Welcome!

Hello, and welcome! I am so glad that you're here! My name is Janetta. I became a blogger long before it was the in thing to do. I used to be Serious Shopaholic. I'm now a recovering shopaholic. I use the term "recovering" lightly, especially this week (Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday have KILLED me!). Actually, I try to avoid the term like it's the plague. But, for my husband's sake, I will try my best. I began blogging as an assignment for a creative writing class. I have always loved to write, and it came completely naturally to me. I quickly found a niche in the blogging community, and I was blessed with a slew of devoted followers. I wrote about my love for Pottery Barn, Boden, J.Crew, Banana Republic, and Anthropologie. I posted my wish list, gift ideas, and product reviews. Then, my husband and I got the most exciting news ever; we were going to be parents! I didn't notice a change in my blog at first; it wasn't until I had the baby and began looking back at posts that I had written about him that I realized my shopping blog was no longer. I had stopped posting about my beloved stores and started posting about the new love of my life, JC. I didn't mind it at all, but I felt that it wasn't fair to what few readers were still following. So, I made the blog private. I only posted about JC, and I didn't feel guilty at all. However, I missed the blogging community. I missed talking to bloggers from all walks of life. I had made friends I would have never had the opportunity to meet in real life; I'm a small-town Kentucky girl. The chances that I would meet and become friends with someone from California were pretty slim.

I've been struggling for quite some time now, trying to find a new blog name that fit my life. While I'm still a shopaholic (sorry, Patrick!), I'm so many more things. Since my last public post, I graduated college and got my first teaching job. Patrick's dad passed away, and we dispersed his cattle herd. My Pa passed away, and we had Myra Mae. With sorrow comes joy, they say. I have toyed with dozens of ideas for a name for this little blog, but not one of them seemed to fit for the long haul. I didn't want to pick a cutesy name that I would just outgrow (like Serious Shopaholic) in a few months or years. I wanted something that would represent EVERYTHING I plan to include in this blog.

So, with that in mind, I turned to a list. I wrote down every single subject I thought I would cover. Ever. Not just stuff that I knew I would cover (like the kids, our faith, and shopping), but stuff that I wanted to cover. Stuff that I hadn't written about before. Things like DIY, crafts, education, money, cattle. Yes, I said cattle. If you know me in real life, you know that Patrick and I met at a cattle event hosted on the farm his dad ran. I was in the 5th grade, and I told my grandmother I would marry him someday. We became friends through cattle. The majority of the guests at our wedding were cattle people. When we married, we began to dream about buying a farm. His family didn't own the farm they had; his dad was partners with a local doctor who owned the land. He ran it. Once I entered the picture, ten years ago (woah, that's forever ago!), his health had declined to the point that Patrick was managing things on a daily basis. Over the years, Patrick had acquired his own cattle, and we knew that once his father passed away, we would have to make a tough decision about our future in the registered cattle industry. Thankfully, my parents were gracious enough to take our twenty cattle to their farm. We began talking about our lives and how things worked out (thanks to the cattle) for us to meet, become friends, begin dating, and eventually get married and have two gorgeous babies. We knew that it was all because of our cattle backgrounds. We wanted to honor that heritage when we began our own farm. Thus, Creekstone Cove was born.

My childhood farm was called Snake Creek Farm. Patrick grew up on Touchstone. We merged the two and came up with Creekstone. Creekstone Cove has been an aspiration for us for the past 3 years. So, it was a lightbulb moment during the middle of the night a few months ago that I call this blog Creekstone Cove. After all, it was a goal for us. It was a plan for our futures. It is something we pray fervently about and long to call our own. On some scale, it is present in every single decision that we make. Once I had the idea, it made perfect sense. So, here you will find lots of random musings. You will see pictures of two adorable babies and read stories about their latest adventures. There will be plenty of DIY projects, as we continuously update our starter home in hopes of resale (kitchen, bathroom, flooring, laundry room, painting, decorating, landscaping, etc.). I will post about shopping, TV, and food. I will post about my love for Jesus. And, occasionally, I will post about Herefords.

I hope you stick around! I would love to become friends!