Changing a property is a big project. Especially when you want to “make it your own” and your life purpose is to “delightfully inspire others.”

When it all begins to take on a snail-like pace, we remind ourselves

• how far we have come
• to celebrate what we have achieved in the past
• to stay excited and remember the goal is to transform our place into a great home and gallery for the future.

Our ancient struggle isn’t one between two extraterrestrial clans. It’s more about the struggle between what we know we are capable of achieving, and the actual time and monetary restraints it takes to achieve them.

Our New Year’s focus saw us choosing to accept our situation rather than add more pressure. We decided to continue to produce in an authentic way, to be patient, mindful, and be a little better at balancing work and play. That means opening our gallery on site by next summer allowing us room to breathe and stay creative. When we launch, we want to reveal the completed beauty in the kind of way that fully delights and inspires others and pleases us.

Slowing things down has allowed room for the unexpected. Our transformation is revealing itself organically, making space for serendipity and unexpected rewards and treasures.

Things we try to remember:

We transformed our scraggly trees into award-winning MAD extra virgin olive oil even though horticulture wasn’t our major strength.

Gold medal MAD EVOO

Scraggly MAD olive trees in the early days

Mad Olive trees growing strong

We transformed a patch of earth beneath a giant mound of dirt into a luscious vegetable garden. This not only supports us, but others, and has become a gorgeous focal point for gatherings.

Building vege patch

Beginnings of a vege patch

Abundant MAD vege garden

to this…