The Courtney MacDonald

Well… this is it🥹

On Tuesday I got ready for one last lunch with my best friends, fully intending to document it for the Moving Diaries…

And then didn’t take a single photo or video😂

I was too busy actually being there.

And I think I’m glad.

Not every part of this chapter needs to become content. Some of these last moments in Scotland get to just be ours🤍

Yesterday was cleaning, last-minute chaos and FINALLY zipping the suitcases we’ve been talking about for weeks.

And then there were the things that aren’t going into them.

I caught sight of my wedding dress hanging there and it hit me how strange it is deciding which pieces of a life come with you when you move countries… and which ones stay behind.

Because SO much has happened in this chapter.

We got married.
We became parents.
We brought our second baby into the world in our living room.
I became a stay-at-home mum.
I started building something new for myself.
Our boys have known this place as home.

There are things hanging in wardrobes and sitting in boxes that hold entire versions of us.

And today, we leave them here and go find out who we become next🥹

So last night Scott and I poured the champagne.

Because after all the waiting, paperwork, uncertainty, clearing, selling, packing and emotional goodbyes…

we ACTUALLY did it.

Today we get on a plane with our two little boys and start our new life in Qatar🇶🇦

Next stop: Doha🙊✈️🥂

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🇶🇦

And THAT is us officially out🙊

Tonight we’ve moved into my mum’s for our final few nights in Scotland and I think my body has finally gone… absolutely not 😂

One final dump run, squeezed in a very necessary beach-ready appointment (IYKYK) and now I am horizontal with approximately three functioning brain cells.

There’s something very surreal about no longer having our own home to go back to here.

Next time we properly unpack our things… it’ll be in Doha 🤯🇶🇦

THREE DAYS✈️😭🙊

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I didn’t realise how hard it would be to hear our home become more and more… echo-y?

Especially through the eyes and ears of our nearly 4-year-old😭

He doesn’t fully understand the big exciting picture yet.

He just knows his furniture is disappearing, his things are being packed into suitcases and everything that has always felt familiar suddenly looks different.

And watching him struggle with that today absolutely broke my heart.

But tonight, Scott and I were sitting in our completely empty living room when it hit us…

This might be the most significant home we ever have.

Because right there, in the middle of that now-empty room, I gave birth to our youngest son in a birthing pool 🥹

One of the two proudest moments of my entire life happened in this house.

This house has held newborn days. First steps. Christmas mornings. Ordinary Tuesdays. Tantrums. Laughter. Absolute chaos. So much life.

And now it’s empty.

I think there’s a temptation when something exciting is waiting for you to rush towards it.

But I don’t want to wish these last few days away.

I want to be ridiculously excited for the beaches, sunshine, adventures and completely new life waiting for our boys in Doha…

AND let myself grieve this chapter properly.

We can’t wait to go.

And I’m really sad to leave.

Both are so vividly true 🤍

🇶🇦 Doha, we’re nearly ready for you.

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The weird bit between one life and the next 🥹

The furniture is disappearing. The goodbyes are happening. We’re doing things and visiting places knowing it might be the last time for a long time.

And amongst all the excitement, there have definitely been moments of wondering… are we really doing the right thing taking our boys away from everything they know?

But I keep coming back to this:

We’re not just taking them away from something

We’re taking them towards something too🤍

A new home. A new country. New people, experiences, opportunities and memories we haven’t even made yet.

6 DAYS until we swap the Scottish Highlands for Doha🇶🇦🙊

If you’ve ever moved your family abroad, did you have this wobble before you left?

And Doha people, keep saying hi 👋🏼 It makes moving somewhere completely new feel a lot less scary knowing some friendly faces are already waiting at the other end 🥹

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The internet talks about stay-at-home mums like we’re all softly lit trad wives baking banana bread in matching linen sets all day…. IF ONLY 🤣

Meanwhile most of us are surviving on one income, reheating the same cup of coffee 4 times, carrying the entire mental load of the household and running on an overstimulated nervous system.

Motherhood is beautiful. But let’s stop pretending it isn’t also relentless sometimes.

To be honest, I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t just want to ‘get through’ these years. I wanted motherhood to feel more expansive. More spacious. More supported.

That’s why I started building income from my phone during nap times. Tiny pockets of work that now help create more choice, more breathing room, and little luxuries that make life feel softer without sacrificing being present with my kids.

Not because I want to escape motherhood.
Because I want to enjoy it more (and outsource the washing!) 🌿✨

I think more Mums NEED to hear this about network marketing.

People are quick to judge it… and throw terms like ‘pyramid scheme’ around (which by the way, are illegal!) but when you actually look at the structure of most traditional workplaces, they’re literally built like pyramids too!!

At your workplace is there:
A small number of people at the top
Managers in the middle
Employees at the bottom keeping everything running

So the difference between traditional jobs and network marketing?

In most traditional jobs:

🌿your income is capped
🌿your schedule is generally dictated
🌿progression takes years
🌿you’re often building somebody else’s dream (on a 2% annual pay rise if you’re lucky)
🌿capped annual leave and permission required

What shocked me about network marketing was how supportive it actually was, and that every single person who joins has the same opportunity to succeed.

🌿you don’t need business experience
🌿you can earn whatever you want to
🌿you can work whenever/wherever you want
🌿you don’t need loads of money to start (I started with £66!)
🌿you’re surrounded by people actively WANTING to help you succeed because your growth benefits everyone
🌿there’s no targets or pressure (in my business anyway!)

That by no means makes this easy.

It’s still a business, it still takes consistency, people skills, resilience & time.

But for Mums especially? The flexibility and potential can genuinely change lives - it opened a door for me id been searching for for years.

Being able to work around naps, nursery mornings, school runs and family life instead of trying to squeeze family around work… that matters.

And honestly (THANKFULLY) I think more women are waking up to the fact that there might be another way to build income without burning themselves into the ground.

That’s why I started, at 8 weeks postpartum. Because respectfully, I’m not giving the best of years of my life to build someone else’s dream 🌿✨

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