Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Magnolia Morning Co.

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00:00
You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.

00:29
Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Magnolia Morning Company in Georgia. Good morning, Jennifer. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather where you are? Actually, it's a beautiful day. It's not so hot. We've had some really hot weather here in Georgia, like scorching hot. But today is probably in the high 80s and it's calm. We might have some storms later on this afternoon. So it's a pretty nice day here.

00:58
Same here in Minnesota. Yesterday, it felt like September. It was 65 degrees for the high here. That's beautiful. That's the perfect weather. think high 60s are the perfect temperature to me. But then again, here lately, I'm cold and hot and cold and hot. So I feel like I've got an internal thermometer that's going crazy all the time. Yeah. It was a beautiful reprieve from the three weeks of tropical dew points we'd had before.

01:27
I bet, I bet. We don't get that in Minnesota very often and my god was I reminded how much I hate humidity. It's awful. So does my beautiful Australian shepherd dog. was dying. She kept looking at me like save me and I'm thinking I can't save you. can't shave you.

01:53
I went to Michigan one time and got off the airplane up there and I immediately felt like I could breathe so much better. I was like, oh, the air is not heavy. It just feels wonderful. And I kept asking people, does it, is it like this all the time? Can you breathe? And the air feels, doesn't feel so heavy. And they're like, yeah, what are you talking about? You know, they just don't have a clue what it's like down here with all the humidity. Yeah.

02:19
Like Minnesota is supposed to be like Michigan, but this summer has been ridiculous. And I'm going to say it because I'm very excited about it. This heat that we've been having all summer has been wonderful for our gardens. this week is tomato ripening week. The tomatoes are ripening in our garden. Yes. Yes. My son has a little small garden as well, and he's been excited about his tomatoes. So I can understand that.

02:48
I bet he doesn't have 190 plants getting ready to pop. Holy cow, no. But if I would let him, he probably would. He has a green thumb. I unfortunately have a black thumb. I want to see things grow. I enjoy watching them grow. I especially enjoy, you know, fruits and vegetables, but I don't do well taking care of them. I don't. But he definitely has the gift of

03:16
My dad was really good with that. My dad could grow anything. And my son has inherited that gene, I believe. So he grows beautiful things. He's got plants all throughout his room and a garden out here. And he takes care of all the flowers and all the things. growing is a beautiful thing. a hundred, how many did you say? A hundred and eighty? Over a hundred and ninety tomato plants in the garden. Wow. That's impressive.

03:45
Yep. And our friends and neighbors will be very happy because they'll be buying canning tomatoes from us until probably mid September. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, we're excited because last two summers we haven't really had very many because the weather was not kind to us. So we've been waiting and crossing everything we have and holding our breath all summer to see how this crop did. And it's looking really, really good. We just brought in the first ripening.

04:14
They're not red yet. They're not ready to eat, but they are definitely blushed. So that's fantastic. Well, good for y'all. I'm glad it's going to be fruitful for you this year. I hope so. I hope so. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Jennifer. Well, I am a mother of five and a grandmother to two. I have two little grand boys that are eight and four. And I am

04:44
A full-time everything. And I'm sure you know what that means, but I'm a full-time mom, a full-time grandmother, a full-time worker. have a full-time job. I've been working since I was 15 years old. Work is just what I do. I'm a worker bee. Married to a wonderful man for almost 35 years who is also a worker bee. And we just stay busy a lot.

05:14
you know, and there's always something to do or something to take care of or somewhere to be or some errand to go or some crisis happening. We seem to have a lot of crisis in our family. I don't know why that is. but, you know, it's a lot of fires to put out a lot of a lot of the time. So personally, that's that's me in a nutshell, just busy all the time. And that is how Magnolia Morning Company came about.

05:44
I needed to slow down. when I say needed, I mean mentally and physically needed to slow down. My body started screaming at me and I had some episodes of some medical things that made me take pause and go, okay, I've got to quit stressing out so much. I've got to calm this down. I'm a natural worrier.

06:13
My brain stays going all the time and I just think things through. think about every scenario and I think about it backwards and forwards and it mentally takes a toll on you, you know, and I didn't know how to shut that off. And I would, you know, be busy doing things for my family and taking them here and there and letting them do the things they enjoyed. And when my husband, bless his heart, he almost works seven days a week.

06:42
When he gets a little time off, he goes to do some things that he enjoys with his friends. And I'm standing around one day and I'm going, you know, everybody else is doing something and I don't really know what to do. I don't know how to stop. don't know how to, I'm just, you know, nobody was in the house and I was there. I was, you know, cleaning the kitchen or mopping the floor or something. And I was like, Jennifer, just slow down. Just stop. Just take a pause and just rest.

07:10
And I realized I didn't quite know how to do that. And the more I thought about it and thought about it and had some conversations with my girlfriends and they were like, yeah, Jennifer, you stay going all the time and doing, need to slow down. But I just didn't understand how I was supposed to do that. You know, and I've, guess I've grown up thinking that rest meant being lazy. And that's kind of how I equated it for so long.

07:38
So I didn't, so when I stopped, when I would stop and try and rest, I felt guilty. And I felt like I didn't deserve to do that. There were other things calling my name that I needed to take care of this or do that or go somewhere and handle this. And it just became harder and harder for me to do. And so when I had these conversations with my friends and things and thought a lot about it and put some, some time thinking about it and reading about rest and relaxation, I realized, you know,

08:09
I need this. I mentally need it, I physically need it, and it's okay. There's nothing wrong with rest. And that I didn't have to have anybody else's permission to do that. So I started trying to figure out what I could do when I rest. I that sounds crazy, but you know, sometimes it's hard just to sit still. And I didn't know how to sit still, but I also didn't know

08:37
really what I enjoy to do if I were to rest, if I were to find something that I wanted to do to entertain myself, to do something just for me, what would I do? And so in thinking of all that, and I was talking to my husband one night and I was telling him about it and I said, you know, I said, I bet there's other people out there like me. I bet there are women that are my age and I'm in my early 50s and I bet there are women that

09:06
are like me that don't really know how to rest and don't know what to do when you rest and or even maybe don't even know what they like anymore because they've spent the entirety of their life taking care of somebody else, which is what I feel like I've been doing. And not that I'm complaining. That's just, you know, what I did all my life. I took care of somebody, whether it be my parents or my children or my grandchildren or something. And so

09:35
We were talking about it and I was like a light bulb went off and I thought, you know, why don't I put something together and share it with other women and let them know that it's okay if we rest, if we stop, if we just take a pause, if we just collect our thoughts or we just have some me time. It's so mentally important to have that me time. And I'm just now learning this because I've not

10:04
I've not done that my entire life. I've not done that. I've always been a doer and a fixer and I wanted to make everybody else okay. I wanted to do whateve...