I hope that everyone had a great holiday season.   My family had a great time celebrating Christmas and the New Year.  We had the absolute pleasure of spending New Year’s Day with my brother’s family.  The exciting part was that Baby Adriana is home!  She did not get to spend Christmas there, but she got to start the new year at home.  We cannot thank you enough for all of your prayers and emails concerning her and our family.  She is truly a little miracle.

Before Christmas, I focused almost all of my attention on making homemade gifts.  We made about 90% of our gifts this year, which is higher than most other years.  It was partly out of necessity and partly because I had so many ideas running through my head.

Do you ever have a constant stream of ideas running through your head?  Ones that won’t let you rest until you are finished?  Thankfully this does not happen to me everyday, but I have been plagued by this condition for the past month or so.  I naively thought that these ideas would disappear after Christmas.  I mean, I had finished all of my projects.  I had designed a lot of jewelry, crocheted hats, a scarf, a hairband, a decorative pin, and baby booties.  I had assisted my husband in making a roping dummy for Jake and wooden swords and shields for the youngest boys.

However, more ideas developed.  Instead of being creatively exhausted, I was fueled by even more.  These were not focused on gifts, but on creative outlets for myself.  Upon the advise of my step-dad, I began designing and sewing tote bags out of feed sacks.  It took some time and many trials before I was satisfied with the design.  It is a great way to recycle or upcycle, if you will.  Turning what would have ended up in a landfill into a useful and versatile item.

I also wrote two children’s books.  I am finished illustrating one and working on the final editing before it can be published.  It is tenatively called, Warriors for Christ.  The other book, How Much Do You Love Me?, is still a work in progress, but the writing is complete.  I am really excited to explore this outlet with my writing and art design.  I cannot wait until these Christian books can be available to the public.

As most of you know, I make goat milk soap.  Many people purchase bars from me from my house.  I officially got into the soap business months ago when Cherry Farms, a local fresh vegetable and fruit store, bought soap from me to sell at their place.  I had been wanting for over a year now to offer these bars of soap to the public.

I am pleased to announce that I am expanding my “Fresh From the Farm Store” to include my handmade goat milk soap as well as feed sack totes.  I am still working on the store and hope to have it running in the next week or so.  I moved my Texas Homesteader Wheat-Free Cookbook to a different page called “Books.”  I hope to have my two children’s books available on that page soon, too.

Many exciting things are happening here.  Isaac learned how to ride his bike without training wheels and Clayton has his driver’s permit.  We woke up this morning to a huge downpour.  By mid-morning, we had six inches and it is still raining!  We are so thankful. So many things have happened in just a short time that it makes my head spin.  Now that we kicked our school year into full swing this morning, my vacation is over.  Life should begin to return back to normal.

Tags: children's books, Christian literature, creative outlets, creativity, feed sack totes, Fresh from the Farm Store, goat milk soap, homemade gifts, online store

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.