Yes, it makes everything so clear and sharp. We experienced extremely cold weather this week, and life was like constant survival game. First it was the water pipe that got frozen because a fuse got off. Then it was heating the house, as most of the heating is done by wood burning ovens. After there was some advance in it, I needed to start my car, that refused from all the co-operation. Finally I found out what was wrong with it (and no, it wasn’t the battery) and managed to get to work only to find out that the lock was frozen and I couldn’t open the door.

All this time I have burned almost one cubic meter of fire wood, used so much electricity to keep water running and always felt cold. Even after that mad heating the temperature in living room stayed around +10 C. Even tho it’s even 50 degrees warmer than outside, it’s still too little to really enjoy living. All of this has kind of cooked me into stepping into a new era of my life.

People who know me, also know that I hate everything in winter. It’s the season of no light, no warmth and lots of extra work for nothing. Yes, skating is fun, and sometimes even skiing too, but most of the times I’m too busy to really enjoy the winter fun. All of this maintenance takes time, in addition to everything else. It takes time to put on clothes, get wood in, add snow around the house, pre-heat the car to get it running… that list is so long.

All of this has made it so clear to me that I need to find out a new solution for my future winters. There’s no reason to work so much for simply keeping this place livable for just one person. After all, there are 5 bedrooms in this house!

For some time I’ve learned about online opportunities for income. My strongest choice is to create online courses as I have so much experience in dogs, farming, gardening and maintenance and lately also about self development. And most of all, I feel so strongly about instructing people. Any knowledge or skill is a waste of time and effort if it’s not shared. Once that person is gone, so is the knowledge.

From that point of view I can say that when you’re facing a stressful situation, you start to think how you can avoid it in the future. What you really want from your life? What is really important for you? Where you want to spend your life and with whom? And after a while you start to think how it’s possible. How can you adjust you life so that you can achieve those new goals of your life? I don’t know about the future very clearly, but I do know for sure that if the year of 2023 was the year of changes, the year 2024 will show where I’m ending up.

With love and frozen toes

Joana