We are so overdue (!)
Please grab a cup of water or other-funky-fresh hydration variant and join me for the ride. We have a lot of news coming your way on this letter; so please, hydrate on!
Lately I have become obsessed with cacao water. When I wake up every morning I start the day with one liter of water, cacao powder, a splash of milk and some honey. It’s so rejuvenating, awakening, & it’s feeding my inner child!
…wait, was I saying something there in between the lines? Yes, I actually meant that phrase literally! Simit and I are expecting a baby girl in late summer of this year (around end of august). She’s coming into our lives as we close on one chapter of adventuring full-time and open up a new one of ritual-building and nesting.
Adding onto our family biologically wasn’t a decision that we took lightly - we know this is going to be an adventure of a lifetime. The road to deciding for us has been one of a lot of waffling, heavy environmental conscience and general uncertainty. But overtime, as we thought more about what sort of life we want to live, kids started coming more into focus. We are manifesting a life of play, laughter, service to others, tears, emotional depth, deconstructing/understanding social paradigms and intentionally crafting our personalities through habits and conversation.
It has been a brain re-shuffling experience over the course of the last couple of months reading parenting and baby books that awakened my soul to all that goes into becoming a human. Literature can only go so far, though; I’d love to hear first-hand from you! Have you been given any advice on parenting that has been a golden rule? Do you have any words of wisdom to share from your lived experience? We would love to learn through you and share in this journey together!
Thus far it’s been an easy breezy pregnancy. No major side effects outside of the expected, and we’ve embarked on a 6-week-long “belly tour” around the US to see family and friends and enjoy this nurturing phase of growth. And to tie up the topic, you might recall me mentioning us wanting to adopt as well (which is still true!). So more to come on that as the years unfold before our eyes.
More news! Woof! We are also putting an offer on a rural properly in Portugal to start building a homestead. Not only do we want babushki to grow up running around loose in nature, we also want to nurture a more close-to-the-soil lifestyle for our guts. We love the idea of being less consumer and more producer of the nourishment on which we depend on a daily basis. The plan is to spend 6 months a year immersed in city, beach and culture in Málaga, & 6 months scraping dirt off from underneath our nails at the homestead. So far we have been looking at properties in central / northern Portugal. We have fallen in love with a few different plots, and hope to close on a property this year and settle a nest there next year.
How might that be possible, you ask? We are looking to start the project with a pre-fab / mobile home that we can purchase and have delivered into the property. If you’ve come across any awesome turn-key mobile/pre-fab companies that you’d recommend (ideally based out of Europe but we’re very open to shipping from the US) - do let us know! We are thinking we’ll live on this house (which will eventually become a guest house for y’all to visit!) while Simit designs our long term nest in the homestead. More to come on that project (including drawings) as it heats up! If you have any advice on gardening or on buying rural properties, please share!
And how about you, how have you been feeling these days? What’s coloring your days? Have you learned any new skills recently that have rejuvenated you?
With love as always, & stay hydrated my friends,
Alda
❤️