A Joyful Heart is Good Medicine

If I’ve learned anything within the last several years of my life, it’s that good things take time, patience has never been easy, but it worth it and there’s a right time for everything. It’s shown true through the years of trying for a baby, searching for a home for two years and even desiring a new job for Ryan for years. All of those times paid off and I’ve learned that this space isn’t any different.

I started here well over seven years ago and since it’s evolved. Around two years ago I let fear creep in because the internet is a big scary world to toss your child onto and hope the details of her life aren’t stolen. I’ve seen it so many times with larger bloggers being vulnerable to the world only for their photos to be fraudulently taken from the internet. A few months ago I left the space amidst chaos of our lives and big changes happening around us. I was trying to force my presence here without any direction or passion pushing behind it. You see, it’s easy for me to get excited and start projects, but the truth is, my follow through isn’t always magnificent.

Months ago I was standing in my kitchen, gripping a cookbook from my childhood – one filled with recipes from my elementary school days splashed with food stains and marked with circles, stars and dog-eared pages of my favorite recipes. I always come back to that old book and I realized in that moment, that is what I wanted for this space. A place to come back to, to dive into old recipes and memories. Still, that wasn’t enough to shove my passion forward.

My creative spirit and over-the-moon mama heart collided after I had A and once she became a toddler, I thrived to create with her. We both enjoy it. The truth is, coming up with the ideas isn’t always easy and some days in general aren’t even easy. So I decided that every week I would brainstorm a new project or at least creative things I remember doing as a child. I realized then I wanted to put them down to come back to later, but also to give other moms ideas to do with their toddlers. My goal wasn’t to be a Pinterest mom, some days I have a hard time just being a patient one so there is no room for that here.

It still wasn’t quite enough to bring a can’t-stop-thinking-about-it passion for the space. A few updates, but the desire and heart weren’t here. Some framework ideas were but that was all.

I left the space months ago with a delicious recipe and let things be. Time would only tell if I would do anything with it again.

I found ideas for content through conversations with friends, friends that would come to me for my advice based on my experience of life, love, business, budgeting and parenting. I had a quiet reminder that I have value, my thoughts have value and so do my experience. My momentum began to build a little bit and so did my excitement. Soon we bought a house, I laid new flooring, we got settled, we got a new puppy and Ryan found a new job. All the while through our changes I found my desire to write, writing narrative in my head, the ideas were flowing, in fact they were overflowing.

The final piece was the foundation – what this space was really going to be built upon because if this was going to happen, it was going to be the real deal built upon a foundation. I’ve found so much hope and encouragement in Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is good medicine.”

Click. All the pieces aligned, clarity happened and the fall-asleep-and-wake-up-thinking-about-it excitement happened.

It has been stopping me in my tracks, shifting my attitude that joy is a choice in the hardest of days. Finding beauty and joy and filling my heart with that has done nothing by good things for me. Joy is a choice and it’s one that I’m choosing and I felt a tug at my heart strings that it was the foundation of this space. That’s what I’ve learned this space is really about, and when I realized it wasn’t all about me here – the pieces fell together with the quiet calm that my heart really needed. The inspiration began to flood my mind and my desire to write and create came forward yet again.

During my time away I felt some change in my heart, the quiet calm that I had been searching for, for so long. I found clarity that not only is this space for me, and someday for my daughter to read but it’s for Him and it’s for You. It’s for you reading this to find words that meet you where you are and calm your restless heart coupled with fears that maybe you aren’t doing enough. It’s a space I want to use to inspire others – inspire mothers, wife, and others in between. I want people to come here for delicious food, creative activities and for beautiful words.

I love encouraging and inspiring others, give them conversation, give them hope. I suppose that’s why so many friends come to me for conversation. I want my words to meet you right where you are right now, and help you keep moving forward.

I want the tired mama who just needs an activity for her kids to have a place to find it, or food ideas that she can create in her kitchen for the whole family, and words telling her that she’s doing a great job. You’ll never find me telling someone how to do something, just how we are doing it right now and that it might work for someone else.

I want women and wives to find ideas to cook in their kitchens, products they love, ways to juggle what life throws at them to find rest here. To read that there might just be a little hope, or this-or-that idea might just work.

So here I am writing in my new house, with my toddler, A, coloring beside me and a puppy at my feet. My heart is joyful and my spirit is excited. This space for my creative outlet, a place to keep for years to come, it’s for you here reading right now and it’s for Him. I have a foundation and I have a message.

I can’t wait, this time is different.