Decorating and Entertaining at an Early Age

When I think back to the first time I ever hosted a party it was sometime while I was in college.  I was living in an apartment with my roommates and we started hosting holiday themed girl’s nights.  We had a Christmas cookie baking party and a Saint Patrick’s Day soiree of green appetizers and clover shaped everything.  I remember my roommates let me decorate our common living space and kitchen as they told me I had a good eye for decorating.  I started collecting holiday decorations and had my mom make us a floral wreath for our door. 

All during this time I was studying to become a teacher, which as you may have noticed, never happened.  I used to think that my love for the holidays, decorating, and spending my time doing anything creative had to do with my desire to have my own classroom one day.  Though I do not doubt that my college studies and my time as an elementary school student play heavily in this as well but as I look back at my past I see early on a love for filling a home with pretty things.

Growing up in my parent’s home my mom always let me decorate my room however I wanted.  I had my Barbie phase, my paint each wall a different color phase (see even then I couldn’t make up my mind!), my teenage punk rock band loving stage, and the list goes on.  I would spend late nights at home tearing my room apart, moving furniture, organizing drawers, and rearranging posters. 

Compared to kids rooms I see online today, this was not a reflection of any sort of professional interior design.  My taste has grown up since then and I have found greater ground at having an eye for design, but it was in those early years that I had the freedom to create and decorate which lead me to my passions today. 

I think it is so interesting as a kid, and even as a twenty something, to have an idea of what you want to be when you grow up and what direction you want your life to take.  Never did I ever consider going into any art field let alone one in interior design, yet it was ingrained in my heart and soul’s inner being at such an early age.

Even when I was in college, I was working with students, at one point running a fifth and sixth grade ministry at my church, which was filled with planning events, creating activities, and decorating a room for the students I oversaw.  There have been times where I have questioned my gifts and skills I once used as a young adult and questioning my purpose in the home now.  But I realized those gifts are not lost.  They were actually the stepping stones to the person I have become today.  Those experiences prepared me to be the homemaker, entertainer, encourager of women, and the blogger that I am today.

I am thankful for a mom who did not go crazy every time I changed my room.  I was free to take risks and find confidence in surrounding myself with things I loved.  I hope to be this open with my own children’s creativity one day. 

I am thankful that I took a leap and did not pursue teaching as it opened up a whole new world to explore my creativity (Did you know I started blogging shortly after I graduated college?  I had quit my job—another risk that everyone questioned, and I spent my free time blogging and crafting.  I had an Etsy shop for a short time and I followed blogs about homemaking and home décor.  Little did I know these things would come full circle to a reflection of my true passions and callings in life).

I am also thankful for all those students.  Those students were my trial run.  They got excited about holidays and activities and hanging things on the wall.  They gave me a safe place to try new things and to be detail oriented that sometimes adults don’t always notice (of course you all notice but I didn’t know you back then!). 

And I am thankful for my roommates and my time living on my own.  It was my first nesting experience and my roommates were so easy going, they put up with my decorations and constantly wanting to organize everything.  It was my first home away from my parents and I learned I could still play house even as an adult.

But these words would not be complete without the entire story because with these fond memories come a few hard ones too.  Out of love, people confronted me, questioned what I was doing with my life, and tried to talk me out of an ideal life that I had come up with in my mind.  Little did they know that I am a hard core idealist and those big dreams I had finally came true. 

But I am thankful for those situations because they are what helped shape me into the person I am today.  Because when the whole world was shouting one thing it was those inner whispers that spoke of my true passions.  I am glad I had the courage to listen to them.

// How has your past brought you to where you are today?