Parent Intentionally

October 25, 2017

Teachable Moment

By now, you all know how much I stress the importance of learning – not necessarily the traditional education model – but real learning. Real learning can happen in a classroom setting, but it can also happen in many less traditional environments such as the car, the grocery store, and the dinner table. It can […]

October 20, 2017

Confession Time

Confession time – for about a year now, I’ve been dissatisfied with my life. It’s very hard for me to put that in print and admit it to the world. It makes me feel very ungrateful to God. God has blessed me with everything I’ve ever wanted – an incredible husband who loves me, eight […]

October 18, 2017

We Don’t Always Know What To Do

We do a lot of farm tours here at Goat Milk Stuff, and different Jonases give the tours depending on who is available and what is going on at the farm. While the tours all cover the same ground, each tour is very different depending on not only who the tour guide is, but who is […]

October 16, 2017

Sometimes a Mom’s Gotta Do What a Mom’s Gotta Do

Saturdays are our busiest day on the farm for a variety of reasons. It’s the busiest day for tours, baby goat experiences, visitors on the farm – and we have to do it all without the help from our employees. But it’s October, and that throws in another complication – Cross Country season. During Cross […]

October 11, 2017

Which is more important in life – balance or margin?

Do you ever watch or listen to Ted Talks? I love to listen to them (if I don’t have music playing) while I’m cleaning the house or cooking by myself. I just put on a Ted Talk playlist and hit play. The other day, I heard a Ted Talk by Nigel Marsh* called “How to […]

October 06, 2017

Authenticity

I wrote my last blog post thinking about happiness. But after I finished writing it, I couldn’t stop thinking about authenticity. Authenticity is being genuine or “what you see is what you get”. It is not being fake. And I kept wondering, “Am I really as authentic as I think I am?” Let’s be honest […]

October 04, 2017

Living in Harmony

Somebody said to me the other day, “I really love my life and wouldn’t change it. But if I had to swap my life for somebody’s, I’d pick yours. I know you work really hard, but you all just always look so happy.” And this was from somebody who knows “real life PJ” and not […]

October 02, 2017

Does Hard Work “Fix” Everything?

Last week I mentioned that we are facing a big decision about if (and when) to expand our Grade A Dairy and Cheese Plant. We’ve been having lots of conversations about it as a family and one of the children made an interesting comment. He said, “I think we should build; we’re willing to work […]

September 29, 2017

Confirmation Bias

I am facing a very big decision that needs to be made within the next 6 months or so. We’ve really outgrown our existing cheese kitchen. We need some bigger equipment that we would have a tough time finding room for in our current kitchen. And so I need to decide whether or not we […]

September 27, 2017

Lessons from Showing Hospitality

When Jim and I were building our home here on the Goat Milk Stuff farm, we spent a lot of time talking about what “feeling” we wanted our home to give. We wanted it to be welcoming and friendly. We didn’t want it to have a “formal” feeling to it. Instead we wanted it to […]

September 25, 2017

My Party System

I received a huge compliment this weekend. A married man in his twenties said to me, “I want to entertain just like you when I grow up.” He absolutely made my day. This weekend, we threw an Engagement Party for Brett and Mason. It was tons of fun with friends and family. Plus we got to […]

September 22, 2017

The Buffet of Life

Grandma and Poppy have been with us for several weeks. They arrived to escape Hurricane Irma and decided to stay until Brett and Mason’s engagement party since it didn’t make sense to drive back to Florida just to turn right around again a few days later. Poppy took the whole family out to China Garden […]

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