Written by Dyami Millarson

Much of my time in 2019 was spent on the renovation of our other house. I had to travel back and forth a lot for this together with my father. It felt like moving house. There was also a lot of excitement, pressure and stress about renovating the house, selling the house and the financial aftermath. The entire year was basically about the house in some way. This was quite nerve-wrecking and exhausting. However, we made it and I learned a lot from it. The whole ordeal – or adventure as I may call it – taught me valuable lessons about Dutch real estate, and it inspired me to read more books about real estate and money. In this way, it was a truly enlightening year. I got a unique glimpse into a world where a lot of money is being made. All the procedures interested me very much. I weighed the opportunities of using the real estate market to benefit the saving of minority languages. I had come to realise that (a part of) the wealth generated by selling homes could be used for saving languages in Europe. This realisation helped me see a link between real estate and language preservation. As time went by, I saw many more links. I realised eventually that real estate is an essential component of language-saving.

Usually in the evenings, I read books about passive income and cashflow. Right before sleep, I would watch prank videos on YouTube, videos about germinating seeds and growing plants, or videos about space and space exploration. I learned a lot about astronomy this year. Listening to videos about space usually helped me sleep soundly, as the huge size of the universe helped me calm my mind. This year I studied many languages: Groningian, German, Saterlandic, Heligolandic, Swedish, Elfdalian, Northern Goesharde Frisian (Langenhorn Frisian) and Hallig Frisian. This made the year quite intense as well. I could have achieved more on the linguistic front, but I had to divide my attention. Furthermore, I did a lot of maintenance work for Schiermonnikoog Frisian and Hindeloopen Frisian: I made sure that I did not lose my previously achieved level of fluency. This year there was also quite a bit of publicity about the de facto international recognition of Terschelling Frisian, Schiermonnikoog Frisian and Hindeloopen Frisian as independent languages.

I spent time on taking care of plants as well this year. I wanted to learn more about plants, because I did not only see opportunities for low-cost food production (and becoming more independent like farmers as opposed to city people), I did also see the potential gains that could be made by growing your own plants. Given the urban environment and limited space of my home in Leeuwarden, what truly interested me was microgreens. I did grow many plants in 2019 that were not microgreens, but that was a kind of experiment. I wanted to get familiar with growing plants (I had never gardened on my own). Gardening helped me reduce my stress levels, and it gave me a better mood. I had hoped to learn much more in 2019 about microgreens, but I had at least laid the groundwork. This autumn and winter I focused less and less on gardening and looking after plants as the weather became less favourable for this, and so my focus shifted from taking care of plants to doing physical training (taking care of myself) and learning more about Lego sets. This year had reminded me of the past when I used to own lots of Lego sets. This inspired me to seek to own Lego again, but to keep it mostly in box this time. This year I have also been very interested in gold and silver, and I made my first investments in gold and silver. All in all, this year has seen a lot of first-time experiences, also with food and places I have been to. Looking back on 2019, it has been a very eventful year for me and it seemed to last forever. 2019 was tough in many ways, so I hope to reap the rewards in 2020. 2019 meant spiritual progress and a new start on many fronts. New beginnings are always hard, but they may be rewarding in the end!