Let’s start with pure honesty. I have no clue what I’m doing but I’m up for the challenge.

I’ve struggled for quite some time now with where to even begin (a self-inflicted insecurity if you will) you know, “nobody will want to hear what I have to say or who wants to read about our lives”, “what if people don’t actually relate”, etc. A friend gave me some pretty solid advice and said, “just drink a couple glasses of wine and put it out there!”

I’ve always had a passion for expressing myself with words. Since I was just a little girl in preschool… I remember people asking me what my favorite subject or activity was and replying with, “I like to write!” I consistently kept a journal. You know, the kind where you tell yourself, what you did that day (step by step of course) and you draw stick figures of every single person you did it with. Then you graduate to the stories you write from summer camp, that one year you scored a trip from the YMCA. You write about how you and your cabin mates won the lip-sync battle cause’ ya’ll had no shame in flaunting your little lady moves on stage to “where is the love” by “The Black Eyed Peas”. Plus, the little leprechaun-looking boy was watching you… He told your friend he wanted to ask you to the ice cream social and even though you were clearly as smitten as a 7th grader could be, you pretended you wanted nothing to do with THAT. Which is fine cause’ I was in no way ready to start taking a liking to boys… We still had at least two more summers of dirt biking and man hunt before we even had time for that!

Then, there’s high school… That’s when they really crack down. They take all the fun-colored markers away and stomp alllllll over your DREAMS. Your lucky if you find one really badass teacher who not only loves what he does but he makes sense of it too! Too bad, his class wasn’t English cause’ I was never one to excel in math. But… you slump your way through those next couple of years, make a few memories (I mean mistakes) along the way and you survive.

Now what? College was a far-fetched dream…. I had no idea how I’d come up with the money but it was one goal I was hella-determined to accomplish! I wrote some mediocre essays, landed a couple scholarships, grants and a less-than-minimum-wage work study and I was off to what I called a “wanna-be New York City”. But I finally had a voice again. I had the freedom to choose some of the classes I could take and the stakes were high (well if I didn’t pass I’d lose my funding) so, believe it or not, I studied my butt off and began to incorporate small bits of passion into as much of my work as I could… I was pretty dead set on convincing anyone in admissions that it was totally acceptable to replace my entire schedule with my communications class. I was running out of money, there were no off-campus jobs left that didn’t require you to take your clothes off and microwave ramen noodles were gettin’ real old. I pushed pause on the “college experience” went back to my robot style job back home and spent a couple years searching for whatever it was I was meant to do…

I still scribbled a word or two here and there. More so to console myself. Fast forward through regaining my self-respect & independence, becoming a mother and a woman all at once and saying my final goodbyes to my unmissed life.
I started writing again. To pass the time when I laid my newborn to sleep at night and my journals and books became my friends. I read self help books, positive affirmations, I wrote to reflect on how those made me feel and little-by-little I was transforming into a person I wasn’t even aware I was capable of becoming.

Before I knew it, the time was flying by. I was learning to be happy being me, a happy MUM at that. Content was what we finally were. I was perfectly fine making ZERO changes and a little afraid to try anything new to be honest. And dating. For GOODNESS SAKE, why was everyone always bringing that up? I constantly heard, “you know you’ll find the perfect person for you, etc. etc”. Forget that business, I was busy lactating for an infant and certainly didn’t care to add someone else’s needs to the mix… but some quick months later I had no idea I was opening up our world to new opportunities….

Personally, I kind of like cliff hangers. You know, when they take a commercial break during your favorite show and your gripping to the edge of your seat for dear life?!? So, if you don’t mind all those run-on sentences and my constant babbling so much… stay tuned. Cause’ just like that sassy little preschooler, I still love to write!

With immense support & love, I am here.

Here is your invitation into bits of our life at [Mums Orchard House], where it all began for our little family. Just a mom, learning life & happiness with a man and a boy on a pear orchard. Covered in some raw, honest, messy, exciting and creatively-worded pieces, just for you.

I look forward to sharing more of our life’s great balancing act with you all!

Many Blessings,
Vivianna [Mums Orchard House]
Do you have a blog? Please, share some with me if you will? Leave your link or comment and I’d be happy to share the love!