I hate introductions. They’re so difficult to write. I could try to encapsulate what I am “all about,” but it’s hard to sum up a person and her family in one neat little package of a blog post. I could try to give you my qualifications, but you can’t put too much weight on what you read about a person on the internet anyway. I could try to sell you a glorified image of myself to secure your readership, but that would be dishonest.
So let me say hi. My name is Abi. What’s your name?
I’ll tell you a little about myself to get started. I’ve got a sister, a mom and dad, and a huge family-in-law, all of whom I love very much. I studied music education in college and I’m still studying voice. I married the best guy in the whole world almost 6 years ago, and we have two littles together, Beeps (3.5 years old) and V (1 yr). I stay home with my kids the majority of the time, but teach private voice lessons a few evenings each week. I also worked as a birth doula for about three years until things got too hectic for me to keep up with on-call work. You’ll hear me talk a lot about the arts and women’s health because of this background.
I spend most of my days in relative chaos. My house is almost always messy. I can’t decorate for the life of me. We’ve got a lot of old and free furniture. I like to eat well on a tight budget, so I cook A LOT. Often preschooler fingers have been involved in our food prep.
We are aiming to become more self-sufficient, though we are by no means expert homesteaders. My husband gardens with a green thumb; I inadvertently neglect plants and they die. We try to use what we have and reduce our waste. We are frugal, sometimes to a fault. (For example, my husband was still wearing his pants from 5th grade to work as a 28 year old middle school teacher because we don’t like to spend money to buy new pants… yeah. That kind of frugal.)
I’m really into the idea of homeschooling. I’m practicing on my almost-four-year-old. It both thrills me and terrifies me to think of giving him a good education from home. I want him to have a rigorous and individualized education, but still have time to be a kid. I want him to have lots of healthy friendships and socialization, but to avoid falling victim to “the blind leading the blind,” socially speaking. I want to be flexible and teachable myself as I try to begin this journey.
I like to talk about family, faith, and ideas. I like to share what I’m learning and learn from others too. I like hearing and considering both sides of an issue. Remember always as you read that I have a lot of growing to do myself. I will try to be mindful of this fact as as I write.
Oh- and also, our neighbor’s goats escape their fencing and wander into our yard quite frequently. We don’t mind at all, but we’re always having to tell people that they’re not our goats. So I’ll tell you too, right from the outset: no- they’re not our goats. (Though we do really like them!)
So tell me about yourself. I’d love to get to know you.
