Letters From a Wartime House

Aug 30

4 min read

Letter Nine: Today is a Boat Day

At the beginning of summer, I had plans. Lots of them.

I had visions of all the things I was going to accomplish with a few uninterrupted weeks stretching out in front of me. Projects around the house. The garden. The camper. Organizing. Renovations. All the little things that seem so much more manageable when you look at them from the beginning of the summer instead of the middle of it.

I started strong.

I made lists. I made plans. I was going to accomplish allllll the things.

Then, somewhere along the way, summer happened.

There were mornings when Shaun and I would sit across from each other with our coffee and look around at everything that still needed to be done.

The sunroom was still torn apart.

The built-ins weren’t finished.

There was trim waiting to be installed and painted.

The siding project had somehow grown into an even bigger project.

Instead of getting up and tackling the next thing on the list, one of us would look at the other and say:

“Screw it. Today is a boat day.”

And off we’d go.

I think I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I should always be accomplishing something. If there was a free afternoon, there was a project that could fill it. If there was an unfinished room, why was I sitting down?

Shaun is still very much wired that way. He’s a workhorse. I think genuinely enjoys having something to work on, and I admire that about him.

I used to be the same... but this year, I’ve been intentionally learning to slow down.

Not because I don’t care about the things that still need to be done, but because I’ve started to realize that I don’t want my life to be measured by how much I managed to accomplish in a day.

I’ve learned to be okay with the sunroom still being torn apart.

I’ve even learned to feel a little accomplished when Shaun takes ten minutes to remove the hideous garbage bag that has been closing up the gap on our back steps and temporarily patches it with a piece of wood.

Ten minutes, a piece of wood, and somehow, I’m standing here looking it and thinking…

Well, look at that. We’re making progress!

… because we are. We really are.

The built-ins especially have come a long way. The trim work and arches are complete, and now we’re ready for caulking and paint. I’ll work away at that while Shaun builds the doors for the bottom cupboards.

We’ve also finally settled on what we want for the fireplace insert after going back and forth more times than I care to admit. I’m actually glad we took our time with it. Had we rushed the decision just to get it finished, I think the final result might have looked a little different.

We’re in the home stretch of adding trim throughout the main parts of the house too, and there’s something satisfying about that stage of a renovation. Looking at an entire room and wondering where to begin can feel overwhelming. Looking at a room where only a few finishing pieces remain feels completely different.

Even the siding, which is taking considerably longer than I had hoped, started with us jumping ahead of ourselves.

One day, on a whim, we found an incredible deal on two large windows in the as-is section.

They weren’t exactly what we’d envisioned, but somehow, they ended up being perfect. They worked with the house, and even better, they worked beautifully with the siding we’d already fallen in love with. We just couldn’t pass up the incredible deal.

The downside?

Our house has been wrapped in Tyvek since last winter, and there’s a pretty good chance it might still be wearing it when the holidays arrive again this year.

There’s still a lot of work ahead of us. More siding to pull at the back of the house. More trim. More painting. More decisions.

The finish line sometimes feels like it’s moving further away instead of getting closer…

… and I’m okay with that.

I refuse to miss out on the things that matter just because we feel like we should be working.

The house isn’t going anywhere.

The built-ins will get painted.

The siding will eventually come off and be replaced.

The list will still be there tomorrow, but summer won’t.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve learned that choosing the boat isn’t the same thing as choosing not to accomplish anything. Sometimes it’s choosing what I want to remember.

So we’ve taken the boat out.

We’ve stayed out a little later.

We’ve sat together with our tea and coffee and watched the evening stretch across the water.

We’ve chased as many sunsets as we could.

We’ve said yes to weekends away and spending time with the people we love most.

Those moments have started to feel like their own kind of accomplishment.

Maybe we didn’t finish everything we set out to this summer. Maybe we didn’t even come close… but we lived it and when I look back at these months, I don’t think I’ll remember the projects we didn’t finish nearly as much as I’ll remember the evenings we decided they could wait.

The house will eventually be finished.

For now, I’m happy to leave a few things undone and chase a sunset instead.