Home and Adventure

I was tooling around Pinterest (trying to waste my time there instead of Facebook, ha), and I came across a farmhouse-style sign that looked strangely perfect for us. 

I'm not going to lie, I hate most farmhouse-style signs. Like the ones that say KITCHEN or LOVE LIVES HERE or IN THIS HOUSE, WE (and then list of things that family does or doesn't do, and for some reason, not cleaning sticky floors is a common bullet point, which makes me wonder about ant infestations, which doesn't make for good decor if you ask me). My least favorite is ALWAYS KISS ME GOODNIGHT. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before... I see this advertised as an over-the-bed, romantic-type sign, but all I can think is if you need a sign to remind you to give your significant person a goodnight kiss, then you have bigger problems. By all means, if goodnight kisses aren't your thing, that's fine, but a reminder sign on a two-by-four seems like a sad commentary. 

I have bought the occasional farmhouse sign though. I bought this one, when we were going through our transition of trying-to-adopt to resolving child-free. Which was a BIG transition that took a full year (maybe even two) to feel like a reality we were living and learning to love and then loving (mostly).

It was small, and it had a message that spoke to me in the moment. I still have it on my desk in our new dream house, which makes it sound a little obnoxious from the material standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint it's perfect. The gratitude is for our little family of two. 

The sign I found more recently on Pinterest haunted me, and eventually I tried to find it to buy. Of course the link was dead (oh Pinterest, your dead links or links to weird unrelated sites/products kill me on the inside). So a couple of weeks ago I did a search, and found one on Etsy that was just perfect. 

This sign is small too, but bigger than the Gratitude sign. It's hefty, framed in rough wood. But it's only maybe 12" square. It came from a shop in Mississippi, that apparently has many religious and faith-based things (which this in my mind is not). When it came, much like the Love Bats, I couldn't hold off until Christmas. I had to give it to Bryce RIGHT NOW. 

Because again, it wasn't solely a gift for Bryce, it was gift for us and our life together: 

Doesn't that just sum it all up. It was like an extension of our wedding vows, and our way of life, really. It's hanging in our bedroom, and makes me insanely happy when I see it. 

It feels particularly appropriate given the pandemic, as our adventures pretty much have to be at home. And we've done a great job of that, with making our spaces adventurous, like our backyard adventure area with the pond. And all the hiking adventures that we take locally. And all the adventures that we will hopefully get to take when this pandemic is over (which I hope is a reality-based statement). And in all those adventures, no matter where we are, we will be home. Because we're together. 

Life has been quite the adventure for us, and not always pleasant. The years of pain and setback and lost dreams were incredibly difficult. But we had a home in each other, so we came out the other side of it. We have had amazing moments, like building our new life together and finding the house that is our dream home and perfect for the life we now have, not the life we'd hoped for. But a beautiful, beautiful life all the same. We are both adventurous in our ambitions, and in our desires for fun (food, hiking, vacations with adventurous things, but not too adventurous, because honestly we're big homebodies). 

It's so lovely to have a little sign that affirms all of that, to hang in our bedroom, like a secret lovenote to each other.