More Joy. More Peace. More Power.

Tag: moving

It’s Not Like That Anymore

I’m moving…again. 

I’m tired of moving. This makes my 25th move in 43 years, that is if you count moving out of my mother’s womb as the first one.

This is the 16th move I’ve made with a kid/kids in 25 years and move #5 in 7 years! 

The worst part of this particular move is this house is perfect for my family, but it’s a rental.  As such, I don’t plan to be there for more than a year or two because the rent is stupid high. 

When I signed the lease, I asked the owner if he’d consider selling after a year. It’s part of his retirement plan so he doesn’t seem willing to part with it, but it won’t hurt to ask again next year.

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”

Nora Roberts

I haven’t been great at meeting my expenses with much lower rent, so this will be a fun little experiment. If I do my job properly, my financial crisis should quickly resolve itself.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

I don’t know what your thoughts are on taking an active role in creating your life or manifesting your desires, but I declared that I wanted to make $100,000 in 2021. 

I was working in an office making $20,000 when I decided it was time dust off my health license and put it to use. I planned to quit the office job by February or March of this year and sell supplemental insurance full time.

My boss expedited the opportunity to make my desired income by switching from the company he’d worked with for 17 years to Family First Life, a few days before Christmas. It put me in a complete tailspin. 

After a couple of weeks of going back and forth about which company I wanted to make this $100,000 goal a reality with, I decided to pursue the opportunity with Family First Life.  (After you’re done reading here, you can click on the link to get a quick overview of Family First Life, if you’re looking for a career, part time or full time. Leave a comment here or message me on Facebook after you’ve watched the video if you want more information.)

I obtained my life license and made my first sale on February 25th!

If I don’t meet my $100,000 goal it will 100% be because I didn’t follow the system. If I put forth enough effort, I can meet and exceed my goal before the end of the year. If I keep doing like I’ve been doing from February 25th up until now, I’ll make a little more than I did last year, but I’ll be 70K shy of my goal.

I’ve kept my feet on the brake and accelerator, which isn’t helping me at all. I’ve decided this is deep rooted in money mindset issues. I’m so used to struggling financially and emotionally, so I’m doing lots of self sabotaging.

I’m finding very valid reasons (aka excuses) to not work diligently–doctor’s appointments…orthodontist appointments for 3 kids…this move…so on and so forth.

This morning I was trying to fall back asleep and my stomach was in knots. I was thinking about how the last 15 years have been some form of drama or turmoil. I’ve lived in chaos for f-i-f-t-e-e-n years. Sheesh kapeesh! That’s 14 too many.

11 of those were trying to sort through marital drama. To stay together or not to stay together? That was the question. (I don’t wish that on my worst enemy…well, maybe…but then I’d wish life lessons learned and lots of happiness on that B-word. I’m sorry, but she’s a real “not nice woman.” She treated my children horribly. It’s okay though because I’d only be wishing her 11 years of turmoil, not a lifetime. If I’m being honest, she’s suffered enough in her 40 something years, which is why she goes around causing others to suffer. If there’s a way for her to heal from her own trauma, the better off she’ll be and the rest of the people she comes in contact with, so the right thing to do is to wish her well from far far away.) 

I digress.

The last four years have been an attempt to stabilize after the separation, learning all the hard lessons one learns after a long term relationship ends, attempting to move forward in a healthy manner and making plenty of mistakes (just like I did during the first separation.)

Random Sidenote

If you haven’t been through a separation or divorce, you really think you know how you’d conduct yourself, but you have no idea how you’d actually respond. Thank God you haven’t had to go through it and be gentle with your friends and family members navigating that trainwreck of a new beginning. It’s Hell on Earth. They need your love and support more than anyone realizes. 

And we’re…

back to this morning. There I was, trying to rest, beating myself up for being in transition for the last 15 years. (That number still blows my mind.) The point of all of this is, much like declaring a monetary goal for 2021, it’s time to get rid of the story that I’m struggling and decide that I’m creating a phenomenal future.

The phrase NOW I LIVE came to mind. NOW I LIVE

I suffered. I did that. NOW I LIVE

I did my best to make it through challenging circumstances for 15 years. NOW I LIVE.

NOW I LIVE. NOW YOU LIVE. NOW WE LIVE.

I was talking with my former boss/soon to be former landlord a couple of weeks ago, about my money mindset hang ups. I stated my concern and he replied, “It’s not like that anymore.” It just rolled off his tongue as if he’d said, “The sun is shining.”

It’s not like that anymore. NOW I LIVE.

Let’s live now. This is our time!

As always, thank you for reading. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have from, “Me too!” to “Could you please write a blog post about ____________.” Drop your thoughts below.

Moving On

A year ago our family of 7 moved out of our 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1,000 square foot home into my brother in law’s spacious old farm house on 5 acres. We’ve been renting the upstairs of the house while we attempted to save a chunk of cash.

It’s been a good year. There was lots of brother bonding time, lots of mini farm life fun with goats, chickens, turkeys, puppies, and a duck, and lots of zombie watching.

amelia and goatsThe year wasn’t all fun and zombies though. We had our share of drama. It’s hard sharing living space with another family. My brother in law was very brave to take on the chaos that is our family.

This past week Jason and I drove by a cute little house with a for rent sign in the window. There is a ridiculous shortage of decent rental property in our tiny town so we called right on the spot, met the homeowner within an hour, put down a deposit, and signed a lease the following day.

We are so excited about the new house! We’re excited about moving on.

Moving on can be sad or scary when it’s a move you didn’t choose for yourself, like losing your job, divorce, illness, or the death of a loved one. It can be really hard to do but it’s still necessary. We can choose to stay in the pain but that won’t be good for us and it won’t be good for anyone around us. So here are 3 of my personal goals for moving on.

1. BE PRESENT
Have fun.
Embrace the challenge.

I’m going to accept this sudden move in all it’s chaotic disorder. I’m going to relax. I’m going to do what I can each day to help it go smoothly, but I’m also going to take time to do things that bring me joy, like write this blog post, the 3rd one in 1 week!  And…make sure we have some Fall Break Fun with our kids.

2. BE THANKFUL

This past week a woman who lives in a house like this

big house

told me and my husband that she was embarrassed to tell her clients where she lives because they live in houses like this.

bigger house

Her housing dilemma helped me realize that the poorest of us spoiled Americans, myself included, can benefit from reality checks every so often so we can remember to be thankful for all we DO have. I’m choosing to be thankful for our little rental house with heat in the winter, cold in the summer, and clean drinking water. For the first time in 15 years, we’re going to have 2 toilets!!! The second potty doesn’t even come with a sink, but who cares?  I’ll be happy anywhere as long as I get to live with these goofballs.

boucher fam 2015

3. GET RID OF THE JUNK
This is an opportunity to get rid of our junk. Even though we got rid of bags and bags of toys, clothes, and kitchen gadgets we never used in our old house, we never fully unpacked here and then we collected even more stuff. We have an opportunity to weed out again, to take what we love and discard the rest.

Besides physical stuff, there’s emotional crap to leave behind as well. My husband and I separated in August of 2012 for 9 months. When we decided to reconcile, we merely coexisted for 1 ½ years. I wrote a couple of posts about it last year when I was exploring my feelings on how to go about reconnecting. This resulted in a “talk” in December about possibly calling it quits for good. At that point we made the decision to recommit. It’s been almost a year of connectedness, but I’ve been holding on to some of the relationship “junk.” I’m making a commitment to let it go and leave it behind. I’m looking forward to a fresh start in our new home where we’ve only ever loved and been committed to each other.

“Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.”

1554446_1203788252971049_6280201826353211397_n

While I’m leaving emotional junk behind, I’m going to leave as much as I can bag up and throw away (which it just occurred to me that we can choose to do this EVERY DAY if we’ll only remember to do so.)

When I leave this house, I’m choosing to see myself as a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, ready to soar. I’m leaving my feelings of insecurity, guilt, and failure in the cocoon. I’m enough. I’m enough every day and so are you! We don’t have to carry old baggage around with us.

That baggage is a story. It may be a story based on actual events but it’s still a story. It may be a story you are telling yourself or it may be a story that someone else has been telling you your whole life about WHO YOU ARE and how you do things, but you can choose to change the story at any point as many times as you want to, EVERY DAY even. You are not stuck! You have the power to write your story and make it beautiful. Don’t give your power away. Don’t let anyone else write your story. If it’s not a happy one, for Pete’s sake, change it. Only you can.

If you want to change your story but don’t know how or where to start, I encourage you to consider What Every Person Can Do.  I’m here to answer questions and support you any way I can!