Tag Archives: moving

A New Direction

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Until recently, I was a stay at home mum. I spent most of my time taking care of the house, picking the kids up from school, cooking, and doing the odd bits of knitting and sewing. I was getting a bit restless and was bored with being in the house all day. I don’t drive, and there’s nowhere very exciting to go near to my house by yourself, so I felt a bit stuck in the same old pattern. This year, that all changed.

My other half, also known as his lordship, decided to leave his job and become self employed. He is a talented web developer and has always wanted to work for himself. He was also feeling stuck in a pattern in his job. A window of opportunity opened to him and we thought it was worth taking.

For the first few days after he finished his job, we had fun being at home together and not being restricted by my lack of driving ability or his old job’s office hours. It was lovely having some time to ourselves and being free to go out for lunch together or not start work until after lunch. Sure enough though, we settled down into a new pattern and he actually got some work done.

We started looking into some options for his business, including becoming a limited company. This was always something he had wanted to move towards, but we didn’t know much about it and we weren’t sure it would be cost effective, at least to begin with. We were referred to a friendly accounting firm who gave us some great advice and suggested that we become a limited company together. This was the first time I had considered the possibility of becoming involved in his business, but it made sense for us.

As work started to pile up, it became clear that I could be more than just a company director who made the ocassional cup of tea. I took on the bookkeeping and administration, but his lordship was starting to struggle with the amount of incoming communication he was receiving. It was interrupting his workday to a point where he was hardly able to get any work done. I was glad to find something I could help with, and I began to take over dealing with incoming emails.

The first couple of weeks working together at home went well. I was enjoying having something new to do, and it was great to be able to choose our own hours and come and go as we pleased. As the novelty wore off, we began to feel a bit restricted in other ways. We were working from a couple of desks in the corner of our bedroom below a beam in a sloping ceiling, as this was the only space in the house they would fit in together. We banged our heads several times and the view of a wall was less than inspiring. Also, being upstairs while working left the kids downstairs by themselves, which was clearly not going to work on a long term basis.

We started wondering about the possibility of getting an office to work from, and trying to figure out how we could make that work with the school run. We also worried about whether it would be affordable as we are still a very new company and we’re just finding our feet. As it happened, another opportunity opened up to us out of the blue.

Whilst visiting one of our clients to discuss a new project, we mentioned that we were considering looking for office space, and by pure coincidence this client had an office unit that was about to be vacated. We had a look around and it seemed to be just the kind of place we could see ourselves fitting in nicely. We would also be able to take on more work from that client which would help to offset the increased outgoings we would have. We went for it.

I’m writing this post from my new desk in our new office, in a quiet moment between answering emails and bookkeeping. We’ll be leaving early to pick the kids up from school until our nanny starts in a couple of weeks time. In the last six months, I’ve gone from being a bored housewife to a company director. It’s been fun, exciting and unexpected. I’m looking forward to the future. Who knows where I might be a few more months down the line?

If you’d like to find out more about our company, you can visit the website at http://qweb.co.uk.

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Settling in

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We have spent the last few weeks unpacking, getting settled into our new house and making it a home.

Our new kitchen is amazing. There is so much more usable space than our old had, which makes it a lot nicer to cook in. The electric oven produces crispier food than my old gas one. I haven’t got used to this hob though, while it is gas like my old one, it seems to be a lot hotter. This is useful for boiling water but not so good for simmering soups. My last attempt resulted in a thick, stodgy paste. Yum.

The living room in our new house is smaller and cosier than the old one. Although there is no spare space, there is still enough room for everything we use it for (namely sitting on the sofa watching tv or surfing the internet) so I don’t mind that it’s smaller. I do miss watching the birds in the garden from the sofa, our new living room is at the front of the house.

I love our new bedroom, which is in the attic. We have a gigantic bed which didn’t really fit in our old house, and now we have space to walk around it, and spare space to keep all my sewing and craft supplies.

The girls are enjoying their new arrangement, they have a bedroom between them and what we call the family room, a playroom/living room of their own. They seem to prefer it to the old house where my eldest had her own room and the younger two shared.

The garden here is amazing, there is so much space and potential. I can’t wait until spring when I can get out there and make use of it. It’s a shame we moved just as it started to get cold and dark.

We’re feeling settled and at home now, and we’re almost organised. I think we’re going to enjoy living here.

Moving house

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We had a bit of upheaval this week. Our landlord suggested we take a look around his other house last weekend and see if we would prefer to move into it. We had a nosey round on Saturday and took very little time to think about it. It was on the next street over, and had a huge garden. We decided to move in immediately.

Monday was the first day we moved some of our things over. I spent the day sorting and organising some of my stuff, and when Ric got home from work we rushed some dinner, loaded the car and dumped everything in the new living room. By the time we were done it was 10pm so we put the kids to bed and sat down to relax.

On Tuesday I unpacked what we had left at the new house and organised the next load to move across. We went through the same process and once again finished at 10pm. It was pretty exhausting and I ached from moving furniture when I was already tired.

By Wednesday we had help on hand in the form of my wonderful parents in law. They helped us move the next load in, and we took more than we expected, having 2 cars to fill this time. We were done by 7.30pm and had a late but more relaxed dinner.

On Friday, we moved almost everything that was left, and spent the night in the new house for the first time, sleeping on mattresses on the floor and struggling to find anything among the piles of bags and half dismantled furniture. Saturday we were exhausted, but managed to get the last few bits of furniture over and organise a little bit of space between the piles of stuff we had yet to unpack.

Sunday was a lot more organised, we got our furniture built and most of our belongings were either located and put in the right room or moved out of the way to be sorted later on. A home was beginning to emerge out of the chaos.

Last night we had real beds to sleep in, a usable kitchen, and visible floor space in most of the rooms. The girls’ bedroom is unpacked and looks really nice. My bedroom is recognisable as a bedroom, although it is still a bit disorganised. There is still a lot to do, but considered it’s only been 9 days since we first looked around the house, we’re doing amazingly well.

I would like to thank my parents in law for all their help, my mum for keeping me sane from the other end of the phone, and my landlord for all the odd jobs he’s done for us, you’ve all helped to make this move so much easier than it would have been otherwise.

A Fresh Start

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After a very adventurous move from Toronto, Canada back to the UK before christmas, we’re finally settling into our new home and our new life.

My fiancé and I lived in Toronto for 3 years with my three daughters, but he didn’t qualify for residency so we had to return to the UK.  We were having money trouble before we moved, and we depended on credit cards to get us back home.  We stayed with our wonderful family while we figured out what we were doing and got back on our feet.

Once we had decided to stay in England, our luck changed for the better and everything started to fall into place.  Ric got a great job that he is enjoying as much as he will ever enjoy a job.  We found a really nice house to rent with three bedrooms and a garden, a huge improvement on the two bedroomed apartment we had in Canada.

We have moved in, unpacked (almost), and are starting to feel settled.  There is a lot to get used to living in a small town in the countryside after having lived in a huge city, and as with most things there are pros and cons.  I miss the 24 hour grocery store just around the corner, and the subway across the street which connected us to the whole city.  Of course I miss the people we left behind, especially my sister who spent more time at my place than her own.

The pros balance things out nicely though, I absolutely love having a garden where I can grow things, the girls can play, and I can have pets.  I like the peace and quiet, and the darkness at night.  It’s nice to be able to see the stars.  I’m even enjoying having a car, without which we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere but Morrisons.

It’s great to be back online, and I am looking forward to sharing my adventures :)