A few weeks ago, Blaine and I were contacted by a newspaper wanting to interview us regarding Making It Home Magazine.  We were shocked and amazed that a newspaper would be interested in us and truly felt that it should not be us that should be interviewed but the wonderful people who write for the magazine...they are what make Making It Home Magazine what it is.

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Amnews.com

http://www.amnews.com/public_html/?module=displaystory&story_id=23388&format=html

Couple use new Liberty home as base for advice magazine that touts old family values

By HERB BROCK
herb@amnews.com

Blaine and Catherine Staat now live on Hustonville Street in Liberty. (Herb Brock Photo)

LIBERTY - Blaine and Catherine Staat were looking to escape the rat race for the slower pace of a small town. The Orlando, Fla., couple wanted a setting that would provide the perfect environment for not only their family but also their new publishing venture, an advice magazine that touts old family values.

The Staats were poster material for an attractive, 30-something, upwardly mobile couple. The husband was managing a career that was on a fast-track and reaping bigger paychecks. The spouse was managing a growing family and bigger houses.

But the couple decided they wanted more out of life than, as Catherine Staat calls it, "just stuff." They made their decision in a mountain cabin.

"For several years I had been going through a career as a business software salesman for Veritas and had been making a very good living," said Blaine Staat, 40. "We could afford almost anything we wanted, but we found ourselves wanting more than material things. We were kind of saying it was time to stop the world and get off."

That feeling of finding a lifestyle where less would be more was intensified when the couple bought a vacation cabin in Blue Ridge, Ga.

"When we started spending time in the cabin, we recalled our earlier married days when we didn't have much money but we got so much more enjoyment out of simple things, like just playing a game of Scrabble," he said.

Said Catherine Staat: "After our first few times at the cabin, we absolutely fell in love with it. We didn't want to go back home to Florida. We thought of small-town life and how wonderful it was.

"But most of all, we decided that life shouldn't be about the stuff."

The Staats added the hunt for a new hometown to their lengthy to-do lists, lists they hoped would be trimmed once they moved to their new smaller, quieter, cozier address.

"I had spent about a year and a half, off and on, checking out brochures and going online to view houses and properties for sale," said Catherine Staat. "I was looking mostly at the Southeast. I'm a native of Virginia, and I believe the Southeast would have more possibilities of the kind of place we were looking for."

House hunt ends

An Orlando friend of hers halted the house hunt.

"My friend had been searching the Internet and found a house on Hustonville Street in Liberty," she said. "The house, built in 1903 or thereabout and remodeled not long ago, looked ideal and idyllic."

At the very time his wife was putting the Victorian house in Liberty on the top of her house shopping list, Blaine Staat was putting job-hunting at the top of his to-do list.

"While Cat was looking at houses, I decided it was time to stop talking about a new life and to force the issue," he said. "I went to work one day and resigned. Cat didn't know I was going to do it, at least not that day. But when I told her what I had done, she just smiled and showed me a printed out copy of the house in Liberty.

"When a doors shuts, another door opens. For us, the shutting and the opening of doors happened almost immediately."

The Staats, who had lived in Orlando 10 years, moved to their new Liberty home in November. They brought two of their four children with them - Sarah, 11, and David, 9, who are both home-schooled. Lillian Staat, 15, remained in Orlando to continue school there but has joined the family this summer. Christopher Staat, 21, is in the Navy. "When we got here, it was a total culture shock for us because this town is so totally different from Orlando and every other place we'd lived," said Blaine Staat. "But it didn't take long for the shock to wear off and for us to realize we had made the right move."

"Yes," interjected Catherine Staat, "this is Mayberry and that is a good thing for us. It is a wonderful place filled with friendly people who really care about their neighbors."

"They don't just listen when you talk to them. They hear you," said Blaine Staat.

It didn't take long for the Staats to implement their much shorter, much more enjoyable to-do lists. Church? Liberty Baptist. School? Home. Career? Managing editors of a new magazine.

From blog to magazine

The magazine is called "Making It Home: Rediscovering the Power of Homemaking" and it is the product of a Web blog Catherine Staat started two years ago. "I described my life, the things we do, our dreams and offered my opinions on what it was like to try to be a homemaker taking care of a house, a husband and children," she said.

The blog resonated with scores of readers. Catherine Staat was bombarded with e-mails from women around the world.

"The e-mails came mainly from homemakers like me, women who were having problems and struggles regarding day-to-day living, home management, marriage, child-rearing," she said. "These women were seeking advice for dealing with various issues, but they generally wanted where they were - at home.

"There is little support but a lot of criticism for stay-at-home moms. There is no pat on the back. There is only ridicule."

The outpouring from her blog readers led Catherine Staat to develop the idea of a magazine that could provide both advice and support for stay-at-home moms and others interested in bolstering traditional family values. And her husband has joined the venture.

"Traditional homemakers like Cat have self-worth issues that come from the lack of appreciation for women who work at home - and it is work - and the value of that work versus working outside of the home," he said.

"It's not like Cat and other stay-at-home moms are sitting at home eating bonbons. They're taking care of the house, raising and, in our case, teaching children, and often handling much if not all of the family's finances."

With their firm belief both in traditional family values and their strong Christian faith, the Staats have created a magazine largely of, by and for homemakers. Referring to books in the Bible, Catherine Staat said many of the authors of the articles that appear in the magazine are "Titus II women," whom she describes as "older women who have experienced life and offer sage advice," and many of the readers are "Proverbs 31 women," who are "younger women in the midst of working at home, tending to a house and raising children."

God, marriage, children and home

The 56-page July-August 2006 issue includes articles written by 17, nonpaid contributing writers, and the articles are divided into four categories - God, marriage, children, and home.

"We see this magazine as something like a breakfast table conversation where people sit sipping coffee and talking about problems and offering solutions," said Blaine Staat. "With the Internet and e-mails and message boards and the magazine itself as well as in hard cover being on the Web, the magazine has become that interactive." "We are not preaching or crusading or pounding a pulpit," said Catherine Staat. "We are talking and sharing and caring, like families used to do years ago."

And there is no better atmosphere for that days-gone-by kind of interaction and conversation than their Liberty home, the Staats said.

"This town and this house are a perfect fit for us and our new life, our new lifestyle and our new magazine," said Catherine Staat. "I wish we had found this place a long time ago."

How to subscribe

“Making It Home: Rediscovering the Power of Homemaking” is a bi-monthly publication of Linear Wave Publishing. A subscription for six issues is $18. To subscribe send your name, mailing address and a check or money order to Making It Home, P.O. Box 177, Liberty, Ky. 42539-0177, or you may use PayPal online at www.makingithomemagazine.com.

 

CopyrightThe Advocate-Messenger 2006

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Thank you Mr. Brock!  You were so wonderful at putting us at ease and made us feel so very comfortable...I do hope that the next time we visit...it will be a social call and one where we can just sit a spell.