Do you ever feel you have dozens of dreams begging you to bring them all to life? And you would, if only they might co-operate and become one vision . This is what the Living Room Academy was for me: a culmination of a lifetime of thoughts and ideals. It started out as a flippant invitation that a woman I worked for said, "But why wouldn't you do this?" Besides seeming initially impossible to undertake, I didn't want to commit to such a project as opening my home up to other young women for a summer... I love my summers and couldn't imagine forsaking all the things I would normally do to teach summer classes to strangers. I won't go into why I decided to do this as I've already written on this in depth, but I do want to reiterate that I'm glad I didn't choose the convenient, lackluster path of complacency. I hosted two courses this summer 2023. Six girls came to live with me, although only four of them were able to stay for the endurance of th