Author: Jackie
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Word of the Year: Explore
I have had this thought in the back of my mind nagging me for the past couple of weeks. I hoped I could just keep it buried there amongst forgotten To-Do Lists, knowledge only suitable for trivia games, and abandoned dreams, but it keeps bubbling up to the surface during the quiet moments of my…
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20 Things I’m Really Doing During Social Media Hiatuses
I recently wrote a post about Silencing the Internal Pressure to Be the Blogger I’m Not, and that wasn’t even the article I set out to write that day. I planned to sit down and write this slightly self-deprecating list of all of the things I do instead of work on my blog, create new…
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Five Picture Books About Trouble-Making Farm Animals We Are Reading
Right now, Oliver is in love with farm animals and his new John Deere farm tractor toy that plays Old McDonald Had a Farm. It’s been fun to watch him play with it ever since he learned how to “drive” toy vehicles by pushing them around on the ground. I swear he didn’t know how…
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Silencing the Internal Pressure to be the Blogger I’m Not
Blogging has been my hobby for two decades now. I mean that quite literally. And during these past twenty years, blogging evolved from inane ramblings on personal websites built on Geocities to polished content creation with the unstated intent to sell something to the readers. It could be a lifestyle. It could be a self-published…
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Five December Favorites
I know we are three days into the New Year already, but you know how it is with these wrap-up posts… I like to take a minute (or more realistically an hour that gets edited down to about 12 minutes) and reflect on the month and really focus on some of the more positive experiences…
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2019 in Review
Right about now, my Twitter feed is filling up with snarky tweets that #SumsUp2019. Was this year really so bad, or is it easy for people to focus on the things that didn’t go right at the year’s end? This year wasn’t always easy or enjoyable for me, but I think it is easier for…
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Five Picture Books About Winter We Are Reading This Week
Winter is officially here! Although, the weekly forecast might have you wondering if Jack Frost is taking a vacation this year. I can’t believe it was in the 50s on Christmas day here in Michigan! Normally, I love freezing temperatures and plush snowbanks, especially now that I don’t have to drive in inclement weather. It…
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Five Picture Books About Christmas We Are Reading This Week
Fact: Motherhood has ruined me, and I started listening to Christmas songs on November 1st. I think our Christmas tree went up the following week. In lieu of homemade Christmas cookies, because Oliver has an egg allergy, I stirred up a batch of rice crispy treats in which I dyed the marshmallow fluff green and…
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10 Lessons I Learned During My First Year of Motherhood
In October, my son, Oliver, celebrated his first birthday. Some days, it still strikes me as surreal that this tiny human exists. Other days, I cannot even remember what life was like without him. All the same, this past year has taught me a lot about parenthood and myself too. Here are just a few…
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Family Fun: Slate Run Living Historical Farm
I used to live in Ohio (the Columbus metropolitan area), but that was twenty years ago, and it was much quieter back then. Now, the population seems to have exploded, and driving down to visit family usually means I’m white-knuckling it through congested traffic once I hit Delaware. But, not everything is so urban there.…
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By Golly, Ollie! 