Choosing A Dream

It was January 4th, the new year, and Dave and I were having dinner sans-kids at the local Foreside Tavern, doing my favorite thing….dreaming.  

You see, the new year is the perfect time to take a clean slate and start fresh with new goals and resolutions. This is exactly what we were doing while savoring our dinner without kids.  

Just a few months earlier, I had given birth to our fifth child, just two weeks after moving our family to Maine, a somewhat rash decision trying to satisfy our curiosity about the northern coast of New England. It was to be a one to two year adventure prior to moving back West to be near family.

(Side note, we ended up staying for 10 years, we loved it so much!)

The rules of a good New Years' date include being able to freely dream - without any constraints.  Anything and everything is on the table, which definitely makes it more interesting.

You must know that I’m a business junkie and thrive on strategy, so of course, to me, this was time to think up new business ventures and evaluate what we were doing and if we were on the right course.  We tossed around several business ideas. We had just opened a new practice, and Dave wanted to open a second location in Maine — we agreed on that. We decided on two practices to sell in Boston and New Hampshire.

Then our conversation took a turn from business to family life, and the question came up….What could we do for the family — what would that look like?  Now this was getting interesting.

Dave wanted a hunting property, lots of acreage to ride 4-wheelers, set up tree stands, and be with nature, etc.  I wanted a lake house where my family could gather, just like one I had spent time at one special summer during college on Lake Winnepesaukee, made famous by the movies On Golden Pond and What about Bob.  Big name families had massive houses there, where they “summered” just like the Vanderbuilts did at the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island. It was the modern New England summering haven, and after seeing the Marriott family compound (yes, Marriott hotels), and the Archibald home (CEO of Black and Decker) etc, I had a taste of the suite life and liked it.  

Snap back to reality…making our list, we had to be able to waterski, and it couldn’t be more than 1 hours drive.

What if we could build a lake house on lots of acreage and have both? That would be amazing!

We left dinner in a dreamy state, thinking of all the possibilities of an amazing dream we just created.

Reality check….I had five kids, the oldest had just turned 8 and my baby was only 4 months old!  This was a dream, I thought, was at least 10 years away, surely we needed a lot more money and we were thick in building the new dental practices we had just moved to Maine to open.  

Excuse, excuse, excuse…

They have a way of popping up and trying to shatter dreams. But, we had hope, and that’s all you’ve got to start with. Hope enough to begin searching for property! I mean, why not just check, right?  

Fast forward 4 months to April, and we celebrated closing on a 150 acre piece of property, began building in May and completed the project one year later.  Our dream lake house/hunting property (check it out at www.mooselakeranch.com) was built and just in time for our kids to grow up enjoying it, rather than spending a lifetime just dreaming about it.  

It was nothing short of a miracle, and a TON of hard work! But guess what? We aren’t afraid of hard work…that’s what it takes to make your dreams come true.  

Just ask Dave and he’ll tell you all about digging a trench to bury the electrical wiring, a half mile, up hill, both ways! Ha!

Here’s what I want you to remember from this story… YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS!  But first, you need to dare to dream and get VERY specific on exactly what you want.  

Then, simply BELIEVE you can do it, have it, build it…whatever it takes, believe it can be done.  And finally and most importantly, YOU are responsible to CREATE your dream. Get to work making it happen, cuz it’s up to you.  

That should make you feel empowered.

You can do the work to create your dreams. And I promise, it’s SO WORTH IT! Summering I found out (yes, it’s my new favorite verb) is truly the best!