Simple Living, Homeschooling, Faith, Homemaking, & Books
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We are surrounded by change we cannot control. Whether it is the seasons, our children, our bodies, or the culture, everything around us is constantly changing. Learning how to thoughtfully and prayerfully adapt and deal with those changes is an important part of the Christian life. Like many of you, I'm going through a season of adjusting to …
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Happy Spring! Sunday was my birthday and I enjoyed a sunny early spring day here in Michigan. Our church sings "Happy Birthday To You" if your birthday is on Sunday so I had that special treat. (Caroline was thrilled. LOL!) Sometimes when I sit down to write these weekly posts I feel like my life is very lame and uninspiring. I don't have …
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Welcome to the coziest time of the year! The truly cozy stretch of autumn and winter is when we fluff our nests a bit and curate the small changes that make our home individually our own as I discuss in Embracing the Simplicity of Homemaking. If you have a copy of A Quiet Simple Life Planner & Guidebook, it's time to revisit some of the pages …
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As I wrote in Embracing the Simplicity of Homemaking, I believe every woman is a homemaker. If you are a woman and you have a place to live, you are making a home. It might be just for you or it might be for many people, but you are a homemaker. Homemakers need encouragement as they go through their responsibilities each day and so I've …
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It's the last day of August. Where did the summer go? I know we always ask that question each year, but this year I'm asking it in a different way as I'm sure you are as well. This will be our fourth week of homeschooling. We are off to a good start and I'm thankful. We're still adding subjects in, but we're solidly into most of them. I'm going …
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I first published Merry Christmas, Darling in 2005 when I was a brand new blogger. I bumped it up from time to time on my previous blog (2009 and 2013). It wasn't on this website and it is a story I want to share my readers. Interestingly, just a few weeks after I first wrote it we discovered we were finally expecting a baby - on our ninth …
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Do you live and love the American cozy life? I do and I'll let you in on a secret. I think it's way better than the Danish hygge that everyone is talking about. I recently read a short anecdote written by an American man with an extensive English heritage. He expected to eventually move to England and make his home there because he felt so drawn …
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So often the act of simplifying is seen as something that would be nice to do if we could squeeze it into our lives. Simplifying would be an added bonus to life if we had the time to get to it. But we're not convinced it would make that much of a difference so we don't think about it in any serious way. Is it something extra? Or is the need …
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We've been blessed with a cool spring that is only very slowly moving toward anything resembling warmer weather. I don't mind because it affords us more time to enjoy the blessings of cooler weather - warm meals, the fireplace, and general coziness. I've found that I'm really happiest when I have my little family gathered around me. We've …
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Is it a blessing to live a small life? My answer is a resounding, "Yes!" if that is where God has placed you. I've been reflecting lately on the joy and freedom of living a small life. A quiet, simple life. It is so contrary to everything around us. Our culture both in and out of the church is all about doing more, networking more, increasing …
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Call it cocooning, hunkering down, being a homebody, or whatever. It is me. And it especially describes my life over the past ten years or so. Now I've discovered it has yet another name: dwelling. From What consumers do in a downturn: Roughly speaking, consumers have two modalities: surging and dwelling. In the surging modality, consumers …
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Over the past couple of years, there have been times I've been frustrated because circumstances were not what I wanted them to be, especially as it relates to our business and finances. One of the things that is challenging for me about having our own business is feeling quite out of control regarding the amount of work we have (and therefore our …
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I have a fever. It is the "I really want to move and have more space" fever. Have you ever had it? Fortunately, there is no way on earth we are going to move right now so I can look at houses online all I want and there is no temptation to actually act. Short of truly Divine intervention, we won't be moving for at least a few years. House Sizes …
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Does your life reflect what you say is important? Three years ago, I posted this entry on my blog. The parts in bold I have bolded today. One of the most interesting experiences in my early study of simplicity was participating in The Pierce Simplicity Study. Linda Breen Pierce was doing research for a book on people who had made the choice to …
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I noticed a number of years ago that if I run into people I haven't talked to recently and asked them how they were doing I almost always got the same answer: "Oh, I'm so busy!" Now, however, it isn't enough to be busy. Now the answer is crazy busy. You have to be crazy busy. Because in this country, don't you know, you have to take everything …
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The tension I feel in writing about a topic such as this is that some people might be quick to be offended. They will think I am criticizing them and their life choices. Or they will think I don't understand their situation and so they write off everything that is said rather than pondering whether there might be some truth that God would have them …
