A New Focus this Winter, want to come dabble with me?

I love to dabble in different things. I believe that since we only have this one life, why not try anything and everything that our heart and our passion calls us to do? I didn’t always believe this.

I was a pretty shy and introverted kind of kid who liked to read and read about other people doing amazing things (or sometimes very mundane things) but I wasn’t very motivated to try things on my own. But when I was in my later teens, I got the urge to travel. I didn’t really think I could travel anywhere really far, until my mom told me about this job called Au pair. I thought, “ok sounds cool, I like to babysit and I would like to see the world a bit.” So that is what I did. At 18, three months after I graduated high school I got on a plane, by myself, and traveled halfway around the world to Switzerland. I hadn’t been anywhere outside North America (the furthest I’d been anywhere was Disneyland and San Diego with my family) and certainly not by myself.

Was it terrifying? Absolutely!! Did I call home crying and saying I should come home? Certainly! But my mom convinced me to stick it out for awhile (though as a mom now, I realize that must have been a hellish phone call, thanks mom!) and so I did. I stayed there for almost a year, with a wonderful family, and I had an amazing time. I learned so much, not just about different countries and customs, but about myself and how strong and capable I could be.

Like I said, I lived in Switzerland, but I also got the chance to travel to several places and countries. Lots of those travels I went with someone or with a group (Rome and Milan, Tunisia, Interlaken, Zurich) and some I just went by myself (Paris, the UK {though I stayed with a friend and family}, Barcelona). It was when I was in Barcelona, sitting on the sand beside the Mediterranean sea, that I had an epiphany. I can do anything I want and if I don’t succeed or I just don’t like it, it is not the end of the world.

Anyways, all this to explain why I feel the way I do about trying (or dabbling in) new things. Because whether you like it or love it or hate it or succeed or fail, at least you can say that you tried it.

For example, gardening. The wonderful thing about gardening is you can fail at it over and over again, but you get to try again next year with a mostly clean slate. That is definitely one of the things I love most about it. Because honestly a lot of the time I feel like a gardening  failure rookie. The nice thing about living where I do (southern Canada) is we have winter to read and pin and fantasize that next year will be amazing.

Related: In the Garden ~ July 2016

And in winter, you can focus on other things you like to dabble in. I am so looking forward to this winter to do some scrap-booking again! I also love the excuse to curl up in front of the fire with a book or e-book or maybe even an online course or two. This year I plan to do a lot more dabbling and learning about all the different aspects of blogging because blogging is something that I truly love doing.

The other thing I enjoy doing and learning about, is different entrepreneurs and people who make a living online and what they are doing to make a living online while staying at home. Some of them are WAHM’s (work at home moms) some are homesteaders who want to stay close to the homestead, some are people who want to live off grid (but still need to make a living), some travel and work, and some are just people who want to work at home.

So what does this all mean? It means instead of my gardening updates during the winter, I am going to be sharing some stories about different work and learn at home options and opportunities. These will be a mixture of people I know personally, and people or programs that I’ve learned about online.

This Wednesday I will be sharing a program which has a wealth of information about blogging, perfect for reading and learning over the winter. It is only available for download for one week though, at 98% off the cover price.

I hope you enjoy the new content and I welcome any feedback, positive or negative in the comments or on my facebook page.