Me and Balance, we’re best buddies lately. We hang out daily and I tell her all my goals and hopes and dreams. She helps me work towards them and maybe even reach some of them. Only, slowly. Like, really slowly.
I’m not a patient person. I like instant-gratification. I like right-now. And I like attention, praise, people looking up to me, all that good stuff.
I’ve told you all before how that’s not working, and how it’s making me crazy. Have you seen this quote around?
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
Sometimes it looks like the world and everyone else is just a-harvest reaping left, right, and centre. And evidence of it pops up on my screen about once every 30 seconds. Or more. Fancy rooms, great ideas, happy kids, delicious dinners.
I’ve been trying to be a harvest reaper too! Why can’t I reap myself a dang harvest now and again? In my head, I’m the queen of all harvest reapers. I don’t have a clue how this all comes to be, but I see it, clear as when I actually wear my glasses and somehow manage to keep them smudge-free.
The thing is, I just keep naturally going about planting seeds lately. Because it makes sense. And it’s the only things that calms my fear of neglecting things. Whatever “things” may be. I just keep going back to it. And at the end of the day, I look around and feel like I’ve done nothing, because I have nothing to show for it. Yet. But really, I’ve actually done a little bit of everything. It’s the only way to tend to the crops of the different areas of my life and grow them all slowly and robustly. I see these people with great broccoli gardens and I think “Hey, why doesn’t my broccoli look like that?” And they do have great broccoli, but maybe that’s all they have. Maybe that’s the one thing they really really want and that’s all they grow. So it’s darn pretty. But the thing is, I want more than just broccoli. I want lettuce and tomatoes and maybe even some honey dew melon in there too. It just takes more time. And balance.
Just in case there’s any confusion with the garden metaphor, on account of the fact that I actually do have pretty nice garden, yeah. It’s a metaphor. Because of that quote up there. You’re following me with this crazy rant, right?
So I don’t get to show off as much as I’d like to lately. I don’t have the big ta-da moments. On this here blog, or in real life, actually. But I do have lots of real life, and a whole lot of seed-planting. That makes for a better story anyway, don’t ya think?
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.