Changes.

I guess there's no concise way to sum up the past two years.

I'm working the same job that I was when I updated in 2015, although I am looking to change that at some point.  I love the work I do and I'm blessed to have the hours that I have, but next year, Kid 1 will start school of some sort.  If I maintain these hours, I won't really get to see him all that much.  Which I don't like.

I really want to teach.  Art.  I'd love to teach art.

One day, I want to have a huge influence over the schools of Arkansas, maybe even the U.S.

The thing about art and design is that they're everywhere.  Everywhere.

Every manmade thing that surrounds you right now - from the clothes you're wearing to the building you're in - has been designed.  Someone has been paid to create the things that we interact with on a daily basis.
How do we know what's inside a food package?  How do we usually navigate to where we're going? Why do we pick certain items over others that do the same thing?

Design.

From basic information relaying to functionality of a product, the design - the art behind the concepts - is soaked through it all.

And I want people to know that just because they can't draw a stick figure, or because they can't quite frame a shot right, that they can still find a place in this huge world of form and function.

I'm excited to do that.

Of course, I have to get through the testing stages and application stages.  As well as the training and interview stages, but hey - I don't plan on leaving that career anytime soon.

Kid 1 is talking a lot.  Which is amazing.  This time last year, he was a couple of months into speech therapy.  He couldn't even say "Mum" or "Dad".
Parents would reassure us that their kids weren't speaking much at that age, either, but would give us the few words that their kids were saying.  Any word at all was a bigger number than Kid 1's vocabulary.
We're at Achieve Therapy in town and it's amazing.  Kid 1's therapist has done an incredible job - and continues to do so.

Kid 2 is babbling and putting a couple of words together.  It's absolutely night and day between the two.  On one hand, I know that you shouldn't compare your kids, but on the other, you just naturally have those milestones set from the first one and see where the second one is up to in comparison.

It's not a bad thing, really.  It's encouraging.  Kid 2 is 18 months old, and is a few letters away from full ABC's.  Spoken.  And he can identify a handful of those by sight.
At the same age, Kid 1 wasn't talking, but he knew sign language and could effectively communicate with that.  Once he started talking, we found out that he could identify and say his alphabet at 2 years old.  We're proud parents, yeah, but with that comes the fact that you won't hear about any of our worries.

And we have plenty.  But that's not the stuff you need to focus on.  Nervous about something to do with behaviour?  Ok.  We can manage that and deal with things however we need to.  But that's not something we want to draw attention to - to ourselves or the child.  ABC's, though?  123's?  Of course you can have a marshmallow for that!  Told us you needed to use the toilet?  That's a new toy car right there!

And so I ramble.
The kids are doing great.
Wifey is doing great.
I'm doing great.

We're in a new house, starting a new chapter of our lives together.  As far as I am able to have access to this blog at the times that I do, I'll try and keep the updates somewhat frequent.

I've got some overhauling to do up in here; I've got some tags to add and move.

A lot of new things that I want to add; including, but not limited to:

Work on the house.
Where I'd like to document little handyman jobs and other DIY things I put my hand to.  And how they work out...

Work on the land.
Our house sits on the site of an old high school that this little town used to have.  Nearly all of it has completely fallen in, burnt down or otherwise been removed.  While unfortunate, the foundations of the main school still remain in what is now the back yard, which is pretty interesting.  Working the land will focus on what we're doing to clear out some brush, find the old building sites, and generally make this little slice of land our own, incorporating as much of what used to be here as possible.

Homesteading.
I've put this as a different category as "Work on the land", since that's much more aesthetic than anything.  This will be focusing on the efforts we're making to be a little more self-sufficient than we are right now.  We're* planning on chickens, goats and maybe a pig, as well as various fruits and vegetables as our time learning about all of this grows.

Hunting and fishing.
One of the aspects of life over here that really appealed to me when we were talking about where we were going to live (country-wise) was that idea of being able to support ourselves off what nature offers.  If we don't have much meat, we will have vegetable-heavy dishes.  But with a steady supply of deer, rabbit, squirrel, and various fish practically on our doorstep, we hope that organic, healthy, happy meat will be a large part of what we eat.
Most of the people we know here hunt.  I love that.  So many people appreciate getting dirty for their food and doing the work themselves.
The thing is; everyone our age has been doing this for pushing 20 years.  So they are well established in their routines and their hunting grounds.  They have friends that they hunt with, and have for years.
Me - at 27 when we moved over - had a keen eye and some relatively decent marksmanship skills, but no experience in the field.  A big problem with people who know exactly what they're doing.

So I 'm learning as I go and I'm going to share that experience here.  I have stated on my Instagram account that I do not intend to post pictures of my kill as it lies in the field, and that I'll only really show what's left at the end of the process, but I'll make no such statement here.  I want to be able to show the process from start to finish because I think that it's incredibly important to acknowledge where our food really comes from, and what goes into the preparation of that food.

So that's what this section will be about.

Career and related work.
Career meaning teaching, related work meaning doing art things and projects.
I've learnt to hide some cards.  As much as I can, I'll document some processes and artwork regarding projects that I'm working on, but it may be light.  I have a few things that I'm working on right now that I'd love to put up here, though.  So that's the focus of this section.  I may have a seperate section for my projects in the future, but I'm trying to be as small as possible with my topics right now.

Family.
Milestones and happy moments from the fam.  Phrases and quotes that my kids create; fresh bread and soup that Wifey makes.  The usual parent/spouse stuff that I'm excited to share.

Assorted interesting things.
I have a few collections that I am building, I have some hobbies that I can only really get into from time to time.  Things that interest me but don't necessarily require a huge section to themselves would be covered in this section.

As a baseline for these things, I will update later this week with where everything is up to at this time.
Photos and everything.

I'm excited to get back into this.  I put a lot of time and effort into it through uni and I really don't want it to just kind of fall apart...

More...

Peace!

*I say "we're"; I have to do some work to win Wifey around to the idea of chickens, since she doesn't see the need.
To be fair, Kid 1 is allergic to egg and I've been told that I have to watch my cholesterol, but I'll use those bad boys as meat chickens.  Maybe sell their eggs for a year or so at market.
Rhode Island Reds are good for meat and produce a fair amount of eggs.  Portsmouth Barred Rocks are fair for meat, but make a lot of eggs.  I'll probably aim for two of each to start with.

But that's for another post.