If we never would have moved, we would have been comfortable. We would have had all the little day-to-day, mundane details of life worked out. When to cut the grass, how often to vacuum the floors, where to fold the laundry. I would have made about 30 different amazing back-to-school crafts by now. Kennedy’s closet would be organized.
Life in the city was settled. We were happy enough, or at least not un-happy. But we’d done all we could there and that was as far as it was going for us. There was an unmistakeable pull out in the wide-open spaces of the country for us. So now we rebuild all those little details of our life in our new, old house. It’s a shaky way of living for now. All those little insignificant tidbits of day-to-day living build up to mean a whole lot when there’s no more same ‘ol way of doing things to fall back on. I have to remind myself: We have to rebuild all these underlying things that make life feel stable, but also, we get to rebuild all these things, just how we like them. In the rightest right of places for us. Maybe it will be more than we ever dreamed, and maybe real life will step in.
We already know this life will be prettier, more impressive, but can it also be bigger, more authentic? Can it be fuller with family dropping in, fresh baked pumpkin pies, and can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-bed drive to make it happen? Is all this for real?
I guess that’s exactly what we’re here to find out.
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.