Dear sisters,
Welcome to my Vision Board Party! In my last post I invited you to join me in slowly and ever so thoughtfully creating a vision board filled with your hopes, dreams and aspirations for 2018. I hope you’ve been having fun working on yours. If you missed my invite, no worries. There’s still time to join in the fun and send in your boards! I’m revealing mine today plus an additional board sent in by farmgirl, Joan Brown. Continue reading
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
I made a vision board years ago. It got tossed when we moved for like the fifth time in about three years. ( I guess my vision didn’t fit into the vision!) I really enjoyed the process of making the vision board, the bright colored pictures, the glue, the scissors, the old magazines. Who does not love to beautiful old magazines of flowers and crafts and fabric and yarn and articles pertaining to all those things we women love. Who does not love to Peru’s beautiful old magazines of flowers and crafts and fabric and yarn and articles pertaining to all those things we women love.
My phone posted without corrections (“peruse”) or finishing!!! Maybe I’ll start again on my vision board, as I do have quite a large collection of old magazines now that we’ve settled into our new home!!
Thank you for inviting us into the challenge.
Hi Diane!
Well, why not? It’s a fun and purposeful way to spend some quality ” you ” time!
I hope you’ll play along!
Deb
Your vision board is wonderful! England is on my ” go to” list too, not only for the gardens and everything English , but also for sea glass hunting on the coast. Marbles, pottery any sea things …. flowers, thatch … it all has my heart.
Fore sure, Jinx!!! One day we’ll get there!
Thank You for these ideas.
Marilyn
Yours looks wonderful! I forgot about it but I will start on it, you are a inspiration!
Great! Can’t wait to see yours!
Fun with scissors and glue! I don’t buy magazines anymore and as a quilter I have enough scissors time each week, glue too when I applique. But a year or two ago I was asked to do an online design board of my dream room, using the color bright green. I’m a blue and white person, green was a stretch til I found many beautiful, awesome, pineapple print fabrics . I did my cutting and pasting online, making a Green Room Pinterest board [and blog post]. It was very fun, and it did make me want to accomplish a home redo project. Oh if only the budget allowed for more than dreams.
https://www.pinterest.com/gonetothebeac/green-room/
lizzy at gone to the beach
Hi Lizzy,
I’ll have to check out your link…Dreaming is free! Gotta love that!:)
What a fantastic vision board. It definitely reminds me of springtime, which I am so ready for. I have a couple of flower seeds I am wanting to plant this year, so springtime will be so fun. Good luck with all your weddings this year. I think it would be so much fun to work in the wedding scene. There is just something so touching to see and feel all the love surrounding each other on those days. Traveling to England has always been a dream of ours as well and luckily we are blessed to be traveling over there later this year. We are currently in the planning process so we are not sure quite yet what we plan to see and visit. One of these days I’ll have to make a vision board.
Oh Deb, how I love this! Do you know that I have never done a vision board? I’ve always wanted to and for some reason just never have. I LOVE yours!!! I could hang it in my craft room and stare at it all day long! I think I need to make one with my grand-girls. I have a feeling they would love that project.
So excited about your upcoming season of flowers and weddings. I can’t wait for it to get here and see all your amazing pictures and incredible inspiration. We are excited for April to get here so we can get the soil tilled and seeds planted. It’s actually close really, but yet it feels SO far away! 🙂
Hugs,
Dori
Hi Dori!
Oh, I know you would love this project and including the grand-girls would make it all the more fun! I hope you can find time to squeeze it in and share your photos with me at Deb@maryjanesfarm.org I’ll share them in my blog post this month!
I feel the same way about planting season. It still feels like an eternity away but it’s really just around the corner!
Hugs to you!
Deb
How fun…you’ve inspired me! I sat down with all my favorite clippings and put them in one place. What fun to see everything I love and all my wishes (and wants!) together. It keeps me on track…ideas for the garden, get-togethers with girlfriends, redecorating inside, recipes, places to visit…the list goes on. Thanks so much for your idea.
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Deb, I love this idea! This is the perfect project to work on while it’s 0 degrees outside and you’re holed up inside. I agree that this would be fun to do with grandchildren…but even more fun to tap into your own inner child and make your own 🙂
Hi Debbie!
Yes, exactly! Have fun creating! Deb
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