. My Story .
2017 changed my
life forever and made me rethink everything.
But let’s back up.
I grew up in a very creative household.
My entire family consisted of artists, both
professional and amateur. Painting, drawing, quilting, sculpting/carving,
hand lettering, jewelry, woodworking, and a plethora of other crafts . . . you
name it, we’ve probably done it.
But even more than that, our life was authentic. We
spent time together—crafting, eating dinner, attending
church, and establishing long-standing traditions. Bedtime stories, long talks,
participating in the family business (art related, of course!)
. . . we were in
each other’s lives and experiencing life together in all its rich vibrancy.
When I met my husband,
we continued to live authentically . . . for a while.
“Art” wasn’t so much a part of our relationship, but we
still lived authentically. We dated with intention—treating our relationship as
if it would last into marriage, yet respecting each other as if our hearts were
meant for someone else.
But along the
way, our relationship began to fall apart.
The longer we dated, we acted like two ships passing
in the night. We wanted to connect, but everything felt “off.”
Have you ever been there?
Eventually, our relationship transformed from
occasional awkward moments to silent standoffs (or sometimes not-so-silent). We
were ready to give up.
After nearly breaking up, we decided to fight.
Not each other.
Haha! Fight for the relationship.
If you want to learn more about our relationship, you
can read about it here. But basically, we needed to be other-focused instead of
self-focused. Sounds like a “duh” moment, right? Obviously, you focus on the
other person!
Except, friends,
how often do we slip up and become selfish?
Long story short, we learned to TALK about life,
LISTEN to each other’s needs, and MAKE A SOLID EFFORT to reach those needs.
Our relationship grew by leaps and bounds! We married
in 2006, and we experienced a marriage many
dream of!
Fast forward
about eight years . . .
Our life was great, but something was missing.
. . . And I don’t mean a child—though we were definitely in
the process of pursuing adoption by this point (which is also a whole story in
and of itself!) . . .
Friends, we were coasting.
Our life was
FINE, but we could be so much more.
So our journey to authenticity began.
We fumbled
around with this idea of authenticity until 2017, when everything in our lives
changed and our plan to be authentic became laser-focused.
Blessed, but hectic!
And all of that bustle and change forced us to take stock of our priorities and what we wanted
our life to look like. It became harder—and incredibly important—to live an authentic life together, and we were determined to make
it work.
Our WHY
grew large enough to feed our plans.
That’s when this website was born—to share our tips and our
journey with you, friends, so you can live the life you were meant for, too.
Build a life
you’re proud of.
Need ideas of where to begin? Check out these links
first:
