It's been a while...

​I can’t believe I last wrote nearly six months ago.  A lot has happened since then!  We’ve completed an entire turn around the sun since we returned from England, and are starting to encounter again those rhythms we enjoyed last summer that I highlighted in my Thanksgiving post.  I’m even sitting at another beloved café with Charles writing today (I can’t believe I forgot to include Guglhupf in my last post- it’s a little taste of Europe tucked into Durham).  It’s really been a hell of a year, and I feel like we’re coming up for air before diving into the summer.
 
In December, Charles and I spent a week in London.  He participated in a History conference, justifying the expense, we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, and I met with several local “makers” to set up wholesale accounts for my new business.  I started Briton Home that same month, to bring home and share beautiful artisanal home goods, all made in Britain, that reflect the things I love most about that culture.   It’s been amazingly challenging and equally incredibly gratifying to learn from scratch all about starting a business, building a website and online store, navigating social media marketing, sales and shipping!

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In February and March, I completed a 200 hour yoga teacher training course and taught my first class in April.  This month I’m signing a contract to continue working part-time at UNC as a Nurse Practitioner and setting up a yoga class at a local community center.   Charles has been working his arse off this semester, doing amazing things to engage the discussion of racial justice, history and memory at Elon and elsewhere.  Thank goodness the kids go to school everyday and have been healthy!  Only recently have I gotten the guilt trips about not volunteering much in their school this yearJ 
 
As I write these updates, I feel sad, weary, and proud.  Sad because my dream did not come true.  We don’t have a job offer to move to London and live life outside of the box- simple but so rich, worshiping at St. Barnabas and enjoying easy access to the most meaningful places in the world to us.  Weary because I’ve been straight up hustling, wearing too many hats, sometimes burning the candle at both ends, and trying to figure it all out.  Proud, because I finally did some of the things that up until now, I’ve only talked about, too afraid of failure to actually try. 
 
In this sweet spot of the year when the kids are still in school and the University semester is over, our family catches it’s breath.  This year even more than some others, I’m intentionally reflective about where we’ve been and what come’s next.  My general M.O. is to move on to something new.  I feel like in this season, much to my frustration, the message I’m getting from God is stay put, dig in.   In every area of life- marriage, parenting, work (in all it’s various forms- medicine, yoga, & small-business running), community, church- to press in, invest, stay the course. What does that look like?  It’s different in each area.  I’ve been listening to a new podcast this spring, The Next Right Thing, by Emily P. Freeman. It’s such a helpful phrase for that keeps me from swirling and ruminating.

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I wish I could share that I’d be posting more soon about amazing adventures abroad, because that feels much more exciting, and gives me a reason to write and not think it crazy that someone would be interested in reading what I have to say.  Alas, it seems our next adventure is into the nitty gritty.  I suppose it is fitting and maybe the plan all along that Minding the Gap would truly come to mean not minding the differences, but paying attention. 
 
Part of pressing in rather than running away this summer is to write more, both here on Minding the Gap, but also on “Bringing Briton Home” which lives on the Briton Home website.  I need my life and thoughts to be more consolidated and less scattered!   My goal this summer is for these two sites to learn to play together, consistently reflect things that are meaningful, and encourage a life that is simple but rich. 
 
I just posted a new blog post on Bringing Briton Home about intentionally spending more time outside, particularly in public spaces,  in order to approximate the pedestrian lifestyle of European cities and towns.  You can read it here.
 
I’ll use this space to speak more explicitly about matters of the heart & faith, ways that’s related to yoga & mindfulness, and hopefully some travel too. 
 
One of the benefits of starting a business is that I’ve figured out a few techie things, such as email lists and notifications!  If you’d like to be notified when I make a new post, you can sign up below. (And you can always unsubscribe!)   And it’s been so encouraging to hear from you that at least some of what I’m thinking about resonates.  I’d love to hear your feedback about what hits you.  Please leave comments below or send me an email at dirons@britonhome.com.  How are you minding the gap in the everyday?  Have you had dreams deferred?  What does digging in and investing where you are instead of moving on look like for you?  Surely I’m not alone!!

Finally, if you're on instagram, I invite you to use #mindingthegap when you notice something simple that is bringing you joy.  I'm there @dbi725 and @briton_home.   Much love! ​