(This is a post for a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

We’re at the mid-point of the year and summer is almost upon us probably past us here in Scotland. Here are a few things that we’re doing now.

Training for a half-marathon Recovering from injury 🤕

As previously mentioned, I have a race coming up in a few months. However, all physical activities are on hold for me after a sweet-looking fall from my son’s skateboard onto the concrete skatepark. I didn’t appreciate how painful bruised/broken ribs could be but I do now. Probably a few weeks out from running again. Frustrating, but at least I looked cool while doing it? 🤷

Here was what we were doing right before I shattered my side:

House renovation planning and designing 🏡

With the garden infrastructure done for the year and the veggies growing, we’ve long since turned our attention to the house renovation project (knocking down some walls in the living space, a new kitchen and bath, and a new porch on the front of the house). I’m researching wood-burning stoves and front porch materials. Between an architect that is clueless and people that don’t respond, it’s been SO HARD to move this thing forward. Planning takes forever, but for good reason I guess.

UK driving test 🚗

It’s finally here! Barring any last-minute disasters, I have my driving test in just over a week (June 22nd). It’s ridiculous that I feel so much pressure over this after not being able to drive by myself for just under a year. I’m gonna be psyching myself up though.

Making friends 🤼

Getting our own group of friends established here in Scotland has not been easy. We’re slowly chipping away at it and have met at least one couple plus kids that we enjoy spending time with that aren’t related by blood. My sole avenue for meeting new people has been via the kids and the dog, just as you might expect (I work fully remote so no chance of meeting local folks that way). Dogs are great for meeting people, the only exception being when your dog is in heat! 😬

Graduation! 🎓

My son Sam is making a big transition this year out of pre-school (aka nursery) and into primary (aka elementary) school. He’s such a different kid from my daughter and it’s so fun to see how he relates to getting older and these big transitions.

Five Figures 🎨

Drawing and painting continue to be a favorite pastime and I’m working on a project to share and develop more ideas on what I can do with it. Participating and reviewing online art classes, tools, and how to sell art online are but a few of the topics I’m considering. Watch fivefigures.art for more.

Looking ahead 🔮

Vivian is going to horse riding lessons, we’ll hopefully resume swimming lessons for the kids (and I’ll will jump into the sea and/or a loch again), I’ll be teaching Sam to ride a bike (karate didn’t end up being very popular), we’ll continue playing a lot of Minecraft Dungeons and Animal Crossing, and speaking of gaming, I’m planning to pick-up and play Control.

Oh and we got our first vaccination dose and are looking forward to number two hopefully coming soon.

Finally, travel was one of the things we wanted to do more of as part of this move to Scotland. A little local adventure this fall is starting to percolate as well as a some dreams of a trip south (France, Italy, Croatia?) in the spring of 2022.

A few memories from about this time in 2018 (when Vivi “graduated” from pre-school) 🕰️

The next time one of these updates comes out I’ll either by able to drive on my own or stuck in the house for another six months. Here’s hoping it’s the former. 🙏🏼