Have you ever had a dream (or a collection of dreams) that is SO big you don't ever know how it could come true? During the last six months, I've realized a host of lifelong dreams all at once. It's so overwhelming, nostalgic, and beautiful, my heart is just seized with a breathless pain...the kind of pain you experience when your heart is bursting with gratitude. I can't even list all of the dreams that I've harbored in the far nooks of my heart and mind over the years that are now coming true.

I've always been a sentimental person, loving "old things" because they all have a story. Things from the past evoke simpler times, and I - as you know - am drawn in by the beauty of simplicity. (For example, "The Night Before Christmas" house was just the time period I imagined myself living in....the Victorian house laced with velvet, red plaid, and sugarplums just tickled my fancy.) My friends, I'm living in just such a house...a home that just welcomes you in with warmth.

Trevor and I received an enormous gift and we moved into our dream home this October. Our property is five acres, complete with barn and shop and garden and orchard. There's even a play structure for our boys. Just yesterday I climbed up in the loft of the shop and swept out the planks, dreaming of all the wonderful shipwrecks, space crafts, and cowboy hideouts my boys will have here. I thought back and remembered how -since I was a girl- I have been captivated by spaces like this. I wandered through the dirt floors of the barn, envisioning the farm fruit stand I will have here come spring. I'm dreaming of where I'll put the Christmas trees next winter and the apples in the fall. How will I organize the space and make it feel homey and warm for visitors? I then walk across the drive to the garden and I imagine where the big fire pit will be and the picnic tables and....I just keep walking and dreaming.

I guess I just want you to know that dreams really do come true. Dreams that were planted in your heart when you were little are there for a reason. Your affinities, your hopes, your imagination - all these are part of what make you uniquely YOU.

I drove past this house for TWELVE YEARS and admired it from afar. For some reason (heaven knows even when we don't) I had an affinity in my heart for this particular house....and now I live here.

Friends, don't give up on YOUR dreams. Don't let the economy or your retirement or your stressors hold you back from dreaming. Reach back into the attic of your mind, all the way back to your childhood. Trace your dreams from then to now and follow where they lead.

Those who live a purposeful life are far more likely to recognize and seize their dreams. Join me in dreaming outlandish dreams. Who konws, they might just ALL come true!

~Vicki