Matt & Britt

Officially on the countdown to next Thanksgiving because it’s literally my favorite holiday of the year. It’s my football. It’s my greatest joy.      Everything cooked from scratch and a turkey so good that you could without the sides.      We had company and the kids and it snowed. Matt and I laid in bed after it all and spoke of it for over an hour before drifting off into our turkey and stuffing slumber.      Grateful is an understatement.     A mix of captures from @meganclouseliving and myself of the day. A sneaky Megan video set-up that caught Matt and I in our element, him lifting me up to be my best self. I love him so much. Kids together in the kitchen. And a couple very best friends, two who may or may not wear the same outfit on accident but also, we’re twins so not really an accident.     Now we roll right into holiday. If you need me at any time, day or night, for the next nineteen days... I will be at the sewing machine, up to my neck in waxed canvas, filled with the holiday spirit!      🦌✨✨✨

*This giveaway is closed and the winner has been contacted* We’re celebrating the season of thankfulness by giving away the ultimate Vermont experience! 🌟 Enter now at the link in our bio for a chance to win & treat yourself to the very best Woodstock, VT has to offer! 🍂 🍁 Woodstock Inn & Resort: 1 Night Mid-Week Stay, Breakfast & Dinner for 2, and a Welcome Amenity 👜 Red House: The Weekender, Rucksack, Medium & Small Pouches 🌲 Farmhouse Pottery: Wheel Workshop & $500 Gift Card 🍸 Au Comptoir: $100 Gift Card Winner will be announced on 11/26/24 and will be contacted by email only. Please be weary of spam accounts, you will not be contacted via direct message or asked to provide credit card information. Instagram/Meta is not responsible or affiliated with this giveaway in any way. Must be 18 years or older to enter. Prizes can be picked up or will be shipped to the winner at no charge!⁠

After a marathon two weeks of shipping out well over a hundred orders, I’m taking a note from Buckley and spending the day doing a while lot of nothing.    We still have orders in the que and my apologies for anyone still waiting! You guys shopped the sale so well that we straight ran out of our french ticking liner and it’s on an expedited plane coming to Vermont right now!    Taking the moment of a forced freeze to relax and regain energy. Currently sitting in front of my red light panel trying to help my right elbow, arm, and shoulder. Sunshine later, sauna tomorrow.    Hope everyone is enjoying the transition from summer to fall. It’s a dream out there!    .  .  .  .    One of my fave photographs from our summer shoot with @chadwick_vt for the Sept/Oct edition of @yankeemagazine 💛 Have you seen it??

SAMPLE SALE | starts now 📣    Our biggest sale of the year is live and ready to shop! Head over to our Sample Sale page and find all your faves at the best prices!    Shop page is marked on sale too! These are all made-to-order bags and will be shipped out post Sample Sale shipping later this month.    Thanks to all who support our small business endeavors. We hope you continue to feel the love behind our product and what we do 🖤

First, I’ll start off by saying that today was nothing short of odd, a little confusing, and slightly internally unsettling. For me, personally.        Before I say more on that I’ll tell you that tomorrow is the launch our annual Autumn Sample / Shop Sale. Over the years this sale has grown to be our biggest of the year and is something we work quite hard towards. Leading up, during, and long after. So be in the know, sale opens 9ish!        With that said, I’m learning to and leaning into living in a more flow state. One that feels more grounded, connected to center, restful, fluid, and dare I say joyful. It is a much different state of being than the one I am accustomed to, that to which has mainly consisted of constant hustle, continuous planning, monkey minding, always going, never not moving, and super exhausting. So today, last year and all the years prior, was a race to the finish line, full of anxiety, chaos, and down right unteatheredness.        I am done living that way. It is not natural, or healthy, and completely debilitating when you allow it to go too far.        So... I’m learning. In hindsight, today could have felt less anxious and confusing if I had been more intentional and on high alert for those past modalities trying to sneak their way into my consciousness. And despite the uneasy feeling, I surrendered.        I laid in the midday sun. Then I took the top off the jeep and drove to the farm to stock up on some meat. I stopped into the cutest shop to buy a gift for a very important baby shower. I stopped into another one and had the most joyous time getting the gift wrapped just so. Now I’m home having tea.        I did everything with a pit in my stomach, as if I was doing it all wrong. Jinxing my sale to not go well, creating some sort of catastrophe by not working like a mad person.        So... still learning.        Instagram isn’t the place where I sell handbags anymore, and that’s okay with me. It’s been very freeing actually. But if you follow along for the bags, tomorrow is a big day for that! And we are excited to dive into fall and holiday season with ease and happiness.

This summer has been full of beautiful sunrises. I love the farm road I walk. I love the birds on a wire I see. I love the cows I greet. I love the friendly waves I receive. I love the low hanging fog I get to witness.    I love the calmness it brings, the quietness it provides, and the all over warmth it feeds to my soul.    Going on year four of this daily practice and I cannot recommend it enough. Even in winter. Especially in winter.    ☀️ 💫

How does one put into words, the culmination of the life experiences, that lead us to this point in time? Every small and big decision. Every job, every move, every next step that brought us closer to our ultimate goal...          To live a quiet life out in the forest. A place to hear the birds sing and frogs croak. To see the fire flies enchant the forest edge as the stars come out, one by one. To watch the geese fly a farewell in the fall, and to make their triumphant return each spring. To witness the death and rebirth of nature, year after year, right out our windows. To cook by scratch, to tend some land, to watch in amazement as water bubbles up straight from the ground.          To move through time together and be in love. In love forever. With God, with each other, with nature. To stand with our bare feet on the ground. To lay for hours under the blue sky, basking in the sun. To grow a garden. To pick wild berries. To anticipate the first snow.          To grow old together. To love our children up close and from afar. To one day welcome grandchildren. It’s a dream come true.          For the sake of transparency, and for telling the whole story, and for anyone seeing this little life of ours laid out in a beautiful magazine, as if everyday is as perfect as it seems on the page, please know that for as much beauty as you see here, there are also these things... deep sorrow, twenty years of growing pains, lots and lots of failures, and continuing uphill battles that we face. The dream you see did not come overnight, or without tremendous hardship, pain, and suffering. And perseverance like you’ve never seen.          It can be done though. Dreams do come true. Not a day goes by where we both don’t recognize the absolute gift that it is to breathe this ridge life air, to steward this tiny spot of earth, to simply exist in the exquisite beauty of God’s design.           Continued in comments...

And just like that, I’m back to wearing a sweatshirt on my sunrise walk and smelling occasional wafts of wood smoke blowing through the air. The thrill of finding wild berries along the forest edge and drinking in long strings of sunshine-filled days seem to be waning quickly and the of desire to put socks on my feet and a hot hairdryer up my shirt has come all too suddenly. I know that there is “plenty” of summer left in the tank, but the bits of early foliage here and there tell us what we’re in for.      Despite my new found love of endless sunshine, minimal clothing, a good summer tan, and days where shoes simply do not exist... I realize that God made autumn so incredibly beautiful for a reason. An art installation so great, prepared by nature herself, for us... that we not only mind letting go of summer, we actually look forward to it.      Bravo beautiful life... bravo.

This image captures you so perfectly @meganclouseliving - the Mascot of Maine. Fave photo of the weekend and too good not to live on the grid.       A string of photos to follow, captured by two friends running around with a couple of cameras and having a blast, irl.      Thank you for giving me a place to run away from home to. That salty air was just the thing I needed and Maine is an absolute dream.     And now know where you live.       🌊 🌊 🌊

I think my deep desire to live in the early 1800’s stems from the longing to exist in a more natural habitat, one fit for a human to be healthy and thrive. No computers, no phones, no wifi. Zero toxic blue light screaming at your eyeballs from a screen pointed at you from every direction. No lightbulbs even.       No glyphosate, no factory farms, no one selling you carborator oil masking as butter. Or oat milk. No oat milk for that matter. No injections, no gut killing antibiotics, no pharmaceuticals, no televisions selling you pharmaceuticals. The list goes on...        With that said, I’d probably die in the first winter. If not from an attack of a wild pack of wolves, then most certainly from starvation.        We planted three apple trees, two pear trees, a cherry tree, and five blueberry bushes and all I got was one small sized sour cherry tart and maybe three apples this fall, if we’re lucky.        She was a beaut though. And if I had to pick a last meal, well... this was a strong contender.        🍒

Definition of the “United States” - “a Federal corporation” as per 28 USC 3002, section 15a.      The location of “United States” is located IN the District of Columbia as per UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) 9-307(h).      From what I can tell, we are living in the carcass of a dead America, scouring its remains for some remnant of the truth it once held. The “United States” and that America we long for are not one in the same, but one usurped by the other a long time ago.      I will forever pursue the sovereignty that my soul requires. To break the bounds of the spells we are captured by. To release myself from the grip of our captors.      Happy Fourth of July.      🇺🇸

Living for the abundance of late spring and some to be early summer. We’ve had lots of rain and shine days, sometimes raining while it’s also sunny. The garden and hydrangeas are thriving. The trees seem happy and upright. The grass is green and soft.    It can’t be helped to consider that outside of these magical things to see everything else as noise.    We all walk with hardship, struggles, seemingly impossible circumstance.    Nature is our antidote, to just about everything I think. What a truly beautiful design.    Chive butter on repeat for the win.    💫