A bit about me…

Hey, Y’all! I am Teresa Thompson. But, those closest to me just call me T, and I couldn’t be any happier to have you here!

A bit about me…

I am the wife of almost 20 years to Tom, a momma to an angel baby, dog mom to Coonie, and the owner/cake designer at my own little at-home-based bakery, Sweet Tooth Confections. I began baking 10 years ago after seeing another local person posting on Facebook the cakes she’d decorated. Turning my laptop towards my husband, I said, “I wish I could decorate cakes like this.”. To which he said, “Well, why can’t you?”. I had no answer to that question, so I began doing the research, watching endless hours of YouTube videos & reading tutorials. Soon, what started out as a hobby became a side hustle business. Then, after four years of growth, working out of my home kitchen no longer made sense. It was at this point that my husband decided to build me my own small, commercial kitchen attached to our garage. A year after that, the Lord spoke to me, telling me “It’s time”. For nearly 3 weeks He whispered those words to me on repeat. That is until, standing in my kitchen all alone, I said aloud, “OKAY!!!”….and the whispers in my ear went silent, a feeling of peace flooding over me. The following week, I gave my notice to my boss of the previous 13 years….my big brother. Even though I’d built myself a nice clientele over those first 5 years, it was a scary leap of faith to go from a definite paycheck to an unknown weekly income. But, I knew it was the right decision for myself and my family. In fact, I encourage anyone to pursue a small business venture for themselves! I have learned and grown so much over these last 5 years owning my small business, in ways I never would have had I stayed “just an employee”.

Tom & I live on a small farm where we have a couple of horses, and I have Nigerian Dwarf goats, chickens, and barn cats. We also have Moses, an 8-year-old Great Pyrenees who is the protector of all. He works the night shift, up all night barking and patrolling the farm, warding off any potential predator who might make the mistake of setting foot on HIS farm. Up until this past Spring, we also had a small herd of cattle. For the first few months, it was a strange sight to look out into the pasture and not see any cows or calves. This farm has had cattle on/off it for well beyond the 20 years I’ve been in the family. But, life changes and with it, you have to make decisions that best suit it.

Up until Christmas of 2017, we did not travel. Why?! Because we felt we had too much responsibility here at the farm, and also we loved just being at home. However, right around 2014-15, Tom started mentioning going away for Christmas, just the two of us. At the time, I couldn’t imagine spending Christmas anywhere but at home with our families, especially his Papaw and Grannie Annie . Papaw was in his late 80’s, and knowing how much he loved having the entire family at their house on Christmas Day & also that we likely didn’t have too many more Christmases with him, I couldn’t bring myself to agree to anything different….even though the amount of anxiety of being around that many people made the day uncomfortable for me.  But, more on that at another time. We lost Papaw in June of 2016, and spent one more Christmas at their house that year. Around Thanksgiving of the following year, we decided to start making Christmas memories for our own little family. Somewhere warmer than Western Kentucky was the main destination goal. Some friends had a condo in Miramar Beach, Florida, it was available for our dates and so a plan was made. It was the beginning of a new life for the two of us! From that point forward we began taking regular trips. We started taking in concerts, visiting Bourbon Distilleries, and experiencing any local event that peeked our interest. Our main life goal became to MAKE MEMORIES! Life is what you make of it, after all! And, I honestly cannot wait for us to see, experience and make many more memories throughout this beautiful country!!

But, before all of that, I grew up on a KOA campground my parents built/owned, not too far from where we currently live. It was there that the camping lifestyle was embedded in me. Even though up until this year I hadn’t camped since going off to college in 1992 (that was just a few years ago, right?!), the desire to get back into it was still running through me. My husband also grew up camping. However, our camping destinations were quite different. His family camped locally during the Summer, in Land Between the Lakes at Hillman Ferry Campground, while my family camped throughout the southern states at Christmas time. As it turns out, he also still had the camping bug! It was never a matter of IF we’d get a camper, but WHEN!

Then, COVID-19 hit. We were being encouraged by our Governor to not travel out of state, or we’d need to quarantine for 14 days. Even if we chose a destination within our state, we no longer felt comfortable staying in a hotel or even eating indoors at restaurants. So, like many others who found themselves entering the life of camping this year, we decided it was time to take the first step back into camping where we could control more of our environment. And that’s just what we did! We spent many weekends and a few weeks from July to the end of October of this year at a local Corps of Engineer campground, the Canal Campground. What started out as just a way to have small weekend getaways quickly became something our life began to revolve around. We soon saw that this lifestyle was most definitely for us & we wanted more of it…now, rather than “LATER”!  Afterall, tomorrow isn’t promised to a single one of us!

Which brings me to today and why this blog was created. I began writing as an outlet back when I was a kid. In high school, I was editor of our school’s newspaper and also co-editor of our Senior Yearbook. Writing went to the wayside in my adult years, though. But, I’d come back to it from time-to-time when I needed to deal with a particularly hard time in life. Putting my thoughts down on paper has always been quite therapeutic for me. In recent years, I have felt a stir within me to get back into my writing. And, in even more recent times, I have felt led to share some of my life experiences, thoughts and such. So, what better way to do that than to start a blog, right?! This way I can share our travel & camping adventures as well as some of my thoughts on life and the experiences I’ve learned and grown from. Also along the way, I am hoping to acquire some therapeutic gains for myself.

So, if you’ve stuck with me this far into “a bit about me”…BRAVO for YOU!!! And, also, THANK YOU for your time!

XOXO, T