It’s a perfect morning to read outside while the chickens make their loud clicking noises to each other the chicks are chirping, the birds are singing, my oldest two are still sleeping and my youngest is running around in his underwear #mylittlehomestead🐐🐓🦆🐇 #thisulgybeautifullifeilive💕 #joysoflivinginasmallhouse #joysoflovinginasmallhouse #smallfarmlife #smalltownlife
I have been asked by A LOT of friends to make face masks for them, now that i have finished all of their orders I have been able to stock my Etsy shop inspiredbyhenry.etsy.com with some, these are 100% cotton double layer masks with a filter pocket I hope to have more made soon. Click the link below the photographs to see the listing in my shop. These masks are perfect for cleaning out your chicken coop or mowing the lawn, they do not come with a filter for the filter pocket.
And remember every purchase helps me feed my ever growing children and my little homestead.
I have been asked by A LOT of friends to make face masks for them, now that I have finished all of their orders I have been able to stock my Etsy shop inspiredbyhenry.etsy.com with some, these are 100% cotton double layer masks. They DO NOT have a filter pocket. I have more masks coming to the shop soon with filter pockets they will cost a little more. Click the link below that photographs to see the listing in my shop.
And remember every purchase helps me feed my ever growing children and my little homestead
~mary e.
I’m having trouble coming up with things to write, and my best ideas come when i am washing dishes & by the time I’m finished and my hands are dry, i am pulled somewhere else, pulled to the screaming children because they too have been kept “inside” and together for too long. All three share the same room, they can’t even get away from each other with that simple idea, going to ones room.
I have written and rewritten this post so many times in my mind and I still don’t think that i have the right words to use. I’m feeling very stupid, very impatient. I had toyed with the idea of homeschooling when my oldest was still a baby, but the older she got the more that idea became, well a bad one. I decided not to homeschool because, well I cannot even handle cut & paste with my 5 year old.
I have to stay away from social media, i have to stop looking at photographs that friends are posting of their children doing school work and looking so very happy about it! I know that you are not sharing the whole truth, i know that you are more than likely having the same troubles that I am having when it comes to teaching your children, but it is very hard to believe.
Our day looks something like this, i have to use a timer, 1 hour of play, 20 minutes of school work, 1 hour of play, 30 minutes of cleaning, 20 minutes of school work, and by that point I’m finished
Like now, it’s not even noon and I’m ready for my nap, almost every night i’m up with the youngest two because they wake with night terrors and bad dreams, the dogs want in and out, and the cat won’t stop purring and kneading my stomach, i’m tired, i’m worn out, i’m doing this on my own…
More art to come soon I promise! I will get out of this funk.
~mary
I’m going to step on some toes,
I’m sorry, but also really I’m not sorry at all about what i am going to write…
I’m in my living room this Easter Sunday, the kids and husband are outside enjoying the weather while dinner cooks in the slow cooker… it’s lamb…i have wanted lamb for my Easter dinner for, well i can’t remember how long, and today because we are at home due to COVID-19 i get to have lamb for Easter dinner.
So many thoughts have been going through my mind today, and I’m sure that i’m not the only one who is thinking this way…
Today I’m getting to spend Easter really thinking about what today means. This morning i woke up early to take care of the animals and i was not stressed about the fact that my kids aren’t going to be dressed to the nines when we go to church. I wasn’t worried about not only wearing my Sunday best but my Easter best. I wasn’t worried about the judgment that comes, and you know it does even when we say we don’t, the judgment when my 9 year old decides that she is going to do her own hair and it looks like she ran a weed eater though it instead of a brush, or she puts on jeans and a shirt instead of the dress that I bought her, but i did not and don’t have the energy to fight her because i was up all night with one of her siblings.
I don’t do Easter baskets, and today was the first Sunday that my kids did not get asked that very awkward question: What did the Easter Bunny bring you this morning? They did not have to listen to what all their friends woke up to. I did not have to answer the question why the Easter bunny did not come to our house. You know what? When they woke this morning they never even asked about candy or baskets. They were just excited that today is the day the tomb was found empty.
I keep thinking about Easter 2015 when I just got home from the hospital with a newborn baby girl, I was tired, I had a 4 year old, i had a less than a week old, and yet was still expected to go out to a family members house for Easter, and than was asked why I was so tired and not willing to pass around my 5 day old baby. We just got home that Friday, my milk was coming in, i was in pain from the birth, but still we got dressed up and went because we were expected to and did not want to upset anyone… I wish we could have stayed home that Easter, like today…
So enjoy your day, where you don’t have to go to that family members house, where you don’t have to worry that your kids Easter best is not up to par with your friends kids, you did not buy matching outfits, and you don’t have to worry about waking that sleeping baby just to “enjoy” family time
~mary e. Johnson-mason
Everything that is happening in the world has got me thinking, and doing something that i have wanted to do for a very, very long time. I want to try and live off this small part of the world that we live on.
We are renting the small property that we live on and it is surrounded by fields with cows, so how can one not be inspired to start farming as well! Since we are renting there is not much we can do to the land, and really why would we since this place we call home is not really ours. But rabbits, chickens, and a garden, now thats something that we can do, that is something that we can move with us when the time comes, that is something that can grow when we grow.
I have had rabbits in my life from the time that I was 16, ever since than I have been in love with this small animal and have never wanted to be without 1 or 2 or 9 in my life. Am i going to have a hard time when it comes to… how do i put this nicely… to process it, to put it on our kitchen table and share a meal with my little family? YES!!!!! I am most likely going to cry, and I’m already wondering WHAT ARE YOU DOING! But than i look at my kids, i look at what is going on in the world and i want to make sure that when times are hard that they have the knowledge to feed themselves and their families. Please don’t worry these rabbits will be WELL loved until the time comes. They will be 4H project animals for my little clover buds, they will help teach my children love, how to take care of something, have more responsibility.
So please join me, in this time of learning, i will be honest with my stories and i hope to make you laugh and cry with me in this thing called life.
~ more next week, thanks for stopping in!
~mary
So yes I’m still working on my first sock, I haven’t even made it to working on the second… I do have 3 kids 9, 4, & 2 so I feel this is a good excuse. I have had to take some stitches and rows out a few times and am most likely going to have to redo this one because I don’t think I made the leg long enough. However here is my progress, fingers crossed I’ll post a photo of my finished sock soon or at least the start of the toe, I’m working on the foot now
Working on my VERY first sock 🧦 while waiting for school to start. I love car knitting.
2020… what do you have in store for me!
I have been thinking a lot about what I’m doing with this blog… I am not a blogger!!! But i am an artist… so lets do this art blog, and try to do it once a week, 52 blogs is much easier to wrap my head around than 366 days!
I am going to focus on textiles this year, see how far in the art world my new found love for embroidery is going to take me, it seems to be what I am good at
I am going to stop seeing what other people can do and get depressed when i know that i can’t do it, it’s just not my gift, not my style, not who i am
I am going to try to stop getting upset when i am looked over as an artist by those around me, because i am not the “traditional” artist that they understand
I am going to try and learn how this blogging thing works, and try to post at least once a week
So here’s to a new year, a year in discovering who i am, getting my work out there, stopping comparing myself to other artists (in a bad way), letting go and just BE ME
~mary e. johnson-mason
