One of the realities of my life right now is that there is a dividing line that happens in almost every first/intro conversation I have with people (and this last year has included a lot of those)… The normally-progressing conversation that happens before… and then the shift that comes after… … people find out I…
Category: Grow as Homemaker
IS IT POSSIBLE to Shake Off the Materialism of Christmas?!?
Q: What do you do for Christmas celebrations? How do we get through without it being a focus on presents and stuff and food? Is it possible to shake off the materialism of this season? Sure, I have a few thoughts, in no particular order: #1- I don’t know how old your kids are, but…
Cooking for a Crowd, on the Cheap
Q FROM A READER: How do you feed your large family? The older my son gets, the more he’s eating, and I’m realizing I need to get better at cooking more food for less money. Yup, with 9 kiddos (8 of whom are sons!!), you know I understand! This is an ongoing point of analysis…
When Your Home Life Needs a JumpStart
Note from Jess: I wrote this more than a year ago, three months after having baby #9. We’re… barely… creeping out of the postpartum season. Wowzers, things feel overwhelming. I looked around last night and here’s what I noticed: the driveway was a mess. Recycling that hadn’t made it to the bin, toys that were…
VIDEO: Things I DIDN’T EXPECT (as a Large Family Mom)
Like many Americans in the 80s and 90s, (maybe like you?) I grew up with one sibling. So I didn’t really know what to expect as a mom of many children (we have 9 now). Some things we can anticipate: (laundry, food, and stacks of clothes bins!), but what I wanted to talk about in…
37 Things Our Kids Did (Without Screens) in Our Device-Free Summer
We did not do any devices/video games last summer. For the most part, we kept the TV off too. But when I napped with the preschooler, and when we had sick days, we did freely enjoy I Love Lucy. So we didn’t outright ban TV, but we did purposefully and sharply limited screen time. We’re following the same basic approach this…
What I Noticed After Fasting From Facebook
Some time last year, I did a week-long purposeful fast from everything online (except for e-mail), and as I went through the week, I wrote down the things I was noticing. Recently I found that list and thought I’d share it with you. Here’s what I noticed: Almost instantaneously: I’m alone with my thoughts again. I’m able…
Our Laundry Pile. (a 30-second video)
This is the mismatched shoe bin at our house right now. WHAT????! (As I told my husband… “SOCKS are explainable. They get wedged behind dressers and slip under beds. But SHOES?????!”) WHY do I have this many mismatched blue flip-flops and mismatched black dress shoes???! The struggle is real. CLICK TO SEE A 30-second VIDEO of…
Getting Some Peace & Quiet, as a Mom
Ever felt the guilt that comes on when a child asks you to play a game with them, or read to them, but you want to say “no?” I’m not asking about when you *can’t* say “yes” because you’re doing something else. But rather– what do you do when you just want some peace and…
Big Family Clothes Swapping & Storage Solutions
8 kids is a lot. It’s not “19 and counting” or anything, but it’s still a lot. The bigger our family has gotten, the more I’ve had to up my game when it comes to swapping out sizes and finding good organizing solutions for clothes. Here’s what standing in line looks like when I take my youngest…