Last night we had a frost advisory. Now, with half of a crop still out in the garden, frost advisories usually trigger a scramble to harvest what we can and cover the rest. Last night? Honestly, we were way too tired after an evening of taking care of grass and leaves that we rolled the dice. We’re not risk-takers, particularly when it comes to the garden, but this was a calculated risk. It was only the second advisory of the fall and a little too early for a real frost. So, crazy kids that we are, we covered nothing and thankfully haven’t had to pay for that decision today.
In general, yesterday was a super productive “home” day for me. I was able to finish work early enough to get a whole number of tasks done from cleaning bathrooms to sweeping porches. And when I was done? It felt like home.
Now, it didn’t feel like home just because it was clean, though I was super happy about that. No, it feels like home in the vibe I get. Things finally feel well-cared for. The house isn’t cluttered. Yes, there are still a few construction materials around but thankfully my eye is skipping over them. Instead, it feels warm in here… and calm, and cozy, and, well, home.
When I have to travel in the evening around this time of year, I pass houses with light streaming from the window. It’s easy to get wistful and think of a family in there, settled in for the night and enjoying a normal evening while I’m literally out in the cold driving home and tired. I see the neat porches with the chairs and pillows waiting to be sat on the next day in the fall sunshine with a book and a cup of coffee and I yearn for my own porch and chairs. And when I do get home? I quickly lose that vision in a pile of dirty dishes or clutter we’ve allowed to build up for days before I even left home.
But yesterday? The clutter was gone. The lights were welcoming. The warmth that hit as a wave as I crossed the threshold from the much cooler outdoors was welcoming. The chairs with pillows on the porch felt cozy. The beds and bedrooms looked comfortable and the clean bathroom and kitchen showed off the design I so painstakingly worried over for months as they were being done. It truly felt amazing.
And that’s one of the things I also genuinely like about fall. As the garden is slowly going fallow, the grass needs mowing less often and my work trips wind down, I can gradually whip this house into shape. When I do? Well, then I enjoy the warm feeling I worked so hard to infuse this house with. From comfy leather and tweed couches, to a 12-seat dining room table to hard maple butcher block countertops and clear-coated maple floors, the tones are soothing and warm. It invites you to come in, grab yourself something from the refrigerator, sink into a sofa and put your feet up. Honestly, that’s everything I have ever wanted.
For someone so excitable and anxious most of the time, I crave calm and quiet. I married my husband because he was the calmest and most unruffled man I had ever met. We choose this harder lifestyle of growing food, harvesting firewood and line-drying clothes because there is a sense of calm and deliberation it takes to do these things, even if it is slightly harder to do. And I have always focused on decorating with a clean, uncluttered but warm style that makes home just feel like a place where you can relax. My husband once called me “anti-clutter” and I took it as a huge compliment. An end table is likely to have a lamp and perhaps one other item on it. I limit the dining room buffet to three items. Colors are soothing, natural and with a slightly warm tone to them. Everything has its place and while it sometimes can spend days, weeks or months not in it, in fall, I can wrangle it back into its place.
And then, the thing I like the very best of all? That’s for us to walk downstairs at the end of our workdays (or housedays, for me) to the smell of dinner, have a glass of wine and then enjoy a quiet evening in our clean, decluttered, warm house without an additional care in the world for the rest of the day.
That’s what it’s all about for me. Getting to quiet. And to get to quiet, I need calm around me. Yesterday, I got us there. Today, I’ll keep us there. Right now, I’ve got three sleepy “peepies” – i.e. the furry ones – and a husband who needs quiet anyway as he is working on deadline. My agenda for the day is all self-controlled and I just declined an internal zoom call that got scheduled on my day off. Tonight, I will deliberately go outside and walk down the driveway so that I can glance back at the light streaming out of the windows and this time, I won’t have to imagine what’s inside. I will know and it will be amazing.
The Yuppie Homesteader 