The week before I drove to Camden, Tennessee to attend the Self-Reliance Festival was exceptionally busy. There was the usual doing all the things I could get done to make life easier for Tom and the girls while I was gone. I bought groceries for them, stocked up on feed and what ever else I could think of.
In the middle of that, my daughter-in-law called to tell me that her old car, a 2010 Ford Fusion was for sale for $1500. If any of you have priced used cars lately, you’d know that was an excellent price. Plus, I knew the seller and her parents. It’s got over 200,000 miles on it but seems to be in pretty good condition, especially for a teen driver. Kinzie doesn’t need it yet because she only has a permit, but I knew it would come in handy while I was in Tennessee. Convincing Tom was a challenge but he finally came around and Kinzie was thrilled, of course.
I have really wanted to work on the bathroom remodel in our $2500 mobile home, but have under estimated how busy I would be with other things. My new shower and lavatory sink sat outside for several weeks slowly being engulfed by weeds. I finally got them unboxed and brought them inside. Here’s video proof of it.
Finally, it was time to drive to Tennessee for the Self-Reliance festival. I have been so nervous preparing for my talk, but the drive was relaxing (and tiring) enough to take the edge off my nerves. Here’s the video:
When I got there Friday evening, I set up the booth to sell my candles and my friend’s beef tallow-based skin care products. I love her stuff and was excited to get to sell it on her behalf.
Finally, on Saturday morning, I gave my talk and was able to relax a little more and visit with people after that. Saturday night was very cool as I got to sit with others and relax over a good meal and a bottle of wine. I learned a lot from those I got to spend time with. Here’s the video of parts of the festival and the introduction to my talk:
And this is the video of the speech itself. I will warn you that there are some subjects covered in my talk that may upset some people. Apologies.
Sunday morning, I roamed around the festival even more, peeking in on my booth every few minutes to make sure I wasn’t ignoring any customers. I made some wonderful friends and was very glad that I got to attend.
I did have an eight-hour drive ahead of me so I packed everything up and started heading home soon after noon although the festival had a few more hours left. I hated leaving early, but I really needed to get all the way home so that I could do all the other things in my life that needed to be done, like take kids to school, reclaim my chores on the farm, etc.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I hope that I can take that opportunity again, even considering speaking at other venues. We’ll see!