“Have you ever felt like being a mother has ruined you? Has brought out the absolute worst--from being a sensitive, emotional mess that will snap at the slightest challenging remark or unexpected turn in the day to making you seethe with anger and frustration all too often? I feel like I used to be so good, so on top of everything, so "proficient." And here I am, on the eve of my son's … [Read more...]
The One Thing That Helped This Messy Mom Keep a Clean House
I’ve always felt over my head with homemaking. Keeping things clean AND tidy has been unattainable and once things get messy, it feels like it takes two straight days of cleaning to get everything in order. Or at least...it did. Before I did the stupid easy thing everyone said would fix it: GET RID OF THE STUFF. A few months ago I had an epiphany after clearing out the big kids room of most of … [Read more...]
5 Tips for Pursuing Your Dream When You Can’t Pursue Your Dream…Yet
I recently shared about the crazy life-changing adventure we’re going on next year. But I also want to address a few things that have come up in talking about it with you in the comments or social media about pursuing passions. There are different seasons to life. There are times when opportunity strikes and when it doesn’t. There are times when either the budget or your time cannot be … [Read more...]
A Super Awesome Recipe to Beat the Breakfast Blahs
Daniel and I wanted to share one of his recipes from his breakfast cookbook. This is the current favorite breakfast dish at our house because it's absolutely delicious (and it's gluten-free, egg-free, and--if you don't use butter--dairy-free). Sweet-Sweet Potato Hash We eat a LOT of eggs and sometimes get a little egged out. Plus, since we’re usually dependent on our small flock of chickens … [Read more...]
Why Voldemort Hates Homeschooling
In the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, there’s an interesting moment when educational rights are discussed in the wizarding world. In the final book of the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the three main characters Harry, Ron, and Hermione, are in hiding while the dark wizard Voldemort takes over the magical world. Their friend and former professor, Remus Lupin, visits them to … [Read more...]
5 Tips to Start Green Cleaning Your Home
Quick note from Haley: Because keeping a sparkly clean house has never been in my skill set, when we had to put our house on the market in February, I had a little bit of a panic attack. OK a big panic attack. Because if somebody's going to offer to buy our house....they'll want to walk around inside and check it out first. But we LIVE here! And there's five of us. And the three smallest always … [Read more...]
When You Leave Your Comfortable Life and Change Just About Everything (THE BIG NEWS)
Since I mentioned in February that we put our house on the market, inquiring minds have wanted to know why we’re moving. And y’all, I have been bursting with this news for months. Months! Now that it’s actually time to share it, I hardly know where to start. Here's the basic idea: we’re selling our house and leaving behind Daniel’s stable job and everything we know to move our five-person … [Read more...]
When You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Survival Mode (And a Library for a Song)
I got married at age 20 the summer before my junior year in college. I accepted a full-time job in publications at the university just before graduation and found out a couple of weeks later that I was pregnant with our first child. Two years later we tacked on a cross country move, a brief stint in grad school, two more babies after increasingly debilitating pregnancies (hyperemesis … [Read more...]
Two Things for a Tuesday (G.K. Chesterton and Fixing Links So You Can Stop Stressing)
Christy and I had so much fun talking about one of our favorite authors/theologians, Mr. G.K. Chesterton with our friend Michael J. Lichens on the podcast this week. Michael is the editor of Catholic Exchange and a fellow convert. What you miss when you hear the podcast is the conversation we had before we started recording confessing our favorite early 2000s embarrassing music preferences. … [Read more...]
When Your House Is On the Market…And Full of Small Children
Our house has been on the market for about seven weeks. I get asked all the time about the stress of trying to keep it clean and ready to show while homeschooling small children in it each day. And you know what? It IS stressful. I'm typically a "that looks good enough" kind of gal. Not a homemaking perfectionist...at all. But I have to admit that keeping it clean hasn't been as bad as I … [Read more...]
