Seasons & Revelations

The other day I had the privilege of having a wonderful conversation with a lady who writes for many national home and decorating magazines. She told me she might be interested in doing a feature article sometime on my home and on The Blissful. What thrilling news! I told her that I would love to share my shop with her in a more personal way. To have one's boutique written up in living color in the pages of any glossy mag is, I imagine, a secret dream of almost every shop owner. So the shop, definitely a yes. And then, I told her my big secret, which I am going to divulge here today.

The secret is that I do not currently have a home to call my own. I gave mine up two years ago in order to be able to start the shop. Since moving back to my hometown of Canton, Ohio, I have been living out of my childhood bedroom in my parents' house. Almost thirty years of my own accumulated finds, furnishings, and style now reside ingloriously in paper bags and boxes in my mom and dad's basement. How ya like them apples?

I miss having a home of my own. I especially miss having a kitchen where every purposefully-chosen utensil, all the dog-eared cookbooks, each adorable and impractical-looking tea towel, and the chunky cutting board, are all right where I want them. I miss flopping down on my own sofa at night. I miss not sharing a bathroom. But, you see, the sacrifice of home ownership (or even home rentership) feels worth it to me in this season. I would rather cultivate the shop and a lifestyle of entrepreneurship right now than cultivate a home. It's definitely something I look forward to for the near future...with a very hopeful emphasis on the near. After living as a self-supporting and independent woman for a number of years, and as great as my parents are and as mercifully easy as our relationship is, you might imagine that the transition is occasionally a little frustrating. You would be correct. But we're all in this together.

So that's my big revelation. When customers very graciously say things like, "Your home must be gorgeous," and I sidestep the question by replying with something like, "Well, it's a lot different than the shop," now you can understand why. While their minds are conjuring something very lush and offbeat and Euro-styled, my mind is holding a picture of my 10x12-foot bedroom, the perimeter of which is ringed with stacks of books and overflowing laundry baskets (holding clean laundry, I promise!). When I eventually get a home of my own again and am able to appoint it delightfully, I probably won't be able to keep myself from posting photos here on the blog, so you can be sure you'll get to take a peek.

But that's a story for a different season. Today, I'm focusing on enjoying the one I'm in. Tonight, in my parents' kitchen, I'll prepare a simple but tasty dinner of seasoned baked chicken breasts, rice casserole with mushrooms, and dilled baby carrots. The trappings might not be my own, but I can still put them to good use. :)