Setting Roots in Setúbal: Patti Davis Shares Her Journey of Relocating from the US

Taking a leap into the unknown can be both exciting and overwhelming—and in this episode, I share a conversation that captures exactly that. Patty Davis opens up about what it really looks like to leave behind a familiar life in the U.S. and start fresh in Portugal. From selling her home without ever visiting the country to navigating a new language, culture, and way of life, her story is filled with bold decisions and honest reflections.

We also dive into the beauty of travel, the unexpected challenges of starting over, and how embracing change can lead to incredible new opportunities. Along the way, we talk about the entertainment industry, creative passions, and what it means to truly build a life that aligns with your dreams—even when it feels uncertain. 

Episode Highlights

[00:30] – Introducing Patty and the spontaneous decision to move to Portugal

[01:60] – Selling everything and taking a leap into the unknown

[03:11] – First impressions of Portugal and finding the right place to settle

[06:10] – Why Portugal stood out over other destinations for relocation

[07:52] – Adjusting from life in the U.S. to a slower, safer lifestyle abroad

[09:40] – The challenges of language barriers and everyday life as an immigrant

[11:33] – Practical tips for anyone considering an international move

[14:51] – Favorite experiences in Portugal, from markets to local culture

[17:36] – Travel highlights and favorite destinations around the world

[18:31] – The story behind launching Atlanta Movie Tours

[23:45] – The magic of visiting filming locations and storytelling through travel

[25:40] – Creating connection through dinner parties and building community abroad

[27:17] – What’s next: rediscovering creativity and writing a novel

[29:05] – Words of wisdom: Believe in the life you’re creating

Links and Resources

• Patti Davis Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anatomyofadinnerparty
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinnerpartyp/

Follow Amelia

Instagram: @AmeliaOldOfficial

Website: https://AmeliaOld.com

If this episode inspired you to take a leap, big or small, share it with someone who’s been dreaming about their next adventure. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and leave a review—it helps these stories reach more people and continue to inspire.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Everyone has a story to tell. We connect and relate to one another when we share our stories. My name is Amelia Old, and I am your host of Voices of Inspiration. Join me as I share stories of friends, family, and strangers through my everyday life and travels. You will laugh, possibly cry, but walk away feeling connected more than ever to those around you and ready to be the change our world needs. Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hello, my friends. Thank you for joining me today. I am so excited about this episode. It's probably one of my favorites thus far. I chat with my friend Patty Davis, who I met a few years ago during a press trip to St. Simon's Island in Georgia. Patty recently made the move to Portugal with her husband after having never spent a significant amount of time there. So we talk about her move and the challenges that have come along with that. And we also talk about the entertainment industry and travel, traveling to filming locations. And Patty turns the tables and interviews me, and we talk about what led to me purchasing a farm during the pandemic. This is one episode you will not want to miss. You ready? I am but it is. So we met like we just talked, we're talking about this like five, six, seven years ago in St. Simon's, which has become one of my favorite places now. Like I've now taken my family there a few times and I've even started looking at real estate there because I love it. I love it. That was one of those press trips where you know how you all you go on press trips and fine, you're there to tell a story. But that was one of those places I'm like, okay, I think I can come and live here. Absolutely. It was such a good time.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

We had so much fun together. Now, had you been there a couple of times? I had been there.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

I want to say maybe I'd been there once before. I think I'd been to the that's so nice. Yeah, I love it. And my family loves it now too. Um, but you just made a big move in your life. I did. My husband and I moved to Portugal.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So how did that happen? Well, we had been planning a trip to Lisbon because everyone said, Oh, you've got to go and see Portugal, you're gonna love it. And it wasn't really on our radar. There's always other places to go, Paris or Amsterdam. And um, then the real estate market was really good. And we people kept asking, Are you gonna sell your house? Are you gonna sell your house? I'm like, well, where would we go? And that went from where would we go to where could we go? So we really had nothing else holding us. Our our dogs we had had for 15 years had passed in the last couple of years. We have no children. We said, you know what? The time is right. We tried to sell the house in 2017, 2018, not a bite. Nobody wanted to put a bid on it, nobody came but look at it barely. Same house, it's nothing different. This time we put the house on the market for a bigger price tag, and it was it sold in three days. Wow. And you're like and you were in Atlanta, right? We were we're in Atlanta. That was our home, that was my home for 30 years. And um, we had net at this point, we had never even been to Portugal.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

It was just like a thought in your mind, like this might be a nice place to go.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Fun little dream. We had done a little research, we'd done some research on it and we sold the house. We closed on April 27th. By May 10th, we were in Portugal looking around and seeing what would work for us. And we're like, hopefully, we're gonna love it because we just sold our house. Was there ever a fear like we're we're not gonna love it? Heck yeah. Heck yeah. I mean, we didn't know. We had no concept of what it was like here, and even with um the language is so this is a funny word to use for it, but it's so foreign. Like, you know, you know everyone takes a little bit of Spanish in high school, you know Italian because you eat in Italian restaurants, you know, a little bit of French because you know, fashion and and right things the media that you're so used to, you know, in putting into your um Wixicot every day, but nobody speaks Portuguese, you know, that's not something that's you hear all the time. Yeah. So it was really it's it's a difficult language to learn, but we we learned the basics, we learned how to say hello, good morning, good afternoon, thank you. Off we went. So we came here May 10th. We loved it and we traveled around a little bit. There's we went to Lisbon First, which is gorgeous, but really big, a little too big for us. And we went out to Malidish, which is out on the coast. Christian Lacroix? No, Christian Louettan is building a hotel out there. Oh George Clooney is rumored to be bringing building a hotel out there too.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Oh, well, I guess I need to visit.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Nice, but remote, really, really remote. So I'm like, okay, this is a little too far away. So we came back in and went to Stubel, which is kind of like just like a almost a suburb of Lisbon. It's about 30 minutes or 40 minutes on the train, and it's a little seaside town. And this is where we decided to be. It's just lovely, it's quaint. Um, we do live across the street from a couple of nightclubs. So at night it gets a little loud when it's lively when we need for it to be lively and it's calm when we need for it to be calm.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Fun fact when I did um my so I'm super, super into genealogy and ancestry and stuff. And so I've done a couple DNA tests. And when I got one of them back, um I ended up, you know, having Portuguese ancestors and I had no idea about that. And so that's something that I've been working on and doing some research on lately. So I thought that that was interesting when when we moved there, and I was like, I'm just finding this piece out about my background and uh yeah, yeah, visit me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if I can, if I can um, you know, really break it down on who my ancestors were, you know, from that area, that would be really cool. That's one of those I'm just starting to crack. So it might take some time. Nothing but time. So was there a specific reason why Portugal over somewhere else out of everywhere in the world?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, of course, you know, we wanted to be someplace that was a little more familiar to us. We've been to Spain, we love Barcelona, but the the requirements for getting there and for I mean, for putting money in the bank account and for um just jumping through hoops red tape-wise, Portugal seemed to be the easiest one of all. There's there's very little time needed to become a citizen when we decided to do that. We can have a dual citizenship, don't have to give up our United States citizenship, and that only takes about five years. In Spain, it would take 10 years, and they wanted you to have lots of health checkups and stuff you needed to show before you entered the country. Not that that's a big deal, but still it was it was a longer time to become a citizen in Spain than Portugal. The Portuguese people are really excited to have people here. It you know, I think maybe 10 years ago, it was not the place it is now. Like it's a everybody wants to be here. So we're reading more and more about people coming here and a lot of people from the UK. We met so many people from Germany and the Netherlands and the you know, the United Kingdom that just are all moving to Portugal. It's just a better quality of life, it's super safe. You can walk around in the middle of the night, nobody's gonna bother you. And still, you know, I think in Atlanta, we lived in a neighborhood that was being gentrified, gorgeous old historic neighborhood. But hearing gunshots wasn't unusual. It wasn't even surprising after a while. And here, when you hear anything like that, you just kind of you realize, okay, we might have a little bit of PTSD from from living in the States and especially the political climate. Don't want to get into politics, but it's I just feel a lot safer here.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

I can understand that. And I I spent quite a few years in Atlanta, and so I definitely know what you mean. I I remember when I first moved to Atlanta, like I don't know, maybe 2001, 2002. You know, there were millions of people there then. And now 20 years on, it's it's I I went there recently over the summer. I went there actually, um, and spent just a weekend there. And I was in the midtown area. And my kids were like, oh, you know, mom, didn't you have a place here, an apartment here? And I was like, Yeah, and they were like, Where? I said, honestly, I could not even tell you where it was compared to what things look like now.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I was so lost. Yeah, I'm sure that even going back, even going back when we were gone for the summer and came back in August, it was it was changed. It was just a few months. I love Atlanta. I mean, all of our closest friends were there, except where we have our very closest in Florida as well. But it was just time for us to make a change. Yeah. So also we're so close to everything. We always wanted to explore Europe, and we're only just a quick little two-hour plane ride to Paris or to the Netherlands, which we got a chance to do this summer, which was really fun.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

That's so nice and convenient. My in-laws live in England. Uh, my husband's from England, and so all of our in-laws are there. And I, you know, I always envy them because it is so easy for them to travel to other places, you know. It's whereas we're kind of limited, you know, domestically, and they're like, oh, we're gonna go to Greece or we're going to Spain or, you know. Um is so close. Everything's so close. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a benefit. What um were some of the challenges in that as an expat and making this change from moving from the States to Portugal?

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Um, coming as an immigrant, I like to use the word immigrant. I think expat has got a real sense of privilege that that worry has got a sense of privilege to it that has a lot of historical, um, so what I'm looking for, just not good intonations to it. We're just as much an immigrant as anybody coming over from Europe to the United States. So, but the language is really, really tough. The only way I can print describe it is it sounds mushy. Like every, like all the S's are everything there's like there's a lot of guttural sounds, yeah. Just not something you're used to hearing. Um, like in our our apartment, we don't have we have a washer, but no dryer. Usually it's sunny, so you can like everyone has like these langer things you put on the patio and you can dry everything, but it's been raining like crazy. We read somewhere it's it only rains 10 days a year in Portugal. No, no, it's been raining a lot in Portugal. It rains almost every day since we've been here. We've been here a month today. We you know, we sold our car in in the States before we left, so not having a car is weird. But there's we can walk to everything. We can walk to all the grocery stores, we can walk to all the restaurants and cafes, um, hop on a train in 30 minutes to New York and Lisbon. There's tons of Uber and bolts, and it's super inexpensive to take a take an Uber here, like I don't know, seven bucks to get across the city. So as opposed to the same trip in Atlanta would have been$25. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

What are some of the things that you would recommend if someone was um considering making a similar change? What are some of the things that um you would suggest doing even before even before a move, like the beginning, you know, the the thought process and maybe some of the things that um people need to get together before they want to make a move like this?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Absolutely. I did a lot of research and on Facebook, there's a couple of groups on there. There's one called something like American Friends in PT. And that that Facebook page was integral to everything we did. They gave us a list of every single thing we needed to do for our um visa application. It was a piece of cake. Without them, I don't know how we would have done it. A lot of people hire a lot of um companies that do that type of thing. We were able to do this without that, without that help and that that extra expense. Um, so and absolutely, I would say look at your websites and on um anywhere on the internet, watch the YouTube videos, get on Facebook and look those those um groups up because they're gonna be able to tell you and answer so many questions that you're gonna have because there's so many, there's so many questions we had. We also have a, I don't know what we we consider her, we call her our fixer, or she's our person here in Stubel, and she has set up everything for us. She set up our electric, our water, she's doing our social security cards here, our residency cards, everything we need that we can't do because a lot of people don't speak English. Like a lot of the people in these in these offices don't speak English. So you're just kind of at a at an absolute disadvantage. Also, the one thing we learned was don't get rid of your American telephone number until you're totally integrated. We gave it up and we did it too soon. And there were times when we needed to and said, we're gonna text your number. I'm like, I don't have that number anymore. Oh so and it made a lot of things really difficult. Banking, when there was like a snappy with the banking, I they couldn't reach me. We were able to get things done, but keep your keep your um American telephone number until you've been here for a while. And just, you know, if you can can get here and do some research before you move, that's better. We're gonna be here, you know, for you know, long term, but I don't know if we're gonna be in Stuba long term, but we're gonna get a chance to see the rest of the country and see where we want to settle down. Um, it's inexpensive to live here, but if you can find someone who's a a fixer or a helper when you get to the the city that you want to be in for you know at least a short term, do that because they're gonna be everything to you. They're gonna be set up your entire life. That's bigger.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

That's good that there are those services available now, you know. Yeah. And also I think with anything, really, we're so lucky that we do have YouTube and Facebook groups. And I think I use Facebook groups more than other um form of resources these days from everything, anything from anything from rock hounding to local garage sales, you know, archaeology, what you know, everything everybody. So, what are some of your favorite things to do in the area that you've gotten a chance? I know that on Sunday, I think it was Sunday, that you had the opportunity to go to the market in Lisbon. What are some some of the other things that you can do?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Lisbon is so fun. And you just jump on the train and go. And uh, we went to a place called the LX Factory, and they have a market there during, I think it's every Sunday, just Sundays. But the the whole factory is just a whole bunch of different shops and restaurants and bars. Super, super fun. I think that the markets and the the places to shop are really cool. Here in Stubel, we have one of the most gorgeous fresh markets. Like you walk in and there's all the fresh fish laying out, and it's kind of it's it's almost a little bit of a shock because you're not used to seeing that in a grocery store at Kroger at Publix and the tons of fresh vegetables and nuts and dried fruit and anything you can possibly imagine, except for, of course, you know, your cleaning supplies, which you have to go to a regular grocery store for. So yeah, I think the that um the markets are really just kind of the number one thing that every almost every corner there's a bakery, which is dangerous, but fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

That's nice. That's one thing that my husband complains about here in the States. He says you can't find good bread or anything like you can, you know, in other countries.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, and honestly, if you like fish and you like seafood, we're that's that's what they're all about here. There's a restaurant in Lisbon called Ramiro that is just incredible. Um you can go and and everything is also super inexpensive compared to the states. You know, we were in here in in Europe from May 10th until like almost the very beginning of August. And we then we came home to the States to kind of get our visa set up and get ready to go. We were there from August until um mid to late October. And it was just like, oh my gosh, the sticker shock of what everything costs in the States was extreme compared to being here in Europe and especially here in Portugal.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, I mean it is, especially when it comes to fresh products, uh, you know, vegetables and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Here in and here in um Portugal, I think all over Europe, they don't allow the same types of additives to the food that they do in the United States. They're just really, really strict about what goes into the food, even the prepared food. So which I think it's a healthier way of living all the way around.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Now you've traveled the world. I mean, you've been to, I think, like over 14 countries, is it? We've been to a bunch of places, yeah. What has been, other than you know, now you're in Portugal in a new place, what has been one of your favorite destinations, favorite adventures? Buenos Aires, Argentina.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

The people there just stole my heart. It's beautiful there, the food is amazing. I just loved everything about it. And after we got here, we're like, why didn't why didn't we look at Buenos Aires? But um, I think we wanted something that was gonna be clear. We always wanted to tour Europe and see everything in Europe. So this had everything we wanted to see in one place, so we chose Europe.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Another thing that you and I have in common beyond travel is the TV film industry, which is not something that I don't think either one of us really clicked on when we met the first time. Like we didn't spend a lot of time talking about it in that moment, but you co-founded Atlanta Movie Tours in 2012. Can you talk about that? How did it come about? What did you guys offer? I think this is a really cool thing. And um, you know, uh a lot of people that might be listening might have actually gone one of your tours.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

I would hope so. It was lots and lots of fun. In 2012, uh, friends had introduced Carrie Sagloburns and I, and we got together and just um there was a restaurant opening because as you and I both were doing at the same time, doing lots of press for lifestyle things. I'm sure you went to a lot of restaurants you wrote about in your blog as well. I had my blog, it was called Anatomy of Dinner Party. And I was invited to an Indian restaurant, and Eric didn't want to go. So I said he goes, Why don't you ask Carrie? Because we, you know, we're just acquaintances. And I said, sure, that sounds fun. And she said, Yeah, she'd love to go. And we started having a couple of cocktails and talking about the walking dead and how we both loved it so much. And she said, you know, when people come into town, I take them on you know, location tours, not for you know, just for fun. And I said, Oh, that would make the most amazing business. So we started talking about it, and the next day we incorporated, and that was in January of 2012, and March 31st, we had our inaugural tour. Wow. And yeah, we were just just on a path. We were just kind of, you know, couldn't wait to get it up and running, and all of our guides were all had been somehow on the show. They'd either been zombies on the show or they had been on there somehow as an extra. So they had all the behind-the-scenes stories, and we welcomed thousands and thousands of people over it. Kiri and her sister started running it after a while. I stepped away after four years to do some other things. And in 2020, during the pandemic, then it closed. And of course, just Sunday night was the last, was the finale for Walking Dead. We had so many more other tours. We had Marvel tours and Gone with the Wind with Margaret Mitchell. Um, I'm trying to think of some of the other ones, just a regular movie tour. It was it was so much fun. It was one of the the highlights of my life.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

I mean, in Atlanta now is is certainly in in competition with Wilmington to be the Hollywood of the East, if you will. And um, you know, it's really cool to see how that's kind of progressed because I moved to Atlanta originally as being part of the entertainment industry and I was an agent and things. And I was actually yes, I was an agent. Yeah. I was yeah, I started out as an agent when I was 20 years old and I worked for an agency that it's no longer open now, but they focus mostly on models, but they had actors and uh voiceover actors and things like that. And it's really interesting to see a lot of the actors that you you and other people might be familiar with now in the Atlanta market were just starting out back, you know, 20 plus years ago. And it was really cool to be a part of just watching their growth along the way. I worked for a couple of agencies, I owned an agency and I closed it about 12 years ago. And yeah, and I can't get out of the industry. I still work in it. I'm working on the production side now, and that is one of my greatest passions. I'm it gets in your blood.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I came here was Catapult Acting Studios. I was their studio manager, so got to work with still so many fantastic actors, so much fun.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

It does get in your blood. I tell people all of the time it's one of those industries that once you get in, you will be. Brought back if you try to go away. I feel like I'm constantly pulled back to the other side, no matter how many times I'm like, okay, I'm done with it. No. No. So I've accepted it now. But I also think like what you and I do and what we have done with content creation and writing and things like that, you know, it all is part of what I like to call the little circle of entertainment. It all fits together. Um, it's it's all part of each other. So I think we're we're both forever going to be in the business. Agreed. And going back to the tour part, I was just, I talked about this in another episode with someone of how cool it is that you can tour some of these filming locations. I mentioned that I had been in Atlanta over the summer. It was because I had given my daughter tickets to tour vampire diaries filming locations. That was her Christmas sketch from last year. She thought it was the most amazing thing, you know, to see what she's seen on all the episodes and be a part of it. And um on the other episode, we we talked about how difficult it is to get into some of them. For example, Twilight, like the Airbnb in in, I think it's Washington. Washington State. Yeah, yeah. It it is booked out for I put it this way, you don't see any dates in in any point.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

But we should travel to do that because it's so fun. We went to Portland. My gosh, I don't know how many years it's been, but you know, even on in Portland, what would we do? We went to the Goonies house. Yeah. So you just love it. Love, love, love seeing, you know, where things have been filmed.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. Because and everything that you fall in love with when you've seen something on on the screen, um, you felt part of it even more when you're seeing it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Have you done that?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Have you done the Harry Potter tours? I have not. You know, um, I have watched the Harry Potter movies, and none of my children are Harry Potter fans. Yeah, and they their their ages are 23, 21, and 12. So, which surprised me. I thought at least one of them would be, but you know, my youngest is all about vampire diaries, Twilight, anything vampire. So I think this is really cool, and I want you to talk about it. Your dream is to host a dinner party based on the movie Big Night.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yes. Have you seen you've seen the movie, haven't you? I don't think so. It's it's to me, it's such a beautiful little sleeper movie. I think it's didn't get the press that it deserved. It's um, I'm trying to think, I don't even know how old it is. Stanley Tucci and um Mini Driver, and it's two brothers that own an Italian restaurant, and they kind of get usurped by a neighborhood um Italian restaurant owner, and they're all getting ready for this big night for um Louis Prima, who I think is a singer. He's a singer, and they just the preparation is just amazing. They've got the tables, the tables, you know, the great big long tables with the white tablecloths, and everything is just fantastic. And they make this one dish, it's called a timbale, and it's just nothing but all it's it's made in a great big bowl, and it's noodles and boiled eggs, and there's cheese, and there's sauce, and there's meatballs, and you turn the whole thing out and it slices like a it comes out like this, and you slice it like a big pie. And I haven't ever, I've never yet tried it, but this might be the year to do it.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

I mean, and to go back, if you have a love for hospitality, you you like to throw dinner parties, and and when you had your blog before, you you wrote a lot about dinner parties and yeah, it's my love we've got it's the one thing I was we were talking last night with some friends.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

We went to their house for dinner. It's the one thing that makes me feel normal. So we're like, what can we do here? And honestly, it hasn't been that hard to meet people. Everyone's been very, very welcoming. So we're throwing a small little party on Christmas Eve for a few people. Oh, how exciting! Yeah, it's just it's what I need to do to feel normal. It's yeah, it's hard to feel normal in a place where you don't speak the language, you don't, you know, it's hard to read things, it's hard to get by. We're trying as hard as we can, but it's exhausting. Every day is exhausting. Right, right. Like it's such a big adventure. I'm like, it it's a lot harder than you would think it would be. It's a challenging adventure. It certainly is. It's an exciting challenge, but it's a big challenge. What's next for you? Yeah, I mean, the other day, this past week, I was looking in my Google Drive and found this folder. I don't know where why it even popped up. It's an untitled novel. I was like, what is this? From 2015. And it had three full chapters written. It's just a little rom-com thing I'd started and just kind of abandoned. I'm like, let's pick this up and see where it goes. Now's the time. That that was meant to be to show up at the moment that it showed up. Crazy. I mean, honestly, I don't know why it would even come up because it wasn't anything that I had searched for or looked at since 2015. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

And now you're in the perfect spot to find a little, a little cafe to sit and work on your story. Yes. What an exciting adventure. It is very exciting. If anyone wants to follow your travels and follow your journey of Vietnam, Portugal, and your journey of the story that you're about to be working on, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

They can find me on Facebook, they can follow me there, and they can also follow me on Instagram. Um both handles are dinner party pee. And every Monday I write another recap of what happened the week before and our challenges and our victories and our, you know, it's not always happy, it's not always rosy. And I think that people need to see both sides because nobody wants to see someone just being rosy and happy all the time. They need to see that the real stuff. So that's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

I mean, they it people need to understand if they are going to make a big step like this, that there are going to be challenges. It's not going to be perfect. It might be um a beautiful view, but there there will be challenges along the way. It's a it's a big step, it's a big thing to do to sell everything and pick up and move to a place that you've spent very little time in.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

It's a lot, especially now with the the um the holidays coming up, it makes it a little harder because we're like, oh my gosh, we had so many traditions back home. Right. You feel a little just a little homesick for it.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

So and now's the time to create new new traditions. Exactly. Exactly. I'll make sure to link to your pages in the notes of this episode. If you had a favorite quote or any words of wisdom that you could leave behind with those that are listening, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 29:05

You know what I've always just one word always live by is just believe. You know, you your words are your thoughts, your thoughts are your reality. You draw in what you give out. So make it make it count, make it happy, make it positive when you can. And even when things aren't going great, you know what? It's one day, then there's always gonna be the next day, and it's always gonna be different, it's all gonna look different the next day. So true. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Thank you so much, Patty. Oh, I'm so glad that you did this with me. I think this has been wonderful. This has been one of my favorite episodes. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Really bring the family, yeah, yeah. Or maybe not, maybe just come by myself. Maybe I'll just look. Somebody needs to stay here and take care of this farm. That was my pandemic thing. Your pandemic thing is moving to another country. Mine was buying a farm with zero farming experience. Um, yeah, I questioned that one.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Talk about that a little bit. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah. So in the pandemic, we had all like the beginning. I'm talking about like the summer, the that first summer, you know, two years ago. Um, we had all three kids home. And at the time it was still, you we people didn't really know what was happening. We everybody had to go home, you know. And they were driving us crazy. So we went on a little drive. And we had talked about, we had been looking at houses in St. Simon pre-COVID. And then we had talked about buying a second home in the North Carolina Mountains and had already been looking, but we went on a drive. And you know how when you just drive by properties, you're not really looking, you're like, oh, let's look at this one. Not that you're not looking to buy. And so he was like, it'd be really cool if we could find uh land in this area. Then Harlow wouldn't have to change schools. You know, the older two weren't living with us at this point in time. They're all, you know, they're older. And um, that was a Friday. On Monday, we were sent the link to this property, and Tuesday we came to see it. On Thursday, we brought the kids on Thursday night. We put an offer that was like in I don't know, like May. And then by July 4th, we moved into this property. It's a smaller house than what we were in, but more land. So we have like 13 acres, and now we have many donkeys and we have goats and we have chickens, and it has been a journey. Probably like you, you're learning things along the way. And some of the things I'm like, if I could have done this differently, maybe I wouldn't have gotten goats, or maybe I wouldn't have done this, you know, or that. I have a big garden and I grow tomatoes and okra and peppers and lettuce. Well, the lettuce I'm working on, but flowers. I'd like to be able to have like little bouquets of flowers that I could sell as a hobby. The flower thing is like fun. I would never want a big business out of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah, I totally get that. But it's always good to have a little side thing that you enjoy as well. What kind of flowers?

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Uh well, this year I had tulips, gonfrenas, zennias, roses, anything you can imagine was out there. Sunflowers, but I definitely learned I've had a garden for years. Even at the old house, I had a garden, but it was like obviously a smaller one. And then our first couple of years here, I it got a little bit bigger, and then this year it was even bigger, and then next year we'll be twice the size. Um, because the gardening part I can keep, I like that part. It's the animals are a lot of work. I have over 30 animals, and so if I want to go somewhere, or you know, now that travel's picking back up, when we bought this, travel wasn't happening. So I wasn't, as you know, we there was nothing going on. I couldn't even, I have I lost all motivation even to write a travel story because I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. So this is not, I don't have any content to share. I don't have anything. So I thought things were gonna be different. We were preparing for it for that. Like, if okay, well, we've got to reinvent what our life might look like, but now that it's picking back up, now I'm like, okay, I don't, you know, really need all these people that takes care of somewhere. Who takes care of the animals? Well, I do have a farm hand, but he's leaving in January. He only comes two evenings a week, really, just to help me not have just to give me a break for a couple of days. I get up at 6 a.m. I get my daughter up and get her ready for school. I then do the chores while she's getting ready because she's 12 now, so she can get herself ready, you know. Right. And I go do the farm chores and then I come in and then get ready to take her to school, and then I do the chores in the evening. On top of, I'm in college right now as well. I went back to school in the pandemic. Um, just because I didn't have those opportunities when I was younger, like the ones that we worked to give our children, I didn't have those same ones. And so I was like, maybe, you know, now's the time to get it. Do I need it? No, but it's more like your your own mind thing is to say I did it, you know. Honestly, my major is in media, and so it's not like I'm doing anything different, but it's just something to say, okay, I did that.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

That's great though. You certainly have a lot of things on your plate, though. That's a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

It is, it is. I'm going to my first travel event in January that I've been to in person in like four years. Um to IMM in New York. This is my first one in person in like four years. So I'm excited just to, and I'm going this time, not as a blogger, but as a podcast host. And, you know, because really wanting to, well, nothing's gonna change about my topic. I've always been, you know, telling other people's stories and incorporating travel into that. I think it's fabulous. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

You're fabulous. I'm so glad to be able to spend some time with you.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

I know, I know. Um, this is gonna be a really great episode.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I'm so proud of you. You're doing so good. I appreciate you. So, so great to see you. You too. And this is how we end our little visits in Portugal now that I've just learned this. You say bizenjos. Vizenjos. It means little kisses. Oh, I love that.