After the luxurious month of July when Devon welcomed us to our new home with a spell of extravagantly hot weather, a holiday on Lundy, and a couple of weeks relaxing with a friend, August saw our new lives gather momentum and September has hit us at full-pelt.

It has been hard to find the right moments to sit and write for this blog as I try to find balance in my new routine. My weeks consist of days in the Old Folding Maps workshop, running my new business, Hand and Heart, tutoring Primary School children and helping with my Parents-in-Laws’ holiday cottage.

Each role adds a different dimension to my week: there is the peace and purpose of the workshop, the pressure of the fledgling business, the fulfillment of seeing children make progress, and the sense of belonging that comes from working together with family.

The homemaker in me has also begun to rear her head as I try to keep the house tidy, to use the fruit and vegetables family have grown and picked, and the eggs the hens have laid. Keeping up with hoovering, washing, apple-stewing, cake-baking and runner-bean-boiling are all pursuits I want to master – but my somewhat faltering attempts have occasionally resulted in burnt pots, piles of clothes on the floor and dashes to the mother-in-law’s to borrow washing up liquid…

We have found a friendly community here in North Devon and have been fortunate to meet new friends (and re-find old ones) quickly. People have gone out of their way to make us welcome – whether through chatting at the market, coming along to Hand and Heart events, talking to us at church groups or inviting us along to things.

Life feels busy. Often it feels so busy I don’t have time to do the things that matter most to me – pray, get outside, be with Andrew, read… So in the week ahead I’m resolving to reclaim these things, to prioritise them. It’s going to take determination, discipline, perhaps even stubbornness, and, I wonder, selfishness? Because the fact is that all of us resolve over and over in our lives to regain balance, to take back our time, to refocus – but this most common of endeavours is one of those that is far easier said than done.

Perhaps my starting points will become blog posts. I so love reading about other people’s joys and moments of peace and insight on their blogs and I would like to think that mine could give others that same lift. If all goes to plan, perhaps you will soon be scanning over my Seven Sunrises Pictures that I plan to take each morning this week. After admiring a beautiful sunrise last Tuesday on my way to the market, I was struck by the depth of peace tiny moments of beauty can instill in us, so the idea is to purposefully seek some of those moments out. You may well also see photos from river and beach walks I am planning for the weekend, and maybe I will share some of my reading with you.

We shall see how these little resolutions and projects go. In the meantime, I hope you all have a beautiful weekend 🙂