Some Background

About Me

I want to start off by giving a little background on myself and where I'm at in life. I am nearing my mid thirties, and I by no means have my life figured out. What I have figured out is how to appreciate the chaos and how to embrace the unknown. 

My whole life I have worked and studied. I was a successful student, I earned my degrees with high honors, I had a career path, and I had a plan. But things change, life happens, and shortly after starting a mildly successful government job, I found out I was pregnant with our second child. Work schedules, commutes, and the cost of  daycare forced me to quit my job so that I could stay home and care for our children. THIS WAS THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME! Even though my diplomas are now collecting dust, and my student loans are collecting interest waiting to be paid off, I could not be happier with where my life is at. 

I loved working, and I miss having a job, but my career path has always required that I work a lot of overtime and weekends; I was also on call a LOT. The months before I quit my job, I felt like a ghost in my house. I was home, but never really present. My work cell was constantly notifying me of a new crisis, and my family's needs were getting pushed to the back burner. I knew I couldn't live and work like that forever, and so the decision to quit my job was an easy one. I want to clarify that I loved the work I did (for the most part). I was able to have huge positive impacts in my community and in the lives of others. I will always be appreciative of the time I had working with children in need, but I am more appreciative that I am now able to spend my time with my own children. 

It was an adjustment for my family when we lost that second income (even if we are now saving thousands a month in daycare and fuel costs). So we have had to make some changes and live a little more frugal than we did before. That is what inspired me to start this blog. I want to share all the things that make our life a little easier, that make moming a little easier, and that make our family function on a day to day in our organized chaos. 

My Family

Like most moms, I think my kids are the most amazing human beings on the planet. My daughter is 5 and my son just turned 1. My husband and I have no plans to have more children. I respect parents who have the patience and
commitment to have large families, I however, am not one of those parents.

Along with our 2 children, we have 3 puppies, two blue heelers and one red. Our puppies are the same age as our youngest child, so things get hectic and pretty messy in our house. Combating clutter and dog hair are my main jobs now. I seriously cannot express how much dog hair exists in our house on any given day. If I vacuumed all day long, I would still find hair.
My husband works full time to support our family. He earns double what I was making at my job, so again, the decision for me to quit was an easy one. He is an amazing father, and together we make the perfect team.

What We Do

Everything and more! I am an avid DIYer and so is my husband. If I can't make it myself, do I really even need it? Being unemployed I have a lot more time to work on projects now as well. I've put 2 gardens in at our house where we will grow ALL THE THINGS this spring! Honestly that is more about frugal living than anything. Like I don't want to buy produce all spring or summer. 

As a family we build, we craft, we grow, we cook, we paint, we make, we do. Our house is usually cluttered with various in-the-works projects because we can't seem to just work on one thing at a time. 

My husband and I also run a small laser cutting and engraving business from our garage. We have an Etsy shop and we sell things locally from our Facebook page, but it's a new business so there is still a lot that we haven't figured out. It brings in a little extra income and gives us a creative outlet. Plus it allows me to create things for my house that I want without having to purchase them from a store. 

This is the stuff that I would like to share with the world. Maybe all the things we make and do will inspire someone else to start their own DIY project.