Our definition of success has drastically changed.
The one thing that hasn’t changed: I had to work for myself. I envisioned myself traveling around the globe, working with non-profits doing good work, owning my own PR/Marketing firm in a luxe building downtown in some great city, living in the loft above. I know I could have been great working all the time because I’ve never been too terribly great at fitting it. I’ve had few close friends in my life, though many acquaintances, and when I didn’t fit in, I was pro at throwing myself into my work, be it school or photography, or redecorating everything in sight. (Super important stuff, right??)
I love photography that conveys real emotion. I believe in only doing work that you believe truly matters. I love branding and marketing and the thrill of working so hard to push your product or craft and someone actually believing in it enough to buy it.
I think I could have been really great at it. But I met Austin and he changed all my plans.
Austin makes me believe anything is possible. Any idea I’ve ever had, his only question has ever been, “OK, how do we make that happen?” He never doubts me for a second.
And I could come up with a million crazy dreams to pursue.
We got married the summer before my last year of college. It was a dream of a summer. Sometimes I wish we could go back to that even though we were dirt poor, living in a 500 square foot duplex and our weekend entertainment was going to swim at the YMCA (because they had offered us a free trial membership for three months) and then going to the library to check out our new reads.
We’d swim, find new books, read all afternoon, sit and build a fire at night and make Hamburger Helper for dinner.
It was perfect.
Something about living that simply, and on so little, sparked something in me. I guess I didn’t know you could be so so terribly happy with nothing.
I finished school and found a job doing communications for the university. Only part time though, so the rest of the day, I could throw myself into growing my wedding photography business.
It did thrive, and I LOVED getting to shoot weddings and grow friendships with our couples. Together.
We knew we loved this life of getting to work together. We wanted to figure out how to do it full-time because being together was the best thing about our life. It didn’t make sense to us to spend our life going to work at a university or a bank, separately, forever.
So we decided to have a baby. (Cause that makes everything financially easy, right?!)
We always knew we didn’t want to wait to have kids. Having been around them so much of each of our lives it wasn’t ever really a question. But we knew how much we loved just BEING together, and we know babies would only make it even sweeter so we went for it.
Having our sweet Huddy was the best thing to ever happen to us. They say babies change everything, but WOW. Did that baby change everything.
All the sudden, having a baby meant making decisions that were more than what we were going to do that weekend. (Swim and go the library. Easy!)
We started really evaluating our life and what we wanted out of it. One of my absolute favorite influencers is Lara Casey. She always says, “You know all those things you’ve always wanted to do? You should go DO them.” Her book, Make It Happen, is one of the few that I could say changed my life.
Austin and I wrote down what we truly wanted out of life, what REALLY mattered. And decided from now on, we would only do things that helped accomplish that ONE MAIN GOAL. If it didn’t line up, if it didn’t help us make that happen, our answer was NO.
There were a lot of things we left behind.. Things, belongings, obligations, relationships. It was far from an easy process. There were a lot of tears, a lot of hours spent making hard choices, a lot of huge lifestyle shifts, but a few months after our sweet boy was born, and all those hard things were done, we were at peace. True peace. Probably for the first time since that summer we got married.
So what changed?
We simplified our life and our home.
We learned to say no to things that weren’t what we wanted.
Our answers went from, “I could maybe make that work” to either “Heck Yeah” or “Hell No”
We created a family culture that is cultivating the relationships we want to have.
Our definition of success radically changed.
We learned what truly matters.
I’m nothing like the lonesome, career, travel-oriented woman I once thought I’d be. I learned to see the value in homemaking, in being entrusted with my children, in living simply and intentionally and in serving others through my home and my work.
Some things never changed: We’re still awkward at making friends, we still love working together, we still strive everyday to make a place for us to work together as a team and we still visit the library once a week. (OK, let’s be real, because of Hudson, it’s more like at LEAST twice a week!)
I’m beyond excited to share more of my story with you and how we learned to live a simple, peaceful life. I hope it inspires you to make your home a place of rest, simplicity and an inspiring place to make what matters most happen.
💜xoxo
Ashley
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