Happy Friyay!! I hope you are having a wonderful week and have loads of lovely plans for the weekend! We have been spending more and more time driving out into the countryside and I do believe that this has become an obsession for us! As the fall leaves begin to change and the temps finally start to dip, the long drives through the rolling hills of Georgia have become my favorite place in the entire world. Being abroad for twelve years, meant leaving all of this behind and for so long it felt disloyal to the adventures we had, to truly settle into life here. I always thought we’d move back overseas. We’d spent so many years always imagining adventures in far flung places that we never thought to dream of a life here. We’ve visited quite a few places, contemplated what we would do once our kids got older, assuming that we’d go back for more… but something happened a little over a year ago. We started to really think about where we wanted to be, what we really wanted for our future once our kids got older… and the answer was one I don’t think Jack and I ever really saw coming… we’d fallen in love with where we were. In fact, no matter how many trips we went on, no matter how many times we tried to imagine buying a house somewhere else or moving… we just couldn’t wait to come home… to our little cottage in the middle of what we like to call, “horse country.”
The land here feels like home. The trees like familiar friends. Sunday drives are truly the best, with cows and horses dotting the landscape and more people returning to farming rather than leaving it. There are farm shops and antique shops and it’s just so lovely! So, once we started to realize that this is where we wanted to be, we began to dream up the home of our fantasies. We imagined wallpaper and a vegetable patch and a fireplace always warming the rooms, wood floors and a nod to the equestrian lifestyle. I’ve never been more excited about any home I’ve ever decorated than this one, in this phase. I’m exhausted because I can barely sleep! 🙂 It feels like the adventure we always thought awaited us somewhere else, but instead was waiting for us right here where we started!
I’ve had the tag line “helping others find their way home” written into the manifest of House of Valentina since the moment I began to dream of what we could create. Even in its infancy before there was a blog or a YouTube channel, there was a passion for this idea that we could help others find their “heaven on earth” feeling in their home… and somewhere along the way, we found our way, too.
There is this crazy word that keeps running through my mind that is startling, disturbing and yet brings with it something we have been chasing for a very long time… peace. Finding what your dream is means that you can make decisions with clarity and confidence. Other things hold no appeal to them- you don’t hate them. You just don’t think about them.
Everyone has been asking why I made such a big leap into a new style, and I can say it with confidence- clarity. I know what I want, I know what I’m after and I can’t wait to create it! I’m home.
So, as we go into the weekend, I would wish upon you a few moments to truly think about what your idea of “heaven on earth” would be. Maybe for you it will mean another move, or a new style might take over, but don’t limit yourself with confining questions like budget or timelines. Just ask yourself where you’d really like to be and what the place would feel like, smell like, look like… and write it down so you won’t forget. You might find yourself, like we did, needing to work through a few things you THOUGHT you wanted, but I promise, at the end of those questions lies something that is in short commodity in life- peace.
Well, I am off to bed to gather my cookbooks and dream up yummy treats for the weekend! I wish you happy moments, joy, and time with those you hold dearest! Sending warm hugs and a kiss for each cheek! xxV
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