Life lately

It’s been a while since we’ve had an update here. What originally started out as a travel blog morphed into a place for me to share some thoughts about favourite books and world events. I still love my little corner of the internet though. And I hope that as things begin to open up here more, I can do more frequent updates about places we’ve been and things we’ve seen.

The funny thing is though, Scotland has become more ordinary. Not that the newness has worn off, because I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the beauty of Scotland, but it’s become more ordinary to see ancient castle ruins. Standing stones? Seen ‘em. Walk in the footsteps of Mary, Queen of Scots? Hard not to since she was all over Scotland, if the legend are to be believed.

In the last nearly 6 years, Scotland has become our home. For our kids, it’s all they’ve ever known.

And while we probably can’t stay here forever, although if the option came up, I’d probably jump at it, we’re looking at around one more year here. One year to make memories. One more year of firsts and lasts.

Eventually, we’d love to have a house and put down some roots. Life in a flat doesn’t feel quite permanent and there is a list of things we probably need as our family expands. Dishwasher, bathtub, another bedroom, some more bookshelves…

In the past year and a half, our future plans have changed far more than we ever thought possible. Aaron chose to get an MA from the University of Edinburgh, instead of the planned-on PhD. A world-wide pandemic hit and travel closed up between here and the USA for a bit. We had another baby. We gained a third cat. With the pandemic and the rise on virtual church, we stepped up and began doing more work for the church.

That work has developed into a part time position for Aaron as church worker. His duties will include visitation, overseeing the church remodelling, speaking on Wednesdays and as needed, as well as a host of other minor but not insignificant jobs.

We see our position here in the church as temporary, not permanent. And having a visa that has an end date is also a reminder of our temporary time here.

This feels like a constant theme of our time here in Scotland: One more year. But this time, it’s probably truly just one more year. Probably. :)