It's my blog.
The hobby farm is my blog, or my blog is a hobby farm more appropriately explained.
There are no zucchini here (this year) but there is a lot of random stuff growing in my head. So much so that I have to bag it up and drop it off on your virtual porch.
I don't know if you'll know what to do with it, if there is anything to do with it at all.
Maybe you'll be impressed that I grew it - thought it up - or maybe you'll be gracious to me and then just toss it.
It's okay, This hobby farm is mostly for me.
After all these years of trying to riddle out the purpose of all that God has placed on my heart, I might finally understand.
There are a lot of things in my head. Stories, ideas, little thoughts, hopes, dreams. Even (dare I say it) opinions, that continue to develop and mature across time and as I gain experience. The hobby farm is a parcel of space on the internet where a little bit of me lives and grows. I plant, I harvest, sometimes I sell things in my little stand off the bed of my virtual old Chevy pickup.
It was always a Hobby Farm, I just didn't realize it.
I have nurtured and grown a lot things over the years. Political thoughts were a bumper crop for many years. I love to think. I love to take ideas and break into them and challenge them. I like to be sarcastic and point out irony or errors in thinking. I thought the internet was a place where we would have broad civil discourse and grow because we had a free and open exchange of ideas. Wrong.
Furniture and decorating, Homeschooling, parenting, life coaching, entertaining business, books, curriculum, so many things I have been blessed to do and connect with people through.
I had a lot of ideas - still do. Man I miss being in my 30's and knowing everything (and not having my back hurt).
Often times I have felt like a failure each time I have let one of my ideas or endeavors go. If I had the time or the desire it could have been something bigger. Now I understand.
The journey was the point, is the point.
Not the yield. The work. The tilling and planting, that's what matters.
Understanding that this space, my writing, website, social media pages are my own Farmville, my Hobby Farm for all that sprouts in my head helps me reclaim my voice and approach it everyday with a happy heart and renewed enthusiasm.
I will forget to water it. I apologize now. Ask the Jade plants in the foyer, they know. I get busy with my family and things I was once very excited about, just drop over dead from neglect because my family will always come first. I'm okay with that now. I used to think I had failed when I let something go. That's the difference between a working farm and my Hobby Farm. I don't rely on this to survive. It's a HOB-BY Farm. That emphasis is for me as I continue to hammer into my head that it's okay to explore all my interests at my leisure and leave and come back when I have time.
This is a revelation to me.
I don't know why or how the different crops are meant to fit together - faith, marriage, parenting, cooking, culture, pop culture, crafts, parties, life, grief, recovery, trauma, anxiety, decorating, holidays, and whatever else I can propagate in a solo cup on the kitchen counter but that's what is growing in the fertile soil of my life.
I know blogs and websites are supposed to be focused to be profitable - this is a food blog, this is a parenting website - I just can't manage to be boxed in that way and I'm not focused on profit. I also can't run all the different pages and groups anymore. Everything will be migrated and re-branded and it's just me :)
So that's what I do here now - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. If you have a lot of thoughts, varied interests, hopes, good taste and a sense of humor I hope you'll stop by.