My name is Wendy Thompson, and I live in one of Mississippi’s southern counties. My husband and I are empty nesters, parents of three proudly self-sufficient adults, and grandparents of three of the most beautiful and entertaining southern country kids. There’s this dog, too. Her name is Cypress, and she pretty much runs the show around here.

I was raised by a very resourceful woman who believed that if you want something…just make it.

Mama (just can’t make myself refer to her as “mother” or “mom”) cooked virtually everything my family ate and preserved much of it by way of canning or freezing. In fact, I can remember watching my mama (from a farming family with thirteen children) along with some of her sisters helping my grandma can fruit and vegetables in jars using a huge cast-iron washpot over an open fire near the back porch. Mama made a lot of our clothes, too. She even made doll clothes. She was crafty before crafting was a thing.

Apparently, I absorbed some of Mama’s love for making things, because I thoroughly enjoy that feeling I get when someone admires one of my creations. I imagine it is the same feeling an artist has when someone falls in love with one of their paintings or sculptures. There is a special source of pride in knowing that something you have made with your own hands is one-of-a-kind and unlike what everyone else has.

For me, there is excitement in devising a plan to meet a need, to solve a problem, or to just create something original.

Also, I am slightly obsessed with genealogy, Scotland and Ireland, reading, cooking, crafting, and photography.

It is my desire to share this drive to just get in there and figure out how to make or to do things. Maybe someone will see something that I have done and say to themselves, “Why can’t I do that?” I like to think of it as passing along a little “figure-it-out-ability.”