One Year At Hobbit Cottage

One year ago today, Tom and I moved into Hobbit Cottage and Life has been oh so good here. 

Simpler, surely.

Out at the farm? Daily life felt interrupted. I'd carry in a hundred cherry tomatoes from the garden, throw some in the blender, then I'd need to mow the lawn before the sun became scorching. But we'd have workers out there (workers stare), so instead, I'd weed the shoddy-looking flower beds lest the workers think we were slobs. Then I'd step back inside the house to the messy tomatoes on the counter only to realize the dishes needed washing, so I'd wash those. 

Then the workers would leave for lunch so I'd mow part of the lawn, but what I really wanted to do was finish painting a room upstairs before it became too hot up there. So I'd cut the mowing short (always more to mow tomorrow, anyway) and go inside, past the tomatoes and blender on the counter, and paint a bit upstairs. Then I'd come back down, finish the tomatoes , freeze them, then it would be time to make dinner, except that I also needed to wash a load of clothes before going out to the garden to bring in squash for dinner. But then, when I'd go out to get the squash, I'd see a ton of weeds so ..... yada, yada, yada....

Life was like that for three years. Pretty much. I didn't find the work hard, exactly, but the disjointedness felt foreign and bothered me, making me feel I gave nothing my best effort.

People with farmer personalities can gaze lovingly around their acres, see a ton of chores which need doing, ones which never will be 'finished' and call it Good.

As for me, I crave more control. While at the farm, I so missed Focus--and finishing things.

But at Hobbit Cottage? Things get finished. Nothing exhausts me, nothing frazzles my head. God and Grace and I can handle anything we need to do and--here--we enjoy the doing, the finishing, the journey of it all. And my memory functions so much better because Overwhelmed has been switched Off.

So happy anniversary to Tom and me here at our sweet Hobbit Cottage, the place of fluttering sparrow wings, sunflowers, fragrant large, yellow tomatoes, brick flower beds and finished projects. 

And hello Focus, my old friend.


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Want to see some updated photos of Hobbit Cottage? Go here.


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"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,"  ... Colossians 3:23


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