Hello!  My name is Mary Johnson.  I am a wife, a mom, and a crafter.  I am also a reader, writer, decorator, eater of good food and drinker of good wine, traveler, an HGTV watcher, an inspired wanna-be taker of beautiful pictures on Instagram, a time-waster on Pinterest, a watcher Green Bay Packer football; and I love to do all the above with friends and family.

I live in southwestern Michigan, on a friendly little lake.  We purchased our home in 2003, and it didn’t take long to discover the lake life was for us.  Add in a bunch of fun, somewhat crazy, neighbors, numerous renovations, additions and reconfigurations and we have the perfect home, in the perfect location.  We truly do feel blessed.   (Side note:  If you are at all interested in renovations, check out my other blog, Cabin to Craftsman.  It will take you through the transformation of our lake home.)

I guess I also see myself as a preserver of the past.  (That may be a nice way to say I’m a hoarder.)  Not really, but I do find it hard to get rid of things that are a tie to my parents.  I know I should just keep one or two things, but that is plain and simply hard to do.  So, I have boxes of “things”; dishes, old clothes, pocket watches and lighters, pictures of people I have no idea who they are, and letters.  Lots and lots of letters.

Truth be told, I have not read very many of the letters, not yet.  But I am working my way through them.  My grandmother and father wrote back and forth to each other about everything.  And, my mom and dad wrote back and forth about everything before they were married.  And, thank heavens they did!  I am learning about life in the 1940’s (that’s as far as I am right now) and everyday things that were important to them “back in the day”.  They wrote about doing laundry, going grocery shopping, going to a show, playing cards; it really is a time capsule of their daily lives.  (My dad really did call his friends “swell guys”; it wasn’t just in the movies!)

I hope to leave behind a time capsule of my daily life, because I do enjoy reading those letters.  I know that some of the letters further down the road may be hard to read, as my family dealt with hardships and devastating news.  But, that’s what life’s about; ups and downs.  It’s no different from one generation to the next.  I hope I can write enough letters to leave a part of me behind.  I hope my kids will, too.  And, I hope the same for you.

“Let us all then leave behind letters of love and friendship, family and devotion, hope and consolation, so that future generations will know what we valued and believed and achieved.”  – Marian Wright Edelman