It's Okay, Mama, To Try and Make Money for Your Family

This post is coming straight from my heart this morning. .

I want to talk about how I am learning that it's okay for me to try and make money and still stay home. For some reason, over the years, I have decided that trying to run a home business wasn't being fair to my family. If I was to try and do that, it would mean that they would be neglected. Oh how my mind has changed recently.

I am going to let you in on a little secret that I have experienced just by doing something different these past nine days. I have intentionally been getting up between 5:00-6:00 in the morning to make time for things that are important to me that I don't have time to do in my regular daily schedule of homeschooling, appointments, field trips, cooking, and taking care of my home responsibilities. It has been life changing. I started a course called Make Over Your Mornings by Crystal Paine at Money Saving Mom and she has been coaching me through how to get my life more organized and how to fit in what I am passionate about.


Over the course of the last couple weeks, I have discovered that I am passionate about my oils. I have been passionate about my oils for a long time but I have never thought of actually turning that into a business that would help support my family. Y'all, these oils are changing peoples' lives and I don't mean by just making money from selling them. So I am not going to be afraid to tell people about my oils anymore. If I have something that I think can help you in an area of your life, I'm going to share it with you.

I am passionate about homesteading and learning the skills that are required for that lifestyle. That's why I started a blog. I want to help people to know that there are alternative ways of living and not being caught up in what the majority of society says is "normal." I want to hang on to our grandparents' ways of preserving, hunting, and making things from scratch.

I am passionate about writing and telling y'all what is going on in my life and giving you tips on things that I do to help me around here. That can be anything from getting out of debt, making homemade rolls, or what I use to mop my floors that doesn't contain nasty chemicals.

I am embracing my weirdness for the first time in my life. I am realizing that, perhaps, God has a mission for me and I can use the online world to point people to Him all while helping people to live a more sustainable, self-sufficient life. Do I have this whole homesteading, essential oil, homeschooling, hippie life figured out? Heck to the no! I am learning more everyday!

The point of all this is to say that, yes, I have ads on my blog (which I have struggled with in the past but not anymore), yes, I am going to tell you about essential oils, because I love them, and, yes, I use affiliate links on my Facebook Page to tell you about products I want or love. Yes, I am going to try and make money for my family from these links and ads and oils. We have goals and dreams to accomplish during this lifetime and so do you! How can we achieve those if we don't have money? Money isn't evil, it's a tool that should be used to God's glory. You shouldn't love it or hoard it, but you shouldn't be afraid of making it either.

I have learned that by being passionate about something and trying to earn money for my family while staying home makes me happier person. When I can wake up in the morning, get into God's word, and make time for things I am passionate about, I feel renewed and excited about facing the day. I feel like I have a purpose and a passion. Obviously, my first priorities in life have nothing to do with blogging, oils, or money. My first priorities are God, my family, and my responsibilities around the home. Crystal's course has taught me how to keep those things first and still have time to add on what makes my heart beat a little faster and what gets me excited.

So I am asking you give support to the mom who wants to add more income to her family and still wants to stay home with her children. Share our blog posts and Facebook pages. Tell others about our home businesses, whether it's oils, thirty-one, Pampered Chef, etc. Host parties in your homes for us and help us to get our business up and running. We are all more than just moms. Motherhood is such a privilege and I wouldn't change it for anything but I still want to have those passions that put a little bounce in my step and get me out of bed at 5:00 am.

~Jenn

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Spring On The Farm

Can I just say that I think I need a vacation this year already?

I wanted to write and update everyone on our crazy busy schedule right now. As I sit here typing this, it's pouring rain. It's supposed to rain all week. I can't help but think that God gives us rain on a homestead so that we can sit back and relax once in awhile. We cannot ever control Mother Nature and we should embrace what she gives us, even if it means you can't get all your plants in the ground when you want to.

The first exciting news I want to share with you is that we are starting up a business! It's going to be called 'Little House on the 100 Farm.' I have been busy getting all the legal stuff done and ordering business cards, seeds, and planting tomato seeds (affiliate link), and more seeds, and more seeds....

We are going to build a roadside stand to sell our garden produce and I will be participating in our local farmers market. I have also signed up to take a microprocessing class which will allow me, once I pass the test and I'm certified, to sell some of my canned produce and baked goods. We will be planting a good amount of sweet corn and pumpkins (affiliate link) with the hope of providing our local community and surrounding areas with using organic seed and having non-sprayed, high-quality produce.

I'm telling you my head is spinning with the possibilities of this adventure!

Easter weekend happened on April 5th and I decided to color my hair. I love my hair light blonde. I know I should embrace my natural dark blonde with gray highlights, but what can I say...I am still a bit vain I guess. Notice the photo bomb in the background?

This is my boy at our church's yearly Easter Egg Hunt. He is always such a happy boy.

Here are my other babies. Tomato and pepper seeds started inside on March 9th. In this picture, I am in the process of hardening them to be planted outside.

 

A trip to the library last week brought all this home with us. I am so excited about the Laura Ingalls Wilder annotated autobiography! I am about a third of the way through. It's an interesting read and it's fun to compare what she fictionalized in her children's series and what is factual.

We may or may not have a slight addiction to books in this house.

 

I finally broke down and bought my favorite Christian band's latest album. Casting Crown's music ministers to me in a way no other music does. I have been listening to it nonstop. Yes, I know they make downloadable music. I can't believe that a CD is old school since I grew up on cassette tapes.

 

I also bought this with some extra money I made last week. I can't explain how excited I am about this purchase! I have been using the fire out of it! I bought a reusable pod because I am frugal like that ;)

 

 Everyone should have a front porch to read Laura Ingalls Wilder's annotated biography on. Spring, how I love thee.



Here is a glimpse of the area we will be planting some of our produce in. My husband sure does love to work the dirt around here. He is in all his glory when he is on his tractor. 

My boy won first place at a literature fair he participated in last Friday with our local homeschool group. He was so happy to win! I am so proud of him and of his love for reading. He did his book on Dolphin Tale 2: The Junior Novel. He is obsessed with Winter the dolphin. If we earn enough money from our produce stand business this summer, I am taking him to see her in Florida this winter.

We put our tomato seedlings out Saturday afternoon. This is our first year using weed mat (affiliate link). I sure hope it's worth it because it takes a lot longer to plant when you use it. 

 

Here are the seedlings all nestled in their new home. We planted 63 of them. I have had some die already from transplanting. I may not have hardened them long enough in direct sunlight before transplanting them. I have about 150 more tomato plants I want to add out there. Yes, I'm serious.

This is the stray cat that has been hanging around our place. I was working on an article for the Molly Green Magazine yesterday morning and I looked up and saw this. She has finally quit running off the deck immediately when we go out there, but she still won't let us get close to her at all. We call her Fluffy. I think she is a girl because our other three spayed female cats don't seem to mind her around. I am a sucker for stray animals. 

 

 

My boy also started swim lessons this week and I have a 30 hour famine with our youth kids at church this weekend. I think I can say, after almost three years in Logan County, we have finally totally immersed ourselves into life here! We love it here, and with an uncertain future, which would require a totally different post to explain that, we pray this will be our forever home.

 

That's about all we have been up to lately here on the Hundred Acre Wood! How about you? Planting anything yet?

 

Jenn

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