Who is Me?

Fair warning....this post will jump around and not make sense in some places. I just had a lot on my mind.

On Wednesday, it was my birthday. No better time to get these things off my mind and start fresh. Well, as fresh as I am able.

Who is Amy?

Source

I have come to the realization that I am not a farm person. While I do LOVE having animals around, I have come to learn that I really don't like having to take care of them day in and day out. I have had chickens several different times over the past few years. While the older "laying hens" are by far the easiest to keep, I enjoy(ed) hatching eggs. I had goats, too. Now I have come to the realization that it ties me down too much.

Ties me down too much why?

I love to travel, love to be able to go visit with family and friends that live miles away. I am always glad to get back home. Who isn't when they travel? Most of my adult life I have been held back from traveling due to circumstances. Now, I have opportunities and I want to be able to take those opportunities and enjoy the rest of my days with my amazing husband, children and grand-children. I relish in the thoughts of my husband and I being able to have the freedom to do whatever we what to do, whenever we decide to do it.....for the most part. Sometimes I just want to be lazy. Well, with mouths depending on you, it's not an option.

I have learned that I can like the "country life" and country things (decor, themes, clothing, etc), but I don't have to live on or run a farm. Does that make me lazy? Maybe, then so be it.

Even though the life of a farmer isn't for me, I do firmly believe in supporting local farmers, etc. I buy "Made in the USA" when I can. I buy local whenever I can. It's just the right, best thing to do in our world today.

I do love being outdoors. I used to love working in the yard. When I was in high school, I so loved working in our garden...for the last 2-3 years, it ended up being pretty much my garden, but I loved it. Flowers! Oh how I LOVE flowers. I could never have too many flowers in my yard. However, living in the Texas panhandle kind of puts a little bit of a damper on that. Droughts can wreck one's visions of beautiful flowers.

Our dogs. They don't tie me down too much. They love to go in the car, and we take them most places when we travel. Of course, we have to find "pet-friendly" hotels, but that's not too difficult in today's times. I love our dogs, they are part of the family.  I have owned at least one dog at any one time, pretty much my entire life. We currently have four dogs.

Over the past several years, I have studied and read things on the internet. Homesteading, homeschooling, homemaking(can you say "Susie"?). religiousness (is that a word?) and have found myself trying to learn to be/do those things. I have wasted WAY.TOO.MUCH.TIME.DOING.THIS.

Well, as noted in the first paragraph, while I do love the concept of homesteading....I just don't know that it's for me at this point in my life. Had I begun when I was much younger, heck yes! Now, not so much.  I read on one blog several months back, that a family had made the switch completely to homesteading. Animals, gardens, self-sufficiency. The whole "shooting-match". Only to find that all they did was work. Working so hard that they didn't have time or energy to just enjoy life. I don't want that for our family.

Homeschooling. Yes I did that. In my opinion, pretty much failed. My fault entirely. I am not a teacher. Never wanted to be. Still don't want to be. I was influenced by my ex-husband to do this and while I was open to the idea and *thought* it would work for us, sadly it did not.

Religion. Am I a Christian? Yes, absolutely. Am I a "holy-roller" (as some would call it)? Nope. Would I like to be? Maybe. I would say that I am a strong believer, but that my faith is private. Private between myself and God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Do I openly talk about my faith, some. There is a lot I don't know and am unsure of on this subject. Honestly, I want to learn more. I am not one of those Biblical mothers that you read about in so many blogs online now. I gave it a good shot, but it's just not who I am.

Homemaker. Bad subject here. I used to keep such a nice, clean, tidy home. Honestly I did. Then during bad years in my previous marriage, things fell apart. Now, I have good days and bad days. My family always has clean clothes to wear. A warm, clean bed to sleep in and food in their stomachs. Do I always cook the meals? No. In my mind I would love to cook beautiful meals for them every single (well, nearly) day....I just don't have it in me anymore. I used to love to cook. Now, unless I have a bunch of people to cook for, my heart just isn't in it. I do love canning and baking fresh bread and the like. Problem is, my younger children are gone to their father's house every-other week and my husband is overseas working. At this point, when I make things, they usually just mold and ruin. Maybe when David is home full time, I will enjoy doing these things again.

The modesty thing. Went there, too. I do enjoy wearing skirts and dresses, but not every.single.day. This gal loves her jeans and shorts, too :-)

I always have been interested in history, antiques and older times. That will never change, I am sure. Heritage. Our heritage. My heritage. It's where we all come from. Maybe that is how I got so off track from my previous years. I just don't know.

I love to crochet and I think I still like quilting. It's been so long since I was really able to sit down and really work on quilting.....I'm honestly not sure anymore. I mostly left behind my crafts and hobbies when I started my online business back in 2003. That business consumed me and changed me. I like the person I was pre-2003 better....but can't change things now. I can, however, try my best to dump some of the things (habits, ideas, etc) that I have picked up on the way in the past 10 years. That is what I really hope I can do. Oh and I really, really want to teach myself to knit socks!

In this time of basically nothing-ness....I found happiness in things. Fabric and yarn "stash" are the biggies. Followed by books and magazines. Especially craft related books and magazines.  How in this world do I think I will EVER be able to make every pattern in those books and magazines? Heck, even a tiny percentage of them? Shaking my head.

Now, I realize it is time to move forward and even then, I am having issues doing so. I have thousands upon thousands of dollars invested in fabric, yarn and books/magazines. I KNOW I don't need it all. I REALLY want to get 95% of it out of my life. However, I am having such difficulties doing so. In my head I want to go sort through it all, list it on Craigslist and Ebay and re-coop some of the money. BUT darnit, I just can't get myelf to do it. Then there's the other side, if I donate it I will be tossing out all of that money. UGH. I am starting to believe that the bulk of the problem is dealing with the past. The last 5 years of my previous marriage were so unhappy for me.  If I just leave it all packed and in storage, I don't have to deal with it.

I have started/dumped business after business, blog after blog, concepts after concepts. I just shake my head when I think about all of it. Time wasted. Time wasted that I will never get back.

I have been through the hours upon hours of blog reading and Facebook reading looking for answers and information....I guess wanting to be something other than me. I have probably worked too hard trying to be things other than myself, even if I have loved the concepts. I have to be me. I have to take my good days and unfortunately take my bad days.

It's time to unsubscribe to email subscriptions, un-like pages on Facebook and delete all but 2 of my blogs(at one point I had 12!). I want to keep everything online related to a minimum, to just reading blogs that I enjoy and get off this computer more and more.

I am who and what I am. Now I just have to put everything else out of my mind and keep moving forward with my wonderful husband and my family.