As we head into a new homeschool year, it's easy to focus all our attention on curriculum choices, but the truth is, a peaceful and fruitful school year depends on so much more than the books we choose.

In this episode, Jami shares the practical, non-curriculum ways she is preparing for their family's 10th year of homeschooling, including simplifying phone habits, creating stronger household routines, tightening up chores, planning easier meals, training kids to help with cooking, and thinking carefully about what this particular season requires.

With four middle school boys, a fifth grader, a first grader, a preschooler, and a busy toddler, this year is calling for more rigor, stronger routines, and a renewed focus on discipline in the home. But through it all, the goal remains the same: keeping Christ at the center and remembering the true purpose of homeschooling.

Whether your year ahead feels full and rigorous, gentle and restful, or stretched by babies, moves, illness, or transition, this episode will encourage you to prepare with wisdom, trust the Lord for your family's unique season, and walk into the school year with joy and confidence.

Links and Resources:

• Join our private community to chat about this podcast episode: FindingJoyCommunity.com
• Watch the podcast on YouTube if you want! Finding Joy in Your Home on YouTube
• Check out our amazing new app at https://joyfulhomeapp.com/
• We are undergoing a huge website redesign. We will be moving things up a ton and will have a super fun relaunch soon - big giveaways and other fun stuff. Stay tuned!
• Our Sponsor: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code HOME at https://www.oneskin.co/HOME #oneskinpod

After the longest podcast break I've ever taken, I'm finally back! In this episode, I'm sharing where I've been, why I disappeared for over six months, and what God has been teaching me through a long season of transition, rebuilding, and learning to love a quieter life offline.

I'm talking about our family's move, settling into a new home and community, healing after a hard year, stepping back from social media, getting a "dumb phone," rebuilding routines, and rediscovering the joy of creating from a place of life and overflow instead of hurry and burnout.

This episode kicks off a new mini series on transitioning into new seasons: how we walk faithfully through change, how we rebuild our homes and habits, and how we glorify God in the everyday, even when life looks different than it used to.

Links and Resources:

• Join our private community to chat about this podcast episode: FindingJoyCommunity.com
• Watch the podcast on YouTube if you want! Finding Joy in Your Home on YouTube
• Check out our amazing new app at https://joyfulhomeapp.com/
• We are undergoing a huge website redesign. We will be moving things up a ton and will have a super fun relaunch soon - big giveaways and other fun stuff. Stay tuned!
• Our Sponsor: Machine Washable Rugs, Made Better. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off + free shipping at tumbleliving.com/HOME #Tumble #ad

In Part 1 of this series, I asked the question: Can you really raise a large family well? Welcome to part 2.

I'm the oldest of four kids, which, in my mind growing up, did not feel like a large family. But apparently… it was and is especially now!

People used to ask my mom if we were all from the same dad (which was always baffling because we all look like clones). And now, looking back, I realize: okay, yes, even four kids is considered "a lot" these days.

But my husband Jason? He's the oldest of seven. And now here we are with eight kids of our own…ages 13 down to 1.

Our next door neighbors and good friends from church are pregnant with their eighth child, and our collective 15 children run back and forth between our backyards literally all day long. At our current church and our previous church, 15-passenger vans are the norm in the parking lot, and no one bats an eye at 5, 6, 7+ kids sitting in the pew.

This isn't some rare, theoretical thing for us. This is just our life.

In my last article, we asked a big question:

Can you really raise a large family well?

Not just survive it: but do it with joy, connection, and intention?

That question matters, because most of us don't have many real-life examples to look to anymore. We hear opinions and we see hot takes online. But we don't often get to step inside a large family and see what it actually produces over time. When we are not used to seeing even 4-child families out in society, how on earth are we supposed to learn how to have more than the normal 1.6 kids?

And here's what I've come to see very clearly:

Large families come with their own set of challenges. There are hurdles you just don't face with one or two kids.

But—

There are also unique, abundant blessings that you simply don't get any other way.

It's one thing to debate this idea online of having more than 1.6 kids, it's another thing entirely to learn from families actually doing it!

So on a podcast episode, Jason and I chatted about this idea. I asked him, "Did you actually like growing up in a large family?"

He didn't hesitate to say, "Yeah. I really did. And wouldn't change it for anything." (Online critics like to say that the eldest child in a large family never wants a large family of their own. It's simply not true! And his oldest sister currently has 5 kids. In fact, all 6 of his siblings say they want at least 4 kids and several of them are already there!)

"I Never Felt Overlooked"

Let's just go straight for the biggest fear. Because I know it's the one everyone is thinking.

There's no way all those kids get enough attention.

Right?

Like… someone has to be overlooked. Someone has to feel lost in the mix. And I'm not saying there wasn't a season where one kid felt like they didn't get as much attention, etc. But I'll be straight with you: I was one of only four kids (FOUR, a completely normal number of children throughout all of human history) and I had so many times of feeling overlooked, whether I really was or was just navel-gazing too much is a therapy session for another day.

I met Jason when I was 16 and he was 18. His younger brother is my exact same age (minus 27 days) and it was so interesting watching this homeschool family with 7 kids function. I loved seeing how they were such a close-knit family and welcomed me wholeheartedly into the crew over the next 3 years. Boots on the ground I actually watched his mom raise Jason's younger 3 siblings. When I met Jason, his mom was just 2 weeks away from having baby #7. And let me tell you one thing: The way his mom poured her heart and love into those kids, sure she didn't always get it right or always say the exact right thing to the angsty teenager, but her kids had all of her. When so many kids from much much smaller families had so much less of their moms.

Now, before we get all starry-eyed, his family was not perfect. We have to make sure we don't idealize something to the point of not recognizing faults. There are of course certain pitfalls that large families can get into it. And it behooves us to recognize those and address them within our own families, but more on that in the next large family article.

Now here's the kicker—they're still close. All seven of them. That doesn't just happen and it doesn't happen by accident either.

The Sibling Thing (It's Kind of a Big Deal)

If you've never been around a large family, I think this is the part that's hard to picture.

The sibling relationships are everything. You're not just giving your kids a brother or sister. You're giving them: built-in friends, constant companions, people to do life with… forever. Even when there have been arguments or hiccups, we know that our siblings would be there for us no matter what (and I know that many families out there can't say the same thing). And the older you get, the more important that becomes.

And here's something Jason said that I don't think we think about enough:

Your siblings are your longest relationships in life.

Longer than your parents. Longer than your spouse. Longer than your kids.

That's wild.

And now that we have eight of our own, I'm starting to see this play out right in front of me.

Our 13-year-olds? They are obsessed with playing with the one year old. They love being the one to wake him up from his nap because he's always so cuddly at first!

My 9-year-old daughter is constantly dragging the 5 year old into whatever she's doing like, "Come on, you're helping me now." (And he loves it!)

And the toddler? He's thrilled. Living his best life. The center of the Universe (insert eye roll here).

There is always someone to play with. Always someone to follow. Always someone to annoy. (Let's be honest.)

And it creates this environment that you just… can't manufacture any other way.

The sweetest part to me: Family Culture

This one surprised me. Because I assumed we would be the ones creating the family culture. And yes - we do set the tone - and work hard to make a God-honoring family culture.

But there's something else that happens in a large family: The kids start creating culture all on their own.

There's the inside jokes (that even I don't get). The made-up games. And all these little traditions that don't involve us at all.

Jason was talking about this, how in his family, so many things just developed naturally between the siblings. The amount of inside jokes they all still have is astounding!

And we're seeing the same thing now. I'll walk into a room and they're all playing some game I've never seen before, with rules I definitely didn't teach them. Or joking with made up lingo that I have no clue what it means. And it's just… theirs. It's messy and loud and kind of chaotic, but it's also really, really special.

"Wait… They Actually Become Helpful?"

Okay, let's talk about something very practical. Because if you're in the little years right now, you are probably thinking: "This sounds lovely but I am drowning."

I get it. When all your kids are little, you are doing everything. For everyone. All of the time.

You are buckling every seatbelt - Our oldest 5 were all in 5-point harness carseats at the same time and not a single one of them could unbuckle their own carseat when baby #5 was born. It was wild! You are pouring every cup. Breaking up every fight. Filling every single physical and emotional need. It's a lot in those little years, even with just two kids!

But then, you pass this turning point. I remember when baby #6 was born and my oldest twins were 7, it started feeling like a different world. All of a sudden they could get me a glass of water or fetch a diaper. It wasn't ALL on me, all of the time. They started to have autonomy and the game started changing.

They grow up. And suddenly: They can make food, they can help clean, they can do laundry, they can contribute.

Not in a "child labor" kind of way 😅 But in a we all live here, we all help kind of way. And also, you're going to be an adult one day and need to know these important life skills kind of way.

And it really changes the dynamic of the household. We do quick whole-house cleanups together. Just ten minutes, everyone has a job and it's done!

What would take me two hours alone gets knocked out in minutes because everyone is pitching in. And honestly? They like being capable. They like knowing how to do things. They take pride in it (even if they occasionally act like it's the worst thing that's ever happened to them).

It's Loud. It's Busy. It's… a Lot.

I'm not going to pretend it's peaceful and quiet over here. It's not. We have seven boys. Let's just start there.

There is always: noise, movement, someone talking (yelling really, I think our family has only one volume), someone wrestling, and someone hungry.

Even when everyone is behaving well, it still looks like chaos from the outside. Because there are just… a lot of people. I finally realized that when we all go out to dinner, our kids could be perfect angels the entire time and it still would just feel a little chaotic because of so many little people.

But here's the thing: You stop trying to make it quiet all the time. And you start realizing…This is what a full house sounds like. It's life. It's energy. It's a whole lot of people living together, not just coexisting.

Your Life Doesn't End (I Promise)

I think a lot of people assume: "If I have a big family, my life is over."

Like you'll never: go anywhere, travel, do anything fun ever again, or just be a woman any longer and not just a mom.

Meanwhile…we took eight kids and traveled the country full time for two years 😅

Was it always smooth? Absolutely not. Did we have moments where we were like, "Why did we think this was a good idea?" Yes, many.

But here's what we learned: You get better. You learn how to: plan better, train your kids, adjust expectations.

And over time, things that used to feel impossible, get easier and just feel more normal.

I used to feel completely overwhelmed taking two toddlers to the grocery store. I remember thinking: this is it, it's impossible. I'm only shopping on Saturdays when Jason is home and can watch the twins!

Now? If I only have two kids with me, it feels like a vacation. The other day I took the three youngest with me (ages 5, 3, and 1) to do some thrift store shopping and it was no big deal. It's funny how that happens.

God Grows Your Capacity

This might be my biggest takeaway from all of it.

Because every single time we added another baby, I had the same thought: "I cannot possibly handle more."

And then… somehow… we did. And somehow it's the perfect addition we didn't know we needed.

Jason said it perfectly:

"You always feel maxed out. And then you add another, and somehow they fit."

That has been our experience over and over again. Not because we're amazing. But because God is faithful to grow you as your family grows. Even if that growth is painful sometimes. If you find yourself unexpectedly adding a new member to the family, rest knowing that God has had this planned. He knows this new sweet little babe is perfectly planned and will bring joy to your whole family! Trust that he will grow you when the time is right, and not before!

So… Can You Raise a Large Family Well?

I think the answer is yes. We've witnessed it in our own life with Jason's family and many times with friends who have grown adult children. Sometimes you read these anti-big family articles online and it's easy to wonder if it's even possible because there are some who didn't raise their large family well (just as there are those who didn't raise their two kids well). Yes, it's absolutely possible, worth it, and so much fun!!

Look, none of us are perfect. Jason's parents weren't perfect and Jason and I certainly aren't. I hate to even address this topic because I feel woefully imperfect. And yet, I think it's something that modern Christian women need to read: Yes, it's quite possible to raise more than the normal 1.6 children and for it to be a blessing to your life and your children's lives.

When you look at a family that's done it well…You don't see deprivation. You see: connection, capability, deep relationships, a whole lot of life and this elusive village that everyone's talking about online today.

And honestly? It's pretty beautiful.

Next in this series…we're going to talk about the other side of this:

The pitfalls.

Because yes, there are things to watch out for. And if we're going to do this well, we need to talk about those too.

I originally wrote this article in April and I'm finally getting around to publishing it. I'm about to place 5th Azure order and it indeed has already made a huge difference in our budget (see the bottom of the article)!

Over the years, I've developed quite a system for storing and cooking out of a bulk pantry. I routinely buy 25-50lb bags of dried goods and cook almost everything from scratch. Now, 10+ years into this journey, I take for granted how easy this system is to maintain. But when I first started out, it was anything but.

I remember googling "How to store 25lbs of spelt" and getting lost in debates about using oxygen absorbers or storing everything in mylar bags inside 5-gallon buckets. Man, I even remember a good 17 years ago when I got my first bag of dried beans and felt really intimidated about how to cook it since I'd only ever bought canned beans.

At the height of my bulk pantry, I had a good 17-20 5-gallon buckets that stored everything from various kinds of grains, to multiple types of rice, lentils, beans, pasta, and so much more. I was working my way to a 3-month steady supply of everything, hoping to eventually get that to a 6-month supply (while actively eating out of that pantry). This working pantry is just practical and the everyday foods we actually eat. There's another segment of people who are preppers who are just stockpiling a doomsday pantry, but it's pretty useless if you don't actually eat that food or know what to do with it!

It's never a bad thing to be prepared. With a bulk pantry, you can so much more easily weather financial storms or actual storms. We all realized through 2020 that our food system is not nearly as stable as we might have imagined. But even more than that, a bulk pantry just makes sense. It is by far the cheapest way to run your kitchen, will save you oodles on your grocery budget, and is such a healthy, non-processed way to run your kitchen. Plus, once you get your bulk pantry set up and you get beyond those initial questions, it's the easiest way to run your kitchen! No more running to the store because you forgot an ingredient. You can whip up tortillas, or make a batch of beans, or throw together a Mexican feast with everything you have on hand! It's incredibly simplifying (and satisfying).

But why I'm writing here today is to give you a peek at how to start a bulk pantry like this for the first time. It can feel overwhelming to get started, and it can feel like it costs too much money to do. You look at these bags of grain for $35 and calculate that times 20 bags and think "I can't fit that in my grocery budget!" but the entire goal is to slowly replace grocery money you would normally spend on smaller items, like 2-3 cans of beans or a single loaf of bread. Your bulk pantry can start out quite modest, but with time, it snowballs into something significant!

I am restarting my bulk pantry, almost from zero. I do have all my 5-gallon buckets and glass jars, thankfully, but I am taking these steps myself to rebuild my bulk pantry food. I am hoping that in about 6 months, my bulk pantry will once again be rock solid!

At the height of my bulk pantry, all I had to do was look at my pantry each month and place my bulk food order with Azure Standard. Because my pantry was so stocked, I wasn't ordering little amounts of every item our family would eat that month; I was able to just buy a large 25-50lb bags of the items I needed to stock up on. At that point, I was spending about 60-80% of our grocery budget on bulk foods and our quality of food had risen so dramatically. Plus my pantry was amazing!

However, we were called to clean out our little house, downsize everything into a storage unit and leave Oklahoma behind for a move to North Carolina. It was not a move we had expected, but we are so thankful for where God has led us. But it meant a move into an RV for a year and a half while we relocated and figured out where we would land. Now, here we are, finally settled in our new house and ready to rebuild!

But when I look at my meager grocery budget and the goal of wanting to rebuild my bulk pantry (right now!!), I'm left with the same feelings that my readers have said to me "But it just costs to much to get started and I feel like I can only do a little bit!" And that's true! Because I don't have anything extra to aid this rebuilding (If I had an extra $300-1000 that I could throw into getting started, this could go a lot faster), I am just going to do it slow and steady. I've decided to pull $100 a month from my grocery budget for this purpose. I figure I can save just $25 a week from my normal grocery shopping to divert to this cause. And the goal is that, with each passing month, this will free up more money to put towards the bulk purchases since it really does save a lot of money in the long run!

The beauty of a bulk pantry is that once you get going, the snowball effect does indeed take over. Before you know it, you will have a fully stocked pantry and all you'll have to do is restock it from there. We are a family of 10, with 8 of those being boys. So we go through a lot more food too than the average family. When we were a smaller family, it wasn't nearly as hard to stock up the bulk pantry. So the length of time you'll get out of each bag will likely be longer than ours!

Here's what I ordered in my March Azure order:

• Raw honey, 12lbs - $37.46
• Spelt, 25lbs - $36.30
• Whole oat groats, 25lbs - $16.12 (We flake them into rolled oats)
• Seed potatoes for the garden - $15

Here's what I ordered in my April Azure Order:

• Black beans, 25lbs - $33.96
• Sugar, 25lbs - $35.88
• Brown sugar, 5lbs - $11.46
• Azure dish soap - $6.90
• Popcorn, 25lbs - $30.70

A small but mighty order that will go a long way. For the next 2-3 months, here are some items I will consider getting next:

• Unbleached all-purpose flour - $26.35
• Pinto beans, 25lbs - $44.19
• Green lentils, 25lbs - $38.51
• Brown basmati rice, 25lbs - $32.53
• Maple syrup, 1 gallon - $62.41
• Coconut oil, 1 gallon - $26.08

I will also layer in smaller items as well that are 1-10lbs usually like: yeast, baking powder, salt, millet, cocoa powder, pearled barley, spices, and items from Azure's cleaning line. I am excited to document this process this year. I am getting my second Azure order this week and already the snowball effect is starting to make a difference. I predict that over the next 3-4 months, it's going to make a significant impact on my grocery budget and buying trends!

If you've been feeling stressed, weighed down, worried, or just quietly unsettled lately… this is for you.

I've walked through cycles of this myself over the past few years. Since 2020 especially, it has felt like a constant hum beneath everything, an undercurrent of tension that never quite goes away, especially when one is chronically online. And somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't want to live like that anymore.

So I stepped off the hamster wheel.

I've been largely off social media since early January. I still check in occasionally as needed, messages, customer needs, anything urgent. I try to keep it under five minutes. But even in those few minutes, the pattern is unmistakable.

My feed fills with women, thoughtful, intelligent, faithful women, carrying visible stress. Concern about the world, politics, health, toxins, culture, the future. Some of it is valid. Much of it is important. These are not trivial things.

And yet… the weight of it all is constant.

Then I open Substack, my one remaining online space, and I find it there too. In essays, reflections, and commentary. Even among voices I deeply respect, the same thread runs through: concern, urgency, pressure. Although not nearly at the rate and intensity on other social media.

I don't say this to dismiss any of it. There is much in our world worth wrestling with and thinking through. But I've started to notice something else.

By almost every historical measure, our lives are easier than they have ever been. Running a household, let alone a business, has never been more accessible. We have tools, conveniences, and resources that previous generations could not have imagined.

And yet, for all that ease, we are carrying unprecedented levels of stress. Not because we are under constant physical threat, but because we are under constant informational pressure. We are exposed to everything. All the time.

A disaster across the world reaches us instantly. A new study contradicts what we believed yesterday. A food we carefully researched is suddenly labeled harmful. A conversation spirals online, and we feel pulled into it—emotionally, mentally, even spiritually.

Our bodies don't distinguish between proximity and distance. Between real danger and perceived urgency. So we live in a near-constant stress response. And it's exhausting.

We were not made to carry the weight of the entire world every single day. And yet, that's exactly what modern life quietly asks of us.

So if you're feeling overwhelmed… it might not be because you're doing something wrong. It might be because you're taking in far more than you were ever meant to hold.

So what do we do?

How do we step out of this cycle and return to something steadier, more grounded, more human? These are the things I've been practicing over the past six months (and really the past few years) that make such a difference.

Get off social media

Yes. I said it.

I know it's not popular. I know it makes people upset (the few times I've even mentioned my own personal desire to step back from social media on IG have been met with some very offended responses). There's a real resistance when we start talking about stepping away from the constant stream of input.

But it's worth asking: what is that resistance revealing? For years, I believed social media had a meaningful place in my life, and for a time, I think it did. It connected me to others. It allowed me to share, to learn, to build something good. It was a huge vehicle in our online business and I'll be forever grateful for the connections made.

I'm grateful for that season and for the high point of social media. But seasons change. And I also personally think we are past the peak of usefulness of social media.

What once offered connection now often delivers noise. What once inspired now frequently overwhelms. You go looking for something helpful - and instead find yourself sifting through celebrity gossip, unrealistic expectations, endless products, and a steady drip of comparison and fear...amidst trash world.

And the reels: the endless, fast, fragmented reels, are shaping us more than we realize. Training our minds to expect constant stimulation. Shortening our attention. Flattening our ability to think deeply.

I've come to believe this is not neutral. It is forming us.

So if you are feeling stressed, anxious, out of sorts, and listless. Get off social media. Delete it for a week and see how you feel. Jump off the doomscrolling and realize you don't need input every second of every day. It's been almost five months since I've been completely off of social media and guess what? I'm not actually missing out on anything at all!

I want to meditate on the good, the true, and the beautiful. Instagram might have once helped facilitate that, but I feel like it no longer does.

Take a break. It'll be good for your brain.

Read real things again

One of the downfalls of the past 10 years is that almost no one has an attention span longer than 7 seconds. Now, congrats! You are one of the exceptions since you are reading my admittedly long-winded article right now. You've stuck the course, you've banked on this long-winded article actually having a payoff at the end, or at least a little something to pull out along the way!

Partly why I took so long to exit social media (and no, I'm not 100% completely gone from it as I'll hopefully share soon), is that there can be some redeeming qualities to it. I've met fellow bloggers, podcasters, and authors online who I've then come to meet in person, attend conferences with, share hotel rooms and meals, and even eat dinner in their homes. I've formed beautiful, lovely, God-honoring connections and friendships.

I've gained valuable knowledge. I've picked up fantastic tips and saved more than one stellar recipe. I've learned, laughed, and grown.

But social media has now moved beyond the tipping point of usefulness for me, and I've found myself drawn back to what I call "the old school blogging days". As a bit of a dinosaur in the blogging world (my first blog, Young Wife's Guide, was born in 2009), I've found myself longing for those simple days.

Reading long articles, coming across tutorials I can actually follow, save, and come back to, friendships formed out of words and loveliness not fake Instagram set-ups and dancing reels.

So this year marks my entrance back into blogging. And a mighty surprise: I found the one place I actually do want to spend 20-30 minutes a day online: Substack. But that's also a convo for another day.

If you're stepping away from social media but still crave connection, learning, or inspiration: seek out voices that invite you to slow down. Sit with a cup of coffee. Read something that requires your attention. Let your mind stretch again.

Fill your mind with what is good

Stress rarely arrives all at once. It begins quietly, a thought, a concern, a question, and then grows.

Left unchecked, it expands until it fills the entire space. And much of what we consume online accelerates that process.

So we have to be intentional about what we replace it with. Not just removing the noise, but actively choosing something better to fill our minds with.

Take a walk with your kids outside and focus on laughing and enjoying one another.

Take a 20-minute break, without your phone in hand, and sit in the warm spring sunshine and soak it up (Vitamin D works wonders for anxiety).

Start your day with your Bible open. Make it an absolute anchor point in your day. Coffee in hand, Bible on my lap and praying through the Psalms is how I start every single morning, and it's life-changing. God and His Word is the #1 way to combat stress and anxiety.

Start a book club and work your way through the classics. I'm part of a monthly book club with women at church, and it has quickly become one of my very favorite things! I've trained my affections so that I now spend my time reading good, beautiful, and highly engaging books instead of scrolling. There is no way around it: Reading for 20 minutes a day is way better for your brain, heart, and soul than 20 minutes of scrolling. I choose mental health over 20 more minutes of quick dopamine. You CAN retrain your habits and thought processes.

Do something tangible.

Habits can be retrained. Attention can be rebuilt. But it takes intention.

Do something real with your hands

There is something deeply stabilizing about physical, tangible work. Something our modern lives often lack and our bodies surely miss.

We say we're overwhelmed by managing a home, but in many cases, it's not because life is physically harder.

It's because we've lost familiarity with the work itself. We've drifted away from the skills that once grounded daily life.

So start small.

Learn to cook from scratch. Plant something. Fix something. Build something. Engage your body, not just your mind.

There's a reason kneading dough feels calming. Why working in the garden quiets anxious thoughts. It roots you in something real. Something immediate. Something within your control.

It's hard to remain in a spiral of anxiety when your hands are busy creating something good.

Learn something for the joy of it

Not everything needs to be productive. Some things can simply be… beautiful.

But get creative! We need to bring back the so called "Grandma hobbies" because staying busy with our hands, creating something good and beautiful, is one of the more surefire ways to combat anxiety.

Learn to knit, sew crochet, watercolor, quilt, punch needle, or any number of fun hobbies. You can tell what things excite me, can't you?

Put the phone down.

Step away from the constant input.

And begin building a life that feels full: not because of what you're consuming, but because of what you're creating.

Final Thought

We don't need more information. We need more formation.

A return to what is steady, grounded, and true.

A life shaped not by urgency, but a life shaped by intention.

Rediscovering God's design for family in a world that sees children as a burden

I have mostly been off of social media entirely since early January when I got my new "dumb-ish" phone for my birthday. But even so, news reached me that Hannah Neeleman from Ballarina Farms had her 9th baby. And that the internet has imploded over it.

I'm honestly not sure what is so shocking about a Mormon mom, who's had 8 previous babies, presumably every 1/5 - 2 years for over a decade, now having one more child. Like, don't you expect it by now? But nevertheless, baby #9 is here, and the interwebs have strong feelings about it.

Not being a Mormon myself, or particularly interested in what Instagram influencers are up to, I am not here to defend Hannah's family or enter into any debate about their life, their finances, or how they live their life (or portray it online). What I am particularly interested in, however, is this backlash against the simple fact that she would dare to have 9 children. "Hannah, don't you know that you are not supposed to have more than 1.6 children? Anything more is outrageous and clearly immoral!"

The outrageous thing is that the United States has fallen to a birthrate of just 1.6 children per woman(1), which is now tragically below the replacement rate, and is a record low. We are seeing this same trend over most of the developed world, including Canada (1.4), virtually all of Europe (with a combined birth rate of 1.4), Japan (1.3), South Korea (0.8), Australia & New Zealand (1.6 each), among others. If you are someone who believes the world is overpopulated and that this change is good because immigrants will come in and do all the jobs needed, or that technology and AI will replace all of the jobs needed, we can still be friends, but we will not agree on this issue. You might want to go on your merry way to a different article.

Our two sets of twin boys, back to back!

Because of the birth rates that have been falling for decades, when you go outside your home with two cheery, or two cranky, toddlers, you will hear over and over again "Wow, you've got your hands full!" or if anyone is having a tough time being out past naptime or just being a toddler, you will get nasty comments and looks. (This is a topic for another day, but I do think two things are happening here: on the one hand, no one disciplines anymore, and children are allowed to run wild in public spaces and can genuinely be a nuisance. We are tired of parents not teaching and training their children, and so any outburst, noise, or even laughter from someone under 5 feet tall is looked at with a side eye or outright sneering. We, as a society, have forgotten what it's like to have children around. We've forgotten that they are entitled to live and take up space as much as any adult. We've forgotten that children are precious and that they are learning how to be adults and members of society, and such training needs to happen in the real world. It's as if our tiredness of permissive parenting has convinced an entire society of adults that 100% of all children are ill-behaved and a nuisance. But I digress...)

Our society can no longer fathom how someone could have 5-9 children, and that it must be impossible. What we forget is that until about 3.5 seconds ago, this was the norm. And don't come at me with "Well, rates of infant mortality were higher." Yes, and families still had a lot of kids who grew to adulthood. You can disagree on the reasons why they had so many children, but the fact remains that generations upon generations of women raised more than 4 children and did it successfully.

So, back to Hannah.

A viral tweet when the news broke relays the sentiments of a large portion of my generation: "You cannot give nine children adequate time, attention, and connection." This sparked articles and comments arguing that large families bordered on child abuse, that large families are oppressive or ignorant, and that mothers (and children) in large families are miserable. As someone with a whole lot of experience in this area, I've been mulling this all over for days.

But I haven't been mulling it over when it comes to Hannah. I've been mulling it over because moms in this generation need to know that there is another way to have a family than the 1.6 children they see in society. Families need to be encouraged that you can have a large family and that it can be a joy and a blessing. I love looking back through old literature or hearing stories of great-great-grandmas raising their brood, but it's hard for us to connect with these stories on a personal level.

We read about Ma Ingalls raising her larger-than-normal family (by today's standards, anyway) in a dugout without electricity, running water, or an urgent care to run to when the cough turns deep in the chest. We are inspired by the rugged courage it took to be a mom back then, and we might even pick up a tip or two. But by and large, we don't know how to connect the lessons we see from Ma Ingalls or Marmee with those of our very modern world, juggling soccer practice, grocery pick-up, social media, dating, lack of community, and so much more. In so many ways we see, we have it so much easier than "back then," and yet in others, it seems impossibly harder.

18 months later, we welcomed our 1 precious girl!

If we are firm in the fact that children are a blessing from the Lord, then we also know there IS a way to raise 3-4 children, 5-6 children, or even more in a good, godly, and wonderful way. For the past year or so, it's often been on my mind that American (and Western) women need a better blueprint for raising children. We are now a couple of generations out from larger families being even somewhat common. We don't need to be learning from the Hannah Neeleman's of the world or the latest Instagrammer (I am thankful for some of the good and godly voices there sharing the positive (and the hard) sides of raising kids like Abbie Halberstadt - M.is.for.Mama and Elisha and Katie Voetberg of Now That We're A Family), but rather from the mother sitting a church pew away from you, wrangling her five children, 7 and under. Or the mom fielding college applications and nursing a baby at the same time. Or the experience of the older mom welcoming grandchildren into the family.

I launched a project last spring that I think I'm finally ready to pick back up. I am the oldest of 4 siblings (along with a half-sister I sadly did not get to grow up with). Even at the time, I didn't consider myself from a large family, but my mom constantly got comments asking if we were all from the same dad (even though we share such a strong family resemblance) and remarking on what a large family we were! My husband, however, is the oldest of 7 kids, very much a large family by today's standards.

I always said I wanted a large family, and 6 was my ideal number of the largest family I could fathom. My husband said he wanted more like 4. So we compromised and said 5 was the perfect number. All young couples are idealistic when they have these conversations because, of course, they have no idea how many children they will indeed one day want, nor indeed the number of children they will actually be able to have!

But 5 children came and went, and we realized that the "ideal" number for us kept moving up. Now, we have 8 beautiful children, ages 13 down to 1. So, not quite the 9 that Hannah now has, but I think I'm close enough to speak on this topic. Plus, we have the benefit of Jason having grown up in a large family with all 7 adult children still loving and walking with the Lord - Praise be to God!

At the beginning of last year, I read the terrific book, Hannah's Children (totally unrelated to the Hannah mentioned above), and it got my wheels spinning. Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth explores why some women in modern Western culture (it might just be centered on the US, I can't remember now) choose large families despite declining birth rates, highlighting their values, motivations, and sense of purpose. The book argues that their choices challenge mainstream assumptions about fulfillment, success, and family life.

Overall, great book, and I highly recommend it. However, it interviews any woman with 5 or more children, regardless of faith. And it really only gets into their motivation for having a large family. I would like to go about 5 steps beyond that. I am focusing on Christian women because our faith highly impacts how we raise our children. And I'm not only interested in what motivates Christian women to have 5 or more children, but what common principles we can draw from the families who have raised a large family well.

And since then we've added 3 more sons to the mix, making us a family of 10!

It's no secret that it takes a lot to raise a large family. There are so many schedules to juggle, education to oversee, finances to count, food to cook, and love and attention to go around. So, as Christian women, how do we do this well? How do we practically and spiritually raise a brood of kids who love the Lord and develop a strong family connection? How do mothers of many do this with health, vitality, and vigor? There are so many flavors of good family cultures, different personalities, and different family sizes (a family with 4 kids will function a bit differently than a family with 12) that I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all answer. But I do think there are so many wise women who are quietly living this out. And until our congregations and neighborhoods are full of larger families again, it's a good thing to be able to learn from those around the country or the globe.

How do we steward a large family well?

I have collected email addresses from over 100 Christian women (not Mormon, not another faith) with 6 or more children who are going to participate in a study that I'm putting together. We have mothers who are deep in the trenches with 6 kids, 8 and under. We have mothers sandwiched in the middle who are bouncing a baby on their knees and teaching their teens to drive. And most importantly, we have mothers who have raised their 6+ children, and all of those children are still walking with the Lord. I am particularly interested in this segment to see if we can pick up some common threads that contributed to this (I think quality talking time will be a recurring theme, but we'll see)!

I have plans of turning this study into a book, and I would love the prayers along the way. This will not be a quick turnaround, but I do think it has the potential to be a very significant project. I will, Lord willing, provide updates as we go into it. This week, I will be formulating the study questions and getting initial information out to study participants (Let me know if you have any burning questions you want me to ask)!

So, in the spirit of the Hannah Neeleman controversy and getting inspired for my new study, I'll be doing a series of articles on the topic. Here's what I'll tentatively be covering:

• The blessings of a large family
• The pitfalls of a large family
• You actually get better at this (addressing the concern that one person can't mother this many)
• Addressing the no-time-for-one-on-one myth
• Parentification of the kids
• Mom's health and vitality
• The question of birth control
• Educating a brood
• Finances and what is "the good life?"

I am inviting you to join me in this series, not because I have all the answers (far from it), but because I think we need to be asking the questions.

(1) https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-decliningaud

For the first time in a couple of years, I've really been enjoying my reading list! I've set a goal of reading 104 books this year, at a clipped pace of 2 books per week. Here at the end of February, I've managed to stay on track with this goal and hope to see it through this year.

Part of my renewed vigor with reading is that it has now been 4+ years since I've gone this long without being pregnant. In fact, 2026 might be the first year that I will not have a nursing baby or be pregnant since 2019 (7 years, wow)! In fact, I've only had two years (2013 and 2018) since 2011 that I have not been pregnant or had a baby under 1. Holy moly, when you put it that way, I need to give myself a lot more grace for my failing routines. I say that partially in jest and partially in truth.

Only the Lord knows what is ahead but my focus this year is building back up my body, my strength, and hopefully some braincells while I'm at it! It feels like a year wide open for good routines and nurturing parts of my health that have gotten neglected as of late.

I know you landed on this post to read my 40 before 40 list of classics I'm attempting to tackle over the next 4 years, but for me, the context matters. I think I'm finally ready to tackle some of these more daunting reads. And more than that, I'm excited to!

Jason and I have each taken on a big reading goal. We will turn 40 and 42 just 3 weeks apart from each other. So I made my 40 list and he made a 42 list. We have a lot of overlap but many changes too (books either of us has already read and he replaced the homemaking books on my list with others). This gives us just under 4 years to complete this list. So at a pace of 10 books per year, I think we can do it!

Now technically, my list is actually 44 books long. I counted C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy in one spot an then ended up adding two more books to the end of the list. I'm on a big classics binge right now and I want to read those anyway, so might as well add them to my list!

My reading list is based on working through the entire Western Canon. Also refer to this article for a crash course in the classics or for starting your own 40 before 40 list. I'm already looking forward to my 50 before 50 list.

Jami's 40 Before 40 Reading List:

Classic Literature & Story:

1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

3. East of Eden – John Steinbeck

4. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

5. Middlemarch – George Eliot

6. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

7. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

8. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

9. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet

10. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

11. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

12. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier

13. Gullivers Travels - Jonathan Swift

14. Silas Marner – George Eliot

Epic & Philosophical Literature:

15. The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri

16. The Aeneid – Virgil

17. The Odyssey – Homer

18. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky

19. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

20. The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser

21.L es Misérables – Victor Hugo

22. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

Christian Faith, Family, & Home:

23. The Hidden Art of Homemaking – Edith Schaeffer

24. What Is a Family? – Edith Schaeffer

25. A Chance to Die – Elisabeth Elliot

26. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton

27. Pilgrim's Progress – John Bunyan

28. The Space Trilogy – C.S. Lewis

29. Life Under Compulsion – Anthony Esolen

30. How Should We Then Live? – Francis Schaeffer

31. On the Incarnation – Athanasius

History, Philosophy & Formation:

32. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

33. Pensées – Blaise Pascal

34. Plutarch's Lives – Plutarch

35. Church History – Eusebius

36. Foxe's Book of Martyrs – John Foxe

37. In Defense of Tradition – Richard Weaver

38. The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

39. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

40. Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset

41. Paradise Lost - John Milton

42. Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

Another goal that I will slowly be working through (without a timeline) is reading all of the works of a few particular authors including:

• George McDonald
• C.S. Lewis
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Jane Austen
• Charles Dickens
• Edith Schaeffer
• Franics Schaeffer
• G. K. Chesterton
• John Steinbeck

Jason and I both just got our lists finalized and I'm off to a good start! I just finished Pride & Prejuide and then dove into Emma. Emma isn't on my list but I am working on reading all of Austen. I took a break from Emma though because my book club is reading Cranford, another book not on my list but well worth a read! I will be diving into What is a Family by Edith Shaeffer next. I started this years ago and never finished it.

I'll add some 40 before 40 reading updates for you throughout the year! Have you created a similar reading list? I'd love to know what you think I need to start adding to my 50 before 50 list!

When I first got married, I was behind.

Admittedly, I was only nineteen. That alone explains part of it. But if I am completely honest, I do not think that five more years would have made much difference. Even if I had finished college as a single woman instead of a married one, even if I had waited until twenty-four or twenty-five, I do not believe I would have been significantly more prepared to run a home.

Like many women of my generation, I had spent my teenage and young adult years focused on school, grades, college applications, part-time jobs, and preparing for a future career. I learned how to write essays and take exams. I learned how to meet deadlines and navigate academic systems. What I did not learn was how to manage a household.

No one had intentionally taught me how to plan meals, build cleaning rhythms, grocery shop on a budget, manage my time within the context of a family, or establish spiritual habits inside a home. I stepped into marriage with good intentions, but very few practical skills.

Over the years, I have realized that my experience is far from unique. I regularly hear from women in their twenties, thirties, and even forties who are just now coming to the quiet realization that they do not actually know how to run a home well. They feel overwhelmed, scattered, and constantly behind, but they cannot quite identify why.

I believe this is one of the great unspoken struggles for modern women.

It is not because life is harder than it used to be. (It most ways, it's not! We have ovens, washing machines, dishwashers, grocery delivery, and hot running water.)

Nor is it simply because we lack a "village," though community certainly matters. Ma Ingalls managed an entire homestead, often snowed in for months at a time, without seeing another soul. There were seasons when there truly was no village. Community is a blessing, but it is not the sole explanation for why we struggle.

The deeper issue is this: many of us were never taught the skills.

Some of us were not shown. Some of us were not interested at the time. Many of us were swept up in a culture that prioritized academic achievement, career preparation, and constant outward productivity. Practical domestic skills were often treated as secondary, optional, or often outdated.

As I teach my own children now, I see this gap more clearly than ever. My older children, between the ages of nine and thirteen, already possess more hands-on, practical life skills than I did when I was newly married. They can cook simple meals, manage basic chores independently, and understand the rhythms of our home. Watching them grow in competence has made me realize just how much harder it is to build a stable home when those skills are missing at the beginning.

Yet here is the hopeful part of the story.

Not having the skills at nineteen did not determine the trajectory of my life. Over time, I chose to learn. I embraced the domestic arts gradually and imperfectly. I learned how to meal plan without panic. I learned how to cook three meals a day. I learned how to garden, preserve food, and ferment kefir and kombucha. I learned how to build systems that keep a household of ten functioning with relative order. It is not flawless—far from it—but it is steady and intentional.

And I did not learn these things as a child sitting at my grandmother's elbow (I wish!). I learned them as an adult.

Which means this: if you feel behind, your story is not over. You are not disqualified. You are simply at the beginning of your learning curve.

And that is a very hopeful place to be.

How to Grow as a Homemaker (Without Feeling Behind)

There is a quiet pressure that many women carry in their homemaking. It rarely gets spoken aloud, but it often sounds something like this: I should be further along by now. Why does everyone else seem so organized? Why can't I keep up? Why does this feel harder than it looks online?

If you have ever felt behind in your homemaking, I want to begin by gently reframing that thought. You are not necessarily behind. More often than not, you are simply growing.

Growth in homemaking does not happen overnight. It unfolds slowly, intentionally, and often quietly. It is built through faithfulness in ordinary days. Understanding this changes everything.

Let's look at what growth in homemaking actually requires.

1. Recognize That Homemaking Is Learned

Very few of us were handed a complete blueprint for running a home. Most of us picked up scattered pieces along the way — perhaps from our mothers, perhaps from observation, perhaps through trial and error. We burned dinners. We tried elaborate systems that failed. We quit, adjusted, and tried again.

Homemaking is not instinctive perfection. It is a learned skill set.

Cooking is learned. Budgeting is learned. Meal planning is learned. Time management is learned. Even establishing spiritual rhythms in a household is learned.

When you understand this, something in your brain shifts. Instead of concluding, "I am bad at this," you can more accurately say, "I am still learning." And indeed, "I CAN learn this!"

And learning, by definition, takes time (and a little elbow grease).

2. Move from Motivation to Discipline

One of the most significant turning points in my own growth as a homemaker came when I realized that motivation is unreliable, but discipline builds homes.

There were countless days when I did not feel inspired to cook from scratch, reset the kitchen yet again, plan the week ahead, or wake early to read my Bible. If I had waited for inspiration, very little would have been accomplished.

Growth does not come from waiting until we feel ready. It comes from small, repeated acts of obedience.

Discipline may sound rigid, but in practice it is deeply freeing. When you build consistent rhythms, you are no longer forced to decide from scratch each day what needs to be done. You stop reinventing your week. You move out of constant reaction and into intentionally using your time well.

Discipline creates stability and stability fosters peace.

3. Build Rhythms Instead of Relying on Crisis

Much of the feeling of being "behind" comes from randomness. We clean only when the house reaches a breaking point. We plan meals only when the refrigerator is empty. We pray only when we are desperate. We organize only when the clutter becomes unbearable.

This cycle creates constant stress.

Growth begins when you replace randomness with gentle, repeatable rhythms. This looks like a weekly meal planning time or a simple daily reset habit. It might include a consistent morning routine and a weekly planning session.

You do not need dozens of complicated systems. In fact, too many systems can create more overwhelm. What you need are a few faithful rhythms that anchor your home (and most importantly, that your brain can turn on autopilot)! If you've ever felt the mental load of trying to juggle everything, often the overwhelm comes from not knowing how to do any of it well and feeling that constant stress of keeping all these new things in your brain at once!

Small consistency over time produces steady progress.

4. Remove What Is Quietly Distracting You

One of the more uncomfortable truths I have had to face is this: often it was not that I lacked time, it was that I allowed distractions to consume it.

Endless scrolling, constant background noise, comparison. An endless stream of advice and opinions. A sense that I should be doing more, achieving more, or keeping up with someone else's standard.

If you regularly feel behind, it is worth asking what is quietly pulling your attention away from what matters most. And pulling your attention away from your own home.

Growth in homemaking often begins with subtraction before addition. Less noise, fewer voices, and clearer priorities.

When distraction decreases, clarity increases.

5. Define Success Biblically, Not Culturally

Modern culture defines success in ways that are often exhausting. A beautiful home must be spotless. A good mother must do everything flawlessly. Productivity determines worth. Busyness signals importance.

But scripture paints a different picture.

A faithful homemaker loves her family, serves diligently, builds with wisdom, and fears the Lord. Her faithfulness may be unseen by the world, but it is deeply significant in God's kingdom.

Growth in homemaking is not about achieving a Pinterest-perfect aesthetic or being an instagram influencer. It is about cultivating faithfulness, in the everyday.

And faithfulness is rarely dramatic. It is repetitive, it is ordinary, and it is steady. Yet it is powerful beyond measure.

6. Focus on One Area at a Time

Another reason many women feel perpetually behind is that they attempt to fix everything at once. They try to overhaul their cleaning routines, health habits, meal planning, spiritual life, and organization systems simultaneously.

This approach almost always leads to discouragement.

Instead, choose one focus for a season. Perhaps you decide that this month you will learn consistent meal planning. Perhaps this quarter you will establish a workable cleaning rhythm. Perhaps this year you will strengthen your spiritual disciplines.

Growth compounds. When you master one skill well, it strengthens every other area of your home.

7. Remember That You Are Building a Legacy

Homemaking is not primarily about completing today's to-do list. It is about shaping the atmosphere and direction of your home over decades. When you have the big picture in mind, it's easier to be faitfhful with today's small load, even if that means trying to learn one new recipe.

Your children are unlikely to remember the messy Tuesday or the burnt casserole. They will remember warmth, stability, laughter, and the quiet faithfulness that marked your days.

You are not behind. You are building something lasting.

If You Want to Grow More Intentionally

For over twelve years, I have created courses, conferences, planning systems, and digital tools to help women grow in these exact areas — building rhythms, creating home management systems, meal planning consistently, strengthening spiritual disciplines, setting purposeful goals, simplifying health, and reducing overwhelm.

For the first time in two years, our full legacy digital library, the courses, conferences, eBooks, and printable systems that were previously sold individually, is available inside our Vault for lifetime access.

Everything is priced at $5 or $10. Or you can purchase the complete Vault bundle for $99.

These are the same systems that helped me grow from overwhelmed and inexperienced to steady and intentional. They are not magic solutions, but they are practical tools for real progress.

Whether you choose to explore those resources or simply begin where you are today, remember this:

Growth is slow. Faithfulness matters. And you are not behind.

You are growing.

Blessings, Jami 💛

I am deep in the part of my gardening year where I am SUPER excited… and also starting to wonder if maybe I did too much.

If you garden, you know this feeling.

January and February are all hope and seed packets and plans. Everything feels possible. And then suddenly your dining room table is covered in milk cartons and seed trays and you're counting how many varieties of peppers you started and thinking, "Oh dear."

But here's something I've learned in my still-limited gardening experience: I would rather feel like I did too much than look back in July and wish I had done more.

Because once the moment passes for the year, it's often too late to go back and start over. You have a small window to restart your pepper plants if they didn't germinate — but not much time. If you miss it, you miss it. There's no rewinding the growing season.

So this year I'm operating off one big question: What do I want my harvest to look like come mid-summer?

Not what feels easy in February. Not what feels manageable in the moment. But what will bless our family in July, August, and September.

Right now, it feels like a lot to take on and juggle. But I also know that 2027 Jami is going to GREATLY thank me for the work I'm putting in today as I establish a brand new garden at our new house.

What We've Started So Far

This year I'm leaning hard into what we already have and what costs the least.

In milk cartons (because they're free and we go through 4–6 gallons of milk per week 😅):

• Utah Celery

• Chives

• Peppermint

• Peppers: Anaheim chili, small red chili, cayenne, early jalapeño, and sweet pickle

• Rosemary

Are milk cartons glamorous? No.

Are they free and surprisingly effective? Yes.

And when you're growing this much, free matters.

In my cell trays, I just started yesterday:

• Pink Chinese celery

• White Creole onions

• Wild bergamot

• Bee balm (Spielarten mix)

• Stevia

• Agastache

• Echinacea

• Garden huckleberries

• Blackberry huckleberries

• Tresca strawberries

• Tomatoes: San Marzano, Caribe, and Chadwick cherry

• Yarrow

• Cauliflower

Every time I look at the trays I feel that little spark of excitement. Tiny green starts are such a picture of hope. It's wild to think that in just a few months these fragile little seedlings could be towering tomato plants and baskets of strawberries.

This week I still need to:

• Direct sow cilantro

• Direct sow broccoli

At our new house, we have one raised bed that's ready to go, so I can at least start there while we get the rest of the garden prepped.

And that brings me to the big project…

The Lasagna Garden (a.k.a. The Cardboard Situation)

This year, because of cost and because of how large I want this garden to be, we decided not to do raised beds.

For the first time, we're trying a lasagna garden.

We started by laying down cardboard to smother the grass and build up from there. I thought we had plenty of cardboard.

We did not.

Not even close.

We didn't even have half of what we need. So now we're collecting more cardboard, asking friends, saving every box, and picking up soil this weekend to start building the rows.

Right now?

It looks like a mess.

Truly. It looks like we just dumped recycling all over the yard. But I'm trusting the process. I'm reminding myself that most worthwhile things look unimpressive at the beginning.

I'm hoping that in a few weeks it starts to actually resemble a garden.

My Tasks for Next Week in the Garden

Because February energy is high and if I don't write this down, I will absolutely forget something 😅

Here's what's on the agenda for next week:

• Start my next round of seeds

• Direct sow everything I need to in my one raised bed outside

• Finish laying down the cardboard

• Have Jason pick up a soil/compost mix on Saturday with his truck

• Lay down the soil and start forming the rows

• Hope we get a truckload of wood chips from ChipDrop.com soon

If not… I'll probably add the $20 tip and see if that helps move us up the list.

Once the soil is down and the wood chips (hopefully!) arrive, the beds should finally start looking like an actual garden instead of a recycling center. And I think that will make everything feel more manageable. There's something about structure and visible progress that calms the overwhelm.

At that point, we'll be in such a good place: beds prepped, seeds started, direct sowing underway. That's when it really begins to feel real.

A Little Deck Garden, Too

I also have this little side mission: I want to create a small container garden on our deck.

I've been hunting for large containers that are cheap or repurposable. I refuse to pay full price for giant planters if I can help it. So I'm scanning Facebook Marketplace, keeping an eye out at thrift stores, and mentally cataloging anything that could hold soil.

Half the fun of gardening on a budget is the creativity.

Can it hold dirt? Does it drain? Will it survive the summer heat?

Then it's probably usable.

I love the idea of stepping out onto the deck and snipping herbs or grabbing a handful of flowers outside the kitchen door. It feels practical and beautiful at the same time.

February feels ambitious.

But it also feels hopeful.

And I'd much rather stand in the middle of "maybe I did too much" than sit in July wishing I had tried harder when the window was open.

We plant in faith. We prepare in faith. And we trust that the small work of today will bless our family in the months (and even years) ahead.

Here's to cardboard chaos, milk cartons, and big garden dreams. 🌱

The kids and I had the opportunity to go visit my family in Pennsylvania this past week, and I'm so incredibly glad we did.

We've been trying to schedule a trip up there for ages, and it just never seemed to work out. There was always something — a launch, a deadline, a busy season, a reason to push it off. Finally, we picked a time that worked… except Jason was just too busy to take off work.

So the kids and I went anyway.

And I'm so, so glad we did.

With the older boys getting so much older, it was actually such a fun and easy trip. An 8–9 hour drive used to feel monumental, but for us seasoned travelers, it felt like no big deal. We packed snacks, queued up audiobooks, and just went.

We stayed at my aunt's house and spent sweet time with cousins and my grandfather, who lives with them. We haven't been back to Pennsylvania since my grandmother passed away two years ago this month, so being there felt tender in a way I didn't fully expect.

There was so much snow, the kind we just don't get here in North Carolina, and the kids probably spent a dozen hours outside sledding. It was pure joy. Rosy cheeks, soaked mittens, frozen fingers, and so much fun!

We made our obligatory stop at Hershey and did the free Chocolate World tour (a must if you're ever in town), swam in their indoor pool while it snowed outside, and watched the Olympics together in the evenings. It was simple, cozy, memory-making kind of days.

And because we live on the East Coast now, this isn't a once-every-few-years kind of trip anymore. We're already talking about a summer visit!

It was exactly the kind of time away that makes you grateful… and then oddly excited to come home and settle back into your routines. It was exactly what I needed as I turn my attention to the Spring and big work and home projects.

The Blogging Goal I Didn't Hit

At the beginning of this year, I set a goal to blog at least three times per week.

I love blogging. I love long-form writing. I love the space to think clearly and share deeply.

And then the past two weeks? I didn't blog at all.

Not once.

Part of that is simply because of this trip. But the bigger reason is that we've been working on a massive system overhaul for our business. We've been moving every single one of our old products into a new system so that customers can access them easily and beautifully. It has been such a good project — the kind that blesses people long-term — but it has taken nearly all of my available work time in January and February.

Evenings. Weekends. Every spare hour. And I wasn't expecting it to be quite so large of a task.

I'm thrilled about it being finished. (And keep an eye out — we'll have a special sale this week connected to it.) But in the middle of it all, something deeper has been stirring in my heart.

What Is My Time For?

I have been praying a lot lately about my time.

My work hours are limited. I am first a wife. First a mother. My home and children and marriage are not side projects, they are my primary calling.

And yet our business matters too. It supports our family. It serves thousands of women. It is not frivolous.

But where does blogging fit? Where does social media fit? Where does marketing fit? Where does being "consistent" fit?

I've increasingly felt like social media is destroying our society.

Yes, there is good to be argued for. Yes, it connects people. Yes, it can be used for truth and encouragement. But it is also fracturing our attention, shortening our focus, amplifying outrage, and shaping our thinking in ways we don't even realize.

I don't want to feel fractured.

I don't want outside voices constantly shaping the tone of our home.

I don't want my brain trained to live in 30-second bursts of noise.

And yet… I also know how hard it is when the good voices disappear. I know how lonely it can feel when encouragement dries up.

So I find myself in this tension.

If I'm honest, I would delete social media tomorrow and never look back — except that our family relies on it. It's part of how we reach women. It's part of how we sustain the business God has entrusted to us.

So I am prayerfully evaluating.

Not in a dramatic way. Not in a "big announcement" way. But in a quiet, steady, Lord-what-would-You-have-me-do kind of way.

What is essential? What is noise? What builds fruit that lasts? What simply feeds the machine?

If You Feel Behind…

Maybe you set goals this year too.

Maybe you were going to be more consistent. More disciplined. More productive. More organized.

And maybe the past two weeks (or two months) didn't look how you imagined.

I want you to know something: falling behind on a goal is not the same thing as failing in your calling.

Sometimes faithfulness looks like sledding in the snow with your children. Sometimes it looks like sitting with your grandfather. Sometimes it looks like moving systems quietly behind the scenes. Sometimes it looks like not posting. And also sometimes, it's recognizing that God is calling you to be self-disciplined in an area you don't want to be. (Hi, that's me!)

God is not impressed by our output. He is concerned with our obedience.

For me, right now, that means evaluating where my limited work time goes. It means asking whether my energy is being poured into what will matter five years from now, but also for the short term when there are bills to be paid and a business to be run.

I don't have all the answers yet.

But I do know this: I want my days to glorify God. I want my home to feel peaceful. I want my children to remember warmth and presence. And I want whatever work I do to flow from those priorities — not compete with them.

So this is just a little life update. A little peek behind the curtain. A gentle reset.

I'm excited to be home. Excited to be back in routines. Excited to keep building good things. And prayerfully considering what that building should look like moving forward.

Thank you for being here. Truly.

We'll see what the Lord does next.