
I think of myself as a minimalist, but living my values has been a struggle. You see, saying no to things I don’t want to do comes
I spent 40 hours a week at a job that I liked, but wasn’t that challenging. Sure, I liked the people I worked with and I wasn’t unhappy going to work, but I felt like I was just going through the motions.
Our days started with getting ourselves and our 3 young girls ready to get out the door. I felt like I was in a rush from the moment I left the house until the kids went to bed, and I hate being in a hurry.
There was a time when two of our girls were at a daycare close to our home and I would walk over to pick them up. I love to stop and smell the roses and my girls did too, but it often got to a point where I would want to hurry them along because I needed to get home and cook dinner.
I got to spend time with my husband and kids at nights and on weekends. We did fun things like walk to the ice cream store or the park. It was one of the things I loved best about where we lived – we could walk to so many things.
But we were too tired to do
Even daily tasks felt like a hassle. We were running on empty all the time, but we never really acknowledged it.
Until we took a trip to visit my mom.
When we came back, my husband and I sat down and had a real conversation for the first time in a long time. We talked about the possibility of moving across the country and all the things that would allow us to do.
We could buy our house outright and not have a mortgage. I could quit my job and stay home with the kids. My husband could work from home.
All the sudden we were excited by the possibilities. We both just lit up at the thought. What if we didn’t have to drive through rush-hour traffic every day? What if we didn’t have to rush to drop off, work and daycare pickup just to try to get our 8 hours in every day? What if we didn’t have to put our older daughter in after-care? What if we didn’t have to worry about what to do for childcare over the summer?
What if we could get out of the rat race and slow down?
This wasn’t just another conversation about moving to a new house in our area or doing renovations on our house. We never got very far on any of those things because they never felt right.
This time was different.
We both knew what we wanted to do. We wanted to make a big, massive shift in our lives. We wanted to spend more time with each other and with our kids. We wanted to do fun things as a family.
It was scary though to admit that we wanted to do it. Thankfully, a few key people in our lives helped us stay true to what was in our hearts. One week we were telling people we were thinking about moving and the next week we were doing it.
After telling our fully supportive families, they offered to help. The move wouldn’t have happened without their help. I remember at one point my husband said it was really hard and I said, “Of course it’s hard. It takes work to change your life.”
There were a lot of bumps in the road and things that didn’t go as planned. We acted quickly once we made the decision because we knew we didn’t want to put it off. I couldn’t stand driving down the highway to drop off the girls at
Before I knew it, I was done making that drive. We moved a couple months after making the decision.
We weren’t able to pull off paying for our house outright because our old house didn’t sell in time, but everything else turned out the way we were hoping when we dreamt of a new life in a new place.
I stay at home with the kids now while my husband goes to work in the basement. Our oldest is in kindergarten and one of my favorite things about our new house is that the school is just on the other side of the woods, so I get to walk my daughter to and from school every day. And despite having less family around, we call on our family more than we ever did before.
I still have a lot to learn about being intentional and spending my time on what truly matters to me, but we have made one giant leap in the right direction.