Is every first blog post this difficult? So many places to start...
My name - well, blog name - is Mary Felicity. My dearest friend re-named me in jest a while back, as my middle name didn't quite fit with my first. lol - so Mary Felicity it is. This blog thing is fun already! ;)
I live in Central New York State with my husband of 5 years and our three children, who are 3, 4 and 5 years old. "Wow- you sure do have your hands full!", people often say... well yes, actually. "Thankfully, I do! <grin>" We've been trying for another child for nearly three years now, to be honest, but we do manage to keep each other occupied.
And what do we occupy ourselves with? Ohhhh- what a loaded question! I have this strange need to have some sort of special project going on at any given time. Without one, I feel lost. This trait comes from my father. He was an oil rigger, decades ago, and worked all over Texas in the late 70's and early 80's. Then, he returned home and became an electrician. He became a sheet metal worker... then a welder... then his company pulled out [thousands of] jobs and left to low-cost China. Awesome. They were the last of the large-scale manufacturing companies that left the area. With a stay at home wife and mother [and busy, homeschooling teacher] of 6, soon to be 7, children at home, what did he intend do? Go to college, that's what! He became a registered nurse in 3 years. It was a dream, for him to be able to use his mind to a fuller capacity and HELP people. Daddy breathed in knowledge, despite a situation that would seem helpless to others, and supported not only his family but nurtured his mind. I'm so proud to have a father like that. A mother who supported his dreams- while he did "crazy" things like ordering a tractor trailer of hemlock beams from the Amish in Pennsylvania and chisel them out, by hand, in a makeshift barn in the yard. Those beams became my childhood home. I watched him *teach himself* how to build a house, from the bottom up, inside to the outside. I watched him soak up knowledge on hunting, self-sustainability through aggressive gardening and food preservation. My mother has supported him in his endeavors for years and learned an enormous amount, herself. I learned, from them, that if others can do it, so can we. Why pay someone thousands of dollars to build something that one could do himself with several hundred dollars in equipment and many hours of research? Why not spend less money and LEARN, as an added perk?
This cultivated in me an interest for doing things myself. It's scary sometimes. It's frustrating. I occasionally end up spending the same as if I'd hired a professional to do it... but at the end, I do actually learn HOW to do the job. I can do it again in the future. I can help family and friends with their projects. I learn to care for the things I build, so I don't have to repair them as often. When something breaks, I already know what's inside and know how to going about making a repair. If the washing machine breaks, I can take it apart, replace or repair parts and have it working shortly. It's a beautiful process, for me. Some people paint or run or kayak or read, to nurture themselves- I have projects.
So this blog will be about the things that go on in our family. My projects (aka my "latest kicks"), cooking, children, home repair and feelings on it all. I look forward to sharing them with you!
