I finished setting up my desk yesterday.  It’s in the bedroom.

My desk is always in the bedroom, and Martin’s is always in the living room.  It doesn’t seem to matter where we are.  It always ends up this way after plenty of conversation.  I don’t know why, but I do very much love my new home.

I seem to keep my desk very simple.  My MacBook is from 2007.  I prefer Pages over Microsoft Word at any moment (though I was slow to make the switch).  And Martin says I am very good at polishing the keys.  i.e.  I type a lot.  You can see our bed in the background – also very simple.  I would love to upgrade to some beautiful sheets and a duvet cover.  But for now we chose other things – like the experiences of the past year in Germany.

For the first time, the printer is by me, right between the bed and my desk.  It makes managing my shop so much easier.

Our desks and mattress are the only pieces of furniture that belong to us in this house.  It helps to have a piece of our own here.

Our bedroom doesn’t actually have a door.  The fourth wall is a series of large white canvas curtains that we can open and close as we wish.  I tucked my desk up against them, as you probably noticed on the entire right side of the first picture.  That way when I look up, I can see this:

There are so many things in front of me to look at.  Sometimes those things are little spiders and ants in all that aloe.  You really learn to relax your expectations and requirements in the world when you live in the country.  Otherwise you go crazy.  (A big thanks goes to Martin for handling the mice and mouse traps – I still can’t deal with that.)

I watched those deer stroll across the long grass in front of the house, and all they did was reach down to eat the dandelions.  Pop.  Pop.  Into their mouths went every blooming yellow dandelion.

What do you like to look at from your desk?  A pretty picture on the wall?  Maybe a window or your favorite wall color?  Then there are always the little details like a handmade pencil cup.  What makes your space matter to you?

I truly believe that an amazing happiness comes to our lives when we listen to our inner thoughts and follow the piece of us that urges us to keep dreaming big and keep going.

This weekend, I felt an enormous tug in my heart.  For years and years, I have always been the pilot’s wife.  I sat in the co-pilot’s seat and stared out the window at the beautiful world below us.  But I never flew.  I was too afraid.  I didn’t think I was good enough, technical enough, smart enough…

I viewed myself as the pilot’s wife, and my job was to sit pretty.

(sometimes I needed a break!)

What’s something that you never thought that you could do? What is something with so many fears and doubts attached to it that you never thought you were capable of soaring?  And what if you started taking little steps toward conquering that enormously fearful, impossible thing?

What if?

I promise we’ll jump back into The Decluttering Project soon.  (I’m just having so much fun in the US right now.  My lungs are filled with this new air and new world.)  Consider this our little summer break!

A quick thank you as well to all of you who have been reaching out to me in the comments and with your emails these last few weeks during our transition.  I understand what friendship means.  And you can bet that if I suspect any of you lives in the same area where I’ll be… I’ll be knocking!

So yesterday as Martin and I flew to an annual pilot event (here’s last year’s!) that involves dropping bowling balls from airplanes and eating plenty of pancakes, I was really struck.  I started remembering all of the doubts I had about flying for so many years. Who was I to be a pilot?  I didn’t know physics.  I didn’t understand mechanics.  I was a pilot’s WIFE.

Martin took this picture of me yesterday.  It’s the first photograph in the air of me – not as the pilot’s wife – but as the real woman in charge… as the pilot of our aircraft.

At the event, Martin and I split and chatted with various pilots and airplane enthusiasts.  And on our way home, Martin told me about this couple he met.  The man was a pilot.  His wife – well she loved flying, and being a pilot sounded interesting – but she didn’t think she could do it.  She wore a jacket with her plane’s tail number on it.  But she had too many doubts.

Doubts.  Fears.  Gremlins laughing, “Ha!  You can’t do this.”

I’ll tell you a secret.  When you start taking steps toward achieving that thing you never thought you could do, an amazing, uplifting thing happens. All of your other dreams start feeling possible.  You lose a lot of that fear.  Those gremlins can’t get at you quite so easily.

I want so badly to reach out to that woman at the fly-in.  I want to reach out to all the women who feel that they will always just be the pilot’s wife or the ____’s wife. We are more than just the wives of our husbands.  Many husbands believe that we are far more.  And it’s so important that you and I believe it, too.

We can be dreamers and doers.  WE ARE!  And if we listen to those secret hopes deep inside us, I think we can really fly by ourselves.  We can become something confident, strong, and beautiful.

The sun was shining this morning, so I walked to the mailbox and took photos along the way.  No matter how many thunderstorms or rainy days we seem to be having, I always notice:  every day we get a little bit of sun.  We could go whole weeks in Berlin without a moment of sunshine.  Some mornings I wanted to scratch and scratch at the clouds until I could see the sun.

I’ve heard people here complaining about all of the rain and lack of sun the last few days.  Really?  I just smile at them, trying to remember if I put moisturizer + sunscreen on this morning.

It’s weird to find myself settling so comfortably into life in the Rocky Mountains again.  I don’t feel like I have been knocked down with overwhelming culture shock like I was the first time Martin and I came back to the US.  Rather, my thoughts seem more like, “Oh yeah… I remember that.”  Or “Why is it again that everybody does that here?”

One thing I would change about where we are is cell phones.  People should not be driving with them.  Because every time someone is swerving all around the interstate and highway or driving really weird, they are on the phone.  Pilots will tell you that flying somewhere is always safer than driving.  Why?  A huge reason is because of other people.  You have the sky to yourself.

Of course, I also don’t have a cell phone.

I managed to jump into the driver’s seat of the car without troubles after months and months of not driving.  A couple miles of gravel roads certainly warmed me up before I pulled onto the highway to head to the grocery store.

I forgot to buy vanilla.  I was standing right next to it while watching a group of 10-12 year-old Scouts prepare for their camping trip.  They were going down the list, sending one boy for a bag of marshmallows, two boys for three potatoes, another boy for aluminum foil.  It was all very exciting.  I wanted to follow the marshmallow boy.

S’mores are such an American thing.  marshmallows+chocolate+graham crackers+campfire = perfect summer!

I had to teach some German friends how to make s’mores last summer.  I was at a loss for words.  It’s one of those things you just assume everyone knows – like it’s in your blood.  But as far as I know now, it is North American blood that runs thick with ooey-gooey campfire-ness.  I never knew that until we started jumping over the pond and actually living in two different worlds.

I seem to be learning this a lot.

One Scout got distracted from his mission.  He was the carrots boy.  An elderly man was trying to find sunflower seeds.  So off that little boy went to help the man.  I thought, “YES!  That is exactly why I love this country!  Go little Scout, go!”

Now before you say, “Yo, Katie!  People help each other in Germany,” hold on a second.  I know that.  But I do not always catch it.  I love the US because I can catch all those good things.  I understand every word.  The gestures people have here are the same that I have – same smile, arm movement, little nods.  I love being back home because I understand those things.

And I don’t always understand that in Germany.  For instance, my friendly “hallos!” were NOT SO FRIENDLY in the perspective of the elderly woman in my building because I should have been saying, “Guten Tag.”  Oopsie.

Then again, there is no challenge in daily life in the US for people like me who grew up here.  I can go to the post office and say, “One stamp please!”  In Germany, I have to look up the word for stamp before I leave the house.  Then I have to repeat it to myself over and over so I don’t forget.

It’s the little things.  The more I notice them, the more I realize how beautiful life is.  You really just have to appreciate the bits where you are.  And I find that no matter where I am, there are always so many beautiful bits.

So in a couple of weeks when I drive back to “the big city”, I will need to get vanilla.  In the meantime, I’m exploring almond extract and stamping everything in the house with the new Gadanke stamp that was waiting for me in the mailbox this morning.

What about in your world?  What are a few of the moments of beauty you are discovering?

You know you’re on your way back to the American west when:

1.  This man (and his fishing magazine!) is waiting to board the airplane to your final destination.

2.  Your mom is at the airport and you burst into enormous tears as she hugs you and welcomes you home.

3.  The cars are huge, huge, huge, huge, huuuuuge.

4.  You start seeing trucks with fake testicles hanging off the hitch right below the license plate.

5.  And NO.  You do not take a picture of that!

6.  You wake up to birds chirping instead of techno playing or traffic.

7.  Your jaw drops when you see the price of produce.  It costs at least twice as much, so you start wondering what on earth you’re going to eat.  Organic kiwis were only 14 cents last week in Germany; now they’re 60 in America.  Not sure you can afford this for dinner any more:

8.  You start making your own bread again.  You can’t walk to bakeries any more, and you’ve missed kneading your own bread.

9.  The only practical thing within walking distance is the mailbox.  That’s a few miles, and you can pet horses along the way.  But you have to put on sunscreen!  You’ll be sorry if you don’t, and you have learned that the hard way already.

10.  Everyone will chat with you.  They will chat, and they will chat.  They are so nice, and you worry that you are being rude.  People do not start chatting about randomness where you have come from.  You have learned the BLISS that comes with silence.  And you don’t want to be rude, but all of this chatter directed at you – while LOVELY – is giving you a headache.

11.  Your husband will then think something is wrong.  Because after a day of running errands, you don’t want to talk.  Your jaw hurts.

12.  Your sister worries that she has woken you up when she calls.  She is not used to the phone ringing so long before you pick it up.  And you are not used to walking so far across the house to get to the phone.

13.  And then you can spread your wings and be on top of the world.

14.  So now you know.  You can never say one place is better than the other.  You can never say, “I’d rather be here.”  All you can do is wake up with the biggest grin, feeling beyond thankful for the place you are and the places you’ve been.  People say that home is where the heart is, and you have decided to keep your heart right here with you.  Wherever you are.

Past culture shock journeys:  returning to the US the first time, having German friends visit the US suburbs, and returning to Germany.

Where are you going this summer?  What will you remember?

Wherever you’re going, let me help capture the journey.  Oh I’m so excited to announce a beautiful new product at Gadanke:

{This Journey I am Taking}

{Journey} is a 4 x 5.5 inch travel journal just perfect for jotting down your adventures, inserting photos and postcards, and pasting in memorabilia.

True to Gadanke form this minibook is filled with exciting writing prompts to spark your memories (and your senses!).  Travel involves so much more than what we schedule and see.  Let’s capture the smells, the tastes, and the local character.  Let’s capture how we feel on this adventure.

Each handmade travel journal is filled yummy details like:  beautiful Italian patterned papers, maps & classic stickers, itineraries & a calendar, tags, a pocket… and one of my all-time favorites:  100% recycled paper.

Later this week, I’ll share some glimpses of my own travel journal from a fun little jaunt Martin and I took.  So excited!

So come visit me over in the shop, and tell me:  Where are you going?  What will you remember?

When Katherine sent me a few pictures from around her new home, I was stunned at how beautiful her house is becoming.  She and her husband just moved in last fall, and like most newlyweds, they didn’t have much.  Katherine told me, “We moved in with nothing much more remarkable than a bed, a couch, and stacks upon stacks of books.”

I just knew I had to share her new home with all of you.  Katherine has some beautiful ideas for creating a home that’s both financially and environmentally responsible, so I think you’ll just love what she has to say.  (And swing by her blog if you get a chance, too.  We recently did a super fun interview about Gadanke over there.)  Okay, Katherine.  It’s all you…

* * * * * * * * *

Since laying out the welcome mat across the front door last fall, turning this house into a lovely, hospitable, warm refuge has come to be the most beautiful job to which I’ve ever been proud to dedicate myself.

Like a lot of other women I’ve got the magazine-reading, blog-scouring, window-shopping, nesting bug bad. Yet it’s also true that like most other households, we’re building this one up with the desire to be financially and environmentally responsible. We’re still working hard trying to figure everything out, but here are a few practical tips that have worked for us:

1.  Plants create comfort in any and every room. Supermarket bouquets, houseplants, and fireplace arrangements are inexpensive, create clean air, and add immediate polish more than any knickknack or candle display. If you’re going to display a collection, make it of the botanical variety. (The second option, in my personal opinion, would be books!)

2.  Thrifting, thrifting, thrifting. Our dining set was an $80 auction win, paintings and chairs came from thrift stores, and everything from our lawn mower to our guest bed was a craigslist.com find. Inexpensive? Check. Good for the environment? Check.

Just a note of encouragement: if waiting to find just the right pieces at just the right prices makes you feel impatient, try to remember that you will treasure a carefully assembled, well-loved collection of furnishings complete with their own histories far more than you will enjoy that expensive department store display set that will be out of style in 5-10 years.

3.  DIY is popular for a reason. It’s fun!! Don’t be afraid to tackle reupholstering, painting, refinishing or any number of other home improvements. I’m here to tell you that, while daunting, doing things yourself is an adventure that is well worth the undertaking and so rewarding in the end. Besides, with a quick internet search you can find a tutorial on practically anything. DIYNetwork.com and Instructables.com are great places to start. All it takes is a little creativity to turn an outdated piece with great bones into something more modern and completely beautiful.

4.  Spend less than you can afford. I could take all kinds of time on key ways to use your finances wisely in house investments, but I think this one principle is particularly worth mentioning.

Take it from me, it can be really easy to get caught up in accessorizing, picking up this pillow or that rug, and forget that we are so blessed to even be able to buy these things. Make it a priority to support whatever charity or cause or church comes to mind just enough to pinch your house budget. We immediately find that this practice puts what we want and could do without, versus what we really need, into perspective (a couch for the formal living room, a flat screen TV).

Suddenly other people become more important that what is in our home and I find that even though I’m still very much growing in this area, the less we buy, the more satisfied I am with what we already have.

* * * * * * * * *

Isn’t Katherine’s home looking amazing?  I still can’t believe it – less than a year!  Her wisdom far exceeds such a length of time, don’t you think?  Any favorites from her home?  How about her philosophy?

Thank you again for sharing with us, Katherine!  I’m ready to move in.

Pssst… deep in the archives are some great tutorials on how to refurbish wood furniture and how to restore painted furniture.