follow your nose
informal UK
› to trust your own feeling rather than obeying rules or allowing yourself to be influenced by other people's opinion:
Inspired by a crazy weekend and my infinitely creative friend, Jenny Andrews Anderson, I hereby declare that I am embarking on a 100 day project of my own. 100 days of following my nose.
What do you mean your crazy weekend? I am so very glad you asked. Let's call it a prelude to the 100 days. Knowing that Rob would be out of town Friday night for work, I decided to take the kids on a road trip. To Burlington, NC, cause we are the Burlingtons right? But what if we made it an overnight trip? Near Burlington. And then I found it.
On Airbnb. A purple school bus in Saxapahaw. To rent for the night. With my 3 children. As a surprise trip for the night. So, I picked the kids up early from school with the bags I packed for them in tow. And we headed out I85. After the 2 hour trip the kids were ravenous for information about where we were going. They knew that it was some kind of camping situation. But, after walking from the van down the woodsy path to the meadow to the bus I had mixed reactions from my offspring. CC- um, what? Esther- this is great, everything is great, let's do it! Weeeeee! Robert- Seriously mom, this is the stupidest most disappointing thing in my life thus far. Can we please go home? Trying to stay upbeat I made the beds, met some of the folks who work at the farm, and gathered the troops to walk to dinner. Finding the correct path along the creek that led to town turned out to be a little more complex than I had hoped. Within 15 minutes we had looped back through the farm to the barn, and away from the path to town. Whoops. BUT, then we found some other lost souls. A family who happened to be renting the barn for the night. They were friendly, from Connecticut and ending their spring break with the long drive back from Florida. They had 2 11 year old girls with them and we all headed off to town together for dinner. After a few more circuitous paths, we surfaced in downtown Saxapahaw, NC.
Oh little Saxapahaw. How I began to love thee at first sight. We settled our party of 8 in at the farm based pub, The Eddy. The evening began to really look up. And then Robert really got talking to our new acquaintances, Dave and Julie Edwards. It turns out that Dave and Julie are church musicians. Dave happens to have been a boy chorister in the American Boy Choir in Princeton, NJ where he went to boarding school at the age of 10. 10 years old? Really? That's pretty young and THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY HUSBAND DID, like approximately 0.00000000000000000001% of the population of the universe. What year did he become a chorister? 1980. THAT'S EXACTLY WHEN MY HUSBAND WENT TO SCHOOL. That reduces the percentage to 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001% of the population of the universe. The commonalities kept coming all evening long. Julie has vast knowledge of the living world and is an active lover of essential oils. I USE ESSENTIAL OILS! They met each other through music at church. SO DID WE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1But what about following your nose Laurie? Well, that's exactly it. I went out on a limb and decided to do something completely insane and boom, our universe collided with these kind- hearted interesting folks that we will never forget. The kids (they are Burlingtons after all) loved hanging with the Edwards the best of the whole weekend. Except for Hershey's chocolate bars for breakfast. And then we sang around a beautiful camp fire.
And then we had to go to sleep on a bus. What can I say about our night on the bus? The sheets smelled nice, it almost made me not notice the smell of the composting toilet. And CC's breathing almost made it so I didn't hear the owls, chickens and dogs all night. And the quilts kept my body warm, but my nose was cold. (We found frost on the van in the morning folks.) It's a bus y'all. Buses are designed to move. They rock back and forth. They balance on four wheels. So, when someone turns over in the bed or walks around, the bus shifts. I never quite adjusted to that. I wanted to the sun to come up. And finally, it did. Changing out of pj's pained me due to the temperature of my jeans and shirt. Brrrrrrr. We drove into town at 8am. A general store has never seemed so luxurious, warm and inviting. I could even charge my phone inside!!! We browsed the local fare, met some local folks and filled our bellies. Suddenly I was ready to conquer the world, composting toilets included! Back at the farm (where the bus is) we tested out the trampoline, swung out over a little valley, visited the pigs, turkeys, goats and geese and loaded up the 5 million things that one needs to take one's 3 kids camping out in a purple school bus. The takeaway: I have no regrets about taking the risk of doing something unknown. We experienced some imperfect moments, but our memories will gloss over that. I enjoyed my kids. Without distractions. I can't do that at home. Never could. I suppose that's a win. 
Inspired by a crazy weekend and my infinitely creative friend, Jenny Andrews Anderson, I hereby declare that I am embarking on a 100 day project of my own. 100 days of following my nose.
What do you mean your crazy weekend? I am so very glad you asked. Let's call it a prelude to the 100 days. Knowing that Rob would be out of town Friday night for work, I decided to take the kids on a road trip. To Burlington, NC, cause we are the Burlingtons right? But what if we made it an overnight trip? Near Burlington. And then I found it.
On Airbnb. A purple school bus in Saxapahaw. To rent for the night. With my 3 children. As a surprise trip for the night. So, I picked the kids up early from school with the bags I packed for them in tow. And we headed out I85. After the 2 hour trip the kids were ravenous for information about where we were going. They knew that it was some kind of camping situation. But, after walking from the van down the woodsy path to the meadow to the bus I had mixed reactions from my offspring. CC- um, what? Esther- this is great, everything is great, let's do it! Weeeeee! Robert- Seriously mom, this is the stupidest most disappointing thing in my life thus far. Can we please go home? Trying to stay upbeat I made the beds, met some of the folks who work at the farm, and gathered the troops to walk to dinner. Finding the correct path along the creek that led to town turned out to be a little more complex than I had hoped. Within 15 minutes we had looped back through the farm to the barn, and away from the path to town. Whoops. BUT, then we found some other lost souls. A family who happened to be renting the barn for the night. They were friendly, from Connecticut and ending their spring break with the long drive back from Florida. They had 2 11 year old girls with them and we all headed off to town together for dinner. After a few more circuitous paths, we surfaced in downtown Saxapahaw, NC.Oh little Saxapahaw. How I began to love thee at first sight. We settled our party of 8 in at the farm based pub, The Eddy. The evening began to really look up. And then Robert really got talking to our new acquaintances, Dave and Julie Edwards. It turns out that Dave and Julie are church musicians. Dave happens to have been a boy chorister in the American Boy Choir in Princeton, NJ where he went to boarding school at the age of 10. 10 years old? Really? That's pretty young and THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY HUSBAND DID, like approximately 0.00000000000000000001% of the population of the universe. What year did he become a chorister? 1980. THAT'S EXACTLY WHEN MY HUSBAND WENT TO SCHOOL. That reduces the percentage to 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001% of the population of the universe. The commonalities kept coming all evening long. Julie has vast knowledge of the living world and is an active lover of essential oils. I USE ESSENTIAL OILS! They met each other through music at church. SO DID WE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1But what about following your nose Laurie? Well, that's exactly it. I went out on a limb and decided to do something completely insane and boom, our universe collided with these kind- hearted interesting folks that we will never forget. The kids (they are Burlingtons after all) loved hanging with the Edwards the best of the whole weekend. Except for Hershey's chocolate bars for breakfast. And then we sang around a beautiful camp fire.And then we had to go to sleep on a bus. What can I say about our night on the bus? The sheets smelled nice, it almost made me not notice the smell of the composting toilet. And CC's breathing almost made it so I didn't hear the owls, chickens and dogs all night. And the quilts kept my body warm, but my nose was cold. (We found frost on the van in the morning folks.) It's a bus y'all. Buses are designed to move. They rock back and forth. They balance on four wheels. So, when someone turns over in the bed or walks around, the bus shifts. I never quite adjusted to that. I wanted to the sun to come up. And finally, it did. Changing out of pj's pained me due to the temperature of my jeans and shirt. Brrrrrrr. We drove into town at 8am. A general store has never seemed so luxurious, warm and inviting. I could even charge my phone inside!!! We browsed the local fare, met some local folks and filled our bellies. Suddenly I was ready to conquer the world, composting toilets included! Back at the farm (where the bus is) we tested out the trampoline, swung out over a little valley, visited the pigs, turkeys, goats and geese and loaded up the 5 million things that one needs to take one's 3 kids camping out in a purple school bus. The takeaway: I have no regrets about taking the risk of doing something unknown. We experienced some imperfect moments, but our memories will gloss over that. I enjoyed my kids. Without distractions. I can't do that at home. Never could. I suppose that's a win. 
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