Holiday Décor Magazine and an update

Hello friends!

I thought it was well past time that I checked in with all of you! I can hardly believe it’s October already! How are you doing? I know that so many people have been struggling this year and it has left me feeling sad and anxious at times. I am normally a very optimistic, glass half full kind of girl, but I’ll admit it has been tough even for me. As the pandemic and lockdown were in full swing this past spring, I found myself limiting my time on social media and focusing almost exclusively on family, home and health.

I am a big believer in living a healthy lifestyle and have been cooking almost all of our meals from scratch for many years now, so the added at home time did not really change my routine in that regard much. I did suddenly find myself with more time on my hands than I was used to though. While my business took an unplanned break this year due to the coronavirus {no tours to Provence this year}, I have tried to keep busy and focus on the positives in my life.

I have made a big effort over the last year to practice gratitude more in my daily life. So, even through the long shelter-in-place here in Illinois, I tried to keep up with that practice. I, of course, was and am incredibly grateful that my husband has a job and that my family and I have all remained healthy. However, one “silver lining” that I could not have initially anticipated, was the bonus of time together with my oldest daughter, Halena. Halena was a busy senior in high school when the pandemic hit. With school closing and Halena losing her job, I went from seeing very little of my 18-year-old, to getting to see her around the clock for months on end! I, naturally, was beyond thrilled…my daughter, maybe not so much :) We bonded over baking and movie marathons and I hold that precious time together as a true gift from God. Now, Halena has started college and will be moving down to Florida to her own apartment at the end of the month. I will always be grateful for those months together, focusing on the simple joy of just being in the presence of someone I hold so dear.

All of the extra at home time this year resulted in a lot of projects getting done around the house for Steve and I {not a bad thing at all!}. There has been lots of painting but we also installed hardwood floors upstairs in our bedroom. I will have to highlight some of our many projects in a future post! But, today I want to share with you that I have a feature in the current Holiday Décor Magazine. I was very honored to be asked to share some of my styling and photography in their magazine! This past June, while it was nice and hot outside, I was creating a little bit of Christmas magic inside for this feature. Here is a peek…