Welcome To The Season We Share

I’ve thought about starting this blog for quite some time. I played with ideas, narrowed down my focus (I thought), and purchased the domain name almost a year ago. I jotted down ideas, started posts, abandoned posts, changed direction, and wondered more than once whether the internet really needs one more person sharing her thoughts about family life, and if so, does the internet really need me sharing my thoughts?

Do I have anything worth sharing?

My life is not particularly extraordinary. It’s fast-paced and chaotic more often than I’d like. We don’t live in a perfect home or eat made-from-scratch meals every night. I write out meal plans I discard in the midst of a busy day, forget laundry in the washing machine, and have days when simply getting everyone where they need to be feels like an accomplishment in itself. Our family life is far from curated. It’s messy and often ordinary. And then it came to me… perhaps that is exactly what I want to share: a picture of real family life in all of its messy, ordinary joyfulness.

We are a family of six trying to keep up with school and activities and work and pets and meals and laundry and home projects and all the little things that somehow fill up the days. We have young adults, a teenager, and a tween, all needing different levels of support and encouragement. We homeschool, travel when we can, craft, cook, laugh, and occasionally we lose our minds.

We also have three generations whose lives are woven together in ways that aren’t always simple, but that I come to appreciate more and more with each passing year.

There is something different about this particular season of life.

My children are growing up while my parents are growing older, and somehow I find myself right in the middle of it all. I’m still very much a mom, guiding my children as they grow and find their way, while also becoming more involved in helping my parents navigate this next chapter of their lives. If I’m being honest, I don’t always know exactly what I’m doing. I’m figuring it out as I go — trying to be the mom my children need, the daughter my parents need, and somewhere in the middle of it all, figuring out who I am in this new season as well.

I suspect I’m not the only one.

That’s the idea behind The Season We Share.

I want this little piece of the internet to be a place for the ordinary stuff — the things that don’t necessarily make a highlight reel or a TikTok video, but somehow make up most of our lives. I want to share a reminder, both for myself and for each of you, dear readers, that the ordinary is often what we remember as time passes. The little moments shared, not always planned and seldom perfect.

Here you’ll find the improvised recipe that becomes a family favorite, the trip that didn’t go quite as planned, the craft project that looked much better in my head — or that my daughter somehow improved in five minutes after I’d spent hours thinking about it, the homeschool day that somehow turned into something completely different, the conversation with a child that I wish I could bottle up and save, the memories we make with grandparents, the pets underfoot, the house that is never quite clean, the celebrations, the hard days, the ridiculous days, and the days we’re pretty sure we’ve got this whole life thing figured out — followed immediately by the days we’re absolutely certain we don’t.

I want to share these moments without pretending the hard stuff isn’t there, because that’s real life. Perhaps this is what happens as we get older; we begin to understand that the things we once thought were insignificant were actually the moments that mattered most. Any season of life can feel exhausting while we’re living it, and yet those very moments may be the ones we someday wish we could recapture.

This is what I’m going to write about here.

There will be family and food, homeschooling and travel, crafts and pets, home and the challenges that come with living across generations. There will be things I’ve learned, things I’m still learning, and undoubtedly a few things I’ll get completely wrong.

I’m not here because I have all the answers; I’m here because I’m living it, too. Perhaps somewhere along the way, we’ll discover that the things that connect us aren’t the big, extraordinary moments at all, but the everyday ones, the messy ones. Or maybe it’s simply knowing that someone else is walking through a season that looks a little like yours.

So, welcome.

I’m Jennifer, and this is The Season We Share.

I’m glad you’ve found your way here.

Come share the season.