I know this is a nature blog, and you want to read about nature! I think it helps to know how the passion got started and/or how I got here. I promise – nature is on the way. Thanks for being patient!
When my husband and I were at the start of our marriage we were very focused on what we wanted our dreams to be. We are talking achievable life goals, not winning the lottery type dreams. We made a list of 1-year goals, 3-year goals and 5- and 10-year goals. One of our long-term goals was to find a much-needed larger home and we were hoping it would be on an acreage. My husband loves to garden and hunt, plus, we wanted more space for our kids and dogs as well. SO, the search began! Our realtor took us around to different places (within our budgeted total) for years. It always seemed the property was a country setting but had a one-hundred-year-old house on it that would need a lot of work to make it be the perfect fit. One day, we were at our son’s classmates house and commented on how great their place was, it was in town but felt very secluded from all of its “city” surroundings. We asked them how they got so lucky; that we had been looking for something similar but felt we had to go outside of town to do it. I am sure I didn’t believe them at first when they told us that they had written a letter/prayer to God telling him what they were looking for in a home/property. They read that prayer almost daily until it happened for them. I am sure there were more details, that I am forgetting, of this divine intervention that made the story even better.
Their story was so compelling that it really did seem like it was an answer from their prayers. We talked about it later by ourselves and after some time, considered what our specifics to the prayer would be, then, we did the same. I doubt we were as steadfast as they were, I do not remember reading it out as a prayer every day, but I knew that we were very good at writing down specific goals and achieving them (based on our other listed goals). Even just to have narrowed things down would probably help us find what we were looking for.
About a year later, on a Sunday, I think, my mother in-law had brought over a clipping from the paper that showed an open house with only a limestone fireplace in its picture and listed a write-up of a house that was WAY above our price range but we thought…..what the heck, we don’t have anything to do today, let’s go to the open house even though we know we won’t be able to buy it.
HMMMM……Driving down the driveway I said to my husband, “This is a place that I could come home to everyday!” That was even before I saw the inside. We walked the large home (more than twice the size of our in-town home) and fell in love with it even more! It had a little of everything we wanted and the size we needed (in a house and in a property). Again, too much $$. We decided we would talk to the bank and see what we could do. Long story short, it could work, but we had to do some creative banking and it would depend on the sale of our in-town home. We low-balled our offer, and they came back at us once, we went up a bit from our original offer but still not meeting in the middle and they accepted!! It seemed meant to be and still does to this day.
So, that was the long way (home) to tell you that I find my drive from work every day to be my way of getting back to peace, which for me is nature. I relish that drive every day, it is what brings me back to center and calm. It is just enough time to forget about my workday and start focusing on what lies ahead. There are animals to spot, birds to feed, greenery to manicure and photos to take. I only WISH that was all I had to do when I get back to nature each day.
The final curve before I hit my driveway says it all!
Photo credit to Whitney Velvick.
Do you have a goal or dream? Get that written down, don’t forget to add every detail, read it, revamp it, pray about it – you never know….. until you know. I would love to hear your stories of the road that leads you to nature.