My “Aha Moment” and Blogfest 2012

On day 2 of  Blogfest 2012 we enjoyed an amazing breakfast on the 44th floor of iconic Hearst Towers, we were introduced to editors from Hearst Publications and met our sponsor, Kravet, Inc.’s President, Cary Kravet.  We had the opportunity of sitting in on a couple of panel discussions as well.  One of most interesting discussion of the day was led by Newell Turner, Editor in Chief of House Beautiful.   Newell’s panel consists of HB “New Wave” Designers, Michael Herold, Jill Goldberg and Jon Call.   Newell shared his secret for choosing projects to feature in HB magazine by finding “aha moments” in the photographs submitted.  He described “aha moments” as ” something that embodies a great design idea or shows a beautiful way of life.”   He engaged the audience by asking us to think of our “aha moment”.   As I pondered the question, I realized that House Beautiful was responsible in part for my “aha moment.  When I was a child, I would thumb through the magazine on our coffee table and dream about the interiors I saw on the pages.   I would build elaborate play houses based on the designs I saw. I’m not sure why, but somewhere between childhood and college, I forgot about my passion.  The college I chose didn’t have an interior design major, so I majored fashion design. After working for years in the fashion industry, I had an “aha moment” in 1993, when I rediscovered  my passion for interior design. It seemed I was happier redecorating my friends and families homes more than working in fashion.  It was not easy to return to school in midlife, as a mother of two small children, but I am glad I did.  I also refused to apologize, when my then 10 yr old my son said, “mom didn’t you go to school for eight years?  To which I answered “yes!”  Only to have my son point out that his friend’s dad went to school for 8 years and was a brain surgeon. It really didn’t matter how long it took or what others thought.   I was following my passion.