Without Rain, Nothing Grows. Embrace The Storms In Your Life

Another wonderful Buddhist teaching. My “storm” came with wonderful gifts. 

I have mentioned a couple of times already how the first apartment we moved into in Valencia was not what we had hoped for, or what the real estate company painted it to be. I suppose it’s time to delve a little more into it, as it has greatly defined the purpose of our business, and it could help others who are moving to Valencia as well.

When we were first presented with the floor (or piso), it seemed great, and since we were already three weeks away from the day we would fly out, we needed to settle for something to rent soon, but after entering the property on the day we arrived, I started to feel like something was missing. A month and a half into it, I found out the owners had kept very important information from us (and the real estate company had missed it). Long story short, I decided right away that it was best to find a new apartment, and even though we had to find legal assistance to get our money back and had to start packing to move again, I sense it was for the best (as always). 

I mean, I wish we had gotten it right the first time, but there is always a perfect reason why bad weather comes our way. Two wonderful blessings came from it!

The first one is that the new apartment has an amazing terrace, it’s located on the last floor (the penthouse), and it’s cheaper! Right away, I realised I was going to design a fantastic patio filled with all types of plants! It reminded me of the terrace from the movie “Just Like HEAVEN” with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo (one of my top 5 movies). My dream of creating a habitat for bees, butterflies, and birds to use was right there.

Surprisingly, the trouble of looking for a new place was aligning with our new business plan! I want our company to revolve around something greater, like the importance of supporting green corridors for fauna to thrive through urban design. This is something I learned while working for the environment, to include in architectural designs, ways of supporting biodiversity. After all, by raising all these buildings for us to live in, we are contributing to depleting their habitat. I feel we owe it to them.

I started to think about the perfect name for our company, and initially, I was going to name it Heaven in Valencia (similar to the movie’s name), but it didn’t represent what it is about. At the end, I chose to honour Valencians, and included the word Abella because it means bees in Valencian! I am really hoping that they see how much we would love to make a difference in their precious city and support our initiatives. We won’t be able to thrive unless they are willing to work with us and teach us more about what we can do to build habitats for bees, big or small.

Oh, and the second blessing is that I consider one of my attorneys my first good friend in Spain! His name is Vicente, and he is so decent. 

After a couple of days of moving to our new apartment, bees started to visit the mint plants because they love their flowers! Yay!

Our purpose.

Talk to us.

The sunset from our terrace! Especially in winter they are more beautiful.

A pomegranate tree is planted on the sidewalk on the street behind our building.

Dorito, alias El Chancho, enjoying some shade and fresh air.

The famous Valencia orange trees are planted on the streets around our apartment.

Purrito, alias La Catashian, ignoring me while enjoying some sun.

Dorito turning over to avoid tan lines hahahaha.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c2ef81_0a968f80a6b448cf848e1db0fe0eb22c/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The real owners of the terrace. Eros and Dorito playing lucha libre.