Oh hi, April

Woodbridge hosted a book signing and “designer speed dating event” and it was so fun getting to meet so many amazing designers/ business owners/ shop owners!!  I hadn’t been back to Market since covid and it was really good to see so many familiar faces and a little bit of a return to normalcy.

Spring is in the air and I’m realizing I’m verrrrrry behind on planning the gardens at our current house.  I’m planning to keep it simple since we’ll only be here for a year with a small-to-medium-sized kitchen garden and maybe an herb & cutting garden.

With the Dune House project under construction in the Outer Banks, we’ll be spending a lot of time down there this summer (hopefully getting it ready to sell, photographing it etc.) so I’m going to try to phase my garden at home a little later than normal so that we’ve got lots of things coming up in September/ October when we get home.

Dune House (click here and scroll down to the bottom for the project intro)  is coming along. It’s such a special place… it sits right on the dunes on a little sand street in Duck, North Carolina.  It’s on the ocean and there’s a private wooden walkway right to the beach.  The views are insane and you can see the ocean from most of the house.  We decided we’re going to sell it.  ( Though I soooo wish we could keep this one as a rental! )

The Outer Banks have kind of become our home away from home over the past couple of years.  With covid, so much of our business has shifted to zoom meetings that -when the kids are out of school- we’re able to get down there a ton.  Dave and I have both been going there since we were kids and I worked down there during a summer in college and some of my friends are still down there which is awesome.  It’s so good to just get to such a laid-back place where every day is so full of nature.

I find I really have time to think and just be with the kids.  It’s definitely been shifting my outlook and given me ideas that I try to take home with me and incorporate into life.  My phone is a distraction that definitely pulls me out of the good moments and I’m working on that.  I think I’m going to institute some rules for myself during Easter break and see how that goes.  (I wrote recently about pulling back from comments/ DMs/ instragram a bit and it’s been good… but not enough and I find myself slowly falling back into old habits.)

I don’t know about you… and I hesitate to even write anything about it because my words feel like nothing… I’ve struggled above to form sentences and to try to keep things light… but the war in Ukraine and the heartbreaking things happening just make life feel wrong. And I know that on any given day, horrible things are happening to beautiful people and lives are being lost and damaged all over in other areas of the world… Afghanistan and so many other places. We go on and get to live and be safe and it’s like I can’t quite compute it or something. The news cycles move on and sometimes I try to hang on and read and find out what’s still happening (and other times I’m completely unaware at all) but these situations get buried as the world moves on. We’re going about life and a war is raging and children and people are being hurt and killed and tortured.  One moment I’m crying because of what I’m reading and feeling and the next moment I’m wiping up tears and getting kids to their lacrosse games and cheering like a madwoman for them and enjoying it.

I guess this is being human.  I’ve of course felt this before in life, it’s just right now there seems to be no end in sight.  I’ve also probably never been as connected to news/ media as I am at this point in life and so seeing the images day after day is just gut wrenching but I’m glad to know what’s happening. I feel guilt about getting to be okay with my family when so many can’t… and then I think I’m supposed to be present and focused on my kids and giving them all they need.  I remember in high school making a conscious choice to stop reading the newspaper because I’d sit in the kitchen and read the stories and cry my eyes out… but I just don’t see burying my head in the sand as an option at this point in life. Anyway, I guess I have nothing constructive to say.  I’ve been praying and donating etc… it’s just been so much for so long and (maybe you feel it too) I feel so helpless and am just aching for people.  Every day just praying it will be over but knowing that there has been irreparable damage and there’s no happy ending for so many here.  It all makes me think of Jack Johnson’s song The News. {Jack Johnson – The News – YouTube }

Anyway, the kids are home from school and I’m off to eat a bowl of pasta, but sending you love.  I hope you’re doing okay. Praying this all ends soon.