The Daily Favorites 2/12

Today feels like one of those days where doing hard work will lay the foundation for an exciting tomorrow. So many of us get down and depressed during the winter months from the cold and grey and lack of recreating outdoors, but what if this season was intended for us to seek its calming quiet to recharge and rebuild for the bright seasons to come. Today’s favorites are.. 1) @khumaix 2) @themandagies 3) @farmandfolk 4) @jeff.n.brenner 5) @tedhesser 6) @jackharding.

Slow Living Favorites: Day One — Desserts

I am a huge believer in the power of positive community. I am also a consumer of a vast amount of content. I wanted to create a semi-daily list of the links and blogs I’m obsessed with. Some days will have themes, some days won’t. I believe together we can all grow community together… So here goes. Today, day one is dedicated to desserts, because that’s all I can currently think about.

1) Tornado Cake by Tilly’s Nest. 2) Homemade Do Si Dos by Not Without Salt. 3) Spiced Scones by Always with Butter. 4) Paleo Caramel Custard Cake + Toasted Meringue by The Kitchen McCabe. 5) Blue Velvet Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting by Eva Kosmas Flores. 6) White Chocolate Ricotta Cheesecake by Beth Kirby.

My 6 Favorite Things at Earth Angels HeART of Winter Event

If you know me, you know I can often times be found in a very old ice house in Florida, New York. The ice house is the current home to Earth Angels Studios. Over the weekend Ethan and I went up for her annual Valentines event. I wanted to share a few of my favorite pieces from the weekend! We will be back in May. Stay tuned for more information.

1) Stars by Emma Mierop. 2) Anything and everything by painter and friend Laurie Meseroll. 3) Paintings by Angela Moulton. 4) Paintings, especially the dapper ones by Stephanie Ponsard. 5) How to Speak Chicken by Melissa Caughey. 6) Bears by Letty!

Below are a few other images from the weekend:

Ramblings from a Roadside Cracker Barrel

When I travel alone I love to stop at Cracker Barrels on the side of interstates. I love watching the world go by in these places. I love watching the conversations and the people. It reminds me of home and so many of the things I love in life. Often times I will sit and write while I wait for my food. In this world that is constantly filled with noise it seems to be easier to write than it is to speak.

Somewhere along the way we forgot about the American citizens. In our quest for profits, for monopolies, for share holders, and for billionaires we forgot about the folks that built this country, the folks that spread across the mountains and the plaines, the folks that rose up from poverty and oppression to create lives across the countryside, the folks that were forced out of their own homes so this empire could be built. We’ve been forgotten. We’ve been neglected. We’ve been replaced with profit margins and global media domination and foreign wars to line the pockets of a select few. 

I sit in a Cracker Barrel somewhere deep in the Maryland Appalachia lands. Here I am surrounded by a cross section of America. Statistically the folks here have long been forgotten. They’ve been forgotten regardless of their race or age or gender or orientation or origin story. They’ve been forgotten because they live in a place that lost it’s purpose decades ago. Jobs and factories shipped overseas so share holders could profit from big corporate business. The mountains stripped of its minerals and the workers left with a lifetime of health issues and the constant fear of a loss of pension. The past few decades have often felt like hard years, yes nothing like the depression, or the years long before, but this time fueled by a new type of hardship. The rust belt and the coal belt and the Bible Belt all merge here in a place that sees traffic from I 81 but benefits from little else. 

I have this dream of a new America. An America that isn’t divided by parties and politics. An America that isn’t divided by religion and hot topic issues and the constant warring media outlets. I dream of an America that puts people first, that celebrates the differences and the commonalities among us, and a government that is there to help all of us, and recognize all of us as equal. I dream of an America that spends more time supporting science, culture, infrastructure, the humanities, health, and of course communities rather than such a focus on foreign wars and economic gains. I dream of an America where we aren’t scared of insurance companies, scared of our neighbors, and scared of the lies we’re conditioned to believe. It seems to me that if we all spent more time just being neighbors, just being listeners, just treating others like we want to be treated we’d all be better off. I dream of an America that preserves its natural wonders, that champions it’s citizens to be better, to be caring, to believe in the American dream. I dream of an America where our jealousies dissolve as we all move together forward. I dream of an America that sees hate fueled by fear and ignorance dissipate as love grows. I dream of an America I fear we may never have. 

The Daily Favorites 1/30

I keep a folder on my phone of images I really love. It contains thousands of images by friends, by people I love to follow, a few of my own photos, and people I seek for inspiration. This morning felt like a morning to dive deep into that folder. Today feels like one of those days where you really get a lot done. Maybe I don’t need horoscopes or moons to tell me what to feel. Maybe I just need to believe in myself today. Here are today’s favorites: 1) @kylekotajarvi 2) @jessolm 3) @allanpuls 4) @thatbloom 5) @davesarazen 6) @shortstache

The Daily Favorites 1/29

Step by step by step. No not the theme song from the Suzanne Somers show, but the process of going forward. The process of pushing anxiety and fear aside and talking one small step at a time. @farmhousefrocks always says “more faith than fear” and I believe it’s true. We have to have faith that the steps were taking will get us to where we need to be. We have to push fear aside and do it one small step at a time. Today’s favorites are: 1) @guilherme_riese 2) @thenortherndogs 3) @ivareythorsson 4) @itsbigben 5) @_fabiozingg 6) @farmgirlsk

The Daily Favorites 1/27

Raise your hand if you feel fearless in theory, but you let that anxious voice in your head stop you for achieving greatness. That’s me. That’s exactly how I feel most days. If you’ve got advice on how to push through that. ....well I’d love to listen. Today’s favorites are 1) @ivareythorsson 2) @whatforbreakfast 3) @tom_juenemann 4) @northernelg 5) @joemackin 6) @franmart_

Coming Back to Life Part 2: An Essay

Friday I wrote about my own personal journey of coming back to life. Today is similar but with FOLK. Do you ever feel things lining up and coming together? Slowly, quietly, almost naturally the universe is moving in a favorable direction. Occasionally I will catch myself realizing these pieces coming together, the energy moving and the feel of it all going well, but for the most part I feel terrified to even acknowledge the shift out of fear that the universe will stop, but it seems the time is here to really lean into the energy and take the steps to dive back in and create the business I dreamt of having.

Over the years I’ve made a lot of mistakes, valuable lessons learned to get me to where I am now. But, those mistakes crippled me and I became afraid to do anything. So I went to work for others…helping them build their brands while I neglected by purely because of fear. A fear of failure, a fear of making mistakes, and most importantly a fear of not knowing how to make the business financially solvent or sustainable. Somewhere in all of that I needed to learn lessons for myself, knowing that eventually I would come back to life, just not sure when or how it would be.

One of the keys for me was really digging into why I started the business in the first place….I wanted to share stories of rural places and makers. I have an eternal love of Americana and Slow Living. The business was created to celebrate those. Over time it grew to include travel and exploration and photography, but in that shift I lost the things I love. For me, returning to FOLK meant finding ways to incorporate all of those loves into one beautiful and cohesive mission. The funny thing is…they all naturally fit together, but with my anxiety and fear they didn’t seem to fit at all. So I continued to fight it all. But over the past year I’ve kept my eyes tuned into everything I can and it seems all of them fit together naturally. So, I’ll lean into it all…and here we go….

For me it is important to return to sharing stories and beautiful images and being a community. Not just dead end q and a stories or just my personal essays. For me it is going to embody submissions, essays, travel guides, the celebration of American made makers and artisans, slow living, and an appreciation for the little things in life. How we will make this financially sustainable I am not sure….but I think it means partnering with brands and companies within that realm, doing events, doing a couple special issues a year, and most importantly driving traffic to our website and newsletters. I do know that I am ready. I am ready to get it all rolling. If you have any suggestions or want to collaborate or submit email me (editor.folk@gmail.com). 

The journey never ends….shall we get to living.