Raising Little Women, Publishing a Book, and Digging Deep Roots

I’m a Published Author!

A month ago exactly, my book Courageous Divorce was released! I’m so grateful this book is now out in the world. It was a huge labor of love, writing and editing it alongside growing and nursing a baby. It has been so encouraging to hear from so many on how this book is impacting them. My deepest desire is for women to find wholeness, and I love hearing how this book is doing that. My husband and friends threw me a surprise book launch party, and I felt so loved and seen!

Last weekend, I attended the Festival of Faith & Writing for the second time. It was such a joy to be around so many other writers, to hear from incredible speakers, and to connect with friends and meet new people.

Life with the Little Women:

Home life has been busy lately with homeschooling my 5th and 3rd grader, keeping a toddler with big emotions alive and well (all joy or all tantrum!) and loving every new thing she learns, running kids to dance and gymnastics and friends’ houses and appointments, and occasionally helping my 9th and 7th graders with their schoolwork (but mostly hands off now as they are at public school and more independent).

I now get emails about preparing for college and am looking into drivers ed. for my oldest. It’s wild to be at this state of parenting and seriously feels like it happened in a blink. And it’s even more wild when I also have a toddler who is learning new words daily and constantly saying, “I do myself.”

In homeschool, we’ve been reading Anne of Green Gables and the The Wind in the Willows, learning about World War 2 and reading The Hiding Place, studying biomes, studying Peter Paul Rubens’ artwork, learning about space with our science co-op, and both girls are ahead in math and have finished for the year! We have four weeks left and are looking forward to summer break. I’m so grateful for these years of homeschooling and marvel that I’ve taught four kids how to read and do the multiplication tables.

Digging Deep Roots:

One of my main goals this past year has been to dig deep roots. A lot of my life was uprooted in the last 6 years, and I believe the uprooting had to happen in order to lean into authenticity, safety, and wholeness. But I realized a year ago that I had had so much change that I had forgotten how to settle. We live in a culture that is constantly hurdling forward, looking for the next thing, the thing that will make us happy, the thing that will satisfy us, that settling feels counterintuitive. But when I look at the trees in my back yard that have stood for decades, providing shelter and shade, I am reminded of the importance of digging deep roots. So, I have been focusing on that… in friendships, in our spiritual communities, in my work, in myself, in my marriage, in my children.

Books I’m Reading:

I’m in the middle of so many books, it’s a bit crazy. But here they are:

• I’m finishing up my friend Rachel Kovac’s book, Their Future is Shining Bright. This is a guide for homeschooling in the high school years. I’ve been homeschooling for 11 years, and while there are many books and resources for homeschooling in the younger years, the older years are massively neglected. Not only is this resource long over-due, I can’t think of a person who is more equipped to write it… I deeply respect Rachel as a person, parent, and homeschooling mom!

• I’ve recently begun Elizabeth Berget’s Love Like a Mother, which releases on May 5. It’s a phenomenal book that discusses the maternal heart of God. This is a concept I began exploring myself a few years ago, and it deeply changed the view I have of God and the love I feel from the Divine.

• I always have a poetry book going, and currently I’m reading The Sun and Her Flowers, a book gifted to me for my birthday!

• I’ve been reading Sacred Journeys as a devotional book this year. It’s beautiful.

• I’m listening to Kristin Hannah’s Home Front. I’m in a book club, and this was our read for this past month. I join book clubs because they encourage me to read books that I don’t typically pick up. I’ve read Kristin Hannah before but don’t pick up fiction as often as non-fiction. I’m almost finished listening to it, and I’ve really enjoyed it!

• I’m listening to Mary Van Geffen’s Parenting a Spicy One. This book is so encouraging. I don’t pick up parenting books as often these days now that I’ve been doing it for 15 years, but this one is so practical and truly makes you feel like you’re not alone as you parent children who have big personalities and strong wills.

• I’m reading The Future Human by Lee Harris because I love stretching my mind with new concepts and engaging with how others see the world, and I’m deeply imaginative about what the future looks like.