What is Violet Hills, you ask? Well, if you want the plain and simple, stick with just this first paragraph. Violet Hills is my dream - one of the first things I think about when I wake up in the morning, and one of the last things on my mind when I go to bed. Violet Hills is my future business on the side, I hope. Violet Hills is a house on Green Bluff in Spokane, Washington where the husband and I will host weddings in our backyard during the summer. Country chic anybody? Just to give you a tiny sampling of some things I adore:
If you prefer the long version... by all means... read on.
If you know me well, you know I'm a pretty driven person. Usually when I want something, I get it. It's not out of selfishness and it's not necessarily because I'm spoiled (although I will admit, that is the case sometimes), it's usually because I get my mind set on something, then I work hard to get it. With this in mind, you can imagine when I came home from picking blueberries one early summer morning out at Green Bluff and I told my husband I wanted to buy a house out there and host weddings in the backyard, chances are he was probably.a.little.freaked.out, to say the least. Especially after I pitched the idea of renting out our house ASAP and moving in with a friend in order to save money for it. HA! Funny, right? He thought so too, apparently. At first he chalked it up to another one of my crazy ideas, and kind of laughed it off. Which, in all honesty, now that I think about it, this surprises me out of my husband - he's usually very supportive and an excellent listener. How rude. I guess maybe that tells you how crazy he thought my idea was! But after he continued to hear me talking about it with a few close friends and family, I think he finally realized I was not blowing smoke. So, we sat down and had a serious conversation about it, and he finally heard my heart of hearts.
I have a business degree and a Spanish degree, but I didn't know what exactly I was going to school for; I just knew a college education was in my deck of cards. I've never been one of those people that's said "I'm going to be a nurse, a teacher, an accountant, a counselor" - I've never been able to fill in my blank, which often times leaves me floundering and wondering where I fit in. Don't get me wrong, I love my job right now - I love the people I work with and am passionate about my work - and really the best part about it is I know I'm using my gifted talents there. I just know I'm capable of doing more.
I've always been interested in weddings, but have never believed it was one of my God-given talents - I'm as pretty type A as you can get (proof: my closet is organized by season, then by color. My canned foods are lined up by category, then by type.) So weddings have always been one of those little off in the distance dreams. But as I was driving through Green Bluff that one summer morning, I saw a house for sale with a flier available to pick up, so I whipped my car around out of curiosity, knowing my husband and I have always wanted to live in the country, and picked it up. The price was high, but not as high as I was anticipating, hm. I sat down with a friend later that afternoon (Les, I owe you!!), and we started talking about the possibilities of hosting weddings at this random house on this random flier. When that thought came to my mind, it's like a huge light bulb went on and the possibilities for my life and living out my passions expanded immensely. My two ideal worlds (weddings and owning a business with my type A personality) collided to make this perfect dream. Let me tell you just a few things I get excited about:
- Using spreadsheets and appointment books
- Sitting down and talking with prospective clients and dreaming with them about how our sweet Violet Hills can make their day beautiful
- Working with those that can't afford our listed prices because my husband and I had a very tight budget for our wedding too, and we understand the struggle
- Networking with people
- Thinking about all those people that could potentially come through our home and we can affect them, and be affected by them, in a great way
- Using Violet Hills for ministry in the off-season
So many exciting things to look forward to, right?
A seed has been planted on my heart, and I'm going for it. Now that I've filled in my blank, how can I not? 15 or 20 years down the road when I have grown kids, I want to reflect back with them and be able to say, whether or not Violet Hills comes to life, "we went for it!" instead of "we were too scared". The way I see it, the worst that can happen is Violet Hills doesn't come to life, we end up with a bigger savings account than when we started, and we point our lives in a different path to begin going down.
I feel like there are so many things to do and so many steps to take in order to bring Violet Hills to life (as you can imagine, I have already created many lists and spreadsheets to track these steps), but I know God will guide my husband and I through the process. Unfortunately I don't have thousands of dollars currently sitting in my bank account, so I guess I'm forced to be a little patient. So, here we go, one step at a time, praying our way through it.
Want to know more about Green Bluff? Visit http://www.greenbluffgrowers.com/
By the way, in case you're wondering, my husband is fully on board and supports the dream 100%. I'm so lucky to have someone that will uproot his life too in order to see me fulfill my dreams.
Another by the way, here is the picture of the dream house. I know chances are very slim that we'll be able to buy this one, but hey, all the stars could line up, you never know! Wouldn't you want your wedding here?
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