To-do...

Last weekend we decided to write a to-do list for each room and stick them up so that we have a visual reference of what needs to be done to get each room ready.  Hopefully it will inspire us to check off small items whenever we have a spare five minutes (although there aren't many spare with three young children around). It was quite satisfying to get all the lists up, but not many items have been crossed off this week!  However we are heading out into the garden tomorrow, rain, hail or shine, and going to collect some of those autumn leaves, so that'll be rewarding!

Next steps...

All of a sudden our dream is becoming a reality and our to-do list has extended to a mile long!  We are not just selling the house, but practically everything in it too!  Plus the cars (to buy a 4WD), and we are yet to buy our caravan!  We need to de-clutter the house, photograph and advertise everything, ...& then it is a waiting game until it sells!  Oh, and then there are all the autumn leaves to collect from our garden!  We regrettably didn't get on top of them before winter hit and so now we have a garden of WET autumn leaves to pick up!
We met a bunch of real estate agents and all of a sudden things feel very real!  It is exciting yet daunting!  Tony has a little over a week left of work, and then it really will be real!  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

When not talking house and the practicalities of getting ready to leave, we distract ourselves with places to visit and pinning red markers on our google map!  It is nice not to have a set itinerary.  Hopefully we'll get to see as many of those points as possible, but no matter what it will be so liberating to just travel a little way at a time, and to extend our stay at the places we like and move on from the ones we don't!  Then there is just finding work!  I hope we will gain some farming experience in addition to learning how to self-build a house too.

I forgot to mention it, but that was a major reason for us finally deciding to go on this trip too - that we want to build our own house (ourselves) when we get back!  With the view of living a more sustainable, environmentally friendly, chemical free & simple life.  So that helped us make the decision to sell now.  It is exciting to have goals to work towards & to look towards a bright, comfortable, happy future that is debt free (hopefully, or almost at least!)

First steps to our dream!

We have dreamt of traveling, or should I say I have dreamt of traveling with our little family, since we were a family of 3, then 4 and now 5.  After many, many conversations, hubby came to realise that this would be a fantastic experience too!  So, what was stopping us?  Well, a stable income/job, schooling for the kids & our mortgage.  So we decided it wasn't an option right now...  Until we found out that Tony's work was closing.

After our eldest, Amelia (now 5.5yo), began prep, we found that she was completely exhausted and her mood and whole life was being affected by her exhaustion.  Even attending a maximum of 4 days a week (I don't think she managed a full week once the whole term), it was still too much for her.  Then I happened to be speaking to a fellow parent who suggested part homeschooling and keeping her home one day a week for the rest of the year, to give her time to adjust.  That was the beginning of our homeschooling journey.

We had already briefly spoken about distance education for when we eventually got to go on our trip, and after reading up about homeschooling in Victoria, and many, many discussions about whether it would work for her and for us, we decided to trial part-homeschooling.  The plan was for her to attend specialist subjects at school and for us to teach literacy and maths at home.  But that was short lived.  We entered school holidays with the plan to begin part homeschooling at the start of second term, but we saw such an improvement in her behaviour over the holidays, that we decided to keep her home for another couple of weeks, during which time we noticed she was more relaxed and happy; the children were playing better together; and we were all happier for it!  So we decided to keep her home and homeschool fulltime.

All of a sudden we only had one hurdle left to jump!  So, what to do with the house?  We tossed back and forth on this topic over and over again!  We have grown up in a society where we were exposed to numerous typical drama tv shows and romantic movies where girl meets boy, they get married, buy a car, then a house & have a family of their own.  So our conundrum was: do we follow society's norm & stay put, paying off our mortgage and providing a stable home for the children ...or turn everything upside down?  We are yet to do anything in order, so why start now ...right?  After countless discussions we decided selling up would mean travelling stress & debt free.

So with that last decision our trip suddenly became a reality!