As promised, I’m sharing a little bit of big news from my corner of the world this morning.

My big news is this ⤵

After much debate, many sleepless nights, a whole lot of planning and packing, one long weekend of house showings back in July, and a whole summer under contract getting ready to move, we’re selling our house — our little cabin in the Maine woods — our dream home — and hitting the road.

Again.

If you know anything about my family, you’re probably not surprised. When you shake this family of mine to its core, you’ll find travel right at the center every single time. It’s been our thing since before the kids came along and certainly after. You won’t believe this, but this time last year, I didn’t think we’d be hitting the road again so soon. To be honest, I can hardly believe it’s happening now — can hardly believe we’ve had that “Under Contract” sign in our yard for a whole summer and it’s about to be replaced with a “Sold” one. But here I am. We move out on Tuesday, and this Friday morning message is the last one I’ll write from this home that has been ours for four years.

It’s been a hard decision.

After my family’s love for living overseas in the early 2000s and our 7 years of full-time US travel, this is the first place I’ve ever thought I could stay forever. It’s a place that has fundamentally changed our whole family and each of us individually in more good ways than I can count. It’s the home that called to us, chased us down, and magically found us back in 2020. Thanks to this house (and five summers working at a very special campground here from 2015-2020), Acadia and Mount Desert Island have become as much our home as where we grew up. It’s where our kids have grown up and where a few million other people bring their kids every summer to have the kind of family adventures together they’ve always dreamed of. MDI is such a special place. It will always be home to us, and this little house of ours has been such a dream home.

Why sell a dream home?

A friend asked me recently, “What made you guys change your minds?” I was surprised by the question. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like we changed our minds about anything. When we bought this house in 2020, the plan was never to stay here full-time and certainly not forever. But that quickly became something we wanted. Until one day we didn’t. Now, it feels like we stopped here to rest from a very long travel season, we were super lucky to have found a home that fit us so perfectly, and now it’s time to move on. We’ve rested. We’ve grown. And sometime over the past year (I blame Bermuda), we realized it was time to let it go. Time for a new adventure. It took a while to get everyone completely on board (I was the last holdout), but now we’re all super excited to chart a new course again.

Where will you go?

This is the first question we get 99.9% of the time when we tell people we’ve sold our house. At least for now, our answer remains the same — we don’t know yet. We know we’re not buying another Airstream (at least not today) or another property, and we certainly don’t think we’re up for a sailboat or anything else just yet. We’re taking it slow this time, renting a few homes in a few different places to figure out where we might want to live next. We’ll enjoy the rest of this year in Maine and then visit family down South when winter hits. Then, we’ll figure it out from there. We know we’re only able to do this because we have loads of support from our family, a job I love that’s 100% online, and kiddos who are super adventurous and in college (one still at home but in early college online). It’s not lost on me that being able to live anywhere we want in this season is a tremendous lucky break, privilege, blessing, whatever you want to call it — it’s a big dream I’ve had for decades, and I promise you I’m not taking it for granted. (Now you know why I was obsessed with the book If You Could Live Anywhere a few months back.) I promise I’ll keep you posted on any good destinations we find along the way on Friday mornings!

How can you let such a good thing go?

Anyone who knows us knows we love our little cabin in Maine so, so much. It was a home in a part of the world we never thought we’d be able to afford ~ something beyond our wildest dreams until that dream came true. The irony is not lost on me that just over two years ago I found a letter in my mailbox from a couple asking us if we wanted to sell our home, to which we replied, “Absolutely not anytime soon,” and now here we are selling it. Tides turn quickly. We know this from experience. But this time, we’re taking our time in choosing our next move. Eleven years ago, we were researching and getting ready to do something we’d never heard of before — full-time travel with kids. (A plan that worked out a thousand times better than we’d hoped.) Five years ago, we were newly under contract for a sailboat to live and sail on to far-flung places. (A plan we pivoted out of six months later.) Because of those experiences, I like to think we know a little bit about big change — at least enough to know we don’t know everything. It might take years before we find the next piece of property we want to call home long-term. We might never find it. We’re okay with traveling around for a while to figure it out. We know the letting go has to happen WAY before we can start living the life of our dreams.

Are you nervous?

This is the question people who know and love me well have been asking since I first shared the news about this big move. It’s no secret I tend to get nervous about most things most of the time. So yes, I’m nervous about selling a home I love to look for something not yet determined, but probably not in the ways you’d expect. I know by now that my anxiety brain likes to tell me all sorts of things. Specifically these days it says, “Stop, don’t upset the apple cart, and definitely don’t leave a place you love so much when you don’t even have a destination in mind.” But my other brain — my tried and true intuition — responds every time, “Go. What if something beyond your wildest dreams is about to happen?” I’m choosing my intuition. It hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

Why share this with a book-loving, family-loving email group?

I’m sharing this today for the same reason I’ve been writing to you every Friday morning for the past five and a half years — because I know you have big dreams too. And I believe that sharing my stories might just help you say yes to them. I believe we all need to see regular folks, including nobody-special women from the middle of nowhere like me, figuring out how to live our biggest dreams and sharing the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Lessons like these ⤵

➳ Life rarely turns out to be what we think it will be.

➳ Everything worth your time takes time — more time than you think.

➳ Your dreams are worth the work it takes to realize them, so very worth it.

➳ You’ll meet some of your best friends along the way.

➳ You’ll be so, so glad you said yes.

➳ You’ll need to pivot — more than you ever have before.

➳ There will be new things you’ll want to do with your life that won’t be possible until you stop doing some of the things you’re spending time on right now.

➳ You’ve got what it takes to keep going.

So thank you for being here this morning, dear reader. It’s an honor to share it all with you.

🗺️ 💓🧳 🌎✈️