My Chesterberry

This dog.

The first one that was ever mine (if you don't count the stray Sheltie I convinced my parents to adopt who promptly chewed up everything made of wood in the garage in appreciation for a roof over his head and a warm cozy bed...).

I was never really a "dog person". Not like most people are. I preferred the moodiness of cats. Their independence, and lack of smell (we were oft admired for our saavy catpan-odor-masking prowess), drool, and noise. I didn't particularly enjoy being licked in the face (or feet), and jumped on while being begged for attention. I didn't like the neediness of always having to let a dog out to potty (*cough* 5:00am *cough*), or having to get sitters when we traveled. 

But somehow, that all changed when we met our first Bichon Frise. His name was Spencer, and he was the perfect mixture of refined snobbery and fun carefree playfulness - i.e. a dog/cat hybrid. My husband and I were both instantly smitten.

Fast forward a year or so, and we found ourselves traveling to Maryland to meet a Bichon puppy who had been found abandoned along the side of the road with his sister. His hair was all knotted, overgrown, and full of briers, but his eyes were full of sweet trusting love and the longing for a forever home. 

We fell for that sweet little boy, and brought him back to live with us on a cold February day. We named him Chester Spring Alabaster Dunker III - Chester, Chesterly, Chesterberry, Ches, Chester von Schauzer, Chesterberizniah, etc., etc., for short. He was so typically Bichon: incredibly smart, incredibly stubborn, a bit moody, extremely silly, unendingly affectionate, very intuitive, and the world's best cuddler. 

Somehow we survived the long road of housebreaking a Bichon (many, many say it can't be done, but I promise you, it CAN - it's just not a task for the faint of heart!), obedience training, crate training, and adding so many tricks to his arsenal that he adored both learning and performing. He understands complete sentences, loves to make us laugh, adores travel and adventure, and has a personality the size of Texas.

Along with all of this though, came some dark storm clouds in the form of unusual health issues, likely through the inbreeding of puppy mills (though we are  unable to be sure of his past). Chester was always that 1 in 1 million who got every strange ailment, had every bad side effect from every medicine, dealt with anxiety and allergies, has disordered eating habits, and has stumped so many veterinarians throughout the years...

Only recently have we discovered that underlying many of his issues is a shunted liver...a birth defect that affects his bodies ability to process nearly everything. Including medication. Which ties our hands conventionally in most every difficulty he faces.

But he is worth this bumpy road. He has brought so much joy to our life. So many smiles. So much laughter. So much comfort. So much fun.

Having him as a part of our family has been harder than I ever imagined owning a dog could possibly be. And finding him a new place to live has been on the table multiple times, when we didn't think we could handle the load and strain any longer. His medical bills have been astronomical. The lack of sleep has taken a toll on our marriage and our general pleasantness to be around by spells. Being stuck at home to care for him and having to miss out on events, date nights, and even just getting everyday errands done has been really, really tough. But we always come back to the fact that WE were the ones chosen to care for him. We were the lucky recipients of his abundant love, loyalty, and affection. He needed people who wouldn't give up on him just because his body was "broken". Who would hold his paw all the way to his finish line. Who would still love and care for him, even though he could be a pill sometimes. I know not everybody would've stuck it out this far. And many of you probably think we're crazy for the commitment we have to this dog. But he is ours, and we want to care for him well, and make him feel safe and at peace until the end.

The end. I hate even typing those words. We don't know when it will be for him. Some days it seems much closer than others. He continues to struggle, but somehow, seems to still love life through it all. On days he can barely stand for his seizures, inbetween them he is happy and chasing his sister Cherry, whining for his next meal, or cuddling up on my shoulder. And as long as he is happy and not in pain, we will do whatever we can to ease his burden.

Not exactly what I thought the road of dog ownership would be like, no, not by a long shot. But who are we to question? It is ours to live. To love. To do the best we can with what we've been given.

And I'm so glad we've been given you, Chesterly.

Roses In Winter

I've never been a big fan of roses... Perhaps just for the sake of being different? I tend to shy away from the overly prosaic as a rule, but like any rule, there is usually an exception.

And my exception is the glorious Bluebird. It's held me under it's enchanting spell since I was a teenager apprenticing in a family-run little flower shop. Building order after order of yellow, pink, white, and multi-hued florabundas without batting an envious eyelash... One too many young starry-eyed boyfriends ordering the overly-cliched red dozen perhaps, had skewed my appreciation for what many consider the mother of all flowers.

But then one day a new shipment appeared on our loading dock that would change the way I would look at roses forever. Out came the boxes full of heady blooms, and straight into the walk-ins they went for safe keeping. The afternoon carried on, and toward closing time one of our chief designers started working on a hand-tie for his wife whose birthday was close on the morrow. He disappeared into the fridge for some fresh materials, and emerged with the most magnificent rose blooms I had ever beheld. Enormous...soft...velvety...luxuriously abundant chalky blue-lavender petals with slightly deeper centers...equal parts vintage and modern. I think I audibly caught my breath.

Turns out they were his wife's very favorite, and it was easy for any casual observer to see why. Every rose ever after would pale in it's shadow. Those many years ago, it was one of the first true lavenders on the market. They were expensive and hard to come by. And I was head over heels.

Each time they would come in by special order, I couldn't get enough...hovering over the work table of whomever was filling the order, burying my nose in their soft fragrance... They quickly became my cultivated soul flower.

Months passed, and I came into work on the morning of my 16th birthday (a little gray-ish feeling to be working that day, truth-be-told) to find waiting on my work table

16 Bluebird Roses

displayed in an arrangement fit for royalty.

I cried.

I had never (and perhaps have never since) received a gift that made me feel so incredibly special. I did not deserve such a gift. From co-workers/a boss no less. I did nothing spectacular. We were not super close friends. Yet the time and thought that went into ordering them (a month or more in advance), the exorbitant cost, the artistic time and love that went into presenting them in such a grand fashion. All of these things that went over and above the usual status-quo effort expended on a gift...it was overwhelming. And for the week or two that they were alive, my heart nearly burst from the purest form of human kindness they exuded. This gift of all gifts.

So what is the purpose of this tome? To educate you on the virtues of the Bluebird? To cram as many superlatives into one blog post as is humanly possible? To simply pass the time on this snowy weekend?

No, dear ones. My purpose in writing is perhaps less obvious, it is to share with you the joy of being known. My co-workers saw the simple delight that these particular roses brought to my life. How they spoke to me, and made my heart sing. - Perhaps that seems strange to some of you - but us romantics often feel rich, deep connections with objects and creatures of the natural world.

And not only did they see it, they remembered, and they chose to go out of their way to make me feel like a million bucks. This insignificant 16 year old apprentice.

Since then, lavender roses have become a dime a dozen on the market...you can easily find them everywhere, and though only a dim whisper of the glory of their forerunners, every time my husband brings me home a dozen, my heart swells again. Because he knows me. And he knows this story. And I love how he reminds me of it each time they grace our home.

As they are this very moment.

The Year of The Leap

A New Year has dawned.

And as many of us do, I find myself in a contemplative sort of mood. My best thinking has always been done "on paper" (nowadays oft translated to a keyboard and screen), so I sat down with my thoughts on the morn of this bright and shiny new year and wanted to spend some time clickity-clacking away, trying to record the momentous twelve months that 2016 was.

In the spirit of authenticity, I just wrote and deleted an entire paragraph of realness. The ugly side of realness. This past year has had some record low points to be sure...and many of them are following me unwelcomed into 2017. But something I've learned is that very few people can truly handle your junk. Most don't care, offer unhelpful platitudes, or call you a whiner. - So I'm going to spare you (and myself) a trip to Negative Nellieville, and we'll focus on the definitive highlight of the year in this post. Just know, our life certainly isn't all rainbows and unicorns.

This year was one to remember in our household. It was the year we decided to

LEAP.

There have been stirrings in our hearts for some time now...years really. They started the first time we found ourselves in the European countryside. Because there...nearly five thousand miles away from "home" we truly did find ourselves. Not only that, but we found our kindred. Our people. The way of life that makes us come alive.

My husband and I have never really been at home here in America. The national status quo smothers our very souls and turns our hearts a delicate shade of grayish blue more often than not. We have always had a hard time connecting with people because of it. It's hard, nowadays, to find kindred spirits who value slow living. But we felt stuck...stuck in the rat race...stuck in societies expectations...stuck in the American way.

If you know me, you know that I'm a people pleaser, a planner, sentimental, a homebody, and most definitely NOT a risk taker. But this year shattered all of those things I thought I knew about myself.

This year I decided to stop existing, and start LIVING.

We've been talking, my husband and I, about how to make this European lifestyle we so connect with a reality here across the pond. It seemed (still seems, sometimes?) nearly impossible. I wasn't ready for a big change. Then my husband wasn't ready for a big change. But this year, we both found ourselves there at the same time. Ready. Ready to try anyway. And what is life, if not for following hard after your dreams...even if it may mean failure. To us, it's worth the risk. -

I remember well the moment: sitting in Patty on a camping trip, reading a book together about the tiny house movement, and in that moment, looking at each other saying, with much fear and trepidation, "Can we really do this??". But we did.

We took the leap.

Up for sale went our beloved Windy Poplars, and after a whirlwind of a season on the market (hello, showings nearly every day for a month), our home of 13 years that we had poured immeasurable blood, sweat, and tears into, was passed to the hands of a new owner at the end of a climactic bidding war. As our realtor said, "Everybody wants to take you to the prom, and you get to choose who you want to go with!" It seemed like a confirmation that a new dawn was just around the bend for us.

Fast forward three months, and we are catching our breath, happily settled into our floft (flat+loft=floft) downtown getting broken in to the next chapter of life that awaits us: living tiny as we continue to search for land. - We have a parcel that we are close to making a move on (prayers appreciated!) which will throw life back into high gear as we prepare for a build.

So what dreams are we chasing? Well, when I say tiny, I really just mean down-sized. We hope for our main living space to be a small cottage less than 1000 sq.ft. and to have separate guest quarters from which to run an Airbnb. We plan to shrink our mortgage, our maintenance load, and our subsequent servitude to both. We hope to be able to focus more on living, on helping to build strong marriages, on mentoring others whose hearts might be pulled in the direction of slow living, on working less and experiencing more, on being a part of a community instead of the isolated rural life we lived for so long, on savoring, on traveling, on truly living.

And we'd love to have you follow along on our journey! It's sure to be an adventure. :-)

White Christmas

Growing up, my dad was a teacher. And teachers live for snow days. And teacher's children live for snow days. And New England transplants who are teachers and teacher's children really live for snow days.

Somehow, I don't really know when, the old Bing Crosby movie White Christmas became our family's "lucky snow movie". Whenever the weathermen were calling for even a chance of flurries, evenings would find Posh (our dad) correcting papers on the couch watching White Christmas, and we would all willingly gather round and enjoy the classic song, dance, and romance. It was a powerful movie, that. In the mornings, more oft than not, we would wake to find a sparkling world covered in a fluffy white blanket!

Many, many years (and snow days) later, I think I probably still have the entire movie memorized. Even my husband regularly throws out quotes from Bing and Danny (Kaye), and readily breaks into their arpeggiated 

"snow, snow, snow, Snow, SNOW"

  with me whenever we spot the first flakes of a new winter storm starting to fall!

So this December, how delighted was I to find that our local theatre was performing White Christmas The Musical over the week of my birthday?! The tickets are purchased, the dog sitter secured, and I just can't wait to go and sing along to all my favorite songs!!! 

There will likely be tears. Because that's what nostalgia does to a girl who was a teacher's daughter from New England that loved snow days once upon a time. 

(Ok, who am I kidding. I still totally love snow days. And we still might break out our now-DVD version of White Christmas whenever the weathermen start getting our hopes up for a winter storm!). And speaking of winter storms, God: we're ready and waiting!!!

First Glamping Trip of the Season | Photo Journal

My husband and I (and our two pups, Chester and Caroline) are unabashed glampers. We own a teeny little 1966 Scotty Hilander (named Patty's Place - Patty for short) and tote her around to enjoy the great outdoors in vintage style and comfort. This year, because of the cuh-razy summer we've had selling our home/moving/traveling we've only been able to sneak away twice so far. These snaps capture a few of the memories we made on our first trip to Smith Mountain Lake. 

Seeing Chesterberry so happy and WELL makes me tear up a little, since he's currently so far from it. Get better little man. There are so many more glamping trips to be had together!