FINDING HER JOY

Barrington’s Jacqui Pieroni turns a lifelong love of writing into The Joyful Homebody, a celebration of home, healing and the life she loves.

For Jacqui Pieroni, it all began with a fuzzy camouflage notebook.

“I think I was 8 or 9 years old, and my older sister had gifted me that journal,” the Barrington resident laughs. “I filled every page of that journal every day. I would journal several times a day, with updates by the hour of what I was doing.”

And that’s when the writing life of Pieroni began.

But as with all good stories, the path to writing full-time was one that came with twists and turns and the all-too-familiar challenge of wondering if her writing was worthy of sharing. “I kept all my writing to myself,” she admits. “I was always afraid to share my writing.”

That all changed about 15 years ago, when Pieroni began blogging, for all the world to see. And eventually, that blogging turned into a newsletter centered around everything from homemaking to baking to gardening.

“Two years ago, I was at a place in my life where I felt very over-committed and I didn’t want to be going as hard as I was going,” remembers Pieroni. “I was craving home, so I intentionally let myself have some free time. And by doing so, I fell in love with cooking and baking and all these things that I had not grown up learning.”

It’s the culmination of all of those newfound loves that can now be found in her new book The Joyful Homebody—an anthology about creating a home and life you love.

“I found a lot of healing through teaching myself these things, and because I’ve always been a writer, naturally I felt inspired to share it,” she says of her first published book. “Writing a book was a lifelong dream that I just never thought would happen, but here it is.”

Perhaps even more important is the fact that Pieroni is truly living that “joyful homebody” life now more than she ever has before.

“I’ve been with my husband 10 years now, and the home we live in now, which is kind of where this all came from––this is the place where I have just found so much inspiration and peace,” says Pieroni, who moved to Barrington in 2016. “When we come home, I just feel peace.”

Writing continues to serve as a sanctuary for Pieroni, who finds some of her greatest inspirations while on her walks through the Fox River Forest Preserve.

And that fuzzy old camouflage notebook of hers?

“I actually still have every journal, including the fuzzy one,” she says quietly. “Whenever I look at it, I just get proud of myself, and that’s kind of an awkward thing to say out loud sometimes because pride can be misconstrued as gloating or something, but I really am proud of being a writer.”

Grab your copy at barnesandnoble.com.