Let Me Introduce Myself

Hello my friends, and welcome to a world of my design.

I often feel I was born into the wrong time. Many days are spent with a sorrow in my heart that I can never quite describe. I could live easily without cell phones and computers (oh the irony as I type this out). I would trade my car for a wagon, my electricity for a fireplace and candle light, and the convenience of this world for the toiling of yester-year. Now don't get me wrong, I am as guilty as anyone of taking advantage of the comforts of our modern society, yet I ache to my bones for a time long gone.

I find that I am happiest when I am consumed by a task that requires my mind and my body alike. The smell of fresh air as I hang laundry out to dry. The way the soil feels beneath my feet as I pull weeds in the sun. How my chickens run and cluck after me when they think I am bringing a treat. The deep satisfaction of a seed planted, tended, and grown into a bountiful harvest. I adore fresh baked bread, homemade jam, and the satisfaction of a project sewn by my hand. There will never be enough substance to the ease of modern living to fill this place of nature in my heart.

I love cooking, and find it to be a wonderful way to express my love for people. I enjoy bringing meals together and eating them with the people that mean the most to me. Because of this, I like to spend time on many of our meals, but there are 2 nights each week that the kids have Muay Thai practice and dinner has to be quick. (This is where an Instant Pot or slow cooker becomes your best friend. The kitchen is the center of our home, and it is the place that I feel closest to my faith, and myself.

I came into this world in the year nineteen hundred and ninety as the oldest of what would be 4 children. I was raised in small rural towns by a Mother that would do anything for us and a Father that worked himself half to death to make sure that we were fed. My Great Grandparents, Great Aunts and Uncles, and Elder Cousins were, and are, influential in my life in more ways than I can count. I find trial and error to be the greatest teachers and believe that I can think my way out of anything life throws my way. I learned to drive a stick shift before I was 10 and I knew how to ride a horse before I knew how to ride a bike. My childhood shaped every facet of who I am today. It was hard, and I am nothing if not grateful for that fact.

Motherhood has always been my destiny. As the oldest of 4 I was often referred to as the "Mother Hen" of our family. Even now I am viewed by most as the Matriarch of my birth family. At 23 I had my first child and at 25 I had my second. As much as I was born for this role I was also required to learn this role. I knew the mother that I wanted to be, and I have had to put in the work every single day to become that woman. It is a deeply humbling experience to bend your will to a child. I have come to understand that I am not the high and mighty power that I once thought I was; I am a student of this season as much as I am a teacher.

As a child I knew that all I ever wanted was a husband, children, and a white picket fence. It took me a long time to understand that there was no "just" before "a homemaker". That there is nothing "just" about the task laid before me. I am the creator of the childhood my children will have and remember. I am the cultivator of their formative years, and in many ways their entire life. I am the illustrator of the life we all share together.

Just as I reflect on my childhood, they will someday do the same. I pray they remember me standing at the sink with the breeze blowing through my hair. That the sound of Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell brings up memories of us dancing together in the kitchen. I pray they think back on the meals shared around our table and the food prepared fresh by my hand and theirs. I pray that my children will know the love, devotion, consciousness, and care that went into every moment of this life we are building together and that one day when they are asked what their mother did when they were growing up that they can reply "Our mother was a homemaker, and she made us the most beautiful home".

-Courtney Young

May 17, 2021