Since this is a new blog launch and I know that I have some new readers out there I thought I would take a blog post to tell you a few things about me.
I grew up in a small Mennonite town in Kansas, much of our family still lives in the area. I loved living in the country and one day hope to be able to raise my children in the same kind of place where I grew up. I married my high-school sweetheart when we were 19. My husband proposed the August after he graduated high-school. He poured concrete during the day and painted my parent’s barn in the evenings after work to pay for my ring. He has always been a hard worker and for that I am thankful.
We have been blessed with 4 sons here on earth and 3 children in Heaven. We had 2 early miscarriages (2003 and 2009) and lost our 5th son Knox at 15 weeks in December of 2011. You can read my blog posts about how he touched our lives here. We are trusting God for more children in His timing and are learning to rest in Him. Our boys are 9,7,3, and 19 months. I have had 3 c-sections (my first 3 births) and my 4th son was born at home with a fantastic midwife who believes in the body that my creator made. I am passionate about birth and birth choices for women.
I am a nurse. I teach for a local community college and online for several schools. I currently work outside the home 2-3 days a week. When I worked in the hospital I worked in labor and delivery and I miss it sometimes. Nursing has always been where I felt like I was called to be. However, in the last few years God has really been calling my heart home with my family and children. It is our hope that there will come a time when I can be home with our children full time in the near future.
We home-school our children. We feel as though we have been called by God not only to educate them at home, but to disciple them. We have many family members who are public educators, they have difficult jobs and we commend anyone who provides education to someone else’s children. We are thankful God has given us the opportunity and the provision to be able to teach our children at home.
I am still learning to be a wife and mother. My husband and I half-joke that we have been married for 11 years, the last 7 of them have been really great! The first few years of our marriage were rocky to say the least. We both had a lot of learning to do about being the spouses God wanted us to be. When we were first married my husband was an unbeliever and through God’s grace was brought to a saving faith shortly before our first son was born. God is continually stretching and growing me to become the woman He’s called me to be.
I enjoy gardening, music, cooking and spending time with my family. I am teaching myself to sew and am learning to enjoy running. I am working towards running a 5K in May. I am an avid reader. I usually have 2 or 3 books in various stages of completion sitting on our end table. I enjoy writing, but until the last year or so have really kept the things I write to myself. I found after Knox was born that writing helped me put meaning to my feelings and allowed me to express things that I had too many tears for if I tried to say them.
Now for some fun facts that some of my usual blog readers may not know about me…
I play the drums in our church worship band. I played in high-school, but never played the trap set. When our drummer got married and moved away I got nominated. I enjoy it more now that I have a drum set in our basement and can practice. I also play flute (although drums sound more exciting don’t they?)
If I couldn’t make it in nursing, I wanted to be an actress. I enjoyed being the center of attention when I was younger and enjoyed drama a lot. I used to participate in forensics meets when I was in high school. I’m not as excited about being main stage now, but still enjoy drama and think about doing some community theater every now and then.
I would like to learn how to swing dance. My husband is a little harder to convince, so I’m holding out for the day when one of our boys is big enough to dance with me and we’ll learn then.
I blog partially to make myself write down the memories and things happening around me. I’m not the most disciplined when it comes to keeping a journal, but this gives me a creative outlet to do so. My children are growing so quickly and I’m afraid that I will forget what an awesome blessing it is to watch them grow up. I also hope that what I write here will touch the lives of my readers and bring glory to God.
Welcome to FillingQuiver, I encourage you to explore my site and read some of my other posts. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading and may your time here be blessed!
