Some Snaps From Summer At Home
This July I had the chance to spend a whole month at home with my family in Georgia! This is the first time I’ve been home for so long since I was a teenager so it felt like a really special opportunity amidst the craziness of this year. While I’ve been documenting what I got up to over on my weekly vlogs on YouTube, I thought I’d also share some snaps here on the blog too. So here’s a look back at the past month at home.
Celebrating Birthdays & A New Home
The main reason I chose to travel back to Georgia for the month of July is that it meant I was able to celebrate the birthdays of both my mom and dad, together as a family! We spent those days eating lots of delicious grilled seafood and celebrating with cake and fresh flowers. But there was also the added celebration of being the first visitors at my mom’s new home, which she moved into at the beginning of the year. Being able to stay at her new place was such a treat as it’s a space we’ve all quickly grown to love. I especially liked the black spiral staircase, which I took full advantage of to spice up my outfit pics! Funny enough, it felt like she’d been there for years already so you could definitely say it feels like home.
Working & Relaxing At Home
Since it was a working vacation, I was actually quite busy during the month of July, doing some cool Instagram collaborations, YouTube videos and blogging throughout. The change in scenery and being around my family, who I hadn’t seen in a long while, really was such a treat after a particularly challenging past few months. I’m still very new to the idea of balancing blog work with daily life - as it’s pretty much taken up every moment of my free time since I started. Now that it’s my full-time work (at least for now) I’m trying to find the right balance of work vs. play time and forcing myself to take some time off now and then.
The Garden Project
Another fun part about staying at my mom’s new place is that it has a lovely, big backyard with a fire pit and a beautiful garden. My dad, being an avid gardener, landscaper and carpenter, was more than excited to plan a garden revamp, which we all happily helped with. The garden was a bit overgrown and poorly planned out to begin with (lots of big trees planted closely together) so we basically did a big clear out and started with a blank canvas. This included cutting down a pretty big tree that was likely to eventually fall over, but apart from that the general layout of the garden stayed the same. I also assisted my dad in a few building projects, like creating a potting deck/ seating area for the patio and a small bench for the garden.
A Big Old Plant Shop
Because we were doing so much landscaping in the garden, we also needed to do quite a bit of plant shopping. Armed with a shopping list of trees, shrubs and flowers, we visited a couple of chain stores and a local nursery that’s been around since the 1940s (pictured above) that had a bunch of old greenhouses filled with every plant imaginable. My mom is a big fan of Japanese Maple trees and we were able to track down a couple of those too. We were also able to salvage quite a few larger trees and plants in the garden, including this massive elephant ear plant that we relocated to the back of the yard so it could really fan out.
A Much Needed Reset
All in all, the month of July was jam-packed with fun projects, lots of work and quality time spent with family. And it' also feels like a bit of a pause before the second part of this year kicks off, with some other plans in August, September and then the start of the holiday season. To say this later half of the year is moving about a mile a minute is an understatement. So July felt like just the refresh I needed to balance myself and start to feel energized and excited about things again. Coming back home at the end of the month, I really felt like I had a fresh outlook on lots of different aspects of my life.
So how has your summer been treating you? Let me know in the comments! xx Jessica
