the age of contentment

a lake makes a nice birthday present. but i got that loom too.

i got an early birthday present yesterday when the realtor called and said that the seller had accepted the terms we'd offered on the property over in jutland (this is property #2, to our knowledge, the dog sled has never arrived at the owner of property #1, as we've heard nothing from those clowns). things are really falling into place. it seems both like it's taken an eternity and that it's happened in the blink of an eye. in just two short months, everything we thought about moving to a farm has changed. we thought we'd move to one here in our area, but now, we're packing up and moving across the country. it's funny to think that the whole thing was initiated by a friday afternoon phone call from a friend as i walked from one terminal to the other at copenhagen airport, picking up the blog campers back in january. one phone call can change your whole life.

window on a whole new life.

since it's my birthday, i had mulled over making one of those lists of things to do before my next birthday, but in light of the enormous shift that's happened in our thinking and in our lives, i'm not sure that it's worth setting out such a list. because it's so hard to know where life will take you and if you're too focused on a specific list, you just might miss some golden opportunities. what if we'd not opened our minds to the possibility of a move to a new area? then we'd not have new jobs and a 17-acre farm with a lake and a house built in 1895 (for a good quarter of the price of what a similar property would have been here). what if we'd stayed focused on our original little list of things we thought we wanted? i shudder at the thought.

of course, that's not entirely fair to lists of goals and many of the goals on a list as long as mine would be - if i were making one of those 43 things to do before i turn 44 type lists - would be more frivolous goals, like the one from last year's list that said, "become blog of note." i also had more ephemeral things on the list like "be more present," and "dare more" and "believe more." i suppose some days i fulfilled those goals and some days i didn't. i never had things on my list like "run a marathon" or "lose weight" (tho' i undoubtedly should) or those typical resolution-type goals. it would be more fun to have something on it like "make cupcakes once a week" or "talk to a stranger once a day," but my photo-a-day and art journal calendar projects are enough for me and since they're not specific to my birthday, it seems a moot point to make a list.

but it's weird with birthdays when you've reached my age. tho' it's a bit ho hum, i feel comfortable being 43, it feels like the right age to be. it's where i'm at. i wouldn't want to go back and i feel there's still loads to look forward to. it's likely that i'll never run a marathon, but that's ok, i never wanted to anyway. it's interesting that as i look both back and forward on this day, i'm quite content to be right where i am.

a little self-present for my birthday. a felt brooch from lilfish studios.

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i've written more about the new property over on livet på landet.