Lakeside Retreat

Amidst preparations for our trip and busy work schedules we somehow managed to purchase a home! We're sort of weirdos, and have opted to buy a "vacation house" before buying a "real house."

Let me stop there. I find myself telling this story often and I keep opening with the explanation "we're weirdos" when I actually don't believe it (don't get me wrong, we're weird, but in ways other than this). Instead of saying "we're weird," I will describe this decision as a step toward achieving the life we want, not the one the world tells us we should have.

We've thought about this idea for a long time. As we spent more time in the Boston area and realized we weren't necessarily leaving anytime soon, we kept mulling over ways to make ourselves truly "happy." We eliminated the idea of a house in the 'burbs. I 100% understand how this is the perfect option for most people, but it just wasn't right for us. So this left us deciding between purchasing a downtown Boston condo or buying a little cottage on a lake. We both grew up with meaningful portions of our childhoods centered around water. For me, it was the Wisconsin lake and for Simon, it was the ocean on Martha's Vineyard. For both of us, these places meant fun with family, time to savor nature and a place where we were always truly relaxed. We kept circling back to a water retreat and went full speed ahead with a search (this means I spent hours online and Simon patiently looked at hundreds of links I forwarded).

We finally decided that we would venture out of the virtual house hunting realm and into reality. We fell in love with "the perfect" cottage in February, but long story short (too late) it didn't work out. In retrospect, jump for joy, because our little place on Lake Ivanhoe/Round Pond (the name is a point of contention) in New Hampshire is true perfection. It's tiny but all open with cozy features like a stone fireplace, knotty pine interior, and little sleeping loft. The property is brimming with tall pines and hemlocks and a big deck stretches across the front of the house, overlooking the water. We've spent three weekends there, every minute reassuring us that we made an excellent decision. It's almost magical how we arrive and instantly shred the stresses of the week and can just "be." Come on up!