What’s Down the Road?

by Mel

25 comments

1 Amanda { 11.24.11 at 8:14 am }

Wow! First comment.

My 5 year plan has changed so many times I’m afraid to write it down. I would hope, that in 5 years, my home has at least 1 more occupant (if not 2), if IF and miscarriages get dealt with fast. If children aren’t in our future, then I hope we can add a few really cool stamps to our passport and be the couple that travels the world and makes all our friends bogged (I mean blessed) with kids green with envy!

2 loribeth { 11.24.11 at 8:34 am }

If all goes well, & our bank account holds up, I will hopefully be recently retired — NOT getting up at 5 a.m., NOT working & commuting for 11 hours a day, NOT stressing out over all the year-end projects at the office — finally able to do my shopping at leisure, maybe baking cookies & fruitcake again, enjoying all the fun the holiday has to offer — perhaps looking forward to a sunspot getaway after Christmas, enrolling in some classes, finally tackling some of those projects I just haven’t had time for (genealogy, organizing my photos, etc.). Do I sound like I’m looking forward to it?? (Early retirement would definitely NOT be in the cards if we had had a family, with diapers & college educations to pay for. I consider it one of the perqs/consolations of childess/free living.)

3 loribeth { 11.24.11 at 8:34 am }

P.S. Love the photo. I’ve often thought of incorporating a photo like that into my blog header (“The Road Less Travelled”).

4 Her Royal Fabulousness { 11.24.11 at 8:55 am }

In five years I hope with all my might that we have at least one child. It feels selfish and sick but secretly I hope for 2. I hope I’m pursuing some actual income from writing. I hope we have bought a home. Who knew my dreams would be so pedestrian? My punk-rock-17-year-old-self is shocked. 🙂

5 stephanie { 11.24.11 at 11:00 am }

Oh, let’s see. By 2016? I expect that I will be finished with my dissertation (2012). I will turn 40 in 2015. I want to take a massive vacation with my family the summer before I turn 40. I am not sure where or what I want to do. I want to be settled in where we are going to live for this next chapter of my life by the summer of 2014. We’ve been nomadically moving from apartment to apartment for the last 12 years and I just want to be settled someplace once and for all. Penguin will start school in the fall of 2014, Owl will start kindergarten the fall of 2016. My husband will hopefully have had a medical procedure that cures him of his afib. It will not be a dull 5 years and for this I am supremely, wonderfully thankful.

6 HereWeGoAJen { 11.24.11 at 11:06 am }

In five years, I hope to own the minivan and to need the minivan. And for something totally trivial, I also hope we have new floors because I am sick of our gross looking floors today.

7 mrs spock { 11.24.11 at 11:34 am }

My secret fantasy life always revolves around more children. I too hope to own the minivan and need the minivan. We hope to have 75% down on the custom round house with geothermal heat in 5 years. I hope I’ll have found an agent and gotten the still unfinished sci-fi novel published.

8 Patience { 11.24.11 at 12:29 pm }

I am so very hopeful that we will finally have our family of at least 3. It’s been 10 years of waiting, and I just can’t bare the thought of another 5. If that really isn’t in the cards, I pray that I am able to find peace and like another commenter, have several new stamps in our passport!

9 Lori Lavender Luz { 11.24.11 at 1:44 pm }

Freaky to think about.

My kids will be in middle school and high school.

MY KIDS WILL BE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL!

I will be living more and more mindfully. I may be teaching or healing in some way. And writing. Doing yoga, drinking wine, traveling to interesting places with my husband and kids.

I really love my life now. So I’m just gonna add in travel and older/wiser kids 🙂

But I don’t plan to age.

10 It Is What It Is { 11.24.11 at 2:35 pm }

It hurts my heart to think that in 5 years my son will be 9! 9 years old! Time, please slow down.

Nevertheless, in 5 years, I hope to be a mother to two, with family building far behind me and family being what my life is all about. We’ll be fully out of diapers (you know, for #2 who has yet to reveal how s/he will come to our family) and the worst of the terrible twos will be behind us. We will have had the chance to ‘do it all again’, the raising of an infant and our son will be a proud older brother.

Having completed our family will also allow me to be back to work in 5 years, too.

That is my dream anyway.

11 Bron { 11.24.11 at 4:36 pm }

I love this post! It really got me thinking. In 5 year’s time I would like to be at home looking after my children and planning weddings! I also hope to be in the beginning stages of planning our ‘around Australia for a year’ camping trip with our kids. Ps: I’m new to blogging, but love your blog. I’ve added it to my blog list. x

12 Mali { 11.24.11 at 5:15 pm }

In five years time, I’m hoping I’ll be earning decent money (currently un/under-employed) doing something I love, remaining in good health (though a few kilos lighter), and continuing to travel the world (yes, Amanda, we are THAT couple with no kids – and it’s great).

13 VA Blondie { 11.24.11 at 7:33 pm }

I love this! My “plan” has also changed so many times, so I am coming at this as a wish list.

I would like our family of three to be a family of four. (We see the RE on January!)
I would like to move closer to Hubby’s legal practice.
I would love to be able to go back to school, or maybe work full time.
I want to live in a large house, with more than an acre of land.
I would like to run a half marathon.

14 a { 11.24.11 at 8:46 pm }

I’m not a fan of 5 year plans. I don’t know where I’ll be – I hope pretty much in the same position. Financially stable, at home with my family. Anything else that comes along…I hope we’ll have the strength to deal with it.

15 Hope { 11.24.11 at 8:51 pm }

In my ideal world, in 5 years, I would have 3 kids and no free time to blog. Like Mrs. Spock said, I’d own, and need, a minivan by then.

*But*, recognizing that nothing in family building has gone as planned so far, I hope I have at least one child in the next five years.

16 Baby Smiling In Back Seat { 11.24.11 at 9:05 pm }

Career out of flux. Living in the city and house where we want to be permanently. Otherwise, everything just the same, but 5 years older.

17 Tigger { 11.24.11 at 9:18 pm }

In 5 years, hopefully: On the fridge will be Colson’s kindergarten craft picture (assuming they still do that). I will have graduated and have job that pays the bills. Husband will still be at his current job, where they love him. Finances will be less strained. We will be happier without the strain. (Not that we aren’t happy now, but who doesn’t have room for more happiness in their lives?) Our friends will still be around to have “Friends Thanksgiving” every Saturday after Thanksgiving, and hopefully they will have added more geekspawn to the geekpool. 😀

18 Orodemniades { 11.24.11 at 9:31 pm }

Oo, a five year plan…in five years:

1) the Chieftain will hopefully have a three year old little brother or sister

2) I will be published

3) my house will be clean (now that is a dream!)

4) my mom will still be a happy grandma and in good health

5) we will all be happy and in good health

6) my chronic pain will have gone away

7)all the people I love will still be around

19 Shannon { 11.24.11 at 11:39 pm }

In 5 years…

– my son will be done with MRIs and be declared truly cancer free!
– my son will have a little brother or sister in the house
– I’ll have lost all the baby weight and physically fit again
– I’ll be in a real house in the suburbs instead of a condo in the city that has lost half it’s value in the past 3 years

….this is the first time I’ve ever thought this far in advance and didn’t think as my first dream for myself “I’ll be married.” And right now I really don’t care if I am or not. Crazy.

20 Geochick { 11.25.11 at 12:36 am }

I’m horrible about long-range planning. Short-range, I’m awesome, but I’ve always hated that interview question, “Where do you see your career in five years?”

So…here’s my stab in the dark for five years from now.

I hope that in five years we will be a family of four. That’s currently the goal anyway. I also hope that DH will find a better job or at least figure out how to make this one work for him. As far as my career? Still don’t know where I’ll be in five years. Especially now that I’m getting an up close look at what it takes to deal with the next obvious step up. Managing people? Ugh.

21 Stephanie { 11.25.11 at 8:05 am }

I just hope that I’ll have a baby in the next five years. It almost seems too much to hope that I’ll have two kids by then…but that’s what I’d really like.

I hope that my marriage is as strong and supportive as it is today. I’d also like to have a young adult novel published. And be more connected to my community. (My husband’s in the military, so we just moved here. I’m still feeling a bit untethered.)

22 m. { 11.25.11 at 10:30 am }

Super, super simple wish – In five years, I hope we will have one (dare to dream) two little children to share our lives with. That’s it. That’s the list.

23 K { 11.25.11 at 10:42 am }

Oh I love this! Especially because my husband and I just put in an offer for a house and it was accepted!

So let’s see. In 5 years, I want to:

–Be in our cozy little house.
–Be decorating for the holidays in our lovely living room.
–Have a nursery in the second bedroom for our baby and a kid’s bedroom in the attic for the older child.
–Have successfully managed to get through this current rough patch in my career and be confident about what I do.

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving 🙂

24 Sarah { 11.28.11 at 12:54 am }

I have to admit that I don’t really have a 5 year plan. Years ago I found that with each passing “5 years” and I was not where I set out to be I would get more and more depressed.

what I finally learned was that, I didn’t need to be upset about not reaching my goal because it means that was not what was meant for me . I almost missed out on some of the greatest adventure of my life because it would have gone against my 5 year plan.

instead I prefer to just go with the flow

25 Bea { 12.22.11 at 6:32 am }

I love doing this and then throwing it straight out the window. So here goes…

Home base renovated and mortgage re-controlled.
One more international move… Somewhere.
Pass this particular exam I’m thinking of sitting and start phd.
Support mr Bea through masters degree.
Set up non-profit program in Cambodia.
And… Homeschool. That should keep me busy, no?

Bea