Change.

It is unbelievable the amount of change that we have experienced in our house over the years. I look back at this blog and it is difficult to remember what it felt like to do all those things.
Right now, we are busy. But it is a totally different sort of busy than the hustle and bustle of the Home Ed life that I blogged about in years gone by.
We have taken on a small shop in a nearby village, for the framing business and are hoping to sell art and crafts there too. It all happened very quickly, as things invariably do in this house! We saw it vacant before christmas, peered in the window and inquired about cost. Then the idea lay dormant during the flurry of activity before and and over christmas.
Ir wasn't until the second week in January that we went again to look, and actually met the owner to have a proper look around. Rob and he talked business, while I chatted to his wife, and then by mid afternoon, we had verbally agreed terms and were awaiting the contract in the post!
It is hard to believe that was only a month ago. We have hardly come up for air since.
We opened on the 1st February and have had several framing jobs and a few purchases in the shop, which we hope shows promise for the months ahead. It is a very busy little village in the good weather, with the oxfordshire canal running through it, and home to a music festival in August.
I have added Faery doors to my repertoire, and have plans for other felt items and more complex dolls. I have looked in to CE marking my current range and I am nearly there with the paperwork. A must for selling my wee folk in the shop. I need to sort out a website as I currently use Facebook and a few pages on the framing website, but if I want to really sell my dolls etc I need to have my own site.  I also have a wedding fayre book in a few weeks and so will be taking my wedding dolls there. So much to do! I could spend all day sewing, but David and Will need organised activity, so I am hoping to have one day at the shop when I can sew in peace!

So, now I have my living room back and with it comes space to just be. Room to craft while the boys play or watch TV, or space to spread out things to make with them.
  I hope to DO stuff this year. I want to get our allotment fully planted this year and the weeds kept down. I want to get back to baking bread and cakes regularly again. I want to get the boys actively involved in the kitchen and garden again this year, and we may even hatch some new hens! I have missed Home Ed, and all the exciting mad projects that came with it when we first started.
Do you remember the honeycomb Jon found in the hedge? We melted it down and made a candle!
We made butter in a jar! Beetroot ice cream!
We hatched Guinea fowl and quail, and ducks too!
We made lap books by the thousand (or so it felt!).
And the wood projects! How many wooden structures made from pallets did we have in our garden?!

I miss all these things.
But then it has been winter hasn't it.
Spring is on its way.