When Conventional Wisdom Goes Awry...

 

"You’ll find your happiness lies right under your eyes, back in your own backyard...." Have you ever heard that century-old song written by Al Jolson and Billy Rose? It turns out, that particular piece of conventional wisdom is true. We found it out the hard way… by moving away from our farm and to the city. After receiving an offer for our farm that fell through, followed by visits from some tire-kickers, we decided that the farm didn’t sell for a reason. And that reason is that we belong here.

With both of us being in our  80s, we had reasoned that once our last horse died at age 21 and the barn was empty, this might be time for us to relocate to the city. We thought it would be more convenient and we’d gain proximity to services, shopping, and medical care. That sounded right … until reality intervened!

We found a nice home in town and made the big move (a huge undertaking to say the least) in early December. But once there, we discovered another piece of conventional wisdom to be absolutely untrue for us. The saying is this, “You can take the boy out of the country…” NO YOU CAN’T! My husband was not only mourning the loss of his horse, but also mourning the loss of his farm lifestyle in the city. He was not thriving. And Iggy the cat wasn’t either. He was nervous and fearful. And I wasn't getting a lot of sewing done with things in disarray.

And another piece of conventional wisdom dictates that ‘you can’t go home again.” Untrue. YES YOU CAN, thankfully! We returned in early May, just in time for mowing season. Now admittedly, we still have a foot in both camps as we have not completed the move. But we are allowing ourselves the luxury of time to get the job done, and that makes the move so much easier this time.

Meanwhile, this cute little fly on the wall was an observer of the whole evolving tale. He’s happy to be back on the farm, as we are. After all, flies and farms have a natural alliance. Fellow quilter and friend Merri McKenzie makes these cute fiber insects and gifted me with one at Christmas. 

As I mentioned, not a lot of sewing or blog posting was going on in the interim. But I decided to sign up for a quilt retreat recently, and it really kick-started me once again. The photo above the fly is me in my workspace at the retreat facility. The time away was truly a treat, and I moved several projects that had been languishing along the path towards the finish line. This scrappy Drunkard’s Path, above, was one project that came together nicely. You can get a lot done when someone else is making the meals and your only task is to sew, sew, sew. And you get to socialize with like-minded quilting friends while you’re at it. My handy pop-up thread catcher got a nice work out, too. It was gifted to me by another quilting friend, Linda Hungerford of Flourishing Palms blog. More posting soon!