Urban to Rural: Spring Cleaning
"Spring cleaning is not a metaphor, my dear."
I woke up to this text from my mom this morning. As I sit here drinking my first cup in our old house that is again, our new house, it's the message I needed to hear. Joel and I moved BACK to our little Moon Lodge by the lake last weekend. A back story: last Spring we moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Grand Rapids for one year simply because we wanted to try it. After college, each of us considered moving to a larger city like Chicago or Grand Rapids. Soon after we got married something inside us felt the need to try it out. We just couldn't stop wondering where that path might take us so we headed East for a year.
That path brought us right back to our two-bedroom cottage on the lakeshore one year later. Neither of us regrets our time in the city. It brought so much growth to each of us. And definitely in our Marriage the way we treat each other in moments of transition or change.
So here I am in the now clean kitchen after organizing a dozen of boxes and bags getting ready for a new day in an old place that feels like a new place. I can't quite describe how odd the feeling is but I think my mom's text about spring cleaning says it perfectly. What is so hard and so beautiful about the Spring is it's a season of buds growing and waking up from the dark, cold Winter. I'm cleaning out these little crevices in our cupboards as if our year in the city almost didn't happen. Even though these cupboards and these rooms are the same, I can feel inside that I am not, and it's so reenergizing.
It's a fresh start.
We have a lot of plans for this little cottage of ours now. How we want to update it and have it better reflect who we are and the lake life we love. I rarely talk interiors here and I'm not sure if I will. But between our move and a large project I'm working on maybe, I'll share more on that topic.
Now I'm off to work on that large project I mentioned for the day and to organize and clean the living room tonight. Sometimes the only constant is change, my friends. May we soak it up as gracefully as we can.
Follow me on Instagram to see what else I've been up to lately! xo, Em
