On Settling Down

Every morning, I'm greeted by the sight of Mt. Timpanogas standing guard over our little valley. It has so many different personalities depending on the weather, time of year, etc... I never get tired of looking at it. I'm not alone. Many people say its profile looks like that of a sleeping woman. Local farmers determine spring plantings by looking at its face -- when the snow melts to the point that it forms the shape of a horse's head on the far right side of the mountain, it's safe to put seeds in the earth.



When settling down into our life and business, Kirk and I had the luxury of being able to call almost anywhere home. For day-to-day SSP affairs, we just need access to a post office and the internet. So the real question came down to where we'd want to raise our future family. We considered some bigger cities in various parts of the country, but it ultimately came down to grandparents. Given the choice, we wanted our kids to be close to them. And so, we moved back to the adopted home state of both of our families: Utah, and the small town up where my parents live: Heber.

Every once in a while, though, I start to feel a little antsy. As someone who's moved every few years her entire life, I'm not used to staying put. And I miss the city. I miss my friends. I miss having more than 3 good restaurants around town.

But then I look at this view, and I know I'd be crazy to give it up. I'm so used to it now, I'd quickly grow claustrophobic in a bigger city. In fact, that is exactly what happened when we spent a month in Brooklyn last year. I quickly began to miss the clean air, the horses & the baby foxes, the wide open spaces, the low crime rate & low rent, the morning walks down our dirt road, the traffic-free streets, the quiet, the bright stars in the dark night sky...

We figure that with the money we save by living in a place like this (rather than a place like Brooklyn) we'll be able to travel to places like Brooklyn (and Tokyo and Melbourne and Stockholm and Machu Picchu... oh, the list of places we want to go is long!) But the day to day living -- the building of our business and the growing of our family -- will take place here. In this lovely little corner of the world -- under the gaze of Timpanogas. To us, that's the best of both worlds.



If you could be or have been in our kind of work/life situation, where would you choose to settle down?

p.s. For a glimpse at how living here has influenced SSP's color palette, see my guest post over at the Color Issue.


All images by Eva Jorgensen on the SSP Instagram feed.