About

I am a wife, mother of four girls, director of religious education/youth minister, and teacher educator reflecting on what is most important in life and trying to align my day to day actions to those values.

I started this blog in 2015 - a new blog for a new writing territory. Prior to that point in time, much of my blogging life had been related to an educator lens - reviews of YA and middle grades books, reviews of books for educators, and reflections from my classroom. A big portion had also been dedicated to being a mom and the juggle between career and family.

With Core as my One Little Word for 2015, I had been able to continue on a journey of viewing myself as more than my career and to move beyond seeing career/family as the biggest juggle in my adult life. While I thought having Core as my OLW would continue on that same path, I quickly realized that it was more about the true core being focusing on a deeper understanding of and daily actions to connect to my Catholic faith. In turn, that has been positively impacting other aspects of my life. Whereas before, I often didn't think I had time for a stronger focus on my faith based on other roles in life, now I am seeing how other aspects of my life can fit around my religious life as the core with the understanding that my role as a wife and mother are vital in living out my vocation day to day.

This blog focuses on this on-going journey: struggles, successes, resources, and reflections as I navigate phases of my adult life (mid-30s at the start of the blog). As with other blogging before, this is an avenue to contribute to the dialogue of something that is of key importance in my life.

Each of my posts will be deeply connected to the Clandinin and Connelly (2000) description of the narrative inquiry space as being three-dimensional, “a set of terms that pointed [narrative inquirers] backward and forward, inward and outward, and located them in place” (p. 54). Posts will be in the moment, snapshots of specific points in my journey that I will view from a different lens in the future as I continue to develop and grow over time. Posts will serve as a documentation of my thoughts in specific points of time in specific contexts.