Baby Boy, you saw the ocean for the first time this week, heard the music of the tide pulling on and off the shore. You felt the briny air on your soft baby skin and watched the evening sun melt into the waves. I hope Darling, that your heart and soul and mind are as deep and wide and wild as the deep blue sea.
“All good things are wild and free.” –Henry David Thoreau
I’ve been on a bit of a rampage lately, throwing everything I can get my hands on right out the front door. It’s the perfect storm of spring cleaning, packing to move, and that funny nesting thing pregnant women do. Darren has been keeping a close eye on everything he loves as I’m likely to throw it all away when he isn’t looking.
I’ve felt so weighed down by stuff lately. It seems my soul has gotten a bit tangled in all the material things we think we need and I’m trying to cut the cords and run free. Our house is packed full, busting at the seams and neither of us ever seem to know where anything is.
I’ve been sorting through closets and under beds and emptying drawers and pulling stuff out of every black hole in the house trying to get things packed and organized for our big move at the end of the summer. There are piles everywhere—piles to give away, throw away, and pack away for another day. And with every bag and box I pack I wonder why do we own all this stuff anyway? And heaven help us, why do we keep buying more?
“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.” -Thoreau
For everything I throw out, more baby stuff rolls in and I’m always trying to find a balance between preparing the things we need for a little one and not letting myself get carried away by the truly endless number of things that can be bought for a baby. I keep reminding myself that women have brought children into this world and successfully raised them since time began—without most of the baby stuff that is now considered indispensable. I have a list I run through in my head when I’m trying to decide what to buy and what to do without—does he have what he needs to be fed, diapered, clothed, and put to sleep? If yes then what else is truly essential apart from my own ability to love and care for him outside of material things? It’s a question I’ve had to weigh over and over again as I’ve struggled with wanting more and more stuff.
I don’t think you ever fully realize how much you already have until you’re faced with the task of packing and moving every shred of it to another place. I keep finding stuff I forgot I even owned, clothes I haven’t worn in years—buried beneath all the new ones I’ve gathered but certainly didn’t need. For every forgotten thing I’ve pulled out of the closet abyss I’ve had to ask myself—if you haven’t used this item in all this time, do you really need it? Are material things worth gathering and holding onto if they are crowding our lives and weighing us down? It feels like a waste to throw or give something away that I once spent money on and yet is it not a bigger waste to crowd my life and soul with the weight of unnecessary material things?
“I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ” -Thoreau
This packing and purging is good for me because it shows me how much I have and how much more I don’t need. It’s easy with moving into a new, bigger home to think that every room needs to be filled with more new stuff. But packing up piece by piece what we already have and thinking through the example we will soon be to our son has made me realize how careful I need to be in the way I deal with money and possessions. Like most anything, money and possessions aren’t bad by themselves—but they can be if they are allowed to become a hindrance rather than a help. I have to ask myself if the possessions I own rather possess and own me. Do these things serve me or am I a servant to them?
“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, ‘I will simply be.’’’ -Thoreau
In just about three weeks we’ll have owned our shabby little 1860 farmhouse for a year. It’s hard to believe a whole year has come and gone and here we are still working away on this project. We still have a long way to go but it’s nice looking back and reminding ourselves of how far we’ve come over the last year.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
{Where we started}
{Where we are}
It took us most of last summer just to get all the permits and approvals we needed to move forward with our plans. Then it took a month or so to empty the place of trash and get it ready for construction. We also had to take down the garage/addition area because it was sitting directly on the ground without a foundation and was caving in.
{Darren sketching out plans over the summer}
You know you have some serious work to do when your house needs to be cleaned with a wheelbarrow and shovel.
By last September we were finally ready to really start building and my brother and his family drove all the way from Louisiana to help us raise the roof. We wanted a full second story and more windows so that’s why we decided to do something crazy like raise the roof :]
After that we had a foundation dug and poured for the addition and the remaining fall and early winter months were spent framing up the interior of the house and adding the garage and new construction.
Progress was slow over the winter because we had an especially cold, snowy season. But now that the temperatures are starting to improve and the snow is almost gone, we’ve been able to get rolling again. Over the last few weeks the guys have put in most of the windows, added the front porch, and roofed the porch and addition so the outside is “all buttoned up” as Darren says :]
Next up is plumbing—happening this week hopefully. Then we have the siding, electrical, insulation, sheet rock, flooring, installation of the bathrooms and kitchen, and lots of lots of painting. Oh and the garage floor needs to be poured, and we’ll need trim and doors, and the back porch needs to be added, and there’s work needing to be done in the basement, and the chimney needs to be built, and…and…and…and there’s still a lot of work to do :] But at least it feels good to be moving again and seeing the place taking shape.
Right now I’m most excited about getting the siding on because it will look so much nicer and more complete when it has some clothes on :] Some grass wouldn’t hurt either but I think we’re going to have to deal with the muddy mess until next year when all the work is done and we’re able to reseed the yard. Patience, patience.
I’m still hoping against hope that we’re able to move in by August or September but we’ll just have to wait and see how things come along. Also, what the heck were we thinking building a house and a baby at the same time? That takes a special kind of crazy. I’m not looking forward to packing and moving with a newborn but c’est la vie…besides, these pictures I took around the yard last year always remind me why it will all be worth it in the end 8D
Some guy with a backhoe tried very hard to take this bush down on me. He kept saying the yard could be landscaped so much better without it but I crossed my arms and stood in the yard while he wheeled around tearing down every other green thing he could find and made sure he didn’t touch this bush. It’s not wise to mess with a pregnant lady even if you’re the one driving the backhoe ;]
I’m not tackling a garden this summer with everything else going on but I can’t wait until next spring when we are living here and I’m able to walk through my own yard and garden growing flowers and vegetables.
Relaxing under my favorite tree
Welcome home. This will be our view.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
We pack our things and run away to wide open spaces. We zip along from Massachusetts to Vermont. The people grow fewer and the trees multiply in number and variety and I always think it looks like God poured a packet of mixed seeds along the landscape and now trees and wild flowers pop up in colorful abundance.
We set up camp and sleep outdoors and it feels good to be close to the earth.
We sit under the trees and the sky and breathe in the outside air. The campfire smoke swirls around in our lungs and we are alive in this wild, outdoor space.
We gather around campfires and relax in the warmth of the mesmerizing flames.
We swim in the cold mountain water and tip toe along the river bed filling our pockets with river glass.
We ride bikes and stretch our legs and souls—shaking off the dust of life lived away from the woods.
I caught these sneaky little ninjas poking around my tent…
…And I couldn’t seem to shake the little savages….but as it turns out—I really, really love them.
God kissed the sky and it blushed pink at his touch.
And the sun set on our outdoor adventure for one more year and we all fell asleep under the starlit sky that seemed poked through with the light from another world.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Thoreau, Walden Pond
Outside Air 