Making Plans

[Padfoot]

What sort of things do you like to do? Do you have any plans for the future that you want to do?

It was a very real possibility that my daughter and I could have died last November. If it wasn't for the fact that I know some martial arts, it's possible it could have happened. That left me thinking about all the things I haven't done yet and also things I have done that are enjoyable and I don't do enough of.

So I'm going rock climbing at least once every school holidays.
Getting a boat licence and a boat so I can take it out sometimes.
Going snorkling and scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef at least a few times a year.
Learning to abseil.
Taking more road trips around Australia.
Buying a big TV.

The TV thing probably sounds weird, but I was so concerned about kids and screen time that my daughter was 5 before we had a computer and 8 before we had a TV. She's 10 now. If it's not used all the time, it's really not a big deal. I've also allowed her to do how ever many physical activities she wants to do. She currently does swimming, netball, dancing and martial arts. Next year she wants to do athletics, dancing, martial arts, swimming and gymnastics. If she wants to watch TV outside of school work and sports, she can!

Also we're going camping more. Not in camp parks, but out in the sticks in a tent with a swag. We don't do it enough.

So for those of you who have had a life changing event, what plans have you come up with? I have heaps more, like we're moving to paradise, should have gone sooner but was stuck in a rut with work and being a mum, it didn't happen. But now it is :)

 

[ashdawn8287]

I like helping others probably because nobody helped me during my abuse.

I am volunteering in Africa next summer. I plan to work for or start my own nonprofit organization for women and children. Im majoring in sociology and minoring in women and gender studies. I like to do relaxing and peaceful things. I like having bonfires in my backyard. Writing, reading, and staying involved in my community. :)

 

[Deleted member 12723]

My husband of thirty six years died four months ago. I do not know how I have managed so far. I am in the process of rebuilding my life. I take it a day at a time.

You both certainly have very fulfilled lives and I am grateful for your inspiration. It can be done.

I am trying to stay in contact with people and stay busy not to think so much. So far so good. I want to take my family to places. I am making plans for this. I already took them to Disneyland.

I hope to meet more friends and stay as active as I can. Curently I have started a diary to my daughter about how much I love her and remembrences. When I die this will mean a lot to her. I also want to make one for my granddaughters.

Something they can hang onto which will comfort them. I take my granddaughters to my house as much as I can. I also spend the night at my daughters house one time a week to get out of the house.

Eventually I will have to move in with my daughter. I will lose a lot of my stuff, so I am not looking forward to that. But I am fifty eight and she will have to take care of me eventually.

Luckily I have a few friends who are really safe people.

 

[Padfoot]

We lost nearly everything, that was hard to take. The day after it happened, I told my brother to get whatever he wanted from the house, but the back door wasn't fixed for a few days and by then whoever had entered the house (I'm thinking not the same person as who broke in and attacked me and threatened my daughter) had our spare keys to the house. My brother got out the slow cooker, microwave, kettle, DVD stands that I'd just bought and I aksed him to get a few special items of my daughter's and also our photos. Other than that, the only things the removalist got out were the curtains, my bed, my tallboy, my daughter's drawers that were damaged, our fridge, freezer and washing machine. We lost all other belongings and had to start over. The pictures that were on the wall were damaged, all our dinner set and glassware and baking dishes were shattered, all other things from the kitchen were either damaged or stolen, all our clothing, linen, etc all taken, all my daughter's toys other than what the police got out for her on the night and what my brother took the next morning were all taken, all the board games were taken, it was hard to take at that time. I moved in with my mum which is pretty hard too. So looking to the future now, I told the therapist that we leave town in December, I don't want to take any of the emotional stuff with us when we move, she has until then to fix me :D

 

[rightkindofme]

I'm not sure it will work to have a "fix me by ___ date" line, but good luck. :)

I have lots of plans! I don't kill myself because I have lists of things to do that if I don't do it no one will ever do it. It's a strategy. :) I have books to write! I have places to travel! In 2015 I'm taking my two daughters on a four month road trip across the US. In 2020 my family will be traveling around the world for a year working on organic farms.

Long term I want to produce 50% of our food on our property (we have a 5,000 square foot piece of suburban property--this will take engineering). At this point I produce all the tomatoes, blackberries, oranges, grapes, and some herbs we use. I grow smaller amounts of other things. I've only been growing things for five years so I'm happy with the progress. :)

Our house will be paid off before I am 40 years old. The long-term goal is for my husband to cobble together part-time contracting stuff after the house is paid off and we will travel more. Before I die I would like to live for about five years total in other countries.

I have an idea for an incest database. I have never seen an incest study with more than around 1,000 cases. Most are much smaller. That means that all of the incest information is fairly limited in scope. I want to understand incest. I want to be able to walk by a family and say, "Yeah that's one of us." I want to figure out what the markers are so that people in communities can actually help children who are experiencing incest. This is one of my big things before I die. I want incest to be better understood.

I am an English teacher. I will do more of that as I get older. I love working with teenagers. Smart mouth teenagers are my favorite. I like attitude. That attitude will keep you alive in the big bad world so lets work on how to get you an even more extreme attitude--we don't need any more "nice ladies".

I would like to work with the elementary school across the street from my house. I have an in with the PTA. They have a lot of field they aren't using. We have a Hindu temple at the corner. We have a lot of recent immigrants--many of whom know farming! Why doesn't our little neighborhood figure out some community gardening, eh? We have hungry people. I live in a lower-middle-class immigrant neighborhood. We can do something about this.

I'm building a box in front of my house to store books for a lending library. I will periodically restock it with subversive books. :)

I have been reaching out in my local home school community. We just freakin NEED a Free Democratic School. This is what we freaky unschoolers need to do. Child directed learning in a group environment so that each family isn't just sitting at home going, "Derrr, what do we do today?" Perfect. :)

I have a lot more plans. :) Next year I am sending two friends to Hawaii for a week with time share points. It means I won't get to go to Disneyland for a year and a half. I'm not crying or anything. I feel ridiculously privileged and lucky that I get to have the life I have. After being homeless as I kid I married someone who is very financially stable. It's... weird. I share my privileges as often as I can. I have a different friend from New Zealand going to Disneyland and staying on property in our time share this coming January. I feel like the Disney time share has been worth the money and then some. I have made a lot of other peoples' dreams come true with that money.

I'm learning Spanish, French, American Sign Language, and Hindi. At this point I have a working vocabulary in each language of 500-1,000 words. So I'm kind of like a retarded three year old in four languages. :) My goal is to be able to talk gardening/farming in each language. Keep working!

And last but most importantly--I will figure out this freakin IBS and I have an explicit goal of some day being able to go a WHOLE MONTH without diarrhea. It's a goal. :)

Good luck everyone.

 

[Padfoot]

I'm 33 and almost had my house paid off and had renovated the lost it all and sold it for way less than it was worth :(

I live with coeliac disease (my daughter) and dairy allergy (both of us, me lactose, her caseine) so if you want to know anything to do with that feel free to PM :) we've been doing this for 3 years now and have been D-FREE for almost all of that time!

We also grow a lot of our own things and have a community co-op happening, but living in NQ I don't know if I can be of much help to you there with ideas.

 

[rightkindofme]

The plant life in NQ is VERY DIFFERENT. :) I went to Australia when I was 19. The plant life blew me away.

I'm worried about the whole "I make plans and then life happens" bit about my life. I know that I live in earthquake country. I could pay the house off and have it be a pile of rubble the next day. Trying to not have panic attacks about all the bad things that can happen is hard. heh.

I don't think I have coeliac. I am sure I have some form of dairy allergy. I need to go talk to an allergist. I am really worried about giving up wheat and dairy. That's approximately 60% of my diet. Ha.

Which is to say: I've had plans change before. Adaptability is important. :)

 

[Padfoot]

We are free from dairy, barley, oats, wheat and rye, so if you want recipes I'm here :) We are also vegetarian.

 

[Britt.f7]

I don't have big plans or, really, any plans other then to finish raising my children. I have ideas but I am not ready to accomplish them as of yet. More therapy work first.

However, in my late twenties after intense PTSD/sexual abuse therapy I was in a good enough place to find a man who would not hurt me and to not accept it if he did. Someone who was emotionally stable, which I desperately needed. We've been married 19 years now. He is kind and supportive. I would never have been able to do that had I not gone through that therapy.

 

[The Albatross]

At present I am doing a 1001 day challenge, the "Day Zero Project"... which is 101 goals in 1001 days (about 2 3/4's years) which is my longest challenge in a very long time. I did 1 year challenges for about 4 years before attempting this one and may have already decided to repeat it.

I am also doing the 101 steps outlined in Donald Meichenbaum's Roadmap to Resilience: A guide for Military, Trauma Victims and Their Families... though the progress has been slow.

For fun... well that's much more difficult for me. My husband and I started going to a local creek and inner tubing down with a picnic.

I'm mostly all work and still need to relearn how to play.

 

[Padfoot]

Britt, thanks for sharing, it sounds like a wonderful relationship :) I've never been in a long-term relationship, which has nothing to do with what happened, that's only recent.

The "Day Zero Project" sounds interesting, will have to look into that. I've not done this type of things before either, but decided it was time to change that. We love tubing down Mossman Gorge (FNQ) through the trees, it's pretty cold and in one part when it's been flooding it's a bit freaky, you know there are no crocodiles there but it's so deep, so dark, so still, you second guess yourself, but it's all safe. There are no crocodiles in Mossman Gorge. If there was even a slight chance, we wouldn't do it, I'm not that daring :D