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Meet Mary

Married and mothering four, saved by Grace. Sharing motherhood, homeschooling, and intentional living. Always seeking to find beauty in the mundane, simplifying, and slowing down. Delighted you’re here!

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One of my dear friends first told me about @pure_s

One of my dear friends first told me about @pure_simple_market the week after they opened… and my West Coast heart skipped a beat. Finding an adorable local store that is family-owned, filled to the brim with healthy, homemade, and local farmer products is one thing that I’d been missing so much. Pure + Simple is family friendly… our kids can literally play safely while I shop, and I always love chatting with whoever is behind the counter that day. It’s more than just a darling grocery store, it’s fostering a local community that’s wholesome, supporting farmers, and bakers and makers all around Oklahoma 🥰

If you’re in the greater Tulsa area, you can also order online for next-day delivery through the link in their bio. Delivery is free for orders over $150. 🥕🥚🍓 🥬🧈🍗

When beginning to consider if homeschooling is rig

When beginning to consider if homeschooling is right for you, or perhaps you’ve already decided but you’re not fully confident one your “why,” or your purpose in doing so, or questioning if you even have it in you… then I’d encourage you to read “For the Children’s Sake” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay and “Awakening Wonder” by Sally Clarkson. It’s simply a starting point… but a really great one. 🕊️

——

We’ve been slowly (re)building our library with living books, classics, and literature that we’re all thoroughly excited to make our way through. We adore thrifting books, thriftbooks.com, used book stores, and small shop book printers like @newwestpress and @livingbookpress. 📚

One day, we hope to have a library like Belle’s, ladder and all. Until then, enjoying this cutie shelf my husband recently put up, and all the quaint vintage bookcases scattered around the house. 📕

Are you bookish? 📖

One whole school year down, a lifetime to go. 📚

One whole school year down, a lifetime to go. 📚 This year has been filled with some really high highs, and a fair amount of lows… but overall it’s been an incredible honor to get a front row seat to my little people growing and learning in a way that blows me away. What a gift, and what an honor. Mg favorite part is that I get to re-educate myself right alongside them. It truly is such a blessing; one I don’t take lightly or for granted.

To my fellow homeschooling families, have you completed your year? Schooling through Summer? Taking a short break?

We’re enjoying our Summer break, with a bit of lessons mixed in there the next couple months, and lots of habit training for all (myself included). It’s been a beautiful year, and I’m all the more excited for what’s in store next! 🕊️

If you’re at all curious about homeschooling, please check my homeschool highlight, and my blog post “How to Begin Homeschooling” 🫶🏻

#homeeducator #homeschool #charlottemason #homeschoolers #wildandfree #homeeducation #beatrixpotter

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part three)

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part three) 🕊️

Create intentional moments every single day to be fully present together, by having your meals together, around the table (phone-free).

For breakfast you may have muffins made the night before, or a bowl of yogurt, or simple scrambled eggs, or maybe you’ll enjoy a big feast with biscuits and gravy, and all the fixins… however simple or extravagant, enjoy it together, every morning, at the table. 🍳

For lunch, fill a big serving board with lots of different options for charcuterie (think easy! carrots, hummus, veggies, fruit, nuts, crackers, deli meats!) and enjoy it WITH the kids! 🍎

Grab a blanket or mat and stuff a bag filled with all the odds and ends in your pantry that don’t need to be warmed, and walk to a nearby park, or your own yard to eat and picnic together.

Not only is it better for your digestion to slow down, it’s showing your family that they’re worth the extra intentionality it takes to pivot from your normal mode of taking the “easy way out” to create moments of connection.

Have an “afternoon teatime” and eat cookies and have tea with lumps of sugar and too much cream. Look at works of Monet while listening to Bach.

Serve your supper table with your meal in Pyrex dishes so that any leftovers can go straight in the fridge.

Will a drive-through meal hinder a lifetime of moments? Absolutely not. But choosing not to create a lifetime of moments due to inconvenience just doesn’t sound fruitful when you look back in 30 years, does it?

We only get 18 or so years with our children, mamas. Let’s prioritize what truly matters, even if it’s different, not easy, inconvenient, and requires more effort. It will be such a rich blessing.

Choose to think ahead just a bit, in order to have moments of connection. Often the sweetest conversations can open up at the table. Use the time around the table to get to know your kids, or even share bits of your story. Jesus prioritized sitting at the table, to fully enjoy his meals with those he loved.

Let’s allow our children and family the blessing of putting our best effort forward, for them!

🫖🥘🍽️

Painting: Village Family at a Meal by Jozef Israëls

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part two) 🕊️

Create margin in your days to be connecting with your children. Choose to be less busy so that you can give them genuine time and attention.

If your day is spent busy with house tasks, or out and about moving from one thing to the next, then reassess where your priorities lie.

Create a realistic daily and weekly schedule for yourself with daily habits and daily house tasks, and leave space to be intentionally focused on connecting with your children.

If you’re constantly organizing because of excess, then you likely have too much stuff. If you feel like you can never figure out how to keep your house clean, well it won’t always be with children, but you can create sustainable rhythms by simply getting rid of more, so there’s less to manage.

Invite your children into your tasks with you! Take the time to teach them age appropriate household tasks. This is a time for connection and growth in both of you.

Don’t fill your plate so full that your children simply get what’s falling off of it, or, the scraps when you’ve done all you’re able to. Create boundaries with your time, and stick to them!

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. How are you spending them?

If you’re a homeschooling mama, it’s easy to say we’re with our children all day, but be sure to allow yourself to truly see them, being fully engaged, and fully present with them.

Eye contact, speaking words of life, and emulating the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Prioritize these things.

Check the last post for helpful ways to lessen your screen-time, too 🫶🏻

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (a series) 🕊️

First: get your eyes off the screens. 📺🤳📱

Set limits on your phone, and have your husband or trusted friend have a passcode that you don’t know so you can’t hit “ignore limit.”

Whether it’s getting sucked into social media scrolling, online shopping, or chatting with pals… whatever the hold is, it’s absolutely worth setting boundaries with.

Have you checked your screen time usage lately? Let that be your starting point. Get that lower! Use those hours back in your day to look your children in the eyes, tell them something wonderful you love about them, get outside intentionally together, read good stories, and get in the kitchen with your helper(s).

Don’t look at your phone before bed OR first thing in the morning. In fact, charge your phone in a different room altogether (if an on-call job isn’t in the picture, of course).

Nix streaming shows if that’s a big chunk of your (or your kids) day/night, and focus on creating rhythms that allow for hands on activities like painting with watercolors, going on nature walks, quality time with your loved ones, playing games, listening to good music, and learning new skills… together!

Write down (on paper!) what your ideal day would look like with your kids/work/family/etc. Where can you plug in more time to read good books for yourself, get quality time with your family, and fuel yourself with truth, goodness, and beauty rather than looking at a screen?

Take true inventory of what is taking up the hours in your day. Where is your focus truly? How much of your day is spent comparing your life with those behind a screen, chatting with people *not* in front of you, and consuming information we probably don’t actually need to know?

Replace the phone in your hand (or tv) with the real thing: holding hands with your people, reading a book, folding laundry, washing dishes, creating, writing letters and lists and journaling, using a real camera, touching nature, and living life.

This is just the first step. A “digital detox” if you will. Less screens, more eye contact, talking in person, more moments of connection, and more real life.

Are you with me? 🫶🏻

One of my dear friends first told me about @pure_s

One of my dear friends first told me about @pure_simple_market the week after they opened… and my West Coast heart skipped a beat. Finding an adorable local store that is family-owned, filled to the brim with healthy, homemade, and local farmer products is one thing that I’d been missing so much. Pure + Simple is family friendly… our kids can literally play safely while I shop, and I always love chatting with whoever is behind the counter that day. It’s more than just a darling grocery store, it’s fostering a local community that’s wholesome, supporting farmers, and bakers and makers all around Oklahoma 🥰

If you’re in the greater Tulsa area, you can also order online for next-day delivery through the link in their bio. Delivery is free for orders over $150. 🥕🥚🍓 🥬🧈🍗

When beginning to consider if homeschooling is rig

When beginning to consider if homeschooling is right for you, or perhaps you’ve already decided but you’re not fully confident one your “why,” or your purpose in doing so, or questioning if you even have it in you… then I’d encourage you to read “For the Children’s Sake” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay and “Awakening Wonder” by Sally Clarkson. It’s simply a starting point… but a really great one. 🕊️

——

We’ve been slowly (re)building our library with living books, classics, and literature that we’re all thoroughly excited to make our way through. We adore thrifting books, thriftbooks.com, used book stores, and small shop book printers like @newwestpress and @livingbookpress. 📚

One day, we hope to have a library like Belle’s, ladder and all. Until then, enjoying this cutie shelf my husband recently put up, and all the quaint vintage bookcases scattered around the house. 📕

Are you bookish? 📖

One whole school year down, a lifetime to go. 📚

One whole school year down, a lifetime to go. 📚 This year has been filled with some really high highs, and a fair amount of lows… but overall it’s been an incredible honor to get a front row seat to my little people growing and learning in a way that blows me away. What a gift, and what an honor. Mg favorite part is that I get to re-educate myself right alongside them. It truly is such a blessing; one I don’t take lightly or for granted.

To my fellow homeschooling families, have you completed your year? Schooling through Summer? Taking a short break?

We’re enjoying our Summer break, with a bit of lessons mixed in there the next couple months, and lots of habit training for all (myself included). It’s been a beautiful year, and I’m all the more excited for what’s in store next! 🕊️

If you’re at all curious about homeschooling, please check my homeschool highlight, and my blog post “How to Begin Homeschooling” 🫶🏻

#homeeducator #homeschool #charlottemason #homeschoolers #wildandfree #homeeducation #beatrixpotter

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part three)

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part three) 🕊️

Create intentional moments every single day to be fully present together, by having your meals together, around the table (phone-free).

For breakfast you may have muffins made the night before, or a bowl of yogurt, or simple scrambled eggs, or maybe you’ll enjoy a big feast with biscuits and gravy, and all the fixins… however simple or extravagant, enjoy it together, every morning, at the table. 🍳

For lunch, fill a big serving board with lots of different options for charcuterie (think easy! carrots, hummus, veggies, fruit, nuts, crackers, deli meats!) and enjoy it WITH the kids! 🍎

Grab a blanket or mat and stuff a bag filled with all the odds and ends in your pantry that don’t need to be warmed, and walk to a nearby park, or your own yard to eat and picnic together.

Not only is it better for your digestion to slow down, it’s showing your family that they’re worth the extra intentionality it takes to pivot from your normal mode of taking the “easy way out” to create moments of connection.

Have an “afternoon teatime” and eat cookies and have tea with lumps of sugar and too much cream. Look at works of Monet while listening to Bach.

Serve your supper table with your meal in Pyrex dishes so that any leftovers can go straight in the fridge.

Will a drive-through meal hinder a lifetime of moments? Absolutely not. But choosing not to create a lifetime of moments due to inconvenience just doesn’t sound fruitful when you look back in 30 years, does it?

We only get 18 or so years with our children, mamas. Let’s prioritize what truly matters, even if it’s different, not easy, inconvenient, and requires more effort. It will be such a rich blessing.

Choose to think ahead just a bit, in order to have moments of connection. Often the sweetest conversations can open up at the table. Use the time around the table to get to know your kids, or even share bits of your story. Jesus prioritized sitting at the table, to fully enjoy his meals with those he loved.

Let’s allow our children and family the blessing of putting our best effort forward, for them!

🫖🥘🍽️

Painting: Village Family at a Meal by Jozef Israëls

HOW TO BE MORE PRESENT IN MOTHERHOOD (part two) 🕊️

Create margin in your days to be connecting with your children. Choose to be less busy so that you can give them genuine time and attention.

If your day is spent busy with house tasks, or out and about moving from one thing to the next, then reassess where your priorities lie.

Create a realistic daily and weekly schedule for yourself with daily habits and daily house tasks, and leave space to be intentionally focused on connecting with your children.

If you’re constantly organizing because of excess, then you likely have too much stuff. If you feel like you can never figure out how to keep your house clean, well it won’t always be with children, but you can create sustainable rhythms by simply getting rid of more, so there’s less to manage.

Invite your children into your tasks with you! Take the time to teach them age appropriate household tasks. This is a time for connection and growth in both of you.

Don’t fill your plate so full that your children simply get what’s falling off of it, or, the scraps when you’ve done all you’re able to. Create boundaries with your time, and stick to them!

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. How are you spending them?

If you’re a homeschooling mama, it’s easy to say we’re with our children all day, but be sure to allow yourself to truly see them, being fully engaged, and fully present with them.

Eye contact, speaking words of life, and emulating the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Prioritize these things.

Check the last post for helpful ways to lessen your screen-time, too 🫶🏻

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