Starting out..

This is my first post on my new blog. It is a bit frightening to think about starting out all over again since my other blog is six years old and well established but I outgrew it. My other blog focused mostly on food and while I occasionally wrote about my kids and my faith, it shaped my public perception and the kinds of writing I was able to do outside of it. It also boxed in the kinds of writing that I did within it because I risked losing readers and getting negative emails about staying on topic. I needed a new home for my writing.

That is not to say that everything is new.  I still am me, I still do the same things, I still care a great deal about real food and natural living but a new house comes with new rules. On this blog, I am just going to talk about whatever and not try to box in it so much. When I started writing, I shaped it around a platform, which is a solid way to start, but now I have been writing long enough that I no longer feel the need to have a platform. Now I am writing strictly for me.

About two years ago, I started to get the itch to write a book. From the friends of the library sale, I bought a book on getting a book published. I think I paid a quarter or two for it. Almost nothing, really. I had all sorts of ideas and I started some notes and outlines but they didn't really manifest themselves into a book. I think God was closing doors. I knew I felt the need to write but the book that I really wanted to write was not coming. Then I started getting suggestions for a cookbook on Lenten, fast friendly foods for families. So I started outlining and things fell into place. I finally found that door that God meant for me to open. I wrote queries that turned in to requests for proposals that turned into a solid contract to write a book. The writing flowed and the book came out. You can find the links to it in my sidebar.

It was the book I needed to write. I felt like it brought all the parts of my identity together. I have always loved cooking and I have been developing recipes for years for my blog and selling them to other sites and organizations. I have always loved God very much and sought him out, going to church alone as a child and teen because very few family members were observant. I love children and babies and families in general. All of a sudden, my writing felt very holistic. All of a sudden, my other writing felt much less satisfying. I started taking on fewer and fewer contracts and focused on my book and even considering writing others (if you have already emailed me about a follow up Lenten book, no fear, I am putting together an outline). It was at that point that I realized I needed more room to grow and to write. This is that home.

In case you don't know me, let me tell you more about me.I am a Colorado girl and I love everything about my hometown of Denver. My father was Mexican. He passed away two years ago from non-smokers lung cancer. My mother is Cherokee and she met my father in college. I am married to strapping Finlander and we have eleven Mexi-Finns, as he calls them. When Ben's father died, we made the crazy decision for him to quit his  job, sell our house, downsize to about half of our belongings, and leave the comfortable suburban life of professionals to live on his family's homestead from the 19th century on the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Cray-cray. That has been unbelievably difficult but we have seen God's hand in it all, even the ugly stuff. So. Hard.

We have a milk cow (that is a trick during the fasts because she still makes milk), a dairy steer, a dog, and a cat that likes to crawl under the blankets and sleep with us. We will be doing ducks for meat this spring as well as turkeys but they are not ordered yet. Then we are adding a couple of lambs. We have an apple orchard and sell apples locally. The kids have the run of 75 acres. I am still writing from home but Ben decided he needed a second career. He left behind finance to have this little hobby farm on the Canadian shield and teach school at our tiny country school with eleven students, five of whom are ours. More of the cray-cray.

I plan on writing about whatever pops in to my head. I am not boxing myself in this time but writing about the broad expanse of my life and experience. I have no idea where we are going, but I am excited to get there. You are welcome to come along for the ride.