Making Pottery + 100 Days of Vases on Instagram

I've been working away in my little pottery shed for the past couple months. I have signed up and been accepted to be a vendor at The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival at the end of September. This is the first time I have done an "official" show selling my pottery. Most of my pottery sales in the past couple years and over 20 years ago were done at my own home at Open House formats or on-line. 

I have never been to the Garlic and Arts Festival but I have heard it is a great time. It is similar to The Common Ground Country Fair in Maine but on a smaller scale. I got accepted to sell my ceramics, my tea towels and my books. I will bring our 10 x 10 pop-up Farmers Market tent and hope for the best. My good friend Kay has volunteered to help with sales. Thank you Kay!

I've got lots of pottery in progress. This summer I have been throwing lots of vases and mugs getting ready for the fall selling season. I've also made a lot of smallish platters and some larger ones. My plan is to list all the leftovers on-line on my website after the Garlic and Arts Festival so if you want something but are far away, you will have a chance. 

When I am sitting at my wheel, I look out to the hill behind it and the field that some of our sheep spend the warmer months in. They hunker down during the day and sleep next to our portable corral. In the beginning, they were skittish of me but as we spend more and more time together they just look on. 

The dogs come down to check on things too. They are curious as to what the heck I am doing spending all this time in the little shed. 

I've got so many pots made now and the next step is decorating them all with underglazes. This is the tedious and time consuming part of making my ceramics. It is also what adds to the price because each piece takes quite a bit of time. I treat each piece differently depending on the shape of the object. In the photo below you can see vases in different stages - unfired white clay, underglaze painted pieces, and glossy glazed finished pieces. On the bottom right side of the photo, you can see 2 vases that haven't had their black lines added yet. The addition of that line finishes the piece and makes the motifs stand out. I use very bright colors of underglaze but they don't look bright until they are gloss glazed. 

I started a 100 Day Challenge on Instagram! I've always thought of doing this kind of project but never really thought I could find enough time in the day to do it. I'm giving it a go and am on Day #12 coming up. Each day I post a photo of a vase or two or whatever I have been making in the studio. I hope I can keep it up. It does help to keep me focused on making and creating. 

You can follow my progress over on Instagram here. My feed also posts automatically to my Kristin Nicholas Designs Facebook Page here if you don't do Instagram. Make sure to follow me if you are interested in the progress. 

Hope you are enjoying the summer as it quickly turns to autumn!

My Trip to Google's Offices in Cambridge

Things have been busy since the last time I posted here. Julia and I had a fun adventure to the Google offices in Cambridge, MA where I presented a talk about my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I don't have any photos from the event but I do know that the talk will be available soon on the Talks at Google Youtube channel.

While I was preparing my talk, I took the time to explore their video channel. There were not any talks that were presented that were similar to mine that I could find. I did my best to get an idea of how they would be filmed and what the audience would be interested in. They host and tape these talks at their offices all over the world. Their Youtube channel has over 770,000 subscribers and there are My host David was hoping for an audience of 5 to 15 people. I think we had about 20 which was great. 

I will admit that this was the first time that I have spoken to an audience of primarily men. Most times when I speak there are almost all women listening. I did my best to feel comfortable with this difference. Mostly I was hoping someone would be interested in what I had to share. Speaking at Google gave me an opportunity to get my ideas of design and the handmade out to a totally new demographic. I had some very enthusiastic and sweet listeners that came up after to pick up a book. 

Google tapes all the talks and there was an awesome videographer named Tim who took care of all the technical issues. What a joy to get to a place and not be worried about the technology piece of the puzzle. They had all the cables and power cords I needed for my Mac and my Powerpoint loaded onto the screens without a hitch. I know it seems funny to worry about something like this but when I was in Minnesota speaking at The Textile Center several years ago I had a full crowd waiting to hear me speak and we couldn't get the audio visual piece to work. Thank goodness for my friend Robin's husband Daniel who saved that day by bringing his computer in and getting that presentation to play. 

This is an illustration I did to begin my Powerpoint Presentation. I wrote the word Google on my iPad Pro and then added bits of pattern design in separate layers. Then I brought the files into Illustrator and tweaked them. I used Google's signature colors for the decoration.

After the talk, Julia and I had lunch with my host David in one of the Google cafeterias (I think there are four). That was super cool. Very good food and so many selections. They even had lamb that day which I had to try! After lunch, Julia and I got a tour of the different floors. This was a real treat for me. Each floor of the building which is just above the Kendall Square T stop is decorated in a different theme based on the T Stations in the Boston area. The offices were incredibly well done which shouldn't be a surprise. There were lots of comfy chairs for people to escape from their cubicles. There were many fun meeting spots with creative decoration and several places to pick up coffee or some kind of beverage. Infused waters were quite popular. (Now I am making them.) The fabrics they used were varied and I noticed a lot of woven wool and some gorgeous wool felt used in the design of different areas. (Perhaps the wool felt came from this company which specializes in wool felt for architecture and design.) There were lots of innovative design treatments including plywood that was cut out in different patterns. There was so much to look at and absorb - it was really a very cool experience for someone like me who lives and breathes textiles, design, color, and interiors. 

I found these photos on-line on the blog Office Snapshots of the Google Cambridge offices and thought it would be fun to share them here with you all. The offices were designed by the Nelson Firm which is a global design and architecture firm. Google employs 1,400 people in this office space which is close to MIT and just above the Kendall T public subway stop. The offices are in excess of 300,000 square feet and they were done in 2016. I learned that they are still expanding that office so I assume there will be lots more fun and innovative design happening there. What a fun job that would be for an up and coming interior designer - working on the interiors for Google. 

The library - my book will be in here for Googlers to borrow

Thanks so much to David for inviting me and putting it all together. And thanks to Stephanie who suggested the talk. Thanks to all of the Googlers who came out and listened - it was lovely to meet you all. This Google experience has got to be one of the high points of my creative life. I'm still wondering how I got there.  

I will let you all know when the talk goes on their Youtube channel. 

In the meantime, here are some of the Talks at Google that I listened to before I spoke. You may find some of them interesting too.  Each is about 45 minutes long and there are often audience questions at the end. They are different than 18 minute Ted Talks and take more time to watch but if you are knitting or stitching or cooking, you can learn something really interesting while working on a project. 

Nancy Hachisu - Cookbook Author

Sam the Cooking Guy

Michael Beirut - Graphic Designer

Aaron Draplin - Graphic Designer

Diane Von Furstenburg

Martha Stewart (this one is interesting because it was filmed 6 years ago and so much has changed since then technology wise)

Have a great weekend everyone.

This is Happening --- Soon + More

Popping in today to share a bit of what I have been working on this week..... Getting my garden planted -- it is half in. I call it insta-gardening. I purchase seedlings and plop them in. If all goes well, they grow. We had a massive thunderstorm on Monday night and lost power overnight but the good result was that the seedlings got watered by Mother Nature. Thank you! Now I have to tackle the sunflower seeds. I will do a few rows each day. Then to the mulching.

The other thing I have been working on this week - and thinking a lot about - is this. 

What you say? Next Wednesday at 11 a.m. I am giving a Talk at Google on color and pattern and hand-making at the Cambridge offices of Google. Been working on it this week developing a PowerPoint presentation. (I will say I am so not a fan of PowerPoint. So clunky.) I don't know what to expect but am being optimistic that I can share my love of color and pattern with whoever it is shows up to listen. I think it may be videotaped so there is a chance it could be on their Talks at Google channel. You can check out all the interesting Talks at Google here. 

I'm putting this out there today in case any of you have friends who work at Google/Cambridge, MA who might be interested. Spread the word. Thanks!

We have a new litter of kittens. Here they are napping this morning after a good romp. Two on the left are spoken for but the middle one - a fluffy gray tabby with white feet is available. (They were all spoken for but someone just backed out.)

And if you haven't seen this yet - watch. 23 minutes of pure fun.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. 

Webs Tomorrow + Kim using my Mod Suzani Fabric on a Very Cool Chair

Tomorrow I will be at Webs in Northampton from 2 to 4 doing a "Book Event" for my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I will have many of the projects from the book with me and will answer questions and share some of the techniques I have used in the book. You can sign up here but please - if you want to come and cannot figure out how to sign up - come anyway. I would love to meet you. So far, there haven't been many folks signed up. It is a tough time of year for an event with all the graduations and family things going on. But I will be there with bells on! Here is the link.

A couple of years ago, my friend Lucy introduced me to Kim and Bill Chagnon who run an upholstery business in Greenfield. Not only do they do upholstery but they also have an on-line teaching website called Kim's Upholstery. Kim is a creative dynamo and Bill is behind the scenes making the videos and more all run as smoothly as possible. They have so many fantastic videos on their YouTube channel here. They also have a Membership site to teach upholstery to anyone who wants to learn. Kim also travels the USA teaching upholstery at different locations. 

Kim and Bill are building a Community of Upholsterers and Wanna Be Upholsterers. I was fortunate to be asked to be on one of their Facebook Live videos where I demonstrated fabric printing. It was lots of fun. 

Now - I have the thrill of watching Kim upholster a beautiful chair with my Mod Suzani Linen/Cotton Fabric in the Orange colorway which you can see in my Spoonflower shop here. She painted the wood base of the chair in a chalk paint from DIY Debbie in hot pink and a second chair in turquoise. The chair is turning out fantastic. Check it out on their YouTube channel. 

I love that I am meeting lots of new people who do interesting things through branching out beyond the world that I am most known in. There are so many great things to learn and share with others and I feel fortunate that I have the platform here on my blog, at the Farmers Markets, and in stores such as Webs to share with others. 

Hope to see some of you tomorrow at Webs! 

Design New England + Spoonflower Blog + Mason-Dixon Knitting Features

I was surprised to hear from my friend Andi the other day. She was jumping through the phone line telling me my new book Crafting A Patterned Home had been featured in a magazine called Design New England. Wow! So exciting. Here is the cover and the feature piece. Read the et al. article here. 

I was also quoted in another section of the magazine called Selections: Bold is Beautiful. How fun. Here is the link to that page.

You can read the entire magazine on-line here. 

Another surprise was a large feature on the Spoonflower blog. You can see that here.  

And the book was featured on the Mason-Dixon Knitting website as New And Noteworthy: The Books of May. You can read that review here. I really admire what Kay and Ann have done to create a community of knitters, crocheters, sewists, dyers, and quilters so I love that the new book got included. 

Thanks to the folks at Roost Books for publishing the book and generating the publicity for Crafting A Patterned Home. Copies of it are available on my website here. I will throw in free shipping, a Kristin designed bookplate and 5 beautiful postcards with photos by photographer Rikki Snyder. Check it out here. 

If you don't like to order on-line, there are instructions on how to order by mail on my website. 

This Coming Saturday! Webs Tent and Fleece Sale

Popping in today quickly to tell everyone that I will be setting up a small booth at the 16th Annual Webs Tent and Fleece Sale this Saturday - May 19th from 10-5:30. I think this may be the 6th year that I have done this event. I look forward to meeting lots of folks and spreading my love of color. I will have our Farm Raised Leyden Glen Lamb with me along with my books and whatever else I can organize quickly. I will be sure to bring samples from the new book. 

Also - upcoming at Webs, I will be doing a Book Event on June 2nd from 2 to 4. More information here. Thanks so much to the fine folks at Webs for helping to spread the word about my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. 

I'm off to the Tuesday Market in Northampton today. It looks like it is going to rain something awful. Our lilacs are just starting to pop. And the apple trees in the orchard are ready to burst open too. I will try to get some photos this week but for now - here is a throwback to the lilacs a couple years ago. 

Today's Big Adventure - Facebook Live with Kim's Upholstery

My friends Kim and Bill Chagnon have an on-line Upholstery Teaching Site called Kim's Upholstery. They have hundreds of videos on their YouTube site and 44,000 subscribers! Their on-line teaching site trains people to do upholstery themselves and to build a business. 

Kim and Bill are also professional upholsterers. I met them a few years ago through our mutual friend potter Lucy Fagella. Kim and I were in an evening pottery class together for one session. When I was working on my new book, I hired Kim to make a slipcover out of fabric I designed. This is the chair she covered for me in my yellow Bloomsbury inspired roses and diamonds linen/cotton that is also available on my Spoonflower shop here. 

I also hired Kim and Bill to recover my favorite chair with the fabric that I hand-stamped with a paisley design. That chair is on the cover of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home which you can buy on my website here. They delivered the chair the day of the photoshoot - I love the way it turned out. And Kim and Bill were so thrilled that their work was on the cover of the book. 

Kim and Bill are always looking for promotional ideas. They have so much energy and so many ideas. They are such a team. Kim is the Creative person and teaching personality. Bill is the behind the scenes person - he films all the videos, does all the editing and website stuff. He is amazing. If I had a Bill I could produce so much more but alas, I have a Farmer who has sheep and is too busy to help me with anything. 

Kim and Bill have always been trying to get me to promote my business but the time was not quite right. Now with the launch of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home I agreed to film a Facebook Live demo for them. This is the first time I have done a Facebook Live event and it was a lot of fun. I demonstrated how I printed the fabric for the chair that Kim and Bill upholstered for the cover of the book. 

Today at 12:30 we went live. It was a dicey day - on my way to their studio, my brakes started spewing black smoke and smelling really awful. I drove slow and made it there just in time to go live. It was fun seeing the questions that would pop up on the screen that Bill and Kim read. People popped in and out of the live feed. Kim told me that lots of folks watch their FB Live posts on their lunch breaks. The cool thing is that at the same time that the FB Live video is being live streamed, they are also capturing video. It is then uploaded to their YouTube channel so that you all can watch it. So - here you go - Kim and Kristin live. It is an hour long and there are some funny parts. It was fun to do and we may cook up some other ideas to help promote the book and promote Kim's great Learn Upholstery subscription website and my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I'm in guys - just let me know. 

You can follow Kim on Instagram here. You can find her on Facebook here. And you can subscribe to her YouTube channel here. She also teaches on the Craftsy website - a class called a Custom Fit Slipcovers: Couches and Sofas. Thanks so much Kim and Bill for giving me this opportunity. 

You can still order signed copies of Crafting A Patterned Home on my website. I'll throw in free shipping and some free goodies. Thanks so much for your support. And welcome to those new to the blog. I hope you find it interesting and fun. 

Big Announcement #3

This one is kind of cool. Our farmhouse is featured on the website Apartment Therapy. Check out the post and photos here. They have 2,000,000 readers. Gee. 

This coincides with the publication of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. Thanks to Roost Books for reaching out to AT. And to Rikki Snyder for the gorgeous photos. 

You can order a signed copy of my book directly from me here and I will throw in some fun freebies and FREE shipping. 

Big Announcement #1 from Kristin Nicholas

Boy, life gets busy sometimes. I want to thank you all for the book orders for my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I've been busy shipping them out and am pretty much caught up on orders. I've heard from some who have purchased with comments - thank for those. It is difficult being in a void here so any feedback I hear is awesome. On the book count, I'm up to 221. Only 279 to get to my goal of 500 books. Here is the link to order directly from me. You will receive some exclusive freebies and Free Shipping. 

Now that that's done - here's the Big Announcement #1 for Today. I'm throwing my book a

PARTY! 

Yes - that's right. On May 5 and 6, I will be opening our Farmhouse for a House Tour and She Shed Tour. It's going to be fun. I will have it decked out with most of the projects from Crafting A Patterned Home. You will be able to see the decorative wall and fabric treatments for yourself. 

The goal of the PARTY is to inspire you to fill your home with color and pattern. I hope that by seeing the different projects in person, you will find the techniques approachable and not too scary to try yourself. And of course, another goal is to celebrate the publication of Crafting A Patterned Home. 

I've set up an Eventbrite page for the party. Check it out here and sign up for tickets. This event is free and open to the public. Can't figure out how to use Eventbrite - just shoot me an email that you will be coming. 

WHEN: May 5 and 6 (Sat + Sun)
HOURS: 11 to 4
WHERE: 31 Glen Road, Leyden MA 01301
HOW FAR FROM WHERE? We are approximately 2 hours west of Boston, 1 hour north of Hartford and 3 1/2 hours north of NYC. 
DIRECTIONS: Get them from our Leyden Glen Lamb website here. 
WHO TO BRING: Your friends, your Mom, your partner, your kids but NOT YOUR DOGS. This is a working sheep farm and dogs and sheep do not mix. Thanks. 

Questions - feel free to email me at kristinnicholas AT gmail DOT com

Can't get to the party? You can still buy your very own copy of Crafting A Patterned Home. Here is the link to order directly from me. You will receive some exclusive freebies and Free Shipping. 

Thank YOU + Thank Barbara Jacobs at the ALA

Hi Everyone! Busy busy here. I am on the way to Boston this morning to take Julia to see her eye doctor. It is a long ride but he is a fantastic guy and he fixed her strabismus when she was 4. Forever grateful for the talent and knowledge of surgeons. Seriously. 

Photo by Rikki Snyder

(This is Charlie - our head cat - in the photo above. If you are a fan of cats and kittens, you will have fun looking for them on the pages of Crafting A Patterned Home. And that is a photo by Rikki Snyder who did all the gorgeous photos in my last two books. Such a talent she is. Follow her on Instagram here.)

I want to thank you all for the orders for Crafting A Patterned Home. Books are on order and should be in at the beginning of next week. I will be signing and packing them and getting them out by the end of the week.  

Since I decided to be transparent with my number of books sold - Drum Roll - I am up to 96 copies. Only a little more than 400 to go until I match the 2015 sales amount of Crafting A Colorful Home. Thank you to all who have ordered. Pub Date is 4/10/18. I can't wait for you to see this new title. I worked on it for over a year and a half and to see it going out in the world is so exciting but terrifying in its own right. I think it is good but the jury is out. 

Are you wondering who Barbara Jacobs is? I don't know her but I know of her. She just wrote the most wonderful review of Crafting A Patterned Home and it was published in the American Library Associations' Booklist. Here's what she said......

Many might recognize Nicholas from her colorful retinue of knits (e.g., Kristin Knits, 2007; Color by Kristin, 2009). More recently, she applies her creative hues to embroidery. With this latest, the western Massachusetts crafter declares subtly that all crafts are her province, especially when directing home-design projects. Her thirtysomething patterns feature color washing and stenciling, other painting gigs, knitting, crochet, and ceramics, all with intricate directions and upfront notations about pattern, style, repeat, and techniques. Don’t skip to the designs. Start at the very beginning, where she shares insights on patterns and combinations. It’s clear, from the abundance of color photographs and her occasional sidebars on topics like Charleston, the Bloomsbury group’s English house, or Canadian folk-artist Maude Lewis, that sharing knowledge is the next best thing to providing colorful art. A worthy successor and companion to the likes of Brandon Mably, Kaffe Fassett, and Tricia Guild. Includes 20 pages of templates.— Barbara Jacobs

Did you read that last line? Gee whiz - I am in good company. Seriously psyched and humbled. 

And here is what my book got - a Star! 

In publishing circles this is a big deal. It means that many librarians will order the book to keep on their shelves and share with their clients. There are a lot of libraries in the USA so that should help book sales. I am so over the moon about this. I am a very frequent library visitor and user and to know that those who cannot buy their own copy may have the opportunity to view my work - it is awesome. 

Thank you Barbara Jacobs. And thank you to longtime reader Sally from Ohio for letting me know. Sally is a librarian and she gave me the scoop.

Help me get to my goal of 500 books. Here is where you can order directly from me and I will ship it out along with some goodies. If you prefer to order on Etsy - you can order from my Etsy shop here. 

Spring? The Story of My Life..... The Peddler

Tomorrow is the first day of spring and we are expecting a snowstorm. Again. We have had more snow in this last part of winter than in the really cold part of winter. And it may not be over - there have been snowstorms here in April and sometimes as late as May. Thank goodness it didn't warm up too much in the middle of winter to cause the fruit trees to leave dormancy and begin making buds. There will still be peaches and apples and pears this summer and fall. Yay. 

Today I want to share something super exciting with you - the cover of Crafting A Patterned Home. If you are a newsletter subscriber, you may have already seen it. This is the first time I am showing it here on my blog. 

I am in love with the cover. When Rikki Snyder (the photographer) and I were working on "cover tries" we both thought this image was the strongest. Just because we did, didn't mean the publisher and their marketing team would. But as luck were to have it -- this time -- my fave won. YAY.

The book will be available on April 10th - the official pub date. It's a Tuesday. Why are pub dates always on Tuesday? They always seem to be. 

I am selling copies of Crafting A Patterned Home on my website and in my Etsy Shop. I would love to ship you your very own signed copy. If you would like me to write an inscription, please let me know in the "notes" section of the order. 

For the next few weeks, I will be giving you all some previews of what is inside CAPH along with some backstory to the production and making of the book. 

I'm hoping to sell a lot of books. It is going to be hard to ship as many as I did with the last book Crafting A Colorful Home. It came out in January 2015 and if I remember correctly, there was no Amazon Prime then with options for free shipping. Three years is a long time in our fast paced internet world. A lot has changed - including the public's comfort with buying on-line. 

BUT - I will not take this lying down. I am fighting back against the giant. Here's what I am offering the people (maybe you) who chose to buy from me to support my family, my creative work and our farm......

1. Free shipping (within the USA)

2. An exclusive bookplate designed and handpainted by me.

3. A set of 5 assorted postcards featuring photographs by the lovely + talented Rikki Snyder. 

4. An option to have each book inscribed to someone. 

5. A signed title page

ORDERING DETAILS FOR CRAFTING A PATTERNED HOME - Pub Date April 10, 2018
You can pre-order over on my website here.
You can also pre-order on my Etsy Shop here. 

Thank you so much for your support of me, my family and farm, and our work. 

Brimfield Sightings and Best of Flea Market Style Feature

A couple weeks ago, I went to the Brimfield Flea Market which is only about an hour from our farm. I have been going to this flea market for years and I look forward to it. I go by myself so I can shop as fast or slow as I like. I usually go on Friday because that is the day the J&J Show opens. This show used to be the high end field of all the different fields that open during the week. Unfortunately it has gone a bit down hill and the quality isn't as great. But it is still a fun and inspiring day. After I run through J & J, I head over to a few of the other fields that opened earlier in the week but still have vendors present.

Here are some photos I snapped of things I liked - but didn't buy. Do you see a theme? I do - pattern, ceramics, and sheep. It's what I am into at this moment in time. 

When I got home that afternoon, I found the newest copy of Best of Flea Market Style Magazine in my mailbox. 

And you guessed it - there was our house! 

This is a publication by Meredith and is a twice yearly magazine that is only available at newstands or at Barnes and Noble, possibly Walmart and Target and places they sell magazines. The pictures were taken by Rikki Snyder for Country Home but since Meredith owns Country Home and owns the photos outright, they could write another article about our farmhouse. 

I'd say this house is getting a bit too much exposure! Oh well - I guess I'll take it and be thankful for it. Here is the end page of the magazine with a photo of our porch with my oil paintings. I like the quote from Thomas Edison. 

"To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

The next Brimfield Antique Show/Flea Market is July 11 to 16. Information here. People travel from all over the world to visit this show. I'm so lucky to live close. 

Hope you all are having a good week. 

Living the Country Life Feature + Thoughts

We have a feature in a magazine I had never heard of called Living the Country Life. It is published by Meredith (think Better Homes and Gardens). A while back, I heard from an editor who wanted me to fact check an article they wrote about my work. She said they were re-using photos from a Rikki Snyder shoot that Country Home did here. (Meredith owns Country Home too and they hired Rikki for the shoot and they own all the photos - Rikki has no right to them anymore and I never had any right to them because I was the homeowner.) I was glad that there would be more photos being used because Rikki gave them 100 and they only used a few in the original feature. 

I was quite thrilled with the opening spread - a photo with my oil paintings of animals on the porch wall and the stairwell wall with a kitten. 

When you agree to have your home photographed, you never really know where it will lead. Publishers are trying to get more and more out of a photo shoot they pay for as a frugality measure to stay in business. I get that because print publishing is not what it once was. Everyone is just struggling to stay in the game.

It also seems that there are more and more "new" magazine titles coming out that are newstand only. Sometimes they are called bookazines and they are very targeted to a small segment of readers. These publications are usually more expensive than the mainstream magazines - at least $10 and sometimes $15 and $20. When I get the chance to go to Barnes and Noble, which isn't often, I am always floored by the number of titles that I have never heard of. Most of them have little or no advertising - hence the higher cost. 

I am grateful for any publicity I get because I only have so far of a reach on-line. Usually I hope something good will come out of a magazine feature and I might sell something but usually nothing happens except that I will get a few more newsletter subscribers or Facebook followers. So for all of you who think that people who get featured in magazines are making the big bucks - think again. For me, it is mostly an ego stroke. And my publishers like it because they might sell a few books.

Lately I have kind of resolved my thoughts of world domination, possible licensing agreements, and professional success. I guess I am getting older (that is an understatement) and am happy with the number of people who come to my blog and read (thank YOU), might come to a class here at the farm or perhaps might buy something. It really is all about showing up and making or writing things. I'm never going to get rich off this but I appreciate the small amount of success I have from time to time.

I thank you all for coming here and reading my thoughts. As I breezed through the pages of this Living the Country Life magazine, I got a kick out of the other features. One was of a family who raised sheep hosting a "sheep shearing party." Beautiful photos of gorgeous grandchildren, perfectly set tables, neighbors visiting. 

OMG - how hilarious that was for me to think about. When we shear our sheep, it is days full of long, dirty hours of hard physical work. There is nothing romantic about it and we all end up looking like we are covered in dirt. We stink to high heavens and if by mistake you lick your fingers, they taste like lanolin and poop. How funny to see a shearing day portrayed in a magazine with people looking beautiful. I guess it is a Martha Stewart moment when you have lots of help and money to pay people to do things for you. 

My take on this magazine is that they are trying to sell the "country life" as some kind of bucolic lifestyle where everything is perfect, people are beautiful and animals never get sick and die. Of course that is their take. That is the country dream of so many urban and suburban dwellers. It's a story that has been told for decades. Remember Green Acres? Or from the 1940's The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (thank you Therese) which later became a film with Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. The later spin-off was the Ma and Pa Kettle series of movies.  

My take of the "country life" after living here for almost twenty years is that it is so different than what is pictured in the glossies. Many things are harder and most things are more expensive - although I think the internet has changed a bit of that (that is if you live where there is high speed connection - for many rural dwellers that is not available.) It takes much longer to get places (with no traffic jams) and most things that suburban and city dwellers take for granted are totally inconvenient. I'm not complaining - I'm just stating a fact. Every time I go to visit and stay with my sister close to Boston or my Mom in the burbs of NJ, I realize this. 

I really don't want to live anywhere else and I can't imagine my life any different. Which is a nice feeling. As long as I plan, trip-chain, and realize that I really don't need most of the stuff that most people think are necessary, things are fine. We subsist on less and so what if your clothes are 15 years old as long as I can still squeeze into them. 

That's my thoughts for the day. If you are interested in reading another blog about living on less, I am enjoying Rhonda's blog Down To Earth - she is from down under. Hope you all are well.