Hello friends,
I know…I know. Where the heck have I been? Well, long story short…I’ve just been living life! Today I’m going to be sharing my year in review. My goal with my blog is to always Inspire, encourage, and motivate you whichever way I can; while also keeping it real.
There are a few key points Ive been focusing on this year, the first (in no particular order) being Homemaking/Biblical womanhood, the second – Homeschooling and the third most recent adventure of mine is Homesteading.
I’ve shared snippets of these adventures throughout the year on my blog and social media accounts, and today we’re going to review them. It’s easy to see people’s highlight reel on social media, but I want to be honest with you. None of these things have gone how I had planned 😅 but that’s life! I’ll also share what I’ve learned along the way and what I hope for in the new year to come. I hope it brings you some encouragement ✨
Disclaimer: some of the links in my blog may be commisionable /affiliate links, which mean I may earn a small (very small) commission when you purchase anything through those links – at no extra cost to you!
Homemaking/Biblical Womanhood
Over the last two years I’ve made a huge lifestyle change, I gave my life to Christ. And in the beginning, I didn’t realize how much it would change my life. I knew it would be a journey to help better myself, but goodness, it literally turned my entire life around for the better!
I’ve mostly always enjoyed being a stay at home mom, but something I always struggled with was the home aspect. I felt like I was drowning in housework, I felt incredibly disorganized, and I felt like other than raising Olivia, my work at home was redundant… But, GOD!
This year especially I’ve learned to LOVE homemaking. Homemaking has easily become one of my passions and I’m not mad at it. There’s something about being the keeper of your home, making it a safe and welcoming space, serving your family, and loving what you do. I’ve learned that there’s so much value in homemaking, where as before I felt like what I was doing was meaningless.
It has definitely been a learning process, Ive had to decipher what works well in my home and what doesn’t. I’ve had to figure out balanced routines that brought me peace instead of stress. There have been fails, but without trial and error it’s hard to discover what really works for you. I’m working on a blog sharing all of the helpful details that helped me go from barely surviving to thriving! For now, here are some of my favorite resources that give me encouragement!
YouTube channels:
Books:
Homeschooling:
Something I REALLY looked forward to this year was homeschool. We’ve been tot-schooling and doing a lot of intentional learning through play since Olivia was about 1.5 but this year was the year we took (or planned to take) things to the next level!
By the age of 3.5 Olivia was assessing at nearly a kindergarten level and I felt like by 4 she’d be ready for a more structured learning time. I worked all of summer preparing our homeschool room, our curriculum, and we even joined a co-op!
When I tell you nothing went as planned….literally nothing went as planned 🤣 A few weeks into our homeschool year I found out we were expecting our second child, and we were seriously overcome with SO MUCH JOY! What I wasn’t expecting though, was the violent first trimester symptoms I experienced that lasted well into the second trimester. With my first daughter I had some serious complications throughout my pregnancy, morning sickness however wasn’t one of my symptoms. At least morning sickness to the extent that I experienced this time around. So you can imagine, homeschool (or how I had planned to originally homeschool) took a bit of a detour.
I’ll be honest, at first I questioned my ability to do this. I mean, I could barely get out of bed that’s how intense my pregnancy felt in the beginning. Not once on this journey, up until those moments, had I questioned my ability because I KNEW this was something God had called us to do. Especially in this day in age with how a lot of things are in the public school setting.
On top of that, my husbands nearly 20 year old car who had never given us any issues before, decided to give us a hard time. And with us living out in the country and him having to commute into the city, we no longer felt safe with him driving it until we got everything all clear. Because of that, we also didn’t get to really experience our co-op like how we had hoped. We attended maybe a handful of times, and after that we continued to do our co-op curriculum at home. Many of you have asked me how I’ve liked classical conversations, and I can truthfully tell you that I feel like I can’t give a good answer at this time. We weren’t able to get the most out of it co-op wise. But that isn’t CC’s fault at all and that is why I really don’t talk about CC. Life just took us in a different direction, and by the time we got everything all sorted out, I’ll be honest I felt too behind to go back to our co-op.
I almost gave up, but I had to remind myself that God’s plans are way greater than mine and maybe what I had in mind, wasn’t how things were supposed to go. After all, I’ve been on a journey of letting go of perfectionism and being more flexible and in the moment.
Eventually we found our grove, and even through it didn’t look like the perfectly curated morning school routine I had planned in my head ; we’ve really been enjoying homeschooling! Olivia gets excited each day to learn, and we love getting together with other homeschool families for play dates.
Homesteading:
If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen that earlier this year we moved out of the city. It was something God had really placed on our hearts, and we really do believe that He lead us to our home. We purchased nearly two acres of land with a home already on it.
We were prepared to start our homesteading journey. We hoped for self- sustainability with animals, rain-catching systems, and a garden.
Our property was already pretty open, there wasn’t anything that needed to be cleared and other than our home there was only one other structure on it! Our well and septic system had already been maintenanced before we moved in so literally we were ready to get right on into homesteading!
What we weren’t ready for was the massive freeze that happened here in Texas February of this year. It got three of our giant oak trees, I mean these trees had to be about 100 or more years old and they were beautiful! Unfortunately most of what we had saved to get our homestead started went all to clearing those trees. (I’m talking thousands, who knew clearing trees was so expensive? This city girl sure didn’t 😅) Im grateful we were able to get them taken care of, one of the trees was literally falling apart and it would not have been good had it fallen on our house or even a neighbors house.
What we were able to do was start a small garden! It wasn’t something out of a magazine, we definitely had to go more on the budget-friendly side but honestly I LOVED it! It was my first time ever growing ANYTHING and I started it all from seed. Along with my homeschooling doubt in the beginning of my pregnancy, I also wondered if I’d be able to throw in starting another garden next year. And I’m feeling more and more confident about it as time goes on! This year I grew cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelon. Really only my cucumbers were successful, but they were the best dang cucumbers I’ve ever had! 😅
What I’ve learned…
The cliche…sometimes( a lot of the times ) things don’t always go how we planned but it’s our reaction to those things that determine whether or not we make it through. Hard times are only temporary, and we run the risk of losing out on the blessings that life bring if we stay focused on the negative. So do what you can, when you can, how you can!
My hopes for the New Year…
Even with the challenging things this year has brought, I’ve felt incredibly blessed.
My hopes for the next year are to mostly continue how we’ve been going. Id like to continue to foster my love for biblical homemaking, and encourage other woman to do the same. I hope to be able to balance motherhood with our new baby’s arrival, I’m really looking forward to having another child! It has been years of trying and I’m looking forward to this little bundle of joy joining our family, God willing! I mostly hope to just enjoy life, be present and in the moment!
What about you?
How are you feeling about the end of the year and New Year? Any big hopes, dreams, goals! Id love to know more, share with me down below!
I’ve connected with some amazing bloggers to share some of their 2022 New Years goals! Motherhood, Fitness, Blogging, even a recap of 2021 into 2022! Head to each of their accounts to check out what they are sharing!
HEATHER: End of year review for 2021/Blogging Goals for the New Year
LORI : New Year Goals for 2022
MARLY: How to make a vision board for 2022
Grace Mccoy 