you know that saying….

birds of a feather, flock together.

it’s so true.

i’m learning that more and more each day.

i took a lil’ break from blogland, from designing, from basically everything the last couple of weeks and became a bit of a hermit. if you know me, you know that means two things: 1.) either i’m sick or 2.) i’m being introspective. in this case it was 2.)

i’ve really done some soul searching (as emo as that sounds) and while i feel like i might have lost the drive or confidence to put myself out there for a little while……i’m back.

today seemed like the best day to get back at it….maybe it was the great thrifting time i got to do with a good friend (love ya, K!) and all of the treasures we found. or perhaps it was the friendly mom at my son’s school that mentioned that her cute, white farmhouse was all clean and decorated for Halloween and if i was interested i could take pictures for my blog?

did someone say farmhouse?

as it turns out, there were a whole row of white farmhouses. and in irvine. IRVINE! who knew? (for those that don’t live in California…finding a farmhouse in Irvine is about as common as finding a kangaroo in the mountains. that was a horrible analogy, but that’s all that came to mind. sorry. also, i might have just googled kangaroos to double check that they don’t live in mountains. i know nothing about kangaroos. and no they don’t. unless, you are counting what google said about them living on ‘desert plains on rocky mountains.’ in which case, just ignore everything i just said).

moving on…

now these are not your ‘old’ farmhouses; it’s Irvine after all. they have farmhouse like qualities, that i definitely swooned over. (side note: i have this thing about white houses in movies. if it starts with a white house, has a white house in it, i’m going to love the movie. hands down, every time. now that you know this, you too will love movies with white houses. don’t argue with me. just say, ‘ok.’) 😉

one of my favorite features was the front door.

besides the cute fall wreath and anchor knocker….

it’s a double dutch door. i’ve always wanted one of these. there’s just something so inviting about them. if they had a mouth and could talk, i’m sure it would be saying, “come on in.” or maybe it would say, “quit being a peeping tom.” however, since we were invited, i’m going to go with the first and not the latter.

upon first walking in, i saw this. i thought for a second i got my dream job and was the photographer for Pottery Barn (call me! wink wink). it was straight out of a catalog. it was so cute!

then i noticed the old work table that was perfectly imperfect! it had the most beautiful patina.

it was around this time in the tour that i learned about where some or most of the old treasures in the home came from.

apparently the mom of the mom of the house (who lives with them. we’ll call her grandma J from here on out) loves, LOVES old things. she loves to collect them, find them, re-purpose them.

does this sound familiar?

she walked me through each room and told me about each piece she had found.

how she had them re-purposed.

or rescued from a yard. again, sound familiar?

we had a great time talking about what it means to us to be collectors of these items.

how we each love art and finding art to grace our home. (she had this cat and cow painted on wood by a local Old Towne Orange artist! they hang in the playroom of the house.)

and one of the things that we both mentioned is that though we love the items and they bring us joy, it’s not about the ‘stuff.’

it’s about the history behind them. the story that each one holds. the lives that used to have them.

i was having a great time talking with her and admiring how she decorated the home and looking through her own hand drawn art collection of notecards (coming to Etsy near you! you can do it, grandma J!).

and then sweet grandma J offered me coffee,

with cream.

little did she know that’s my love language.

so you see, my perspective has changed the last few weeks. and i’ve been learning, that though not everyone will ‘get’ you or support you (and by you, i mean me), some will. it’s important to listen to those that do.

because birds of a feather, flock together.

so thankful to have my peeps (and for meeting new peeps) who have similar feathers and want to fly together.

thank you to the H family and grandma J for the tour of your lovely farmhouse and, of course, for the coffee!