When we moved from Indiana to Missouri, my prayer list’s top 3 requests were: a house with some acreage and a work from home space (we moved when we were two weeks postpartum with no housing lined up so we lived with my in-laws for 7 weeks); a trustworthy Christian nanny; and a church community / friends in a similar season.

I got married like a decade after all the girls I grew up with got married, so they went through young motherhood while I was in college and by the time I got married, their kids were teens and mostly all in school. I started having kids in Indiana and our tiny church plant had mostly older people and families with older kids, so we had no one in our season there and that felt really lonely at times, even though we really loved our church family.

So, it is such an answered prayer to have a whole group of moms in our church and local community with similar values, life goals and kids of similar age to do life with. A few of the moms have older kids too, but their younger kids are my kids’ ages + this year was a bit of a baby boom in our church with like five new babies.

After church, we hosted our families - both sets of parents and half of my sibling with their families. We love our house, but it’s definitely too small to host large crowds, but we make do and still host often.

For context, this weekend we had about like 21 adults and over a dozen toddlers / small kids (and that’s only half of my family and only Daniel’s parents this time! Daniel and I each have ten siblings; all my siblings are married except for our youngest brother and half of Daniel’s siblings are married or in serious relationships, so we have big family gatherings! Most of my family is local but Daniel’s family is more spread out across Missouri and in Chicago).

If you also have a small home but would like to host more, I’ll share what we did this time and the overall rhythms we follow when we host:

Our hosting philosophy

Before we got married, Daniel and I covered a lot of topics of discussion (most of which we included in our Dating Guide). One of the things we talked about is hosting. We’re both introverts but we also both have big families, feel called to youth / singles ministry, love to host, and grew up in homes where hosting happened regularly, so hosting is one of the values we are trying to incorporate into our family culture.

The Slavic culture tends to take hosting to an extreme with family events, baby showers, bridal showers, engagement parties, birthday parties, etc are full on productions with dozens of dishes, desserts, fancy arrangements, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all beautiful, but it’s not our style.

Our goal it to make people feel welcome, to feed our guests well and to make them feel refreshed and encouraged when they leave our home.

So, we’ll invest and prep most or all of the food when we host (more on this below) and source as much as we can from what we have (re-use tablecloths, grow our own flowers, use the same plastic dishes/cups & paper napkins, etc).

More on this below, but we’ll also host casually: people can sit to eat wherever there is space, kids are free to play wherever in the house & outside (we have toys in the living room, the boys room and downstairs in the garage + 3 acres with a sandbox and swings), moms can use any bedroom for nursing or putting babies down for naps. We take our home is your home very literally when hosting 🙂

I try to do as much of a deep clean as possible the week before when we’re hosting big gatherings, splitting up tasks over the course of multiple days. For smaller gatherings, I do more tidying vs. deep cleaning - we live in this house with three kids so it’s going to look lived in, not a showroom. You may see areas that aren’t dusted, toys, diaper caddies, books and other signs of daily family life with small kids - welcome!

Sally Clarkson talks / writes a lot about hosting and one thing that stuck with me from her teaching is the importance of having little “stations” for people and kids of all ages to have something occupy their hands in your home: books for all ages (kids books, table books, coffee books, magazines, photo albums), toys for all kids ages, blankets if someone gets cold, board games, drinks / tea with some cookies or crackers / small sandwiches, etc.

Most importantly though is the conversation. Awkward silences in someone else’s home make everyone feel uncomfortable, so being able to hold conversations, especially as a host, is vital to hosting. I am terrible at small talk plus add in postpartum and mom brain and it feels like conversations are the biggest challenge for me right now, but I try to make our guests feel seen and welcome, even if I sometimes feel awkward or we’re constantly interrupted by babies and small children.

We usually don’t play background music because we’ll always have a bunch of kids in our home in this season of life so it gets loud!

Prep and clean up

Because hosting is something we both enjoy and agreed to build into our family culture, Daniel and I approach it as a team. Five years in, we’ve gotten into a good rhythm - to the point where it feels like we finish each other’s sentences but with prep tasks.

Daniel usually makes the menu, makes the shopping list (we do grocery delivery), and is in charge of the meat. The rest of the food prep we’ll divide and conquer or do together. For example, I had prepping potatoes on my list for Saturday, but while I was putting Naomi to bed, Daniel and his mom (who came by Saturday evening), took that over and got it done. I made the cheesecake on Saturday while Daniel was at work with the kids.

Cleaning wise, I usually do more of the indoor cleaning and Daniel does the outside stuff (or this time, he had to also fix the kitchen sink since we got new counter tops installed Friday and replace our dinning room light fixture because we finally found we both liked!).

I know some women feel like their husbands are “in their way” in the kitchen, but for Daniel and I, we have learned to move so well together / in sync and it makes hosting flow so smoothly. I know that if I need to step away to go nurse or take care of another task, Daniel will step in and take over seamlessly and get it done, and vise versa. One of the many things I love about him is that he is very observant and when he sees things that need to get done, he does them without me having to ask or point things out to him.

Three of my four sisters were here this weekend + both of our moms, so they helped a lot with prep after church while Daniel grilled and the grandpas and other husbands watched the kids. My mother in law and mom also helped me clear the table and load the dishwasher while Daniel put away the table and chairs + watched the kids. We both also floated around talking with guests.

Almost always, our guests will have their kids help put away the toys they played with. We don’t ask this of them, but it’s also something we encourage our boys to do when we go visit someone unless the host specifically asks us not to. We also try to keep the amount of toys we have out to one box upstairs, so that helps! The garage is a different story - there’s toys everywhere, always (it’s basically a playroom and gym for us, in addition to where park our car)!

Hosting with little kids is a challenge, but since this is a value we want to instill in our kids, we make it work. Naps may be skipped and we may step away from prep or hosting to nurse, calm kids down, or put someone down for a nap (or I’ve hosted brunches with a baby sleeping in a carrier on me the entire time!), but it’s so worth it. It’s edifying for us (and hopefully our guests!) and teaches our kids how to share their home / toys and interact with adults and other kids of various ages.

But to be frank, it does take all of us like a week to recover from hosting big gatherings like this - we’re all overtired and overstimulated after hosting as a family of introverts :).

Menu

(since we were having lunch right after church, we tried to choose a menu that could be prepped ahead of time so it was ready to go as soon as soon as we got home - I can’t take credit for this menu, it was all Daniel :)):

• Appetizer: my sister made baguette sandwiches with garlic cream cheese, salmon and cucumber

• Main dishes

  • Pasta salad (prepped Saturday and mixed together on Sunday after church)

  • Potatoes with heavy cream and cheese in the crockpot (Cut into thin medalions Saturday, put it into cold water into the fridge, and into the crockpot first thing Sunday morning, baked on high until serving (5-6 hours))

  • Caesar salad (salad kits prepped after church)

  • Pork shish kabobs (Daniel marinated the night before and grilled right after church)

  • Hot dogs for the kids (grilled as soon as we got back from church so kids could eat first) - I asked my sister to bring the hot dog ingredients

  • Homemade rolls (prepped and baked Sunday morning)

  • Fried trout (my dad is really into fishing right now, so mom brought fish and fried it after church while Daniel was grilling)

• Drinks

  • Caprisuns for the kids (I asked my sister to bring these)

  • Lemonade

  • Sweet iced team (home brewed)

• Desserts

  • No bake Oreo cheese cake (my first time making cheesecake but my sister gave me this recipe and said even I can figure it out :) - it was delicious!)

  • My mom made a vanilla cake with berries

  • My mother in law baked a classic Slavic honey cake (”medovik”)

  • Fruit (my mom brought raspberries and my father in law brought watermelon)

  • Popsicles for the kids (which we totally forgot to serve!)

If we’re doing an intimate gathering with 1-2 families, we’ll usually make all the food ourselves. For bigger gatherings, we’ll often do more of a potluck. For example, last year I’d host a monthly Articles Club for my mom friends and we’d each contribute a brunch dish. For family gatherings, we often provide the meat and an entree (pasta or potatoes of some sort) and have family bring side dishes like salads or small sandwiches, drinks and/or dessert (not required, but appreciated if our guests ask what to bring).

Seating & serving arrangements

We have a big “bonus” room downstairs, which is my work office, TV area and guest bedroom all in one. When we first moved, we only had the office in there, so we’d move the office furniture into the garage and host down there, but now that we’ve added the guest bed, giant bookshelves, safe, piano and TV area with seating, it’s just too much to clear out, so we’re hosting in our dining room/kitchen/living room (these three rooms are under 1,000 sq ft and not open concept - each is it’s own room). It’s a tight fit, but we make it work. Here’s how:

• We invested in white folding tables and chairs for extra seating

• Plastic cups and plates - I try to stock up in bulk on these when I see them on sale or at the Amazon bin stores. I like to buy the ones that look like the real thing. If we’re only hosting a couple people, we’ll use real plates and glasses, but for bigger crowds, we go with disposable options. We use real silverware because we got gifted a large set for our wedding + we both had sets from our own homes when we were single.

• Pretty paper napkins - I buy these in bulk in different colors and shapes to always have on hand + we have pretty cloth ones that we use for smaller gatherings

• Coffee - we have a Breville (my siblings gifted it to me when I bought my house as a single woman, and it’s the best housewarming group gift that serves us daily going on six years now!), so we’ll offer our guests coffee, lattes or hot tea (Slavics love hot tea!). Our friends brew their own coffee locally and it also happens to be our favorite (and Daniel and I have tried a lot of different options!). Use code YELENA10 for a 10% discount!

• Multiple seating areas - this time, we added a white folding table next to our dining table to make a giant square, but we often we’ll have just our dining table which has a bench + 4 chairs and if needed, we can fit 1 more plastic folding chair. We also have a counter with three stools that kids like to sit at. On the back porch, we have a table with six chairs where kids also like to go sit. We also don’t mind people eating on the couches or on the floors in our living room - we’re very informal :). This was one of our bigger crowds, so we ate in “shifts” - kids ate first and then went to play while the adults ate.

• Serving:

  • We put out drinks on the countertop

  • We cleared off our coffee bar in the dining room and made it a buffet style serving area; rolls and fish went on the table.

• Centerpieces

  • I ordered these bud vases and picked the last of our summer zinnias

  • In the past I’ve also fruit as centerpieces when flowers weren’t in season

• Tablecloths

  • I recently purged a lot of our tablecloths because I’ve had them since before I got married so they were badly stained, and the ones I ordered from Amazon for this event were too small, so I asked my mom to bring some of her tablecloths (she has so many!).

  • I will be sourcing new ones for us to have on hand for future events

I truly believe we’ve lost the art of hosting for community’s sake - there’s this pressure to “perform” and make things Instagram worthy in a Pinterest perfect new, all white / beige home. But hosting is much more about the fellowship than it is all the other stuff. People will remember how they felt in your home and presence much more than how new or fancy the arrangements or food were.

So many of us today are craving connection - not online, but in person. People to do life with, who we can be ourselves with. To be invited.

In America especially, it feels like so many of us view our homes as purely a place for our families to sleep. Meals are often eaten out or delivered. The majority of our days are spent outside the home in school, work, after school activities, sports, etc. And when we’re home, we’re often looking at individual screens.

Getting together at a coffee shop or at a restaurant to catch up with friends has it’s place and is lovely at times, but there’s something so special about being in each other’s homes, and I hope we bring more of that back into vogue.

I still can’t quite process that I’m 35, which is halfway to 70 🤯 , and it’s got me thinking a lot about what I want my second half of life to look and feel like.

At the top of this list is my health. I’m almost 60 pounds over the top of the healthy range for my height and age, and something’s gotta change if I want the second half of my life to be just as full and active.

Hence my 30 day habits challenge, which we’re now halfway through 🙌 . Part of me is proud of the progress I’ve made and part of me is frustrated.

Here’s a check in (as of August 16, so 16 days into the challenge):

• Walk a mile: 16/16

• Push ups: 14/16

• Reading 10 pages: 14/16

• Reading the Bible: 14/16

• Strength trained 3 times per week (my goal is 3-4 x week).

I’ve failed at tracking my food and macros and not eating after 7 pm. I tracked my food for a few days at the end of July to set a base and intended to keep tracking at least protein and fiber in August, but for me, the food noise in tracking food is so intense. It’s literally all I think about all day.

It’s a familiar roller coaster — the ups and downs of which I’ve lived on for as long as I can remember. The food noise. The obsession over the scale and my appearance. Always thinking I’m too fat, even now in hindsight at my younger self, I LOL at because I was not overweight then.

I had a hard day last week. I was cranky. Short tempered with my kids. Hating my body. Only seeing the things I’m failing at. I would tell you I didn’t know why, since nothing was obviously wrong.

But I knew why. I just didn’t want to admit something so small had such a big impact.

I weighed myself that morning. I was feeling so optimistic that I was hitting my protein goals, walking more, strength training, drinking plenty of water. It was only two weeks in but I thought that for sure I lost at least a pound.

I gained two pounds.

I told myself it’s fine. It’s only a number. Our body weight fluctuates. I’m only four months postpartum, breastfeeding and not sleeping through the night. It’s only been like 2.5 weeks of establishing healthy habits. In my past postpartums, no matter what I did, I couldn’t lose weight while breastfeeding.

Logically, I knew all this.

But that number on the scale sent me spiraling and ruined my entire day. It made me want to quit all the healthy habits I started working on and binge eat.

When you’re doing all the “right things” but not getting the desired results, it’s tempting to quit. To default back to your comfort zone.

But nothing changes if nothing changes.

Our habits and actions mirror our thoughts, identity and values.

We were talking in our group chat for this habits challenge about this quote from Atomic Habits:

“It doesn’t make sense to continue wanting something if you’re not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don’t want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment.”

It’s something I’ve been coming back to as I try once again to establish healthy habits.

Healthy habits aren’t a one time quick hit. It’s a lifestyle. So if you’re not in for the long haul, you might as well get off that train.

That’s why it’s important to make goals and build habits that align with your season and who you want to become, not based on what is working for someone else.

We set goals that don’t align with our values, season or who we want to become and then wonder why we can’t keep up with it longer than a week or two, if that.

But maybe her habits or goals just are not yours. And that’s okay. Admitting this can free up room to discover what you do actually want and what you’re willing to put the work into for the long haul.

That’s how I’ve been trying to frame it for myself every time I’m tempted to throw in the towel because my efforts seem to not be “working” as quickly and obviously as I’d like.

If I think of myself as overweight, I will behave accordingly.

But if I think of myself as someone who is healthy and strong, I will live up to that standard / identity.

I remind myself that, God willing, I want to be strong and healthy enough to play with my kids when they’re teenagers and I’m in my late 40s and early 50s. I want to maintain my mobility and independence and a sharp mind for as long as God gives me life.

But I won’t get there if I don’t make healthy habits part of my identity and daily habits. I won’t become that if I keep quitting when I don’t get short term results.

I must believe that’s who I am and then put in the work.

As the saying goes, “show me your schedule or banking account, and I’ll tell you what your priorities are.” So if you say you want to become a certain type of person or achieve a specific goal, then your schedule, your finances, your daily routines should reflect that.

When I’m tempted to skip my walk or workout, instead of saying “I don’t feel like it” or “I don’t have time,” I’ll say, “Moving my body isn’t important to me.” And that hits different. Because do I really want to become the kind of person who doesn’t move her body daily?!

Get your hopes up that the Lord will establish what you’re working towards

I’ve been writing a lot on Instagram again for single women desiring marriage. And I get pushback every time I encourage single women to get their hopes up. I understand why.

I got my hopes up that I’d lose weight if I built healthier habits. And so far, that isn’t happening.

But what’s the opposite of getting your hopes up? Indifference? Bitterness? Pessimism?

None of those things should be part of a Christians vocabulary and will for sure coat everything you’re working towards in negativity.

If you put your hopes up in any certain result - a spouse, a family of your own, healing, weight loss, financial security - then yes, you will be disappointed if things don’t turn out exactly how you wish they would.

You get your hopes up not in any result but in the One who you’ve entrusted your future, your dreams, your hopes, your anxieties, your goals to. You get your hopes up in God’s character - His faithfulness, His care for our needs, His promises that He is working all things for our good.

Whether it’s seeking marriage, building a business, raising children or getting healthy and strong physically - none of these things are promised or guaranteed to us no matter how hard we try or how many things we do “right.”

But it doesn’t mean we don’t start.

It doesn’t mean we quit when things get hard or the desired results don’t show up as quickly as we hope, or not at all,

I read this on a Substack the other day (and for the life of me cannot find it again, so if you wrote about this, let me know!). Proverbs 16:3 says to commit our work to the Lord and our plans will be established.

The word “commit” here is “galal,” meaning “to roll” - which means if we are committing something to the Lord, we don’t hang on to it and try to make a go of it in our own human effort. We literally move it out of our hands and into the Lord’s hands for Him to establish whatever we’re trying to achieve.

This means that it likely won’t turn out how we think it will. It’s no longer ours to “establish” (which means to “erect, to be firm”). God shapes it to be whatever will be for our good and His glory.

We do the work, He makes it firm. And whatever work He begins, He will complete.

But He also won’t force us into anything. He won’t go where we won’t go. If we grow weary and quit, He will wait for us to return, working in us to strengthen and to renew.

Apostle Paul writes a lot about concepts like renewing your mind, training in godliness and running your race well. Because it’s not about any specific result - it’s about changing our mental narrative to what Christ says about us and then consistently showing up to do what we can do, knowing it won’t be enough but God will fill the gaps and give the increase.

So, that’s how I’m trying to frame the healthy habits I’m trying to build. I picture myself doing a strength training rep or taking a walk and then “rolling” it to the Lord to make it firm, and little by little, these actions will hopefully build a foundation and a lifestyle. Each repetition also shapes what I believe about myself and God.

Even when it doesn’t feel like enough or things don’t turn out how I expect them to, I trust that what I “rolled” to the Lord are safe with Him. He’s at work long after my part in the process is completed.

I must live as if it is done and someday, I’ll see the shape of the final result of what God established with what I committed to Him. Maybe on this side of eternity, maybe not until I get to eternity.

But I know the result is not in my control nor is it any longer my concern.

In the meantime, I keep believing in Him and doing the next thing that is within my control.

I know there’s no “bouncing back” from pregnancy for most women. Even the ones who do go back to close to their pre-pregnancy weight still say their body shape has changed and their body feels foreign to them. Because it’s not really about the weight. It’s part of it, but there is a deeper undercurrent that I don’t feel like is talked about well: the fundamental shift in identity that comes with becoming a mom.

With my first two postpartums, and honestly with all my pregnancies, I go into “just get through this” mode. I picture that someday I’ll be out of it and life and I will feel “normal” again. But it’s been over four years now of either being pregnant or postpartum, and it’s making me realize that with an attitude like that, I’m going to miss out on a good chunk of my life with no guarantee that I’ll ever go back to my pre-babies weight / body / wardrobe.

I’m a bit of a hypocrite here, TBH. I teach single women to live a full life while waiting for and desiring marriage, because you don’t know if you’ll get married in a year, or a decade or not at all. And it would be heart breaking to waste a year, a decade or a life treating your life as a waiting room.

And yet, I slipped into motherhood doing exactly that.

Waiting to wear cute clothes until I lose weight.

Waiting to workout until I wean (only to get pregnant again within a few months and quit, again).

Waiting to be in photos and videos once I lose weight.

Waiting to be feel pretty until I lose weight.

Waiting to build dreams and show up fully in my life until I’m done with pregnancy and breastfeeding (and lose the weight).

But y’all - having a daughter is changing this.

I was walking on the treadmill the other day, baby Naomi strapped to my chest in a carrier and I saw her: freshly postpartum someday, also walking on a treadmill, pelvis aching when you cross the threshold of what your body can reasonably handle at this point, sweat pouring down your back, wondering why this has to be so hard and if it’s even going to make a difference.

Will she hide in oversized clothes and leggings? Will she ask why there are so few photos of mom from their early childhood? Will she be tempted to punish her body with hard exercise, diet pills or diets to bounce back? Will I teach her to comfort herself with food and desserts when she’s having a hard day? Is this the legacy I want to leave her as she grows up watching me?

I don’t want to be a “do as I say, not as I do” mom. But in many ways I am that way today.

Growing up, I never once heard my mom say anything negative about her body, even though she birthed ten kids, nine of them within 12 years, and her body shows the toll. But she always strived to do her hair nice and dress in beautiful clothes.

I know this is my baby decade. When my body’s top priority is to have healthy babies. Some women lose weight in this era, many don’t. But just because I can’t lose weight as quickly or as much as I’d like isn’t a reason to just let myself go.

This body deserves to be dressed in cute clothes even if she’s heavier that she’s ever been and still so squishy postpartum.

Healthy habits, movements, nutrition, consistency, self discipline are important regardless if there is weight loss as a result. Slow progress is still progress.

Logically, I think we all know this. But to live it out? Especially in the era of pregnancy, nursing, postpartum and raising littles? Or when life is stressful and full, or your body is chronically ill?

Yes, we should give ourselves grace, in the postpartum season especially when our bodies are recovering, healing and feeding a baby. But not at the expense of our long-term physical and mental health. Not at the expense of “wasting” a decade, or more!, hiding and watching others live their lives.

Sitting indoors without fresh air and sunshine daily will deplete you.

Sitting and scrolling is bad for our physical and mental health.

Dressing only for comfort and to hide will tank your confidence.

Sitting on the sidelines watching others live their lives and build their dreams will steal your life away.

As I’ve been wrestling with this, I’m realizing how much of this stems from my thoughts and reverting back to who I was pre-babies.

I tell myself I’ve never been able to lose weight in the past, so why would this time be different.

I stare at a closet full of clothes that don’t fit me anymore - not physically and not who I am today - and wonder when I’m going to be able to fit into them again.

I wonder why what used to light me up no longer pulls at me.

I compare my body now to my pre-babies body every time I look in the mirror.

But I think it’s time to close those doors.

To change the narratives.

To dress the body I have now.

To establish new rhythms and habits.

To think and act like the woman I am becoming, not who I was pre-babies.

To be honest, it’s taking a whole lot of brain re-wiring and compassion to believe I can look pretty and dress elegantly even when I’m sleep deprived and 70 pounds over my pre-babies weight.

But I must.

I was reading Psalm 90 the other day that talks about exactly this:

Our days on this earth will always be filled with sorrow, adversity and struggle. There will always be valid reasons to choose to give yourself too much grace and let yourself go; to find comfort in food; to scroll rather than live; to sit rather than move; to give up than get up.

Like the sunflowers in our garden though, the psalmist - acknowledging all of this - turns his gaze to the Lord and asks Him for wisdom to number his days in a way that will show God’s work to his generation and His splendor to be witnessed by His children.

To me, it’s a prayer of surrender, a blank slate, a desire to be used by God in such a way that the result is viewed by spectators of our lives and our children with the only possible explanation for why my life turned out the way it did: “She must have been with God.”

And you know how this unfolds?

It’s the woman who has joy and shows up to do the work of her hands even when her days are filled with adversity, sorrow and struggle.

That’s what the psalmist prays for. To be made glad. For God to establish the work of his hands, even if it’s meager contributions.

God’s splendor won’t be revealed in days spent sitting on a couch scrolling and consuming. God cannot give the increase to something that is never planted or inconsistently watered. He won’t show up where we won’t go ourselves.

There is no joy in a mind caught in a loop of negative thoughts, looking back, like Lot’s wife, at what was instead of moving forward towards what God is calling her to become.

Anxiety, depression, insulin resistance, all the negative physical and mental side effects will rot a body depleted of essential nutrients, high on stress and cortisol, sustained by processed foods and sugars, attached to a screen and alone in her home and her thoughts, stationary, overstimulated by everyone else’s needs 24/7 and stagnant in her vocation.

For so many moms, this is the norm. To be honest, I’ve been living many of these things for the last four years, switching between looking back at who I was pre-babies and dreaming of a day when I can “get my body” back once I’m not pregnant and nursing back to back anymore. Wishing to look and think differently, but not going all in to show up daily to actually do the thing that will get to me to where I want to be.

So many of us are waiting for things to slow down before we build a certain dream.

To be photographed and dress cute once we lose weight.

To eat healthier once life is less stressful or when we’re done nursing or the baby sleeps through the night.

To start a workout program once we finally have “free time.”

To invite someone over when the house looks a certain way.

But none of us are promised tomorrow. This is it. And our kids are watching us. How we live out the hard seasons will teach them so much more than anything we say.

I don’t have answers, just this conviction to start leaning into and living out the woman I’m becoming. Even if I don’t fully yet know who I am becoming.

But I do know she’s someone who keeps promises to herself. Someone who is at peace. Joyful. Present. Seen. Elegant. Disciplined. Faithful to her season.

Honestly, all of those words feel foreign to me still. But it has been immensely helpful to ask myself constantly how the woman I envision becoming behaves and try to think and act accordingly.

I heard someone describe our brain pathways as a well worn path in the woods and when you try to “renew your mind” by building new pathways, your brain will always pull you back towards the well-worn path. Back to who you’ve always been, how you’ve always thought about things. That’s our comfort zone. It’s where we keep going back to our pre-baby self even though having a baby changes you completely - who you were pre-babies no longer fits who you are now in every aspect of life.

August habit challenge

I’ve been watching 75 hard / soft Youtube videos and it feels like I need something like that as a “jump start” to re-wire my brain pathways. Being so early postpartum though isn’t a good fit for 75 hard/soft, so I’m going to make up my own 31 day challenge for August that loosely follows 75 hard. Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Walk 2 miles a day (movement) - I don’t have an apple watch or pedometer to do a step goal right now

• 50 push ups (strength)

• Calorie / macro goals & no food after 7 pm (nutrition)

• Quiet time in the Word and prayer, even if it’s 5-10 minutes (spiritual health)

• Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book (personal dev)

• Progress photos weekly (every Sunday)

75 hard also does an outdoor workout (too hot & humid in the Midwest right now, but I do want to prioritize getting outside daily) + a water intake goal (I do well on drinking a lot of water since I’m nursing, so I won’t be tracking this for myself).

Here’s a link to the WhatsApp group chat if you’d like to join — I posted this on my Instagram and have had 19 women opt in so far, which I’m excited about because I do way better if I have friends holding me accountable.

We’ll officially start August 1, but I find that doing a practice run for a few days beforehand helps work out any kinks and figure out what is sustainable for your season - you want something that’s going to be a challenge, but also realistic for your season. For example, if you don’t exercise at all, going from 0 to 45 minute daily workouts probably isn’t going to stick. When I ease back into working out, I usually shoot for 10 minutes, 3-4 times a week and that’s more likely to happen than working out for 45 min every day.

I did buy a postpartum strength workout program that I want to stick to in the next 6 weeks, but it’s not on my August challenge tracker since at this point, committing to do strength training daily isn’t realistic, but I can walk on my walking pad daily since I work 5 days out of 7 anyways and my walking pad is right under my desk.

You can use my challenge habits, or come up with your own for each of the categories (movement, strength, nutrition, spiritual health, personal development, hydration and outdoors).

In today’s world, we are constantly influenced — by ads, algorithms, influencers — until our houses, closets, hair, lifestyles all kind of start to look alike. Before you know it, your POV isn’t really yours, it’s whoever influenced you most lately.

The truth is, I started to emulate other people’s POV long before social media came around. As an eight year old immigrant in the U.S., I quickly learned you didn’t want to stand out as the foreigner in the crowd. So I began observing, noticing, mimicking.

As a result, I never go first. I wait for someone else to make a move and then I fit in under that.

At restaurants, I wait to see what my co-workers will order before I pick what to eat.

I gauge every room I walk into and adjust accordingly as not to stand out too much.

I have great ideas at work, but I often wait to voice them. When someone else mentions it, I deflate like a balloon, because it feels like a personal loss. Like the opportunity could have been mine if I had the courage to go first.

I’m in my mid-thirties (!!!) and it feels like I’m only now truly developing my own POV. Or more accurately — I am only now refining and owning my POV, even if others don’t agree or like it. Because I do know what I like, I always have. I’ve just held back, played small, adapted to the room.

I just finished listening to this podcast with Paige Lorenze where Paige shared how she’s always had a strong POV and how the brands she created represent her “world”: a mix of her background in competitive skiing, her tennis fiancé, her love for living in the countryside, horse riding, etc.

Her brand is called Dairy Boy, which came from when she had a moment of realization that she didn’t like oat milk in her coffee — she was just choosing that because it’s what all the other girls were doing and bashing on real milk was “cool.” She posted on her Instagram that she was choosing whole milk now and called it “dairy girl summer”; her DMs blew up with girls excited to drink whole milk.

From there, she built a “world” that she invited her followers into. A place where a woman can be a girl boss, have chickens, and go to the US Open. Her goal is always to tell a story. Her story.

Which got me thinking: what is my “world”? What unique things make up my POV?

Because there is literally no one else in the world with my exact POV — the unique combination of traits, experiences, beliefs, views, dreams, etc. that make me who I am.

This feels scary to answer, because it means I have to go first. It means being different. And if you have a strong POV, it’s likely going to offend someone, especially in today’s online culture where you can post that you like oranges and get bombarded with messages from people you don’t know about how you’re not appreciating all the other fruits 🤯

When I think of a POV, there’s two parts: the things that made you, you + how you view the world.

I was raised in a Slavic, immigrant community. That shapes my view. There’s no way I can cut that out of POV.

But I can shape how I view the world. I often look out at our back yard and marvel at how beautiful it is — that it’s truly a haven surrounded by woods, hence the name, Havenwood. But sometimes the thought creeps in: yes, but it’s not the rolling hills of farmland we’re dreaming of. We’ve all heard that comparison steals your joy. But comparison also takes a fat marker to your POV and draws all over it until you can’t even tell what the view was in the beginning.

I’ve been trying to peel back the layers of marker on my POV. To show the true original. Standing alone, not held up in comparison to someone else’s POV. Fully seen, not parts hidden or adapted to fit the room or audience.

What do I really believe? What lights me up? What am I curious about?

Do I want this because I like it, or because someone told me I should like it?

Is this my dream, or someone else’s dream?

If someone were to create a TV show about my life, what would be the storyline? Would I like what I see?

Does how I spend my time, my money and my days align with the life I want to live?

Who or what is influencing my POV?

Before I got pregnant and sick, I filmed a few vlogs of our daily life. And it was transformational, because it forced me to view my daily life through a creative lens. I really wanted to capture the moments of our season today to look back on someday, which meant looking for the specialness of ordinary moments.

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I challenge you to try it. You don’t have to post or share the vlog. It could be for your family alone. And don’t be quick to downplay that your days are too boring or ordinary — and don’t you dare compare what you see, your POV, with someone else’s. Train your eyes to notice the story you’re living out. Not the fact that you have oak kitchen cabinets and she has pretty cream ones. But how the evening light hits your kitchen floor and the feel of making a meal from scratch.

This exercise may fill you with gratitude. Or it may show you that your POV needs an adjustment because the life you’re living isn’t quite aligned with who you’re becoming.

That’s something I realized when I was filming vlogs — I tended to film and show the more homesteading moments, and although that is a part of our life here in the country, it’s not yet authentic to me. Homesteading is not my one thing. I love the lifestyle of country living, but as of now, homesteading is not the thing that brings me joy or fills my days — my husband is definitely the homesteader of the two of us, but I’m learning!

To be fair, it’s hard to capture many parts of our life in a vlog — like my corporate job, our singles ministry work since it’s sporadic in this season, and the more private moments of our family life since we don’t really want to show our kids on the internet too much. All of these things, though, are major pillars of our story.

Social media tricks us into believing that our stories and lives are boring. But so much of the content I like and consume online is women talking about and showing how they live their daily lives. The day in the life and the vlogs. They’re cooking, cleaning, putting their makeup on. Ordinary things, but their unique POV is what captures someone’s interest.

Your life isn’t boring. Maybe you just lack a POV. Maybe your life is missing, well, you?

Legacies aren’t built by people trying to keep up with the Joneses (or influencers, in our day and age!). They’re built by those who choose to forge their own path, exploring something that lights them up and mastering the things God uniquely equipped them to do.

So, what’s my story? My POV?

I’m still figuring it out, but if I zoom out in this moment, the story pitch would probably be (read this in a narrator’s voice — you know, like the ones at the beginning of a movie that sets the stage? ☺️):

Okay, it’s cheesy, I know. But I’m finding this exercise surprisingly grounding — it’s like a legit POV: my literal life views right now — the kids, the corporate job, the homestead, the seed business, the writing ministry — and the intrigue of whether what we dream about will come to be, and who I’ll become as we build all these things.

Because whenever you build something, there’s a temptation to find out how others built what they have, especially in your industry or profession. This can be helpful. But it can also make it tempting to replicate what’s already been done instead of finding a new path — perhaps a path better suited for you and what you envision.

Something that has always been a guiding thought for me is standing before God one day and seeing all the things that could have been. I don’t actually know if this is how it’s going to be, but what if we will see all the potential we left on the table by playing small and forgetting how mighty our God is?

I don’t want to get to the end of my days and realize I missed out on all that God had for me because I was busy imitating someone else’s POV, influenced to spend my time and resources on things that don’t align with the vision God has given me for my life, and building off of how “it’s always been done” instead of in the wisdom and abilities God has given me.

I’ll leave you with this exercise pulled from Lindsay’s Substack with her takeaways on that podcast episode with Paige:

To be honest, I’m still figuring out the words that would describe our world, but working theory? Faith, family, country living, legacy, building generational wealth…That about sums it up, I think!

What’s the words that describe your POV?

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P.S. If you need more clarifying questions to figure out your POV, I recommend either this seasons guide or this date night guide if you want to have this conversation with your fiance or husband 🤎

In college, I worked as a receptionist for a local car dealership. I’d work the late afternoon / evening shift and Saturdays. Since the evening shifts are usually slow, I’d spend most of my time studying…and dreaming up my personal styling business. This was 2010-2011 when fashion blogs were taking off like hot cakes. Of course, I also started a fashion blog, dreaming of a career in fashion while choosing a more practical college major in business.

I still vividly remember the business cards I made. The headshot I included was the one time in my life I was growing out cross bangs (they’re not a good look for me!) and a red scarf around my neck.

One of the gals who worked at the dealership spotted me working on my business cards and asked if I’d help her find some cute work clothes to fit her postpartum body. We went to Marshall’s and found her some cute top and slacks. She offered to pay me but I declined, saying I just wanted the experience to “build up my business.”

But I never did. I didn’t tell anyone I wanted to do this. Years later, I threw away the entire box of the business cards that never saw the light of day.

In college, a scholarship I received required me to minor in entrepreneurship. One of the entrepreneurship classes required us to carry a journal the entire semester and write down ideas for needs we saw in our daily life and business ideas to address those needs.

I loved that assignment. I filled an entire red mini notebook with ideas. It was like making a Christmas wish list.

Over the years, my creative and business ideas have settled into variations of the same few ideas. I daydream often about them. Claude and I have designed every inch of them. There have been logos made and branding packages assembled.

I love reading about building businesses and brands — my bookshelves are full of books like this, it’s my favorite type of podcast to listen to and I’ve bookmarked so many articles relevant to each type of business I dream of building.

Every single time, I stop just short of actually starting. I don’t execute.

I wrote an entire book back in 2019. The manuscript is gathering dust on my bookshelves. I sent one query letter about it to an agent even though I have the entire query packet drafted. To be fair, I did end up extracting parts of the manuscript and turned it into a devotional instead that I did publish.

The reasons always sound legitimate. Not the season for it. Babies. Pregnancies. Finances. Too many good ideas, so it’s hard to pick just one.

But also, I do love my corporate job. I don’t want to quit it. It is an amazing job for a mom with flexibility and working remotely + doing work I am skilled at and enjoy doing. We’re also living off my salary while we build and invest in the seed house right now.

Between the full time job, three kids four and under, three months postpartum, building a family business — on paper, saying it’s not the season is a fair reason.

But I know it’s an excuse.

Because my screen time on my phone will tell you I have much time to scroll. To choose consuming over creating.

I look at women who started building blogs and brands years ago. Some of them I’ve been following since high school. And each time, like a blast of cold air that hits you in the face when you open a door in the Midwest summer humidity, I’m struck by the same thought:

They’re where they are now because they started the thing and didn’t stop.

They kept creating and building, year after year. Pivoting, adjusting, growing families — through it all, they kept showing up to do the thing they wanted to build. And then I wonder where I would be if I hadn’t been put my ideas down right at the start line; if i had built my own thing alongside them, instead of just consuming what they were creating.

Because the time will pass anyways.

And the little by little does add up. I may only have 1-2 “spare” hours most weeks, but it’s enough to build something in the margins. Instead, I spend that time consuming what others are building and “researching” by strategizing the same things with Claude over and over again.

Lately, I keep coming back to this vision: a pile of Legos. A random collection of pieces, mine to build whatever I want with. I can change my mind. I can break it down and re-build anytime. The shape of what I build may change from season to season.

But I must use up every piece in the end.

So when I get to heaven, I can truly say that I’ve used up everything He’s given me for His glory and in service to others. Even the odd pieces that didn’t seem to fit well in anything I tried to build, were still used in the end. Maybe the final structure looks odd to others with the random misfit pieces here and there, but that’s okay, it is mine to build as God gives me wisdom and resources to do.

It doesn’t matter if someone next to me has more pieces to work with or if they arrange their pieces “better” than I do. Or if someone gets to build with magna-tiles instead so their production looks “prettier.”

“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” — Proverbs 12:1

Even with my life at full capacity in this season of raising littles, building a family business and working full time, I know there are still Lego pieces in front of me that I’ve either laid down over the years or haven’t touched at all. I’ll take the pieces into my hands, maybe even start to add them to my structure, but then every single time, I’ll put them back down. Sometimes, I may even hide them under the rug, just so I don’t feel bad for not doing the thing I know I should be cultivating.

Not because of lack of capacity, but because I’m afraid.

Afraid of being seen. Being judged. Failing.

Building something of my own, to me, feels like the most vulnerable thing to do.

I know this reads like an introduction to announce that this time I’m going to actually build the thing, but no, not yet. I say it’s because I don’t know which idea to start with. And it’s partially true.

The truth is, only you and God know how many and what type of pieces you’re been given to build with. It is God who gives us the wisdom to know what to build and how to best deploy the resources you’ve been given, including the discernment to know what pieces may have to wait for another season.

But the execution? That’s all on us. God provides the resources, the vision, the wisdom, and He gives the increase to whatever we end up putting our hand to. But He gives us free will to start. That choice lies with us.

For me right now, the thing holding me back most — more than all the fears — is decision paralysis. Which pieces do I pick up right now? My limited capacity puts even more pressure — if only have a few hours here and there to use right now, where is the best place to invest these precious few hours? Where is the most ROI? What exact tiny seeds and small steps now will help build towards the bigger vision in a later season?

In his book, “Master of One,” Jordan Raynor, talks about the importance of experimentation to figure out your “one thing.” He says that to see where God gives the most increase you have to actually go plant something. You won’t know the true potential and ROI until you actually go plant and cultivate what you’ve planted:

“Just like a crop, the miracle of divine multiplication is not seen overnight. But week by week, month by month, you should begin to see your seeds sprout, your sprouts blossom, and, over time, your blossoms produce fruit at a rate that can only be explained by the grace of God.

Once you’ve found the soil that appears most likely to produce that kind of fruit, steward it well by pouring all you have into it. It wouldn’t make much sense if, after viewing the fruits of the initial sowing, the farmer in Jesus’s parable chose to sow more seeds along the path, on the rocky soil, and in the thorns.

After reaping the fruits of the good soil, any wise and responsible farmer would focus intensely on cultivating the most productive plot of land.”

Nothing will grow if you don’t start and keep tending to what you’ve started, even when no one is reading your work or the sales don’t come. You can always stop, put something down or pivot if the season calls for it or you find something more fruitful to invest your efforts in.

But even knowing all of this, I still struggle to start and to keep working on what I do start that I know has been given to me to cultivate. And that’s on me 🤷‍♀️

If you enjoyed this, here are two essays of a similar vein (because clearly this is an ongoing problem for me).

I shared some photos of our fescue harvest this year in my family’s group chat with the words: “Worst year ever for fescue but at least the kids are having fun.”

Because when you look at the photos, the kids are having the best time. They don’t mind the humid heat or the dust. Catching grasshoppers and pretending to be motorcycles in the seed piles is a pure joy for them.

But as Daniel and I look at this year’s small fescue seed piles, we have to remain optimistic that next year will be “the year.”

Our first fescue harvest, just two months after we closed on the seed house, fescue prices were low, but the barn filled up. It was an average year.

The second year started extremely wet and pollination issues kept seed quality below average. The piles didn’t get near as big.

This summer, our third fescue season, it’s basically another “reset” year for fescue seed in Missouri. Spring came early and everything greened up. Then a late freeze really put a hammer to everything. The crop just didn’t recover.

To make things a little tougher, fuel prices and rain kept many combines out of the field. We keep getting a couple inches of rain every few days. Most years, there’s a 2-3 week window to cut fescue, but this year, we’ve had 3.5 sunny days in June for farmers to attempt harvesting fescue.

As anyone who works in agriculture will tell you, we work at the mercy of the weather. A good weather season can make you; a dry or wet season can break you.

A second “bad” weather year in a row for a new to us ag business is rough, but I know we’ll make it. Like all markets, what goes down, must come up. God will see us through this — after all, the Bible is full of empty years followed by abundant harvests.

Daniel’s also built up a growing stream of revenue selling feed and seed, which has been an unexpected but a blessing when you buy a business that isn’t doing what it’s made to do because of factors outside of our control. He’s a wise man with a strong work ethic and big dreams, so with him leading the business, we’ll build this business well, but as much as we hate to admit it: it will take time.

This is not where we thought we’d be in year three of owning this business. And it’s taking a lot of hard conversations and prayer to recalibrate our business plan, finances, dreams.

Living in the day and age that we do, there’s this expectation to grow and succeed fast. To have the picture perfect family, custom home, and a million dollar business by age 30.

People post themselves having these things, seemingly overnight, all the time on social media, even people I know personally who I’m pretty sure don’t make more money than we do and yet have nicer houses, clothes, vacations and cars than we do. I know the answer is likely debt and/or help from their parents (who likely spent a lifetime building what they have and justifiably want to help their kids start their lives).

Daniel and I grew up with first generation immigrant parents + 11 kids in each family. We were poor. Our parents did the best they could with what they had, and moving to the U.S. was their way of setting us up for a better future and more opportunities than they had.

Even so, Daniel and I (and our siblings, especially the older ones), had to make our own way in a culture and society our parents couldn’t fully understand because it’s not where or how they grew up. College applications, student loans, mortgages, credit cards, corporate careers, investing - we had to figure all of it out for ourselves.

God willing, our kids will have more of a head start in this life with whatever Daniel and I build for them and they’ll look back at their childhood and only remember the good times. They’ll see the joy in the pictures where Daniel and I see the hard years. It’s a privilege to give our kids a carefree childhood and hopefully, a step up to start their adult lives and families of their own someday.

But we want them to know how we did it. How long it took. The value of small beginnings. Why we invested our time and money the way we did. What our parents sacrificed to give us a head start. To equip them to grow, not squander whatever we build in our lifetime for us and for them (it’s why we want them involved in the family business from a young age).

I recently came across a term for this: intellectual capital. The knowledge, stories, and strategies that generated a family’s wealth.

In this video, Buddy Ozanne, a financial advisor, explains that generational wealth is built on three pillars of capital: (1) intellectual capital, (2) human capital: the people necessary to carry wealth across generations and (3) financial capital: the monetary assets passed down. He emphasizes that if one pillar is missing, the wealth cannot be sustained effectively.

To preserve intellectual capital, Ozanne encourages his clients to write “letters of testamentary intent” that include family stories and the history of how the wealth was achieved, ensuring the legacy is understood by future generations. He also has seen success with using video where the patriarch and/or matriarch explain the family’s journey and decision-making process.

I view this Substack as part of our intellectual capital. But not all of our decision making and investments should be shared publicly or online, so I’ve been brainstorming other ways to document our “intellectual capital,” especially now when we’re in the beginning stages of building our family legacy. Photos and videos help capture this, but I love the piece Ozanne mentions about documenting the decision making that built the family’s accomplishments.

To me, the driver of decision making is values. Even if we explain our decision making (our strategy screen questions probably capture our decision making framework best), our kids won’t understand our decisions if they don’t share our values.

We have intentionally chosen a slow and steady pace to build our family legacy. Because we want to build something with deep roots and long lasting. A quiet life working with our hands. Quality over what looks good in photos or is on trend.

Let me illustrate this:

You know what Daniel saw when he looked at this photo?

“Wore the same boots and pair of jeans the third year in a row”

Which isn’t surprising as he prefers quality proven to last and handle hard work. He doesn’t chase trends or live in comparison or competition with anyone else — he knows who he is, what he likes and he’ll wear the same thing all his life. He shows up to do the hard work day after day, year after year, even when the losses are higher than the gains, because he’s dedicated to the bigger vision we have for our family and he knows good things take time.

Just like those boots and jeans we know our family vision is a worthwhile investment that will stand the test of time: faith in God, our marriage & children, health, land, family businesses, generosity, old fashioned skills, marketable skills, hard work, ministry, a hunger to keep learning, community.

That’s what I want our kids to see when they’re grown up and look at these photos. After they note how fun it was to play in those seed piles and drive a tractor with their dad, I hope they notice their dad’s well worn boots and jeans — because they value what we value.

I pray they know that even though we’re building all of this with and for them, life is not about them. Even inheritances are built for God’s glory and in service of others.

I don’t want them (or us!) to gain the world but lose our souls. Which means whatever they inherit from us, like us, they must steward it well, multiply it to the best of their abilities and as God gives them wisdom, and give generously and often.

And the way to do this is to be grounded in your values, laser focused on your God-given vision and keeping your hands and mind busy mastering your vocations (not constantly looking at or keeping up with what your neighbor is building or what everyone else is doing!).

I was talking to my brother about this and he shared something that stuck with me:

“This is how I process all this. I make a list of things that God finds valuable in my life and I make a list of the things that I think are valuable. I compare that to where I spent my time. I then try to keep myself on track and spending time on the things that are most valuable in the eyes of God. Most times it means I spend less time making money or an easy life for myself. That’s the price that I pay to be in ministry and with my family.”

At the end of the day, legacy and generational wealth building is just that: a life long series of decision making based on your value system.

Someday, our kids will grow up and, God willing, they’ll value and treat as important what we as their parents valued and treated as a worthwhile investment of our time and money.

That will make up our legacy and their inheritance.

May they find, in whatever we leave behind, not just what we built, but why we made the decisions we did and Who gave the increase to whatever we sow and cultivate in our lifetimes.

I’m a city girl. Always have been. So are my parents. When I was 15, we moved on to 5 acres and my dad got us chickens and started a garden; but we lived two miles outside city limits so we were minutes from all the big city amenities. At the time, I thought my parents lived “in the country”; until I met my country boy husband and three years after we said “I do,” moved to a rural small lake town. That’s when I saw true country livin’ (you’ve gotta say it with a twang and drop the g at the end).

It felt like stepping into a homesteading vlog and I had to “perform” accordingly to fit the “aesthetic” of a country life.

Until I go to a local event or visit a true homesteader and then I feel like an imposter. It’s like I got the life I was dreaming of, but the woman I saw myself as didn’t quite fit this dream life.

The other day, my husband sent me a $35 million ranch listing. We won’t ever be able to afford it, but it’s the epitome of the classic ranch life. I uploaded the listing to chat gpt and asked what kind of woman lives in a house like this, because whatever this style is, I want to be her 😁

Here’s two of the keywords chat gpt told me to search on Pinterest: “elegant landowner” and “elevated ranch wife.”

As I scrolled Pinterest, my initial reaction was: “that’s definitely not me.”

And then, a thought crossed my mind: “why can’t that be you?”

Well, let me tell you, self, why not: I didn’t grow up this way, we don’t have horses, we don’t even have a ranch yet, I’ll look silly if I dress like that, we don’t own land on that scale yet, I won’t look good in that, I’m not elegant enough to be that, I’m not thin enough to dress like that, I’ll feel like I’m being fake, people will say I’ve changed…. It’s just not who I am.

I was talking to a friend the other day (after she published this on her Substack) about how we live in an era where it’s tempting to build your life and personal style around trending aesthetics (cottage core, coastal grandmother, Nancy meyers, old money, butter mom, etc).

When I got on the “elevated ranch wife” Pinterest algorithm, that’s where I thought I was going: the temptation to make my personal style fit yet another aesthetic.

But instead, I stumbled on something deeper that I can’t stop thinking about:

Someone has to be first.

Some people are born into a certain lifestyle. Others decide they want a certain lifestyle for themselves — and their kids and grandkids — so they become the first to build something of generational influence.

The difference between adopting an aesthetic and being a first is that one is costume and the other is becoming.

I remember sitting in my university classes and feeling so out of place as a first generation college student — like there was a neon sign on me saying I didn’t belong. Surely, someone from the administration would come in any day and tell me i was admitted by mistake and had to leave.

I didn’t come from a family of college graduates or lawyers, and yet, I became a college graduate and a lawyer. It was scary, outside of my comfort zone, difficult, but also life changing, identity shaping and exhilarating.

I got to be first, and this is going to have a generational impact. My parents did the best they could so that us kids could go on to do more. Now I get to do this for my kids.

I’m not a country girl. It’s not what I was born into or exposed to growing up.

But it’s the lifestyle we want for our kids. My in laws moved to the country when my husband was four, and it’s made him into who he is today. Since we moved out here when our kids are little too, they will get to grow up in this lifestyle. It’s going to shape their identity, values, how they dress, everything.

Just because I didn’t grow up that way doesn’t mean I can’t become it or be the first to become & build something different.

But I don’t want to just take on a lifestyle just because it’s how everyone else lives or dresses around me. I want to blend parts of who I was into who I am becoming. Our kids won’t be just American country kids, but country kids raised by parents who are Christians + college graduates + a lawyer + with corporate experience working in the biggest companies in the world + Slavic cultural traditions, etc.

Same with my personal style: I’m not going all in on “elevated ranch wife” (or whatever trending aesthetic catches my eye next) but instead I’m taking pieces of styles I admire and merging them in with what I already like to wear and what works for my body type. It might be a hodgepodge of different styles and not fit into any one type of aesthetic, but it will be me.

But here’s the hard truth of becoming something for the first time: it’s not really in the clothes or the style. That’s the byproduct, the window dressing.

My husband made a comment about how this Ballerina Farm ad embodies elegance and that took me down the rabbit hole of trying to capture what elegance is.

I just read this book on poise and Jennifer Scott actually has a section on a ballerina’s secret to good posture (the BF ad features ballerinas):

1. Loving yourself

2. Confidence

3. Exercise (when you have strong, nimble muscles, posture is easier to maintain)

4. Chin up and neck long

5. Eye contact

Elegance is deeper than outward appearance. It’s a deeply rooted identity. It’s discipline and strength. It’s confidence and poise. An elegant woman is at peace, regardless of circumstances. She is intensely and intentionally focused on her one thing, so she isn’t swayed by passing trends or what others are thinking or doing.

An elegant woman is at home the same as she is outside her home. Her inside matches her outside. Her identity matches her reality. She doesn’t dress up only for special occasions or to fit an aesthetic; her entire life is the occasion.

To me, that sounds a lot like a Godly woman: Peaceful, intentional, steadfast, deeply rooted, disciplined, quiet, gracious, strong, dressed in quality, surpassing in excellence, not envious of others, intensely focused on her vocations, set apart.

That’s who I want to become. It’s not about the taking on an aesthetic or conforming to your surroundings, but thinking and living as who you want to become, even if you’re the first in your family or community to become that.

The other morning, I went on our back porch with a cup of coffee. For years, I’ve been using a steel yeti mug since it keeps my coffee warm longer (moms of littles, ikyk), but lately as I’ve been trying to find small ways to live more elegantly, I’ve switched to using white porcelain mugs we were gifted for our wedding that remind me of fancy hotel cups. It’s a small shift, but it’s elevated my mornings and makes me feel more like the woman I want to become.

As I looked out on our backyard — which is especially lovely right now when everything is a lush green — dressed in linen pants (that I had to order in a much larger size to fit my postpartum body), holding my “hotel” cup of coffee, I found myself with this realisation:

“Wait, I’m already living the countryside life I’ve dreamed about.”

I’ve been pinning images of an English country / ranching lifestyle, and although we may not have a hundred year old stone cottage with wooden beams, 100 acres of rolling hills or a cute historic village to stroll through, reality doesn’t have to look exactly like the online inspiration images to be the dream life.

Your in-progress version of the dream life that lives on your Pinterest board is just as good as the inspiration pins — no, even more lovely, because it is unique to you, your history, your family, your values. This is the building blocks of your family vision.

It’s time to see myself as the woman who fits the lifestyle we envision for our family, even if it doesn’t yet feel like “me.”; to live today as the Godly and elegant woman I am becoming, especially at home when no one but my kids and husband see me (as the saying goes: who we are at home is who we truly are!) and even if I am prone to feel anxious, frumpy and like a bull in a china shop (okay see the problem there? This is what my brain defaults to when I try to put effort into my appearance 😭 - I partially blame legalism for this!).

This isn’t pretending to be someone I’m not. This is living who I’m becoming. This is being the first for what I hope to pass on to my children and their children.

But most of all, I must believe that all the things God says about me as His daughter are true for me. That I am filled with peace that this world can’t give me (TBH, this is so hard with three littles, four and under — the ramp to frantic and overstimulated is a short one these days!). That in His strength, I can discipline my body and keep it under control, keeping the promises I make to myself.

Self development advice may tell me I need to step into an alter ego to become such an a woman. Pinterest will tell me what outfits will make me this kind of woman. But all I really need is Jesus. When I abide in Him, I become as He is.

And as such, I must live as if the work is done, even when it’s very much still in progress. Because He said, “It is finished,” and so it is 🤎

After three babies, I feel like I’m a different woman than I was pre-babies. I’m me, but also somehow not me any more. Each baby has changed me. Clarified my purpose. Shifted my identity. I am more of who I was always supposed to become, but still carrying former parts of me.

I emerge out of each pregnancy feeling like a butterfly emerging out of its cocoon — in the light again, which feels wonderful after a physically and mentally challenging pregnancy, but also dazed and confused about my body and identity — like: who am I now?!

Vocations for moms

You hear a lot of stories of women making big life changes after having a baby — walking away from full time work, starting a blog, starting a business, starting a co-op… interestingly, these big shifts often center around “work” and a call to build something purposeful, often stemming from a desire to positively shape the world their child will grow up in or from noticing a gap that needs to be filled (often for the good of other women, moms or children).

I’m reading “Master of One” by Jordan Raynor and the word he uses for the work God created us to do is “vocation”: “Work or service that you feel uniquely compelled to do, offering deep personal fulfillment. It answers the question, ‘Who am I called to be?’” (Google’s AI definition)

Raynor frames vocation as a two pronged  analysis:

“Nowhere in Scripture does it say to follow your passions or do whatever makes you happy. In fact, in some ways, the Bible says the exact opposite. The Christian life is one characterized primarily by service, pouring our lives out as living sacrifices for the sake of God’s glory and the good of others (see Romans 12:1). The point of work isn’t primarily to make us happy. The point of work is the point of life, summarized by Jesus in Matthew 22: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….Love your neighbor as yourself” (verses 37, 39).”

In short: our vocation is to use our God-given gifts and natural abilities (1) to bring God glory and (2) for the good of others. Raynor describes work being done for God’s glory as anything done masterfully and with excellence (Colossians 3:23-24, Ecclesiastes 9:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31). What I love about this broad definition is that it encompasses it all - motherhood, paid work, ministry, etc.

For some moms, their vocation or their “one thing” becomes the work of a SAHM (for a season), but for others, as Raynor puts it: “plenty of people excel as mothers and fathers while also pursuing mastery at their respective vocations,” as long as you know your personal limits individually and as a family. Raynor has an entire section on the importance of saying “no” to things — even “good” things — that distract you or take away from your “one thing” (e.g., for some women, that can look like saying “no” to paid work).

I’m one of the moms that wants to excel in motherhood and my chosen vocation / paid work. I know I have the capacity and support for both and that I can do both well, at least for now (but doesn’t mean it’s not difficult!).

Each of my three postpartums has shown me that motherhood isn’t meant to push out my vocation, but instead has clarified what my vocation is. With my first baby, on maternity leave, I wrote a course for young Christian women navigating the corporate world; during my second maternity leave, I wrote the Legacy Guide; and this time around, I’ve been writing Instagram carousels to encourage young women waiting and preparing for marriage and brainstorming a newsletter idea for my tax work.

Each time, it felt like the ideas and words were birthed in me. I couldn’t contain them. I couldn’t focus on anything else until I got them out. So that’s what I do as I nurse and during contact naps. I love the time with my babies but I also need to create and write — both things light me up and bring me joy and fulfilment.

I’m honestly kind of envious of women who feel the call to quit their jobs and become full time stay at home moms or who, after becoming a mom, discover the “one thing” they feel called to create. A clean transition to one vocation sounds lovely, but being a multi passionate person, I know deep in my bones that I was created to do both: motherhood and my paid work (tax law OR women’s ministry).

In his book, Raynor says that vocation doesn’t necessarily mean a career or even a profession - it could be wider than that for some people and expressed in different ways in different seasons. For him, it’s entrepreneurship, something he’s mastered in multiple businesses and industries.

That was a lightbulb moment for me, because it’s helping me stop the constant loop of trying to discern if I should go all in on my ministry work with single women? Motherhood? My work in tax?

I’m still noodling on and praying about what my “one thing” is, but I think it’s being a “Framework builder” : building formation frameworks for women navigating the thresholds that will define their lives (Claude helped come up with this sentence - I don’t love it but it’s a solid start to create an umbrella around my vocation).

Equipping single women by providing a framework of how to choose a spouse and how to prepare for the kind of marriage they’re praying for.

Helping younger women navigate the corporate world or their chosen profession.

Offering frameworks for newlyweds and married women who want to say no to what others and society are trying to influence them towards and instead build a family legacy unique to their family vision & values.

In my day job, as a lawyer and a tax risk management specialist, although the people I serve are not just women, it’s the same underlying work: provide frameworks for tax professionals to navigate uncertainty by managing risk and maintaining quality.

Same with my mothering: I want to equip my children with values and “formative frameworks” to help them grow into Godly men and women and productive members of society.

Varying vehicles to express the same “one thing” in different seasons.

Capacity and vocations in seasons

As much as I hate to admit it, I know I can’t do motherhood + my day job + ministry well at the same time. Two of the three is my capacity at any given time. When I go for 3 out of 3, things start to fall apart.

I’m realising this is why I tend to work on ministry & creative projects during my maternity leave: for 3-4 months, I don’t have my paid job to do, so my time is freed up to pour more into motherhood + ministry. In my single season, I worked on mastering my day job + my ministry to younger women.

Awhile back, as I prayed about which 1 or 2 of these things to lay down for a season, I expected the Lord to tell me to quit my day job (it’s what many other moms feel called to, after all, so I expected the same call). But instead, the thing I kept coming back to was laying down, for a season, my creative / ministry work.

As a Christian, it’s tempting to put ministry work as greater value for the kingdom of God than anything other type of work. But in the passage where Paul gives instructions on choosing church elders, those who cannot manage their own household well and do not have the respect of their children are not to be put in church leadership positions.

To me, this means that if you’re going to do ministry to the detriment of your family, you need to lay down the ministry work for a season, get your house in order and then go back in, but at as much of a capacity as you are able without harming your family. To everything there is a season 🤎

The Bible also calls us to provide for our own family and build a quiet life working with our hands, not dependent on anybody.

To be transparent, even if I wanted to quit my day job, I can’t right now. We’ve chosen to live off just my income for now in order to re-invest all the seed house profits back into the business so that we can grow it faster. It’s a decision we made before we bought the seed house — with the way the seed house operates, Daniel wouldn’t be able to keep a corporate day job and work in the seed house.

But also, if we did feel called for me to quit my job or adjust my hours, we’d obey and we’d figure out the finances. It might change the pace at which we build our family legacy, or it may not, but as of now, we don’t feel called to make this decision / lay down my full time job.

I know this is a privilege to make this choice. If you look at the statistics on two income households are in the U.S today, there are a lot of moms who don’t have the option of quitting paid work once they become moms, no matter how much they may feel called to do so.

That’s why I think this framing of “becoming a mom amplifies your desire to excel in your vocation / ‘one thing’” is actually freeing. To me, it expands vocation beyond motherhood or ministry (many Christian circles limit “women’s work” to these).

It takes the focus off the type of work to how we do the work (excellently, as for the Lord) and the impact of the work (in service to / for the good of others) —> the two prongs that make up Raynor’s definition of a “vocation.”

A SAHM can accomplish this equally as can a working mom. A single professional woman can accomplish this as much as much as a full time missionary.

Mastering your vocation

Here’s the second part of this “becoming” journey for moms, if we’re gonna fully apply Raynor’s theory: once you’ve figured out your “one thing,” you’re called to become a master at it. Raynor advises three ways to do this: apprenticeships (direct mentor-protégé relationships and indirect learning), purposeful practice, and deliberate focus.

This means that if part of my one thing is motherhood then I must take on the study of becoming the best mom I can be by learning from older moms in person directly and indirectly (e.g., moms who share online or write books on relevant topics), do the work of mothering daily as for the Lord, and say no to anything that distracts me from my work of mothering (for me personally, the biggest distraction is my phone — I’ve been really convicted of this lately).

Also, as moms, we talk about motherhood a lot, but in addition to asking how we become the best moms we can be, we need to also ask how we can master and excel in being a wife — which feels so hard to do in the season of pregnancy, postpartum and raising littles but it’s so incredibly important and it actually is part of being the best mom you can be to model a Godly marriage for your children!

In my paid work, whether it’s out of necessity to do paid work and/or feeling called to work in a specific profession or industry, it means becoming the best at what I do. As my dad says: “If your job is to mop floors and you’re a Christian; then you must become the best floor washer there is.”

It’s a continual cycle of learning and implementing what you’re learning, with intentional focus.

I’m finding that in this journey of “becoming” , gaining clarity on my vocation as a mom helps ground me by narrowing in on my “purpose” in this season so I can focus on doing, not waffling between people telling me to quit my job to become a SAHM and what I know is best for me and my family.

Took only like 17 years to get here 😂 feels like I’ve been wrestling with the question of “What am I called / created / gifted to do?” since high school! Idk that I have full understanding of my vocation but three postpartums and aging are giving me clarity, but I know it will take another 17 years for this to deepen and take root.

Clarity isn’t always seeing the full picture but seeing parts of the full picture more clearly 🤎

That’s what having each of my babies has been like for me.

Living who you’re becoming

There’s another part of this that I’m still meditating on: the word I’m using right now is “identity” but it doesn’t quite capture it. Because part of becoming is knowing who you’re becoming — not what you do, but who you are, because the latter shapes the former.

Yes, I am a child of God and that is the foundational part of my identity. But something about turning 35 this year and having this baby — maybe because she’s a girl and it’s making me consider how I want her to mirror me? — but it’s making me re-think how I show up for myself, in my home and to the world. Specifically, how I perceive myself — as if my thoughts and mindsets need to catch up with who I am becoming, not who I used to be.

When the butterfly emerges, she must learn to think and act like a butterfly. She’s no longer a caterpillar, nor cocooned in darkness, so she must switch her habits, her actions, her thoughts, etc to match who she is now, not who she was. Most of all, she must learn to use what she has now and fly.

It feels like I’ve spent my entire life aiming for and dreaming of the type of woman I want to become (the vision and definition of which has shifted many times!), but since Naomi was born, it’s like this wake-up call of needing to live like I am her — this woman I dream of becoming. And that this present moment is the dream life. Like this is it, even if it’s in the process of becoming, it’s still real and it’s here.

More on this later, maybe - I’m still untangling it in my mind as I pray through it 🤎

I am so grateful for a healthy baby girl but also so so glad to no longer be pregnant. The mental change for me this time has been wild (in a good way!) - it feels like the brain fog I was in my entire pregnancy dissipated after she was born and I could cry in relief because I was so worried that I’d forever lost the creative part of me.

There’s a trend right now to create reels with the tagline, “strong enough to bear the children and then get back to business.” There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense to me about this saying but chief of them all is something I’ve had to re-learn each postpartum season: there’s no going “back” after having a baby. No matter your “business” — that business isn’t going to be the same post-baby.

I used to think it’s just the first baby that changes you. They call it Matrescence — the physical, emotional, psychological, and hormonal transformation a woman goes through when she becomes a mother. As if it’s a one and done transition.

But each pregnancy and baby changes you on every level — physically, mentally, spiritually. It’s like etchings in the cliffs where the water has made permanent marks of its presence. Even if you go back to your pre-pregnancy weight, your body — and you as a human — are truly not the same as before.

Btw — I put together a collection of my essays on the postpartum season here. I’ll be re-reading them myself again this time around!

Every postpartum, I walk into my closet excited to wear real clothes again but it feels like I’m standing in a stranger’s closet. I recognize the clothes. There are memories attached with each item. But I’ve changed since I wore them last. Part of it is the weight gain, yes, but it’s deeper than that. An identity shift that you can’t quite articulate or explain. You can’t quite go back but you also don’t quite know who you are now either.

Even noticing your reflection in the mirror as you pass by jolts you in surprise. It’s you, but also who is that looking back? Gone is the baby bump, and you do feel lighter, but you still look pregnant (and likely still swollen from delivery).

So I won’t fight it this time. I won’t try to “bounce back” or fit myself into a pre-pregnancy version of myself. Third time in, I know now that this is futile.

Instead, I need to discover who I am now. Parts of old me will re-emerge, but other parts will be replaced with something new.

That’s one thing I didn’t fully understand and wasn’t taught about marriage and becoming a mom: you don’t fit the new addition into your current life; you figure out how to build something new from the ground up.

When a couple gets married, they don’t just “merge” their lives, you have to lay it all out from both sides and then together determine what you want to pick back up, what’s going to be left aside for a season or permanently, and what new things you’re going to add. This includes everything — habits, dreams, routines, finances, work, ministry, etc. But that conversation can’t happen without first sketching out a vision and values for your family — who do you want to become as individuals and a family & what do you want to build individually and as a family?

It’s why we created the Dating Guide for dating couples and the Legacy Guide for engaged & married couples.

It’s the same thing with adding a baby to your family. Instead of spending the fourth trimester — or better yet the first year postpartum! — trying to bounce back or “get back to business” (whatever that means!), I’m learning that the better thing is to lay it all down and re-evaluate what the next season looks like for our family with the new addition. Because it’s not about making her fit into our current lives but building a life that is hers too.

They say that working moms are the most efficient employees and I firmly believe that — a baby changes your priorities and you get so much more done in less time than pre-baby. So, as we add Naomi to our family, I’ve been thinking about the big picture impact: what’s staying? What has to to? What has to change? What will I invest my limited time into this season?

Practically, here’s how I’m thinking about this:

Implementing my own “mother’s rule of life”

I read “A Mother’s Rule of Life” while I was pregnant and I want to start implementing the systems in this book. The author frames her system into five “Ps” of married life / five priorities of the married vocation in order of importance:

1. Prayer (spiritual disciplines for yourself and your family)

2. Person (your & your family’s physical / mental / emotional health)

3. Partner (marriage)

4. Parent (kids)

5. Provider (work — domestic and paid)

She then develops daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms and routines to intentionally plan to make room for each of these 5 priorities.

I want to apply this framework to our own family rhythms so that we’re living more intentionally and not just letting our days past us by without focusing on what truly matters to our family and what we want to build long term. Because it’s the little things we do daily that build our legacy.

Btw: I highly recommend this book — Although it’s geared to stay at home moms, there’s still plenty of practical takeaways for working moms too.

Prayerfully decide what to lay down and what to invest my time in during this season of life

This is especially relevant to my “extra-curricular” activities and things outside of the 5 Ps: for me, that’s mostly my creative and writing projects + how I spend my time online (ahem, less scrolling and consuming content. While I was pregnant, scrolling and television/youtube became my mental escape from the hard pregnancy and I need a major detox from screens now!). I may share later what I think I’ll be laying down for a season in terms of creative projects, but it’s still something I’m praying about.

I tend to chase “shiny objects” when it comes to writing and creative ideas, so I also want to create specific guard rails of what I want to invest my creative energy and writing into when I do have a few minutes to write.

This is especially frustrating for me because I find that my creativity peaks postpartum! Especially this time, after a pregnancy that drained all my creativity and words, having ideas and words flowing in my mind again is so exciting and I want to do all the things, but I know in this season, I cannot, so I shall attempt to prioritize 😔

Re-evaluate how our household operates

This one is likely a follow up to #1 & #2 above but are there any responsibilities Daniel and I need to shift? What can be automated or outsourced?

For example, I think it may be time to hire someone to deep cleaning occasionally - as much as I hate to spend money on it, at least postpartum, this one is a difficult one to make time for and seeing the pile up of deep cleaning tasks feels like mental clutter for me!

Journaling and silence

Since this pregnancy made me feel like I have nothing to share or write about, I’ve tried to will myself back into writing by just writing whatever is on my mind into private notes. It’s actually been a good exercise for me so I want to keep doing this to help reveal where my mind and heart are leaning in this phase of personal re-discovery. But to truly be effective, this requires quieting down the outside noise and influence!

I’ll actually be working through this workbook to figure out some of this!

Wardrobe / personal style revamp

I’m re-visiting this post I wrote postpartum last time to see what still resonates. For now though, we’re heading into a humid and hot summer and as I focus on establishing my milk supply, I know my weight won’t budge so I’ll live in the few stretchy & light summer dresses I wore postpartum last time + I ordered shorts in a bigger size. Come fall, I’ll re-evaluate the rest of my wardrobe. Not gonna lie, the thought of dressing this overweight postpartum body makes me want to cry.

What a positive note to leave things on, but the postpartum body image struggle is real 😏

Before I sign off, a few other postpartum things I wanted to share:

— I’m taking these drops and these drops in my water daily and feel like it’s made a huge difference in helping manage the postpartum hormonal rollercoaster and keeping me mentally stable!

— These nursing bralettes are so soft and 100% cotton. By far the best ones I’ve tried + affordable!

— This Substack resonated with me. Postpartum support from your spouse looks so different when you have other kids. This is also our first postpartum when Daniel has gotten no paternity leave (downside of being a business owner in a start up stage that requires you to be present in the store to make money), so that’s also added a different facet to our postpartum this time around. My mom stayed with us for a week this time, we still have our amazing nanny during the work day and our church set up a meal train so we have had so much support, which we’re grateful for since it allows me to rest & recover + for Daniel to keep focusing on growing the business and taking care of the home & our boys when he’s home.

Until next time!

That thought settled over me heavily this morning, especially since the 18-24 month stage is truly a golden time, so to think of potentially not having another little boy wear these clothes in a few years is a lot to process.

The nesting mode in me would love to tackle more, but after hosting family over for supper last night, my energy is pretty low today. I’ve also been trying to tell myself to rest in preparation for labor and delivery, but me being me, it’s really hard to do.

I’ve been wrestling with (and maybe trying to avoid?!) a convicting thought lately: a Truth I know is from the Holy Spirit, but honestly, I’d rather not face it head on. It’s like when you know you have to go through something to get to the other side, but you eye every possible detour and workaround, or stand still asking God for a sign - preferably something new and shiny, just to avoid doing the thing.

Actually, that sounds exactly like what I’m facing right now as I think about labor and delivery coming up :) I know I need to go through it, but also will happily distract myself to not think about it.

I have about an hour commute to my OBGYN appointments (a downside of rural living), so that’s when I usually catch up on podcasts. My most recent listen was episode 35 of the My Southern Godmother podcast (a podcast where Jena interviews an older woman Debbie about her life lessons and stories), where Debbie shared a time when she and her husband heard a sermon from a guest preacher about praying the prayer: “Here I am Lord, send us.”

In faith, they listed their house for sale, expecting the Lord to send them into the mission field. After some time, the house went under contract, but right before closing, the buyer backed out and their house didn’t sell. In the end, the mission field came to their front door when Debbie reached out to an old friend - a single mom in a different state who was going through a hard time. The single mom ended up coming to visit Debbie in Nashville, accepted Christ as her savior and even moved to Nashville.

Because many times, the answer to the prayer “Lord, here I am, send me” is to go home and steward the things you’re already doing, consistently and faithfully.

When I get the itch to do something new or grand, I think of the story of the man with a demon that Jesus healed in Luke 8:26-39. You know the one about the pigs running into the water after Jesus cast the demon out of the man and into the pigs? Once he was set free, the man begged to go with Jesus - at this point, we know many people followed Jesus from city to city, including the apostles and the woman who followed Jesus (Luke 8:1-3).

In Christian circles, to go out into the mission field is often ranked as the highest and best thing a believer can do.

But in this story, Jesus tells the man to go home:

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you” (Luke 8:39).

As I drove the winding country roads - a perfect, sunny spring day outside - and listened to Debbie’s story, I too felt the urge to pray the same prayer, “Here I am Lord, send me.”

There wasn’t some grand epiphany or new “calling” in the weeks that followed. Maybe it’s too early and it will come later, I don’t know.

But what I do know is that in the days since, I’ve been hearing the same quiet message: “You already know what to do.“

Because the problem often isn’t that we don’t know what the Lord would have us do - it’s that we’re either distracted by / coveting what others are doing and thus desiring something new and shiny beyond our sphere of influence or we’re scared to go all in.

In John 21, Jesus and Peter are walking by the sea when Jesus gives Peter his assignment and tells him what his future holds: “Feed my sheep.” In response, Peter looks back at John walking behind them and asks, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus’s response is direct: “…what is that to you? You must follow me.”

I know the scrolling and consuming of all the content online - no matter how “good” or inspirational it is - is a thief of what I’m supposed to be tending to. As Lisa Bevere put it in this podcast episode,

“We consume so much and yet we do so little. And when you consume so much and do so little, you get spiritually overweight. You have so much that is on you that has never reached in you.”

You cannot do what God is asking of you - you cannot follow Him - when you are spiritually, physically and mentally sluggish, overweight, burdened down, distracted.

We’ll use all the excuses to dress it up as something other than mental and visual gluttony.

We call it decompressing. Inspiration. Keeping up with friends. Learning.

But really, it’s a version of, “Lord, what about her?”

Lately when I’ve been scrolling social media, the phrase I keep hearing in my mind on repeat?

“I don’t need to know this.”

I didn’t need to know there was a police shooting and an armed shooter on the loose in a nearby city.

I didn’t need to know about the couple shot in their home in another state.

I didn’t need to know the new things that influencer purchased (or was gifted).

I didn’t need to know that influencer’s opinion on that baby product or parenting choices.

I don’t need to see so much of other people’s homes, marriages, daily lives.

I saw a clip of an actor on a late night show saying he deleted Instagram after seeing someone post a photo of the view from Mt. Everest.

“I shouldn’t know what the view from Mt. Everest looks like. I didn’t put it the work. I didn’t do the training. People have died trying to get to that point. And I just open my phone and it’s there and I can’t ever unsee it.”

That’s a paraphrase but it resonated with me.

We weren’t made to see so much of other people’s lives, home, stuff, relationships, accomplishments.

The fruit of that is rarely life giving.

Yes, there may be some inspiration or helpful knowledge gained.

But more often, it yields comparison, judgement, envy, insecurity, fear, and most of all: it makes us mentally and spiritually overweight.

It’s getting the dopamine hit of someone else’s accomplishment.

And when the time comes to build your own thing — after looking at someone else’s shiny new build — yours becomes too small, not shiny enough, too slow. That’s even if you start to build something of your own; most people don’t nowadays, we just kind of drift along with the current and accept that this is our lot in life.

But what if it’s not the lack of time or resources or money or opportunity but because you’ve already “scored the high”?

There’s just no capacity to dream up or build something of your own. You’re already full.

You get to see the view from the end of the climb with zero effort on your part.

We consume so much of other people’s opinions, lives, trauma, accomplishments, that we leave no room for our own opinions, dreams, lives or accomplishments.

The parable of the talents is a core anchor for me, maybe because it’s a reminder I need often: use and multiply what you already have, whether a lot or a little.

In the parable of the talents, fear is what made the servant bury his talents. As a result, he lost everything.

Because if I’m honest, if I obeyed God’s call to follow Him and do what I know I need to do, I’d start with closing down all the tabs, all the social media apps, all the entertainment and distractions, but once I cleared up that space in my mind, my soul, my days, I’d need to do the thing: my version of “feeding the sheep” and “returning to my home, and declaring how much God has done for me.”

That’s where the fear lives. Fear of what people will think. Fear of looking dumb or being cringe. Fear of failure.

The distraction of social media and entertainment do a decent job of covering the fear up. It convinces me that it’s not fear or disobedience - it’s just that I don’t have capacity, time or resources right now. It’s not the season.

But even in full seasons, the little by little adds up. When you’re faithful with doing what you can with what you have, God gives the increase and somehow what felt like scraps yields a bountiful harvest.

If I did a tiny bit at a time to build that dream, imagine what it could be ten years from now. The time will pass anyway.

Here’s another one of my stumbling blocks (….let’s be real and call it disobedience, actually!): inconsistency. I tend to put things down and pick them up. Tinker a little. Dream. Create. But then I put it back on the shelf. Start something new.

Even when I know what God would have me do is to keep coming back and working on the thing. Even when the fear feels real, or the time is limited, or I don’t feel like it, or there are shinier temptations out my window. Even when it feels like it’s taking too long or that no one cares or it’s not making a difference.

So, ya, maybe we do know what God would have us do. We just don’t do it. Or don’t do it consistently enough…

This weekend, we decided to skip a family gathering and catch up on chores at home.

But that’s most of our weekends - with a growing business and working full-time during the week, weekends become the time to catch up on taking care of our homestead and find pockets of time to rest before the work week begins again.

To be honest, that made me feel so guilty and I had major FOMO, but at the end of the day, I know it was the right decision. My sisters were visiting last weekend from our town and my entire family did a park day Saturday afternoon (my family lives 1.5 hours away from us). I saw one of my sisters who was in town on Thursday when we did a zoo day with our kids. But I also thought it was a good idea to go to Costco alone on the same day, after a doctor’s appointment and taking two toddlers to the zoo when it’s 80 degrees. And then driving back home 1.5 hours.

Our nanny came to the zoo with us and watched the boys at my parents house while I went to Costco, but I still came home aching and started having pretty intense contractions. I thought for sure I’d go into labor that night, but the contractions stopped around 1 am.

So when Saturday came around, I had zero energy left in me to make the 1.5 drive down to chase toddlers in 90 degrees.

Since getting married and starting our own family, one of the areas I’ve needed healing and growth in is drawing boundaries with my family. We’re all close and tend to gather a lot. Living nine hours away in a different state the first three years of our marriage helped a bit, but even so, I still fight the guilt of not being present for every family gathering, birthday, celebration, brunch, etc.

As the eldest daughter, I grew up carrying the responsibility of helping my parents and younger siblings. Six of my siblings got married and started their families before me, so as the single one, I had the flexibility to step in and help and be present for many of my siblings’ milestones.

But something changes when you start a family of your own and boundaries have to be drawn. As important as extended family is, there will be times when you need to choose your own family over extended family. Even if others don’t get your decision.

That’s something I’m grateful my husband does well and I’ve had to lean on him to help me maintain the boundaries, especially when my guilt and FOMO kick in and I feel like I can’t say no to my mom or a sibling even when I know saying yes will be detrimental to my own family or my mental or physical health.

Right now, I can feel my body preparing for labor and I know I need to rest to prepare for what is ahead. I have bursts of nesting energy, but at this point in the third trimester, I have maybe 20 minutes in me before my body aches in painful protest. So, I make a mad dash to clean or organize whatever corner of the house caught my attention and then collapse into the recliner to rest my swollen feet.

Since we met, Daniel has spoken often of how much he loves his leather recliner. It’s the one piece that survived. When we first got married, I convinced him to sell his two mismatched leather sofas to get a gray sectional. We compromised and kept the leather recliner, but it got moved from the living room to the nursery. Since then, it’s become the chair where I’ve spent hundreds of hours nursing and holding fussy and sleepy babies.

We recently replaced that gray sectional with leather sofas, but matching ones this time. And got another leather recliner. Ironically, I spend more time in that recliner than Daniel does - mostly because he’s a gentleman and gives me first dibs on the recliner because turns out it’s been the best thing for accommodating my pregnant body and two toddler boys who as soon as they see mom sit down, crawl up on either side asking to cuddle, or read a book, or watch videos of their cousins on my phone.

We’ve spent a lot of hours in this recliner, even though it’s new to our home. The “old” leather recliner still sits in the nursery, waiting to rock another baby soon.

Part of me is so ready for this baby to get here already, but another part of me isn’t quite ready. I’m nervous about giving birth this time when we live an hour from the hospital - getting to the hospital in time, but not too early so I don’t have to rely on pitocin to speed things up; coordinating childcare if labor is at night with our family living 1.5 hours away;

I know many moms love the newborn season, but it’s a hard season mentally and physically for me. I’m nervous about the sleep deprivation. How will nursing go this time around? How the boys will handle the transition? I dread carrying the extra weight on my body through the heat of summer, a baby strapped to me in a baby carrier more hours than not, knowing I likely once again won’t lose a pound of the pregnancy weight until I wean.

And yet, I look at the boys and how they seem to have grown like weeds overnight and my heart aches at the thought of them growing up so fast. The newborn hardships become truly a blip in time.

I’ve been reminding myself often how short this season is of having babies is. Especially since I got married at almost 30, my child bearing era seems especially short compared to many of the girls I know who got married in their early 20s. Part of me is eager to get out of this pregnancy/postpartum/newborn cycle (selfishly, I want to get my “body” and “freedom” back), but I also get sad thinking about it being over for good eventually.

There’s an old Slavic hymn with a line, “Remember, it won’t always be this way.” It’s in the context to remember that God’s mercy won’t always be available, but it’s become an anthem in my mind lately as a reminder that life won’t always be this way.

It’s been making me pause more. To put my phone down. To take mental and actual photos of the little daily moments. To recognize that it’s these little things we do daily that shape our kids most.

Do I love baking bread? Not particularly. I enjoy the finished product and now that I’ve done it for a bit and it’s not as intimidating, I enjoy how the process makes me slow down and calms my nervous system.

But mostly, it brings me joy that the boys know the process of baking bread, how fast they scramble up on the bar stools to help when they see me take the flour out, and their proud, “Mama made bread” when Daniel walks into the door.

I remember when my nephew was little and my dad asked him if he knew where potatoes came from. My nephew told him they came from the store. That’s when my dad stepped up his mission to get us into the garden as much as possible, so we’d know where our food comes from.

I want that for our kids. It’s why we moved to the countryside, why we do the extra work of making more of our food from scratch and planting a garden, even when it’s more costly and “inconvenient” than going to the grocery store or shopping at a local farmer’s market.

It’s the same reason we bought a 40-year old seed and feed business in a tiny rural town even when a corporate career in the city offered more financial stability.

These bigger life decisions make as much of an impact on who are kids become as the little, daily things we do. I think we often get overwhelmed trying to think of the kind of family culture and legacy we want to build, but in reality, it’s the little daily things.

The “normal” things you do as a couple and as a family on a daily basis. At face value, they look like ordinary life moments. Maybe it’s just third trimester hormones making me sentimental, but lately I can’t seem to resist this tug to turn inward and take stock of the little things and moments that make up our season of life right now.

Like burning leaves to clean up the brush in the wooded area of the yard to prepare for planting wildflowers. It’s a dirty, hot task Daniel and Levi spent doing on Saturday afternoon instead of playing at the park with cousins, but it’s teaching our boys the value of land stewardship and hard work.

Or spending your “rest day” making a meal and visiting someone facing loss or recovering from surgery.

Yesterday, we made a meal for a friend’s family from church who lost her mom. As we drove to our friend’s house and the boys asked why we’re going there, we explained that our friends lost their mom and this is how we show up for people who are going through a hard time.

“This is how we show love,” Daniel said. Luke’s little “Oh,” is all we got in acknowledgement as we drove the winding country roads, the boys eagerly trying to spot as many tractors as possible as we passed farm after farm.

It isn’t as common in the American culture to do “visits” like this, but it’s something we want our kids to do. Growing up Slavic, we’d visit the sick and elderly often with our parents. As kids, we hated it - having to sit still in an elderly or sick person’s home, singing songs with them, talking, and praying for them, usually leaving some sort of homecooked meal or groceries behind, when all we’d rather be doing is running and playing outside.

But to notice someone’s pain and need, to pause from your busy schedule to go to their home, cook them a meal, bring them fresh flowers and sit with them? That’s a lost trait in today’s world, and it’s a trait we want our kids to carry on.

So we try to find little ways to show up, especially when he hear of a need in our church family. At times, it is inconvenient (I can barely cook for my own family at this point in my pregnancy, so I’m grateful this time Daniel grilled the meal and I just baked the rolls) and can be awkward because it can feel like you’re inviting yourself over (especially in a culture where we don’t generally visit others uninvited) and personally as an introvert, I find small talk difficult.

And yet, we do it. In a way, this also is a way to draw a boundary around the family and life you’re building.

It’s saying no to a personal desire for “freedom” and not looking back at your pre-kids life, to do the things you know will cultivate strong values in your kids.

It’s choosing to do things differently than what’s common in the culture around you because you know these little rituals and habits will shape your kids’ characters.

It’s working day in and out to build and invest in things that will benefit our kids more than us.

That’s legacy building. And it’s happening whether we intentionally tend to it or just let daily life happen to us. The absence of making a decision is a decision. And just because you don’t notice something doesn’t mean it’s not taking root and growing under your feet.

P.S. This Legacy Date Night Guide is a great conversation starter for couples building a legacy together!

Daniel and I were talking the other night about how close the Israelites got to the Promised Land, only to wander the desert for 40 years because going into the Promised Land seemed too big, too scary. Their entire journey was spent looking back and complaining - a belief that what they had in Egypt, even in slavery, was better than what was ahead.

Maybe because the generations of Israelites who grew up in bondage only knew the comforts of working for someone else.

As someone who enjoys the security of a W-2 corporate job, I get it - sometimes, building someone else’s dream feels preferable to stepping out into the unknown, even if the potential upside in the unknown far outweighs where you are now.

But also, maybe another part of it for the Israelites was they didn’t truly know Who they were following. Even after seeing all the miracles that preceded their exit out of Egypt, followed by more miracles as they journeyed through the desert, it still didn’t seem to fully click for them the power of the One leading them to the Promised Land. To them, God was someone who talked to the likes of Moses and Aaron; promising a fairy tale while making them leave the comforts of “home” for a barren wilderness.

It might be a theological stretch, but the similarities between what the Israelites experienced with leaving Egypt feel so familiar to us as we step off the conforming path to build something entirely new for our family.

When the going gets hard, it’s tempting to look back on a past season or circumstance and think that what was behind was easier, preferable.

When the Big Dreams we’re building feel like facing giants, it’s tempting to say it’s too hard and just keep circling the same piece of ground over and over again, on the fringes of the Big Dreams; forgetting the One who put those Big Dreams on our hearts, the One to whom we belong.

Just like that, another generation neglects building something for the next generation. Stuck wandering in circles, not because of God’s lack in provision but because of our own unbelief and disobedience.

I see this waffling in my generation of millennial women - partially wanting to remain in the same lane everyone else is on, but also really feeling the pull to build something completely unique for your family. It’s a realization that maybe the path you’re on is not truly getting you closer to where you want to be.

But, here’s the thing: we are the ones who came into womanhood right when social media and the internet became a part of daily life. It’s shaped us in ways we can’t even fully comprehend - or are unwilling to admit to.

We became women, wives, mothers, by watching other women live their lives and teach us how to work, live, dress, love, parent, etc,…. and that’s impactful.

Prior generations of women learned from the small group of women in their physical sphere - the women in their family, church, town. When radio and later, TV, entered households, people’s worlds began to expand, but not nearly to the level that the internet and social media has influenced my generation.

Two decades in, we’re beginning to question it all.

Part of it is a desire to protect our kids from the online world - to give them the “90s childhood” we experienced. But it’s also a desire to protect ourselves as women from the online influences that somehow got us on paths that it feels like we didn’t choose for ourselves.

It’s a desire to draw a line in the sand to say, “no more.” A hesitancy to accept what others are doing as the best path for you and your family. Like maybe we’ve been too influenced?

No more others telling us how to dress, or giving us a fake illusion of what aging looks like, or telling us how to parent or where to live.

And yet, even in this desire to build something different, there are still so many influences trying to shape us today.

The trad wife movement. The rise in popularity in homeschooling and homesteading. Women leaving the corporate world and choosing to work for themselves or not at all.

These things feel wholesome, counter-cultural, a better option for families.

I know I’ve felt that pull.

Should I pause my career to stay home with my kids? It’s what so many other moms seem to be doing.

Am I homesteader? The appeal of fresh baked bread, pretty dresses, a farmhouse, veggies from your own garden - it’s so tempting. I mean, there’s a reason Hannah Neelman of Ballerina Farm has 10 million followers and homesteading content is huge on YouTube.

Do we homeschool our kids? Will we be doing a disservice to them if we send them to private or public school?

Do I quit social media and go all in on the offline life? More and more millennial women are going that route.

These are decisions I wrestle with a lot, as I pray for discernment to know who and what is influencing me.

Do I want this because it speaks to me personally and is best for our family or is it because I’m told it’s best by others?

Because even things that appear good can be negative influences if they don’t align with your family’s values and vision.

Egypt was good for the Egyptians, but it was only ever a holding place for the Israelites, serving its purpose for a season, but not intended for all future generations.

When you’ve been overly influenced and lead by others for so long - even if it’s subconscious - it’s hard to step out on your own, especially if it means stepping against the current of what everyone else is doing or the path you were put on when you were younger and told was the best thing for you.

Especially if people you love and who have known you a long time think that you’re making a mistake. That you should stay where it’s comfortable, on a secure path, doing life the way things have always been done.

Enslaved by influencers - online or keeping up with your real life peers, by what others say is best. Wanting something different, but recognizing that likely means taking a path of the most resistance.

The truth is, for our family, a conforming path - the “American Dream” with dual incomes, a subdivision house, two cars and an annual vacation - is a viable option. Or, Daniel could have kept his corporate career, and we’d make do living on one income if we wanted me to stay home full time and raise our kids in a subdivision. It’s what many Christian families in America seem to be doing, calling it a counter cultural path to live a frugal life so mom can stay home.

But I look at the ownership Daniel and the boys have over the seed house. How it’s shaping them in ways that living in a subdivision and working corporate never could.

Levi has this confident swagger when he goes to “work” with dad, or really, when he does anything like his dad. He walks a little taller. Acts like he owns the place. He transforms.

Luke isn’t even two yet, but already pretends to sell seed on his “phone” (aka, a piece of wood or a YOTO card), just like his dad.

Daniel can take the boys to work in a brick and mortar business the way he never could in a corporate job. The skills we can teach them on a homestead and the kind of community / upbringing you find in a rural area aligns so much better with our family values than city living.

And even though the seed house isn’t making our family any take home income right now (we are choosing to live off my salary so that we can re-invest everything the business makes back into the business and hopefully grow it faster), the asset and roots it’s growing for our family are so worth stepping off the conforming and more secure path. It may feel a bit like the wilderness right now, but we know that in time, this too can become a land of milk and honey.

For me personally, it’s looked like admitting that I don’t want to quit my career to be a full-time homemaker, homesteader and homeschooling mom. At least not right now.

I want a little piece of each. A patchwork of what works best for me and my family, shifting with each season.

I love my kids and I want to be a present and involved mom, but I also really appreciate having our nanny care for our boys so I can work in my corporate job.

I love certain parts of homemaking and homesteading, but I don’t want to dedicate all my days to doing those things full time or making it my “brand”. But also, I get to reap the benefits of it from my homesteading talented husband :)

I’m a city girl who is realizing my mental health and nervous system thrive in the country (even if I really miss some parts of city living!).

I still have no idea what we’ll be doing for schooling, but that’s still a year or two out.

Even so, this all still feels so uncertain, unknown. In between what used to be and what we dream of for the future.

When you’re in this “becoming” phase, the outside influences and call of the comfort zone can feel too strong to deny.

That’s when I think of Levi’s confident strut at work with his dad.

I look at this little haven of a homestead we get to live on. Not quite what we imagined, and yet, so perfect for this season.

I remind myself of God’s incredible provision in the past when He made dreams come true for me that felt entirely impossible and out of reach. The three decades He and I have walked together thus far.

A grounding question for me lately has been this: “Would I give up the life I have now for what I’m envying in someone else or what someone is telling me I should be doing?”

10/10 times, the answer is no.

Because when we eye what someone else has, we don’t recognize that to have her life could mean giving up what you have. Isn’t that how trading works?

The Israelites couldn’t have the Promised Land and Egypt.

And yet, as they journeyed towards the Promised Land, all they could do is wish for something else. Something that wasn’t theirs.

To truly move forward, there can’t be constant looking back or watching how others are living their lives.

There has be a hard no to what isn’t yours, a boundary to outside influences. A treasuring of what you have now. A clear vision for what you’re building. And a deep trusting of the One who is leading.

So, the question is, do you truly want to make the trade? To leave behind the path of “should’s” and what others are doing and forge a new path for your family legacy? Or are you content where you are?

There’s no universal “right” answer. The answer may also shift with life seasons. But the significance is in knowing what you’re “trading” for, and thus, what you’re leaving behind.

If you’re looking for a starting place on fleshing out what your family legacy could look like, we revamped our Legacy Guide to include guided questions and planning exercises for couples, split up over a series of six dates.

Use code NEWYEAR for $5 off (expires 1/31/2026).

// In a similar vein….

We came back home with a trunk full of new toys for the boys, so our house has become a Tetris game of putting older toys into storage to make room for new ones.

We’re generally not a big gift giving family: we may do one or two small gifts for the kids’ birthdays and Christmas + we have a large extended family so the boys get lots of gifts from their grandparents, aunts and uncles.

We don’t want to be a family that buys into holiday consumerism / does something just because everyone else is doing the same things. In the U.S., we tend to go all in on gift giving during the holidays because it’s what you do - but sometimes, when you get gifts because you feel like you have to, you end up getting gifts that are cheap or are rarely used by the recipient.

As grateful as we are for the gifts our boys get from family and friends, in the pile of toys they receive, there’s usually 1-2 favorites that get played with often, but the rest are shiny and exciting only for a few days and eventually are put into storage because they’re just not used as often as other favorite toys.

I talked about this before here, but going overboard with Christmas gifts can actually be a hallmark of a lower class. If wealthy families exchange gifts, it’s often one small gift like a book, or giving to charity, while those in lower classes tend to go into debt to buy trending toys and electronics.

In our family, a meaningful small gift given any time of year is better than a pile of trending gifts mandated by a holiday (especially if getting such gifts is beyond your current means and puts you into debt).

This doesn’t mean holidays and special occasions shouldn’t be celebrated or that gift giving is bad or “lower class,” but relates more to a topic often on my mind as of late: what kind of “house” are we building?

I’ve been listening to Sally Clarkson’s podcast lately and in one of her episodes, she mentioned that when Proverbs 14:1 talks about a wise woman building her house, it isn’t talking about a literal house, but a heritage: as in building “the house of the Sheremetas.” It’s something that transcends a physical home address and impacts generations.

Parenting toddlers often looks like repeating the same mantras 100 times a day.

“We don’t take toys out of your brother’s hands.”

“If we make a mess, we clean it up.”

“We put things back in their homes / place so we can find them later.”

A family culture - and a heritage - is built on the things we do (and don’t do) on a regular basis: daily habits, household routines, seasonal rhythms, holiday traditions.

A pile of trending Christmas gifts doesn’t seem like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, it’s what’s expected, it’s what everyone else does, and won’t your kids feel left out when the other kids show off their shiny new toys?

But, arguably, it is a big deal if it doesn’t align with the kind of “house” and heritage you’re building.

So, as I’ve been observing Christmas celebrations, I’ve been meditating more on how we want to build our holiday “house.” The boys are now getting old enough to notice holidays and birthdays, and we really don’t want them to associate these annual celebrations as a day they get a bunch of shiny new gifts.

Instead, we want them to see it as an amplified time to spend with family, to give back, to remember, to share.

To value presence over things.

To be the ones who notice someone’s need or what makes someone light up and to give intentional gifts year round. Because to raise kids who notice others and seek to serve - the kind of people who say things like,

“You mentioned you needed an outing, so I’m taking you out for [X]” and

“I saw this and it made me think of you,” or

“I know this is your favorite, so I picked it for you on my way home”?

That would the pride of this mama’s heart (and also the type of man I married, so I pray our boys end up just like their dad!).

Yes, part of that is how we approach holidays, but a lot of it is in the daily “building” - the prompting to notice, to observe, to give, to share, to die to self, to value quality over quantity, to live within your means, and most of all: to teach by example.

Which is entirely convicting because my spending and acquiring of random stuff has gotten out of control again, so this is my own reminder to invest our finances in something longer lasting than the latest dopamine high from a shiny new purchase.

Also, my very pregnant self is getting increasingly over-stimulated by all the stuff everywhere 🫠

I put up our Christmas tree on November 1. That’s when it arrived in the mail and instead of putting it in storage for a few weeks, I figured I might as well just get it up and then do the rest of the Christmas decorations later.

This year, fall has been late in it’s arrival, so for a few weeks, we’ve had the stark contrast of seeing a gorgeous, colorful fall out the window, and a Christmas tree inside. It’s felt a little disconnected, straddling two seasons.

There’s really two camps of Christmas decorators: you either do it first thing in November, or you wait until after Thanksgiving. It’s the same for how we approach life seasons: there are those who are good about stepping into a new season while still in a previous season, while others wait until they’re deep into the new season to adjust accordingly.

As someone who talks a lot about preparing for what you’re praying for, I’m realizing I actually am not so good at living it out in practice.

My life seasons changed fast. Really, really fast. I went from single and focused on my ministry and career until I was 29 and then in what feels like a blink of an eye (but really it’s been 5 years?!) and now I’m a wife, mom x2, a city girl living in the country, and working in a career I never even knew existed and yet is somehow a perfect fit.

It feels like a hard pivot. Not a gradual shift but a hard point of rotation that also somehow was years in the making?

It’s like I’ve been transported to and dropped into a different life season. And that kind of feels like being a teenager again, unsure of who I am and spending more time looking at what others are doing and building, hoping I can gleam an idea for my own sense of direction.

But this time, it’s a different kind of awkward, because I do have more maturity and a stronger vision and foundation than I had as a teenager, but, sometimes, who I was in a past chapter of my life - keeps me back from stepping into something new.

Maybe this is what they call a midlife crisis. Which could be accurate, TBH. We celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday in September and I realized that I’m halfway to where he is (!!!).

I was listening to a podcast the other day where Lara Casey talked about her pivotal moment of figuring out how she wants to live the second half of her life, and although I don’t think I’m quite there yet since we’re deep in the building our family and life stage, it does feel like a pivotal change in life seasons that warrants carving out moments to slow down and ask: “How do I want to live out this chapter of my life?”

The thing is, Daniel and I are clear on the big vision and direction for our family life, but as we find ourselves in this middle of actually building out our vision, I feel like I’m playing catch up to become the woman of that vision?

It’s almost like I keep thinking that the version of me that belongs in the vision is somewhere in the future, and yet, I’m now realizing that actually this is it. I can be now who I envision becoming, even if it’s an “in progress” version.

I’ve had a lot of moments lately where I look at our kids and can’t wrap my mind around how fast they’re growing. I know people say that all the time, but it’s different with your own kids. Especially for moms who have kids close in age and it feels like so much of their childhoods are spent in a brain fog of changing hormones, pregnancy, sleepless nights, teething, etc.

In those moments, I get this deep desire to just slow it all down. A reminder that this is it. These days of building the beginning of our family vision are part of the vision. An integral, foundational part that I don’t want to miss because the full picture isn’t yet complete.

It’s putting up a Christmas tree up when it is full on fall outside; building a future season while being present in a current season.

It’s acknowledging that the current season is fleeting, even when the next season and future vision feel slow in coming.

It’s living out who and what you want in the future even when what you envision isn’t quite yet here.

It’s embracing the parts of who you were in a past season of life, even as something new is in the works as you step into a new season of life.

There will be disconnects; things not quite fitting together; an awkwardness in the pivot.

But eventually you catch up and who you are and the season you’re in align - but even that will feel like a brief moment in time, because life seasons will continue to change and you find yourself adjusting and becoming someone new again.

P.S. I’ve been quiet online the last few months. I may do a catch up update soon, or I may not. Lately, I’ve had zero desire to show up online, so currently, I’m it taking it one day at a time to see what feels right about sharing online.

Daniel and I have a lot of really big dreams for our family, and I often feel the weight of those dreams - like we should be further along; or maybe our dreams are too big, because from where are now, so much of it seems impossible.

I recently finished reading the book, 10x is easier than 2x (great book, by the way!), and one chapter in particular stuck out to me: it talked about living "in the gain." When you set big growth goals for yourself, it can feel disheartening when progress feels slow or like the end destination keeps shifting. Here's how Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy describe it:

"To be in the gain, you only measure your progress backward against where you were before. You never measure yourself against anything external - whether that be your own ideals or other people.

This feeling of confidence and momentum is essential to going 10x. It helps you keep proper perspective of where you’re at and what’s going on. The truth is, you’re making far more progress than it sometimes feels like. Regularly reflecting on, appreciating, and measuring that progress immediately lightens the weight of 10x. It boosts you forward on your best and worst days."

It's thinking about how far you've come, not how much further you still need to go. It's appreciating that younger you dreamed of being where you are now - even if things didn't turn out exactly as you thought, but hopefully you're further along than you were 10 years ago.

As someone who has always done the opposite - compared myself to who I think I should be or where I hope to be someday - this shift has been pivotal for me.

"You're in the gain."

I repeat this phrase to myself daily now and then I mark the gains:

I think of teenage me wrestling with my big dreams of going to college and having a corporate career, wondering if by choosing those dreams, I was closing the door on marriage and motherhood. But here I am, in a career I love, married and raising two little boys.

I think of myself nine years ago, starting my career with nearly six figures of debt and a salary that barely covered my student loan payments and rent. And here I am today, with a salary younger me couldn't even fathom ever getting to, and debt free.

I think of myself five years ago, wondering if I'd ever get married and have a family of my own, or if I should just accept I'd be single for life. And here I am now, thriving as a wife and mom to two boys.

I think of Daniel and I two years ago, dreaming and praying about moving out to the country, but not seeing any feasible way we could afford it or make it work with Daniel's job. And here we are, on this beautiful homestead and a family business.

The verse that has been coming to mind as I've been praying and trying to re-wire my brain on this is:

"But godliness with contentment is great gain." -1 Timothy 6:6

We often focus on the contentment part, telling ourselves to count our blessings, be grateful for what you have, cultivate gratitude, the grass is greener where you water it, etc., but we often miss the other part: the growth.

Contentment without growth is stagnant.

Earlier in 1 Timothy, Paul writes:

"Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” -1 Timothy 4:8

Godliness is not a destination. There is no "finish line" to check and say, "Okay, now I have achieved godliness." As long as we are in these fleshly bodies, we wrestle with the flesh and sin.

To some, this is defeating. If you know you're not going to make it, why even try? If you're bound to fail, why keep going? Be content with where you are.

Here's Paul's answer: view it as training.

When you train consistently, you make gains. You grow. It’s not about the destination but the progress.

For the last few months, I've consistently been working out 30 minutes a day. At first, it was only 2-3 times a week. Then four. In July, I've been shooting for 6 times a week, alternating walks, treadmill on an incline, and strength training.

This week, I decided to use the 15 pound dumbbells after using 8 and 10 pound dumbbells the last few months. It was hard, but doable. And in comparison, the ten pound dumbbells seem so light.

I've been frustrated that my weight hasn't been going down even though I've been working at it so consistently for months, but that small acknowledgment of upgrading my weights is a reminder that I actually have made progress.

The gain is being content where you are + training towards a bigger goal.

It's being fully present and grateful for what you have today, while also actively working towards where you want to end up and who you want to become.

It's appreciating how far you've come, while also building a life and legacy beyond what feels possible to you today.

When my mind goes into a frenzy about how much more we have to build, I can be tempted to downgrade and settle. I'll even call it "contentment" to make it sound more pious.

But those thoughts are not from God.

Yes, He tells me to cease striving, but not to stop building.

To be content, but also train for growth.

To be at peace, but not stagnant.

To rest when I am weary, but not to lay the work done permanently.

To stop saying "it's impossible" when He is the God of the impossible.

To stop counting what I lack and instead measure the gains.

To see more of what He has done and is doing than what I can or cannot do.

To acknowledge that even if this is all I accomplish in this life, it is enough, because accomplishing all of my ambitious dreams and goals is not a prerequisite to get into heaven.

As a type A, ambitious, checklist loving woman, this is a mindset shift that is requiring me to completely rewire how I think about my dreams and goals. It feels like a constant re-balancing.

By the way, getting off Instagram (I try to only check it occasionally on my computer) has been instrumental in this. Scrolling on IG is guaranteed to take me completely out of living "in the gain."

As a result, life is so much more full. Our "10x" dreams seem much more doable. My anxiety nearly non-existent. My mind more still. My focus more clear. The pressure to "build in public" and consistently show up online? Muted.

Because big dreams alone are not enough. Contentment alone isn’t enough. Growth requires both.

Congress and President Trump recently passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" and as a tax professional, there is a lot to unpack there, but I wanted to let you into a conversation Daniel and I had the other day about the new “Trump Accounts”.

What are Trump Accounts?

My friend Anastasia put together this great overview of the Trump Accounts if you want more detail, but overall, it's kind of like a 401(k) for kids, and instead of using the money for retirement, your kids can eventually use it for buying their first home, starting a business, college or professional training.

From my understanding, the government will put $1,000 into an investment account when a baby is born for the next eight years. Parents, guardians, relatives, employers (of the parents / guardians) and non profits can contribute up to $5,000 per year (indexed for inflation) into this account. Contributions are made with after tax funds, which means contributions and distributions are taxable.

Parents can open a Trump Account with any bank or financial institution (if it meets the criteria outlined in the bill, which most major banks should). You likely won't be able to register for this until early 2026. These accounts are available to babies born between January 1, 2025 and January 1, 2029 and one of the parents must have a valid Social Security Number. If you don't opt in, the government will create the account for your kids (allegedly).

Any money contributed into the account will be invested in an index fund following the S&P 500. Historically, the annual return on these funds averages around 10%. The Milken Institute estimates that $1,000 invested in a broad equity index fund could grow to an average of $8,300 over 20 years.

The money can't be withdrawn until the child turns 18. At age 18, up to 50% of the funds can be used for higher education, professional training, starting a business or a down payment on a first home. At age 25, the full balance can be used for these same purposes. At age 30, the funds can be used for any purpose.

Withdrawals will be taxed at ordinary tax rates (only the “growth” amount, not contributions up to $5,000 per year). For the 2025 tax year, range from 10% to 37%, depending on income. Who knows what the capital gains tax rate will be in 18+ years once kids begin withdrawing this money. Similar to 401(k)s, there is a 10% penalty for early withdrawals or for non-qualified withdrawals. There is also an annual 6% excise tax for contributions exceeding $5,000 per year.

How are Trump Accounts different from 529 Plans?

529 Plans are regulated at the state level, so rules vary by state, but overall, here's how 529 Plans are different from the Trump Accounts:

• The government doesn't contribute anything to 529 accounts

• Contribution limits vary by state

• Currently can only be used for education expenses

• Withdrawals are tax-free at the federal levels (and often at the state level)

• Some states offer tax deductions or credits for contributions

• You can invest in a wider variety of stocks and bonds

• More flexibility: you can change beneficiaries or roll over unused funds into a Roth IRA without penalties

The Big Beautiful Bill makes some changes to 529 Plans:

• Qualified expenses (what you can use the funds for) are expanded to include certain K-12 (public, private and religious) school costs

• Raises the per-beneficiary limitation from $10,000 to $20,000 for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.

For full transparency, we have not yet opened up 529 accounts for our kids, nor do we plan to at this time, for similar reasons as I’ll talk about below why we’re not investing in the Trump Accounts + at this time, we’re leaning towards home schooling our kids and who knows if our kids will even have college as an option in 15 years, so although useful for some families, 529 plans are not for us as of now!

Why the Trump Accounts are not going to be part of our family's investment strategy

Initially, the Trump Accounts sound great. Even, at a minimum, $8,000 (minus tax), is better than nothing for a young adult.

But as Daniel and I dug into this deeper and talked about if this fits what we're building for our family and kids, we decided the Trump Accounts won't be part of our investment strategy. The government may open this account for any kids we may have in the next eight years, but as of now, we likely won't be investing in these accounts.

I'll explain our thinking a bit more, but please note that this is (1) not investment or tax advice and (2) what works for our family may not be work for yours, and vise versa, so do what is best for your family and children!

Our family financial strategy is to steward and grow what God entrusted to us as God gives us wisdom to. It’s not money we’re after. It’s a thriving marriage, a purposeful life and an enduring legacy without the financial stress. For us, this looks like being a position where:

1. We can live a simple, quiet life working side by side as a family and not having to rely on anyone financially (including employers, the government or banks) - see 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

2. We are able to leave an inheritance to our children so that they build on to what we've built instead of starting from zero (or in the negative, as we did with student loan debt) - see Proverbs 13:22

3. We have the financial resources to be a blessing to others and give generously - see the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16:1-13

This means that we want to be able to have flexibility, liquidity and to be able to determine how we spend and invest our money.

So when we saw that these Trump Accounts are modeled after 401k's, we saw red flags.

As first generation college graduates from poor immigrant families, Daniel and I both started our careers doing what we were told to do when it comes to retirement planning: put money into a 401(k). It wasn't until we got married and started defining our family vision and legacy that we realized that 401k's are not all they're promoted to be.

Here's why: Let's say you have $2 million dollars saved in your 401k. If you spent your life trying to build wealth and end up with an annual income of say, $400,000, that puts you in the top tax bracket, so any withdrawals you make, would be taxed up to 35% (or higher - who knows what the tax rates will be when we retire!). So that $2 million you thought you had? Take out 35% (or more, if tax rates go up) for taxes, and you have less than you thought saved for retirement.

Furthermore, you are penalized if you want to use those funds earlier (there are certain exceptions for emergencies). So, say you find a business opportunity to make a greater return on your investment than a 401k. But the government doesn't want you to do that, so early withdrawals are taxed + you pay a 10% penalty to the government because you're using your money earlier and in a different way than they want you to.

Don't get me wrong - 401k accounts aren't bad, and they should be part of your investment strategy, especially if your employer makes matching contributions (free money!) and you make enough money that you pay taxes (401k contributions are pre tax so they lower your taxable income) — it's why I still have and contribute to a 401k as of now, but it's not a long term strategy for us, and we're working to make it one very small part of our overall investment strategy.

That's why we have similar concerns over these Trump Accounts - there's just too many strings attached. If you have $5,000 a year to invest in your child's future, there are so many other ways to invest that money that could give you the same, or greater return, and more flexibility and control on when and how your children use that money.

We also don't want our kids to wait until they're 25 to get access to the full balance of the Trump Account - who knows what the world and tax rates will be like in 2051 and beyond!

If we have $5,000 a year to put towards our kid's future, we could invest that money ourselves in the stock market and have the same tax consequences as using the Trump Account, but we get more flexibility on what we invest in and what we use the money for if we cash out the investments, whenever we choose to cash it out. We could also invest that money in other assets for our kids' benefit like land, a business, etc, that could likely have a higher and better return.

Again, this doesn't mean you shouldn't take advantage of this - the Trump Accounts could be a great nest egg for your children if this aligns with your family values, vision and financial strategy. But for us, when we look at our finances from the perspective of building a legacy and generational wealth, as of now, this doesn't feel like the best fit for our family.

This is why we encourage couples to come up with a "Strategy Screen" - questions that you can vet decisions against to determine if a decision aligns with you family values and vision. Here are our strategy screen questions and how we applied this exercise to the Trump Accounts:

1. Does this align with how the Bible calls us to live out our lives? There is not an on point piece of Scripture on this. For our family, 1 Thessalonians 4:11 is a guiding scripture on all things work and finances, and that passage instructs believers to avoid financial dependence on others. In our understanding, this means doing everything we can to work with our hands and not have to depend on government aid. Note, this is not judging anyone who relies on government benefits - my parents and I have benefitted from financial government benefits when we could not make ends meet. Technically, this is "free" money that the government is giving to every newborn in the U.S. in the next 8 years, regardless of income, so our kids may be able to use it one day, but for our family, we're not opting into adding to this account. Your family may arrive to a different answer that is also supported by the Bible - this is not a salvation issue, so there are multiple ways of looking at this.

2. Will this put us on a path to financial freedom? No, it is not the highest and best use of our finances. It takes away our flexibility, liquidity and has too many strings attached.

3. Will this help us with the legacy we are building for our family? E.g., is this the best use of our time and resources on our way to where we want to be? No, part of the legacy we want to build is to set our kids up for success (here's how were doing this), and this includes equipping our kids with assets, tools, systems and opportunities. To do this, we need flexibility and control over where our money is spent and invested, so to put money into investments that the government "controls" over how and when you can use the funds? Not the best fit for us.

If you want to come up with your own strategy screen, check out our Legacy Guide - we actually just revamped the Legacy Guide to be a series of conversation starters over six date nights and it's so so good! The strategy screen questions are on date night 2!

What are your thoughts on the Trump Accounts? Should I do another post on some of the tax planning opportunities in this new bill?

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Fescue season is officially over for the year. It was a disappointing season - due to the wet weather in our county this spring, fescue seed did poorly, so we’re recovering from the long days of harvest the last week and a half and praying for wisdom on future plans for the seed house.

I am working on putting together a vlog recap of this year’s fescue harvest, but for now, I wanted to share something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and writing on and off for weeks, trying to put my thoughts into words.

Daniel and I recently finished reading J.D. Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and it’s initiated some interesting conversations between us.

Maybe it’s because we saw our own story reflected in there with what it's like to be the first in your family to go to college and how that alters the entire projection of your life, especially when many of the kids you grew up didn’t end up going to college.

When Vance talks about the world he discovered in law school - how the wealthy operated in a whole different sphere with different rules and access to opportunities only available to those in that world - I felt that personally.

Vance shared about his experience interviewing with law firms and being in rooms where you're in awe of how much a meal costs, and what fork to use, and gawk at exactly how much money people make. And it took me back to being in that exact place too.

I remember being in rooms with lawyers, judges, and senators and honestly, it felt like winning a lottery. I'd sneak in photos to show my parents and tell my mom all about the fancy food and rooms I found myself in.

I would yo-yo between trying not to gawk at what I heard and saw about how "the other side" lived and being hyper aware to not stand out and make it obvious that I didn't belong. I'd wait for everyone else to order and mimic what they ordered. I took an eating etiquette class to make sure I knew what fork to use and which direction to pass the butter.

Higher education for women in Christian circles continues to be something frowned upon, especially with the rise of the trad wife movement. The "getting a Mrs. Degree" is treated like a joke, but also becomes an unspoken expectation that you'll "get a ring by spring" with college becoming a place to find a mate, not a career.

But this is something only those who grew up poor will understand: college isn't really about the degree or what you'll learn (yes, those are important). It's about the rooms and the world it opens up for you, especially if you choose to major something like business or law - two professions that continue to be the realms where the wealthy live.

Yes, one can break out of poverty and build a good life doing blue collar work and/or starting your own business without a higher education. I have seen that firsthand. But, at least in the U.S., and for the majority of people, a college degree is the ticket to cross the class divide and break the cycle of poverty that you grew up in.

I know for a fact that neither Daniel nor I would be where we are today, together or apart, if it wasn't for our college education and working in corporate America. Going to college and seeing the inside of how corporations and the wealthy live and make money changes how you think and see the world.

Because it's not really about the money. It's about access and the way you see the world around you.

When I was applying to law schools and almost every Slavic Christian around me - outside of my immediate family and close friends - told me it was a mistake and questioned my choices, there was an elderly prophet for whom my mom worked as a caretaker that said something that has forever stuck with me.

Her name was Yevdokiya. I came to pick up my mom from Yevdokiya's house because we were sharing a car that day, and as I waited for my mom to finish up, Yevdokiya, who was probably in her late 70's at that point, looked at me and said:

"God needs people in all places and positions. The thing you're thinking about doing that people are telling you not to do, don't listen to them. God needs people in those rooms too."

I went back to the car and cried. I knew deep in my heart that God was opening doors for me that no one I knew personally had ever gone through before. But it was a lonely path and it was hard to tune out all the voices telling me that as a Christian woman, my only option was to get married and have children. That a Christian, certainly not a Christian woman, should not be in business or in law.

I recently got a job offer. A chance to take on a leadership role in a major firm with a pay increase. To be honest, I struggled whether to accept the offer.

The job has more responsibility, and part of me wondered if in this season of being a mama to littles, I should be taking a step back, not leaning into my career.

Growing up, my dream was to end up in an executive, leadership position, but once I became a mom, I figured that dream would be temporarily, or permanently, on hold. I justified it as becoming a "new" me with new dreams and goals.

But as I've prayed about this shift in my identity and expected God to agree with me that the smart thing is to decline the job offer or tell me to quit working entirely to become a SAHM, something that kept surfacing is reminders of who I was in college and law school.

Part of me wanted to say that the girl I was then - her dreams and ambitions - were skewed and influenced "by the world" (aka girl boss culture and feminism), and write it off in favor of the more “traditional” ways so popular right know (and it is a modern trend, not going back to the “good old days” as some trad wife content paints it to be).

But then I started hearing Yevdokiya's voice again recently, transporting me back to her house that one afternoon in my senior year of college. She's long passed away, but to me, that moment has felt so real to me lately, like she's right here in the room with me.

And it feels like God saying, "I didn't put you into these rooms for you to walk away."

So, I've been doing a lot of reflecting and looking back at younger me in my college and law school days. When I went to law school, I figured God was calling me to public service as a career - I considered immigration law or working for a legal clinic or becoming a prosecutor. I tried those paths and although I enjoyed it, it didn't fit.

I ended up working in tax at an accounting firm, and I struggled with that for years. I wondered if I was a "sell out" for choosing money and corporate work over public service. I told myself it was only until I paid off my student loans, but then I found myself thriving in this career. Doors have opened miraculously and it truly felt like a supernatural force was clearing a path for me.

So, here I am, nearly ten years (!!!) into my career, wrestling with this dream of a career opportunity. When I was negotiating the salary for my new job, Daniel and I talked and prayed a lot about how to avoid lifestyle creep with a pay raise.

What we kept coming back to is - similar to the last time I changed jobs two years ago and got a pay increase - that God had a purpose for this pay increase. Without my last job change and pay increase two years ago (an opportunity that appeared out of the blue when a recruiter reached out), we would not have been able to make this move to buy a homestead and a business. But God knew we'd need my salary to get us to here.

So, when this latest job opportunity showed up out of the blue, we knew that God was providing for something in our future and we're praying for wisdom to discern what that is. But here's an interesting lesson we're seeing pop up over and over again as a result of our prayers about this:

Viewing our income as capital to be invested and given away, not spent.

One thing that separates the wealthy from the poor is that the wealthy invest into what appreciates in value and generates more money but the poor spend, often on things that depreciate in value and purchased on credit.

Vance mentions this example in his book that I hadn't noticed before but now makes complete sense to me: Families in lower classes often go into debt and go overboard on Christmas gifts, spending money they often don't have on electronics and trending items, while the wealthy are more likely to gift things like books or giving to charity.

But it's also not just Christmas gifts. In America, we buy a lot of stuff. I buy too much stuff.

• Americans spend roughly $18 k/year on non‑essentials and nearly $5 k/year on impulse purchases.

• Nearly 40 % feel pressure to match peers’ spending, and about 21–44 % admit impulse purchases linked to influencer marketing.

• Typical household credit card debt stands around $5,300 to $8,000.

• 78 % of Americans live paycheck-to‑paycheck and 66 % shop online monthly

The middle class is shrinking in the U.S. — according to the Pew Research Center, the share of Americans living in middle-class households decreased from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2023. It's why you often hear the phrase that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." There's a lot of factors for this growing class divide, but the one I personally want to be weary of is lifestyle creep.

Lifestyle creep is when as you make more money, you spend more. In other words, you use bonuses and pay raises to buy more stuff and upgrade your house, car, vacations, etc., usually to keep up with "the Joneses" or to maintain a certain type of lifestyle. It's a trap many people who grew up in poverty can easily end up in, and it's something I see in myself: there's this desire to buy something because you can after growing up not being able to afford anything for years. You feel like you "deserve" it. But just because you can afford it, doesn’t always mean you have to buy it.

Because living like that just keeps you living paycheck to paycheck, in debt and one layoff or recession away from losing it all.

So, here's the shift we're navigating right now as a couple: asking God to give us wisdom on how to invest our money instead of spending it or keeping it in savings.

I'm not just talking about investing in the stock market. That's one very small part of a bigger picture. We're also considering investments like land, businesses, and investing it others through entrepreneurship grants, scholarships, supporting churches and local community needs, etc.

We don't have that much at this point to invest, but we are realizing that it's not really about the amount, but about the practice and discipline of giving generously and investing in something that has a long-term impact rather than just spending on random purchases for that blip of a dopamine high (to be fair, that's all on me - I have the spending problem in our relationship; Daniel is definitely the saver and investor!).

Tim Stoddart puts it well here:

"If wealth creation is a goal, one of the first things you need to do is change your mindset around income. Even the language you use matters. Think of your paycheck as revenue, not just income. This mindset shift helps you treat yourself like a business."

Daniel and I have big dreams for our family, but for us, it’s not the money we’re after. It’s a thriving marriage, a purposeful life and an enduring legacy without the financial stress.

I've talked about it before, but Daniel and I both feel the responsibility to grow what we have for our family's good and God's glory - both of us being able to go to college and get into "rooms" that our parents never had access to means that we are in a position to grow "wealth."

Note, when I'm talking about building "wealth," I'm not talking about being "rich" - I'm talking about being in a position where:

1. We can live a simple, quiet life working side by side as a family and not having to rely on anyone financially (including employers, the government or banks) - see 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

2. We are able to leave an inheritance to our children so that they build on to what we've built instead of starting from zero (or in the negative, as we did with student loan debt) - see Proverbs 13:22

3. We have the financial resources to be a blessing to others and give generously - see the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16:1-13

It's odd to even talk about this - in this influencer culture, you can't log onto any social media platform without someone telling you how to become a millionaire, so it feels like any mention of building "wealth" automatically makes it sound like you're becoming one of those financial influencers telling others to get rich.

I'm sharing all this in case anyone else finds themselves navigating this class divide where you're making more money than your parents did, and praying about how to steward this privilege in a way that will give a better life for your children and makes a positive impact instead of spending it all on material things and lifestyle creep.

When you grow up poor and dependent on government and financial aid, and you get a chance to break that cycle and maybe even build wealth, even if it's not millionaire level "wealth," it begins with rewiring how you view and use money.

Because let's be honest: contrary to what social media influencers try to tell you about the ten easy steps to become a millionaire, it is actually harder than ever to cross the class divide, whether you're going from poverty to the middle class or from the middle class to the "wealthy" class.

And if you do, it's truly a whole new world - especially for first-generation college graduates and immigrants - to navigate building any type of wealth and an inheritance: trusts, tax planning, investments, legal entities for asset protection, charitable giving, business structuring, and all the things that those born into "wealth" seem to innately know but is a bit foreign - and sometimes even fully inaccessible - to those who grew up on the other side of the class divide.

Even with a finance and law degree and a career in tax, I still feel like I’m continuing to learn a whole new language when it comes to the financial side of building a legacy.

Yes, all of these wealth building systems and tactics are “of the world,” but in Luke 16, Jesus uses the parable of a shrewd manager to say:

“I tell you, use wordly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will you give you property of your own?” —Luke 16:9-11

The way we treat our finances says everything about our spiritual life. We try to put money into the “worldly” category, and yet, Jesus says that if you can’t be trusted with wordly wealth, you can’t also be trusted with eternal wealth.

Why? Because it gets to the root of what you love and what kind of steward you are.

If your finances show that you love the things of the world — keeping up appearances, bigger and fancier material possessions, trying to live a certain “rich” lifestyle in how the world views “rich” — that’s when money becomes an evil thing.

That’s why when the young rich ruler came to Jesus, He told him to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor — he loved all the wealth he had and he didn’t want to give it away.

So, that’s the key, I’m learning: viewing our finances as not something to be spent, but invested and given away.

“Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of what is truly life.” — 1 Timothy‬ ‭6‬:‭17‬-‭19‬ ‭

Do you see the same message in Luke 16 and in 1 Timothy 6?

Be willing to share. Give generously. Use your wordly wealth for the benefit of others. Even if it’s a little — be trustworthy with the financial means you have.

Notice also in the parable of the talents, the Master doesn’t question the servants about what they spent their talents on.

Instead, He looked for a return — what did you invest it in? How did you grow what I gave you?

That’s what building generational wealth is: investing what your parents gave you with the goal of multiplying it.

Our parents didn’t have much in terms of material wealth to give us but they found many other ways to invest in us to set us up to have more financially that they did — they moved us to the U.S., encouraged us to go to college, gave us a healthy home life and upbringing, prayed over us and instilled in us a strong work ethic.

Thanks to our parents sacrifices and investments into our future, we have more resources and opportunities to work with than they did. Now, as a parents ourselves, it’s our turn to do what we can with what God has given us to put our kids in a better position for their future families.

And it’s not just money — it’s deeper than that. It’s values, faith, habits, mindsets, networks, assets, community. It’s building a legacy with generational and eternal impact.

If you also feel called to intentionally build your family legacy and build a life of impact, this guide has some of the questions we worked through to define our family vision - praying it’s helpful for other couples.

Download the Legacy Guide

Because I truly believe that building a legacy together as a couple is what God intended marriage to be, but many of us get so caught up blending in and keeping up, that we miss out on the unique mission God has in store for each family.

So, here’s to crossing the divide and building on what was handed down to us, so that it grows and multiplies for His glory and as a blessing for future generations.

"Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it." -Proverbs 22:6

But that’s our life - investing and building up multiple pillars of our legacy, all at the same time, little by little.

I have a couple longer blog posts in the works that I hope to share soon, but for now, enjoy this peak behind the scenes of what building our legacy looks like for us in this summer!

Until next time,

Yelena

My natural instinct when I have time off work — whether it's weekends, holidays or vacation — has always been to cram as much "productive" to-do's in as I can, usually working on my writing projects, running errands, and deep cleaning.

The truth is, those things do fill my cup, but even good things that fill your cup can be too much when overdone. So, here's where my week ended up:

Monday was Memorial Day and it poured rain all day, so we spent all day inside as a family. Daniel cleaned the garage and I deep cleaned the downstairs guest room / my office (it really needed it!).

Tuesday was take your wife to work day 😂 — I hung out at the Seed House for the day with Daniel. We worked on our website, primarily doing SEO updates and listing cover crops blends for gardens and homesteads. After testing out cover crops in our gardens, we are realizing how impactful cover crops can be for a garden, so we’re pivoting our e-commerce strategy for the Seed House to start selling custom cover clop seed blends for gardens, raised beds, backyard food plots, etc.

Wednesday I met up with my brother’s family and my sister in law, and we took our kids to the zoo. The boys LOVED it and the weather was perfect for an outdoor outing. It’s still the coolest thing to see your child discover things for the first time.

I also finally finished up our vegetable garden — I needed to transplant the tomato and pepper plants I started indoors. We still need to plant our flowers and corn, and seed up the trellis to truly get the garden fully planted.

Thursday was my “self-care” day. I spent a few hours working on the seed house website and some of my writing projects at a coffee shop. Then I took myself out to a solo lunch at a Mexican restaurant because that the only option other than fast food. I spent an hour wandering around a few thrift stores and flea markets, and then went and got a massage for the first time in my life (I’m going to try to make it a monthly thing now — it was so, so good!). We then had a family chiropractor visit, got dinner at a local diner and spent the evening at a church bonfire.

Friday I went to work with Daniel at the seed house again. My in-laws drove up so my father in law could help Daniel replace two of our shop garage doors. The old garage doors were in rough shape and constantly fell off the rails, so Daniel has been scouring FB marketplace for replacement doors. He finally found a good deal on two gently used garage doors a few weeks ago — Daniel and his dad spent the day installing the new doors and they look so good!

I snuck in a facial on Friday — something I haven’t done since before I got married! We spent the evening with my in-laws — my mother in law brought her strawberry plants and planted them in the two center garden beds for us.

Overall, it was a lovely reset week, that was much needed. My hormones post-weaning this time have been such a roller coaster and I haven’t been feeling like myself the last few weeks, so my body and mind needed to slow down and reset. It’s actually truly amazing how transformative this week was for me and balancing out my hormones 🤯 — it’s got me re-thinking a lot of things!

I start my new job on Monday and I’m so excited!! I accepted the role of Tax Director of Quality & Risk Management at Armanino. It’s the same work I was doing at my previous firm but with a promotion, higher pay and an opportunity to establish and grow the firm’s tax risk management practice (the position reports directly to tax leadership). Honestly, if I wrote my own job description for my next ideal role, it couldn’t have been more spot on. I’ll still be working remote from home. This role came out of nowhere and is truly God’s provision in many ways! I’ll share more thoughts on this in a bit.

Until next time,

YPS

Join us as we build our garden, family outings to the creek, Levi’s first fishing excursion, days the Seed House, and an outing to an Amish greenhouse.

Plus, we have two new additions at Havenwood Manor and they’re the cutest! 🥰