After 17 years of getting up at 5AM, driving in the city traffic to be at work for 6:45am with my suit and big smile. Working overtime Monday to Friday and making good money. I learned life was rushing by and I was only looking forward to time off on the weekends.

During the week I would find myself daydreaming for what I had planned for the weekend. Thank goodness Google was invented. This is so much fun at work… Work was great, and the money was rewarding but the quality of life was depleting with the grueling long hours and the daily stresses life can bring. Time was a flying by.

So, after a successful career in the big city. I suddenly felt like I had learned everything in my career, and it was no longer fulfilling my inner needs.

Life is too short to work for only paycheques.

I had this moment where I thought work is a must but how can I enjoy my work so much that I love it just as much as my weekend play, so I don’t look back when it is too late for my dreams to be filled.

I was fortunate to grow up in beautiful places. I was born in Squamish BC and was surrounded by majestic views without knowing this was special. As my husband and I commuted from Squamish to Vancouver daily we came up with dream ideas.

OK so this is where it gets really exciting!! Let’s sell our home and everything, quit our careers and start over.

We sold our Squamish home. It sold in 2 hours and the new owners wanted possession of our home in 3 weeks.

We packed everything and the next thing we new we were driving island style in our UHAUL loaded with a few possessions and did not even know the street name or how to find new home we just bought last week.

We were very frazzled, and the feeling was overwhelming, but I will never forget seeing the Vancouver Fireworks show as we sailed away from the mainland on move day.

I pretended those were for Sterling and my start to our new life.

After moving from our fast-paced life I was weirded out by how quiet my new island home was. It was so peaceful. All I could hear was my refrigerator.

So, I cranked my favorite music daily and started to learn how to focus on what was truly important in life.

We took a break from life at the age of 42. A complete reset.  We are not monetarily rich. We knew we could live on the cheap for 6 months to take time off for us. We planned this and this break was the pivotal moment and reason for our later success.

No more alarm clocks, work phone calls, silly life stresses.

Now we sleep in, work in the garden, enjoy gourmet coffee and scones. I hear the birds singing again. I notice the size of the bumble bees. I see the beauty around us, how vibrant in color our local landscapes are and don’t even get me started on the Ocean and Beaches. 

I noticed that the small things in life were what were giving me the ultimate joy.

I noticed that I really loved thrifting at the thrift store and making old things look new again. I fell in love with all things of house design.

I love to walk the neighborhood and get ideas for landscaping. I love photography and think National Geographic should see our photos.

After taking 6 months off from our jobs we had to start making income and in May of 2016… By the Bay Bed and Breakfast in Chemainus was born.

This was our own business, work schedule and no bosses. With my proven track record of working in tourism we were confident on our product.

We started small and did it right. We had so much fun. We worked hard but it was our own schedule and positive job invention. We ran the Bed and Breakfast and was still able to keep our life restful.

It was a gift.

This is where life got amazing!! After year 3.  We started getting floods of ideas and the creativity started spilling out of us. We had taken time in life to smell the roses and so much healing came from this but also the new doors that we opened were amazing.

Serendipity to say the least.

I want to pass on that when you let your body rest in life, you can restart with so much zest nothing can fail.  

I have learned that the most successful thing we did in our life was to stop, evaluate and not be afraid to change. I know there is a lot of mad science on mediation and getting your mind into a restful state. We did not know this was happening but learned our life formula was creating an amazing life. 

Everybody deserves their own time off in life, don’t be afraid to just do it and reset.  Make this happen and not worry about money simplify your life and spend less.  The joys are unbelievable, and the material items will come again.  Volunteer, help other people, it took 3 years of transition to learn wisdom. 

It doesn’t come right away, and I believe this is the same way we need to look at life when we retire.

OUR LATEST DREAM

By the Bay Lavender started with 25 Lavender plants in a small backyard and two tastefully designed rooms in our basement that we called a Bed and Breakfast.

My husband Sterling is our Scone Chef, and I made the breakfast table look inviting and pretty.  We had so much fun wowing our guests with a small Chemainus experience. The Lavender Garden allowed for a beautiful Scone eating experience.  We were nicely booked but learned our place was too small for the demand. After harvesting our 25 plants we begun distilling our own Pure Lavender Essential Oil from our little garage and then off to France we went to study this amazing flower.

Like the lavender our personal creativity bloomed.  TV turned off, we stopped watching the news and focused our energy on nature and the life around us…. Well except for the odd NETFLIX binge… lol. Our life focus changed, and we learned to sew, play instruments, distill lavender, make 80 different botanical products (with a little help from the experts in France), write books, explore nature, design a lavender store in Chemainus. 

Our dreams got big like our lavender plants, and we ended up growing 6 acres of lavender on Vancouver Island.  We suddenly felt like Walt Disney and that our ideas were too big for our little house, so last summer we rolled the dice and sold our home and looked for the dream property to see our vision come to fruition.  To make it happen we had to pack everything up into storage and live in a 40’ RV over winter. 

Again, this was a time to relax and focus on envisioning our dreams and creating reality.  That reality is here.

 By the Bay Lavender Expansion Plan Complete and now open! May 2022

Last month we bought a beautiful Panoramic Ocean View Villa. Sterling and I have been busy with cleaning, designing, and planting 500 Lavender Plants. We have designed the rooms with themes, Beach Suite, Nest Suite, Ocean Suite, Provence Suite, and our Eagle View Loft. 

We opened May Long weekend with our first guests as a soft opening and it went extremely well. By the Bay Lavender is in Chemainus at Panorama Ridge, our own little Disney in the making. Unbelievable ocean views of the Gulf Islands, Black Tusk Whistler, all the way to the Vancouver skylights.

We pinch ourselves nightly to make sure this is not just a dream, and it is real.

Stay tuned as we are also opening a Lavender Distillery to offer Lavender Experiences.  We have visions of hosting corporate events and retreats.  Dream of having families take pictures in the lavender.  See High Tea being served in the lavender.  Envision letting local charities do fundraisers at the farm. 

Walt Disney would be proud of what we want to create.  In our short time at the Villa we have already experience the birth of a fawn, seen Eagles soar, watched newly born rabbits take their first hop, and witnessed the most amazing sunsets.  We can’t wait to see what happens next.

Our goal is to create a place of fun in nature with a clean contemporary accommodation design. After this COVID thing the world needs fun, and we are full of ideas for this! It is not always about the money you make but the joy in the journey. I won the lotto on this journey. It is so much fun.  We have invented a glorious place of healing amongst our Vancouver Islands beauty and very excited to share in our latest and greatest dream. Stole that one from Walt himself.

Kristie Anne Aurel
Owner of By the Bay Lavender Villa and Distillery

https://www.facebook.com/bythebaylavender 

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