of taking a risk if the reward will be worth it. I admire him so much for taking this step. I know he'll make working from home a success and the bonding time he'll have with Ché Phoenix will be priceless too :)

"Never separate the life you live, from the words you speak" - Paul Wellstone

My 101 challenges 4 months in...

Well so far I think I have done quite well with my 101 challenges in 1001 days. Some things have been harder than others... I did the list to encourage myself to live the life I want now, not put things off and when I pop back to read it every now and then it does give me a little nudge "don't forget to keep that up" or "must make time for that this month". Its a great thing to have going on and I recommend it to anyone :)

Keeping up the baking. Number 34

Number 21 "buy no lettuce in 2012 - grow it all ourselves" has been the hardest LOL this weekend is the first time we've had lettuce this year! Lettuce has been really really missed in our house but we replaced it with sprouts and survived, we will not go without again - I've planted so much!

Mung, chickpea and alfalfa sprouts

Number 99 "say 'I love you' to my husband at least 3 times a day, every day" has been the easiest I'm crazy about him and he knows it :)

So far I have crossed off 15 and am on track with 16 others, not too bad but having a good look through again has made me see how many amazing things I have planned, and since I have some extra time off these next 2 weeks I am really gonna focus on crossing some more off!

I know lots of you are doing the 101 challenge, hows yours coming on? Anyone near the end of theirs? Anyone need a cyber kick up the butt? Just kidding... or am I? haha!

Starting the house hunt!

We recently got mortgage approved (YAY) so now we are at the exciting stage of actually looking with a view to buy - not just window shopping! It's got us talking about all the options and how much we'd be willing to compromise on different aspects of our home and land. I think it's really important to know all your boundaries before viewing so your not pulled out of your comfort zone by the excitement of 'BUT THIS COULD BE OURS!!!!!' like we might if we viewed something like this!

Photo credit

These are the main points we want to keep in mind while house hunting;

1. Money - the most important thing is that our new home does not force us into a set lifestyle for the next 10 years (i.e both have to work full time to cover bills), we must have the financial flexibility to live the lifestyle we choose. THAT MEANS BUY CHEAP!
2. Space - enough space to have everything for our dream
3. Location - close to where we live now (County Antrim, Ireland) not too close to main roads or roads likely to be developed in the future

There is also another option we have been considering the last few weeks and its starting to make more sense. That is, if the houses we are looking at don't fit our first point then we will consider an in between house, a house we can call home for the next 5 years where we can live the lifestyle we crave but maybe not have enough land for pigs, orchard, fire wood growing and goats etc Like this one we saw down the road (price too high and not quite rural enough though...)

Front garden is right on a road - not too busy though...

Really big back garden, could have hens poly tunnels and grow
everything we want, maybe even keep a dairy goat?

There is always options around if you don't have the land yourself but want these things. For example we could rent agricultural land - thats very cheap and could be really handy if it was your neighbour!

An added bonus of buying smaller/cheaper is that as the market starts to pick up again over the next few years and you do lots of work to your little cheap home you'll find it's worth going up and up! Leaving you with a house worth a lot more than what you paid come time to sell up and move on. Of course you might well fall in love with your house and never want to leave! Then you've saved yourself a huge amount of money, got your mortgage payed off quicker and everyones happy! 

What do you think? Would any of you recommend and 'in between' house? The idea is really growing on us and it would mean we could buy sooner... 

Easy & simple handmade birthday present!

Yesterday was my friend Patrice's birthday, we already went out for a meal last weekend but I wanted to give her a wee gift too. This month our budget has to be super tight if we're gonna stay on track with our savings because in Feb the car insurance, 2 new tyres and a few other one-off bills all came out at once, don't you hate that? At least they're done for the year now.

Anyway one of my 101's is to not buy any cards, make them all from scratch and so far this year I have :) This is the wee gift and card I made, all from bits and bobs I already had in my newly transformed craft studio.

Do you guys give handmade gifts? (I already know frugal down under and the frugal graduate are wonderful gift makers!) I used to make gifts just if I was broke LOL but now I see the value in thoughtful gifts that have taken time and energy to make (or choose if your not creative yourself). These gifts are the ones I enjoy receiving far more than expensive ones and I don't think I'm alone so from now on I will be trying to make ALL the gifts I give :)  

How I transformed my craft room with a £0.00 budget!

If you didn't see my last post click here so you can see the before pictures first :)

This was my very first embroidery attempt, remember?

 Sewing area :) All my needles, ribbons, buttons, zips, threads etc easily accessible and mostly visible which is a huge plus for me, I don't really like things shut away in drawers and cupboards, I like the organised chaos look as apposed to the minimalist look! The desk we've had for years, infact Al has had it since he was studying, way before I met him, its a nice size, really sturdy and has lots of pull out shelves, handy for hiding away half finished bits and pieces till you want them again!

These cool suitcases hold all my fabric, mostly old clothes that I plan to alter or use the material off - I've never bought new material, much prefer to re-use. The red one my sister gave me, the blue one is from Al's parents attic, must be 30 years old at least and I just love the character it brings to the room.

Over the other side is my card making desk made out of crates and floorboards we found in the garage. The chair Cara is sitting on was given to us by Al's dad who got it out of an old chapel in the 50's! I sanded it down and painted it with a distressed feel last year, I have 2 of them and a coffee table the same style, they're one of the projects I'm most proud of :)

We made the shelves out of floorboards and paper bricks (we're not connecting our wood burner till Autumn so they'll not be missed!) My 'paper corner' has already inspired me, this was my doodle while I had tea and soaked up my new room :)  

This shelf was a lucky leftover from the wood we bought for our bedroom shelves last weekend (another post soon) I didn't have anything left to make another desk area but this works perfectly for now. I have everything out and I can just move my sewing machine and use that area for jewellery making if I need to.

 I love wood so much, maybe because my dad is a talented carpenter (amongst other things) and the smell reminds me of being a child or maybe because its just so natural and beautiful, or both!

So there you have it! A £0.00 craft room transformation! And no.63 on my 101 list crossed off "Make an inspiring creative studio where I can sew and make jewellery or cards." I'm really happy with how it turned out, as I use it more I'm sure it'll develop into even more of an inspirational and creative space.

It never crossed my mind to go out and buy new shelves, a desk, containers and all the other little things the room needed, I've reached a place personally, where I just automatically look around me and see what I can do with what I have. I get a real kick out of it and the more I do it the better I get at it. It's just so much more satisfying to know that I created that for free, I used my imagination and our money is in the bank where it should be, waiting to buy our dream home :) Cara's waiting too :)