Lake Cabin

A few months ago our nest officially emptied. We took Callie to college on a Tuesday and that same week on Friday, we closed on a cabin on a lake in Minnesota. I like to think of it as us getting home, looking through our 5 bedroom house to make sure we were alone, confirming to each other that all the kids were launched, sitting down and counting our money to see if there was any left and then saying "LET'S GO BUY A CABIN!".

But the truth is that we had been looking for a cabin for about 3 years and the girls had been kind in sparing our finances by earning academic scholarships. So, for 3 years we've been looking as ugly house after ugly house floated across our computer monitor. We've been patient. We are too young to buy a cabin and we don't have time to use one. But, the time was right. Its a buyers market, afterall, and when the realtor said she had something she wanted us to look at, though it was out of our price range, we looked.

And the picture you see is what we found. A cabin, built in 1955 about when we were being born; the first cabin on the lake; moved to a new location; this cabin was owned by the same family all those years. When the 94 year matriarch decided it was time to sell it, it was our lucky day.

So what do I like best? Is it the lake? Is it the living in small space challenge? Is it that we have a new dream to realize and work on together? The enjoyment of working together with the girls as we turn it into our cabin? I can't isolate just 1 thing. I'm torn between wanting to get it turned into a cabin we can use and not wanting the process to end. I can't wait to sit by a toasty stove and watch the snow fall as I look out over the lake. Or listen to a loon as we drink coffee in our adirondack chairs and watch the sun come up. Or take walks around the lake and return to our little nest to make hot chocolate and read a book or knit. I guess I'm a dreamer and have alway been a nester. Empty, or full to brimming with a family, I love making my nest and if the children are raised, then I can picture their families and the times we can share with them when all 600 square feet of it is full to bursting! So here's to vertical living and finishing our cabin!