new beginnings

Good Morning, Goodbye, Hello, and Hope

/ Katie / 2 Comments

Good morning, New Year’s Eve.

And goodbye, 2024.

What, exactly, should I say about 2024? Perhaps that it was a year of change and challenge, immense joy and incredible fear, deep and new and all-encompassing love, disappointments and expectations and successes and surprises and sleepless nights.

I hope that 2025 is kind to me, and to all of us.

I hope that in the new year, things get better and not worse. I hope my family stays safe and happy and healthy. I hope that love and comfort and peace find the people who need them most, and that all people remember that we have more in common than we think, and more to gain through compassion than through hate.

I hope that this new year brings joy and music and fun and good stories. I hope that the beach becomes home.

I hope that Lucy grows and learns and knows every day how loved and wanted and perfect she is.

I hope that I make good mistakes – the kind that lead to lessons and laughs and not too many consequences – and that I learn, too, and that I create, and that I discover more about myself and who I am as a mom, and as a writer, and as a human. I hope that I can bring those things together in harmony.

I hope.

I hope.

I hope.

That’s what I have. That’s what we all have, always. Hope is undying and eternal and as powerful as we allow it to be.

I choose power. I choose hope.

So, goodbye 2024, and thank you. For everything.

And hello 2025. Let’s work together to make something good.

The Big News

/ Katie / 14 Comments

Here’s something I never thought I’d say:

I live at the beach.

It’s not like I didn’t know this was a possibility. Graham grew up here, and we’ve talked for years about potentially moving and living closer to family. Other places always just called a little louder.

How things have changed.

Let me back up.

I teased a big announcement a few weeks ago, and mentioned a few posts ago – back in August, maybe? – that lots of things were happening in our little corner of the world. So, now you know. The big news? We’ve moved! The lots of things? Making plans…to move.

We are officially residents of Virginia Beach.

I miss our village and our farmhouse fiercely. All the time. But now we’re closer to Graham’s parents, and Lucy will get to know them. That feels so important. (My parents helped us move, and plan to visit monthly. The beach and the grandbaby are good incentives to travel. 😊) Graham is so excited for Lucy to grow up at the ocean, and I’m interested in what life looks like in a beach town when it’s not summer.

We’ve set up shop in a lovely (20-year-old…what an adjustment!) house in a very nice neighborhood right on the water. The views are great.

We’ve got room now for a large, cozy couch, which Lucy and her BFF Merlin have put to good use already.

And Graham’s parents are just so elated to see Lucy as often as possible.

And y’all, Lucy has figured out how to climb the stairs at their house.

Her first birthday is next week, and she’s just growing so fast! It’s beautiful to watch.

Things are bittersweet around here, though. There’s so much to be happy about and grateful for. But every new beginning also means a goodbye, and this one hurts. I’m thankful for our time in an old home in the country, for the people we met there and the community that welcomed us and loved us and lifted us up whenever we needed it.

But you know what? You take yourself with you wherever you go, and all of that love is still part of me. It’s still part of us and the life we’ll build from here on out.

And I hope you’ll stay with me, too! I imagine there will be plenty to write about, being that I’m now a country mountain critter making a home in a busy beach city.  

So cheers to the start of a new adventure, y’all! May it be good.