Sarah Mae Keeps Busy

This is my first blog post in years and for some reason I’m nervous. But you’re here so I supposed I aught to say something.

I have some lofty, some would say unattainable, goals for 2021. First I want to publish 12 crochet patterns next year. 3 will be for sale and 9 will be for free on my website. I’ve already got one in the can so it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with 2 more big patterns. But I can already sense some potential issues. As a recovering perfectionist it is hard to start something and not know exactly how it’s going to turn out. I would rather wait and start this when I already have all 12 patterns ready to go, tested, photographed, formatted, and perfected. But life doesn’t work out that way – if you wait until everything is perfect… yadda, yadda, yadda. Another goal is to share weekly blog posts that are also about herbalism, homesteading, and maybe a bit of homemaking.

I would like to talk about why I am starting a website right now. There are many reasons about what lead me to the point, but I want to focus on what made me forgo my original launch date in January and launch my website right now, three weeks early, when the site wasn’t even fully set up yet.

It was Instagram’s fault.

Social media in general, actually. The TOS and their updates to be specific. I feel like I am cornered in a way that a large portion of the population would agree with. While I love using the FB and IG apps on my phone, I hate the fact that they are reading my text messages. I love the free entertainment they provide, but I hate that they have very detailed profiles on me that tell them how to market to me. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my crochet projects for free and reach potentially millions of people, but I HATE that information those platforms don’t like won’t be allowed to reach anyone.

There was a big stink this weekend over Instagram’s updated Terms of Service and a lot of users who are like me, stay-at-home, Christian mom’s with small businesses, left the platform in protest. They peaced out and made it clear that they would no longer stand for what many feel is an immense invasion of privacy. I was right there with them, but when I stood there on the ledge, I hesitated. A dear friend of mine shared this theory with me: IG and FB wanted to get rid of people like us – Christian women who make childrearing, their marriage, and Christ our priorities over the more popular lifestyle of Career and Passions before marriage, children, and religion. They wanted to weed out anyone who disagrees with the narrative of what they believe is the “common good”. She chose to stay on the platform to be a fearless voice sharing the Salt and the Light.

I had less noble reasons. I want to make a better life for my girls and family, I need to sell my product to do it, I need a free platform to share my products on. As I sit on my couch writing this post my IG has less than 400 followers. I am a nobody in the world of influencers, designers, and even crochet. I can’t afford to ditch the largest platform available to me. But that doesn’t mean they have to own me. As they listen to my phone conversations they can learn that while I am hanging around for now, I am also making my own platform and place for people to learn about me and my designs.

This unfinished, rough, and scrappy website is my tiny protest to the social media Overlords and their ever reaching influence. I am not sure that they really want to scare people like me off their platform. But I also know that as long as I have a credit card, a smart phone, and an internet connection I have less privacy than was ever lost in American history. So whatever, I’m in it now. If I have to be here then I might as well play the game.

So you’ll still find me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, MeWe, and whatever other platform pops up in the coming years. I have 12 patterns to share and weekly blog posts to write.