Motherhood

Great parenting requires a great foundation. Being intentional and consistent in your parenting choices takes more grit than you can imagine if you don’t have children, and more than we can muster some days for those of us who have kids! It also takes a fair amount of grace—for your children and for yourself. A component of consistent parenting is developing the core values by which you will raise your family. Whether you are aware of it or not, most of us have already developed core values and practice them. Your experiences as a child, your parents (or lack thereof), the places you’ve lived, your education, friends, and beliefs have all influenced your core values. Thankfully, they are not always set in stone, […]

Friends ask me all the time, “How in the world do you find the time to run your own business and write articles?” It is not like I am some superwoman! In fact, if you ask my family, they will inform you that I am far from possessing any powers! I cannot do all things and do them well. So yeah, I am running my own home business, but my laundry pile is competing with Mt. Everest as we speak. I have also had to make sacrifices along the way in order to find the time to do the things that I love, and I have some tools that help me get things done! 1. Community. I am involved in a few communities of people who hold me accountable to goals. We were not

I love October, but admit I don’t get into all the spooky and haunted hype around Halloween. When my husband and I first had our children, we discussed what level, if any, our involvement would be in the holiday. He grew up the son of a pastor who did not take any part in it. I grew up having the fun of dressing up, trick-or-treating, and going to parties, even though I was never attracted to the darker side of the celebrations. Our solution? We landed on the choice to allow our family to take part, but with a certain perspective and set of guidelines in place. Many houses in our neighborhood go above and beyond with Halloween décor, incorporating gory scenes,

The Grit and Grace Project ladies banded together to share some of their best Halloween tips for you and the kids… 1. Buy candy you don’t like. Then if there’s any leftover it won’t land in your mouth. 2. Don’t break the bank on kid’s costumes. Make something from what you have—and it doesn’t have to be “Pinterest worthy”—just have fun! Plus it will create great photos for future teenage embarrassment. 3. Leave the family pet at home. Chasing your pet who is chasing the kids in costumes is never fun. 4. Buy your candy early, during candy sales or use coupons. 5. Avoid opening said candy bag before October 31—unless you were smart enough to follow tip one! 6. If your

He doesn’t remember saying it, but I remember. Moms do not forget it when their sons utter wisdom. We were talking about education, which not that long ago would have been rather remarkable. He was not a good student. He wouldn’t mind me saying that now. In fact, he regrets his so-so academic performance. And he knows how frustrated we got with him at times. He’s not dumb, far from it, and we always knew that. Hence, the frustration. The anger that we spent money we didn’t have on education he didn’t care about. Well, he cared, just not enough to sustain the efforts that care produced. In this he was a typical boy. A careless student who saw absolutely no value