A New Year

It has been two years since I've been to this space. A lot has happened in two years. Last we talked, our entire family had just relocated to Massachusetts, frantically packing and organizing and setting off on a new adventure. And what a journey it has been. We moved, sight unseen, into a new house, simultaneously becoming renters and renting our own home in Oregon at the same time. We learned that moving a Newfoundland across the country is really (really!) complicated.  We welcomed our sweet baby Ames to the family (having two boys is the best!). And (if I'm being completely honest), really, really struggled to adapt to our new, East coast life.

The whirlwind of something new has such a way of carrying us, doesn't it? All the build-up to the move was so exciting, such a flurry. But then we got here, and we got here in November. I still remember the first night- none of our belongings had arrived yet, there had just been what I now know was an epic October snowstorm (but which, at the time, I assumed was normal for the East coast), and Zach, Tate and I sat in a cold, dark, empty living room with no food, blankets or beds. And a kind neighbor, knowing we had just moved in, brought us over a rotisserie chicken and some mashed potatoes. And because we didn't have any silverware, we made do- using our credit cards to scoop little bites of mashed potatoes into Tate's mouth, like feeding a hungry little bird.

This so reflects how I feel this entire transition has been. Moments of incredibly uncertainty and loneliness and darkness, momentarily illuminated by moments of kindness.

Only now am I beginning to feel like myself again, which is why I felt like now was a good time to get back to this again. To sharing our lives through O Chickadee, and to finding beautiful things, and looking around at my life through the lens of appreciation and gratefulness that I think I lost for the past few years as I struggled to just tread water. I don't know that I was capable of that before now- I felt too sad for all we had lost, all I naively thought we had left behind. But now, it feels like I'm coming out of a fog, and able to realize that here, I had what I needed most all along. My boys.

drawn by Tate, December 2014. In his own words: "this is our whole family at the beach, and Daddy is helping me dig a hole in the sand."

So stay tuned! I know that 2015 is going to be an incredible year for the Holmboe's.

P.S. I wrote this post 3 days ago. Three days! And I haven't been able to push "publish". It feels so real then, doesn't it?

Doesn't the Audrey Hepburn print pictured above make you happy? Me too. The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it. It's available here and is even prettier in person.