THE INSPIRATION BEHIND
"LOVE AND LATTES"

I think in truth, the seeds were planted for this idea long, long ago when I was just a wee girl learning what it would take to woo the future man of my dreams... I KNOW I was born into this world as a "hopeful" romantic. For as long as I can remember, my heart was aflutter with starry-eyed imaginings of "happily ever after" with my very own dreamy Prince Charming. I loved the idea of romantic, poetic, all-consuming love. So, when my Grandma Mary shared her "secret" ingredient to wooing the man of her dreams (my Grandpa Bill), I sure did take it to heart. She was of the firm belief that the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and so... from a very young rosy-cheeked age, I set upon a course of making sure that creating delicious food was well established in my repertoire of acts of loving service. I developed a love for the culinary arts at a young age, and creating food for others quickly became a language of love for me. It remains to this day, one of my favorite ways to say "I love you." Fast forward to the day that I got the idea to start experimenting with creating delicious (and some not-so-delicious LOL) lattes for my very own Prince Charming. The first chance I had to cook for this man, you KNOW I did. This was the next level-up. My hot beverage game needed work. It was pretty hit or miss at first, but I was determined to make his heart go "pitter patter" as we shared mugs of hot deliciousness and warm laughter together in the mornings. I took pictures of my beautiful creations to keep as memories, and one day, another idea was born... At the time, I had been a Holistic Healing Arts practitioner for over 8 years, and was waiting on the inspiration to hit me for a new 6 month group program I was wanting to launch. As inspired ideas tend to do, the thought came in a flash. "AHA!! I'll create a personal transformation program called Love and Lattes!! It's cute and catchy, and I think people will love the idea!!" Creating the content for the program was easy. I came up with the outline and curriculum for an incredible, intensive, immersive program within days of the idea coming to me. The "LOVE" part of it was easy. The sticky bit was figuring out how I was going to take care of the "LATTES" part of it. After a loooong time of not landing on a solution, I somehow stumbled across videos of people creating hot cocoa bombs (they were all the rage a few years ago apparently) and... AHA!! The idea of creating "Latte Bombs" was the solution I had been waiting for. The thing was, when I finally landed on the Latte solution, I had no interest in launching my program quite yet (it was just before Christmas), so I decided to just go ahead and launch the Lattes first to complement my already well established Healing Arts practice and as a way to introduce my Love and Lattes program to people who don't know the kinds of healing arts wizardry I've been up to for the past 9+ years. I also felt that there was a certain cleverness to it all, and as my Grandmother's wise words echoed in my memory, I figured, hey.. if one of the ways to touch people's hearts with love is to make them something health conscious and yummy to put in their tummies, then I was surely on to something else that was special even on its own, right? And special it has been. The idea morphed post-Christmas to a full-on artisanal chocolate adventure for Valentine's Day along with the Latte Bombs and a line of Organic body products and candles as a part of the Love and Lattes line. With the feedback I've received from the people who were the recipients of my creations, the love I shared in those "works of heart" was certainly felt, appreciated, and deeply received. And so, here I am, embarking on a journey that I'd never have imagined I'd be on even 6 months ago. My home office not only feels Heavenly, but now it smells like chocolate on top of that. It's the simple things in life that make it all worthwhile, don't you think?