About

Hi!  I'm Amy.  I'm pictured here with Jyllian (11), Katelynn (7), and Evan (1).  They call me Mama, and all three of them make my life so rich in so many ways.

I spend each day loving on my husband and leading these kids, all with a steady gaze upward.  Add to that a little reading, writing, homeschooling, babysitting, and trying to figure out how to be homesteaders, and you've got us in all our messy glory.  


Ever since I was little, I dreamed that on my wedding day my husband would present me with my very own real strand of pearls.  I’d wear them on that day and on special occasions, and they’d be present in almost every picture of our family.  A fixture, almost.  A symbol of me.  I dreamed that I’d have a little girl of my own who admired my pearls and wanted ones just like Mommy’s.  

Every time she’d ask I’d tell her the story of how I got such a special gift.  She’d ask me to get them out of my jewelry box often, and even to try them on.  Of course I’d let her.  She’d love to hear how one day the pearls would be hers.   Then one day, when the time was right, I’d pull her aside and present them to her, telling her I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life. 
    
Well...I got my girls.  Two of them!  I also got my pearls.   And this space is - really - for them.  

But I'm so glad you're here, too!

Elizabeth George said that life itself is like a string of pearls.  Each day that we’re given is a single pearl, formed and shaped by how we choose to live.  At the end of the day we add it to our string and by the end of our lives, we end up with a beautiful strand of pearls to adorn ourselves with. 

Because our lives are made up of all our days strung together, and it's up to us what our strand looks like. 
 
The first time I read these words I fell in love with them.  I knew that’s exactly how I wanted to live my life.  I want to be proud to wear my beautiful strand when I get to meet Jesus.  

Sometimes my pearls turn out perfectly round and gorgeous.  But a lot of times they end up misshapen and irregular, and I’m learning that’s okay; the imperfect, genuine strands are always the most beautiful anyway. 
 
For now, my sweet girls admire my strand.  But it's also time for them to start stringing their own, and I pray that I’ve done well to teach them how. 

That’s why I write here.  I struggled for quite some time trying to figure out what direction to take my writing.  I want so much to help and encourage other women.  (The world needs more of that, you know.)  

 I tried to figure out who would be my “target audience” and what type of “content” they would like.  All of the ideas I came up with got me excited, but only one brought me to tears.  It was this:   THEY are my audience--my little women.  My most important audience.  And there’s no better fodder for content than real life.  Our life. 

Our string of pearls. 
 
So, in these pages, you’ll find…me.  Us.  Our memories.  The foods we know and love.  The everyday stuff that makes this house a home.   Our traditions.  The what, why, and how of things.  I want to give it all to them. 

And...since you're here, to you as well. 
 
Because I know one day the value that they will find in this will be value that only loss can create.  I hope it blesses them then. 

But I also hope that you’ll look at this as a way to admire my strand, and to learn and grow from it.  Even use it to decide what you want yours to look like.  There's awesome power in sharing and connecting, and learning from others' stories isn't there? 

Thank you so much for reading, my friend.

Jyll and Katie--it’s hard to say, my sweethearts, what kind of women you will turn out to be.  I pray that wherever life takes you, you can always look back and remember what it was like to be a part of my string of pearls.

Want to connect further?  You can find me on Instagram and Pinterest.