IN COMMON HOURS

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Mr. Thoreau, we will take you up on that challenge.

You see, something changed.  Something big.  A few weeks ago the unthinkable happened.  Tom finished our hardwood floors.  Crazy right?  If you know us, I can actually stop right here, because that speaks volumes.  But I will take a chance that at least one of you reading hasn't been on the "little house" ride with us for the past 10 years.

10 years.  We have been living in the "big house" and renovating "the little house" for 10 years.  Up until recently, it was a slow, even lackadaisical endeavor.  No worries.  No hurries.  Just the occasional ants in our pants that spurred us to take down a wall here.  Add a window there.  Dig a hole here, there and ....over there.  Then the inevitable happened.  We ran out of money.  Two house payments for 10 years will REALLY do a number on you eventually!  So we went into high gear.  And by we...I mean Tom.  Our son actually calls it "daddy's house" and thinks he lives over there.

For the record...I tried.
I lovingly showed up, work pants on, hair in a fashionable bandana, three adorable kids in tow.  I was ready to get my hands dirty.  One spilled can of paint on the hardwood floors and many regrettable words later and it was resolved.  NEVER AGAIN.  Since that day, I have assisted in the "little house move" by measuring and re-measuring every square foot of space.  Acquiring every possible piece of furniture or decor in anticipation of the move.  But mostly....nagging him about when it will be ready.  That is the truth that I am shamed to confess.

And finally, the home stretch!  The hardwood floors are sanded, varnished and ready for furniture move in.  Up to this point, every decision, fear, joy and dream was wrapped up in the finalization of that house.  Once it was complete, we could move in and sell the other house.  We would have some of our financial freedom (as well as our sanity) back.  We could FINALLY talk about something that WASN'T the "little house".  

So when the fumes of the varnish, the icing on our dream house, finally dissipate, do we breathe a sigh of relief and begin to celebrate?  Of course not.  Instead, we take a long car trip and confess every little dream and fear we have to each other.  We talk at length about how we want something new to marvel at....daily!  We want our 3 children to be fearless, wise, and crazy cool people who believe they can do anything they want to do.  We don't want to be financially or emotionally burdened by our "stuff" ever again.  We want to live on the bare necessities of life so that we are LIVING life and not just existing through it.  We don't want to sit in our new little house until age 65 when the pensions kick in.  So, naturally, there is only ONE logical result to a conversation like that, right?

Of course, we are going to take one year and leave it all behind. That's basically what we decided.  We are going to take our family and travel the world. THIS is what we have always wanted.  So....it was decided.  It was time to stop meandering around checking things off of our to-do lists.  It was time to buck up and create the life we had always imagined.  

And now it is out there.  We are weird wacky people.   We are going to buck this system just a little. We just want to know.  WHAT will happen if we reject every "norm" this world doles out and instead, focus every spare ounce of life on doing the ONE thing we want to do most? We figured if we went ahead and told you about it...we couldn't chicken out.  

There is sooooo much work involved in advancing this dream of ours.  We opened this blog as a record to our family, our friends, but mostly for our kids.  I want them to look back at this one day and feel the courage and resolve when it is time for them to pursue the one thing that stirs their soul.  

Is there something that you have always wanted to do?