Purposeful Parenting (Part 3:) Finding Meaning and Purpose in the Everyday

I used to have this app on my phone called Legacy Countdown. It was literally a countdown clock to remind me how much time I had left before my kids graduated high school. There’s nothing like knowing how little time remains to ensure you don’t waste it.

Deciding where to invest all those minutes and hours is hard, especially when you start without a plan. When my first daughter was just a baby, I enrolled her in Music Together, Mother’s Morning Out, and a Friday morning play group in our neighborhood.

By age three, we had added dance classes to the mix.

Then she started school, and I realized we needed an art enrichment class and after-school tutoring. In another year, we’d begin playing soccer, start a book club, and join Girl Scouts. I thought that more stuff gave our lives more meaning.

I was WRONG.

More stuff just made our lives more complicated.

I didn’t want my life to be just a countdown clock to the weekend or vacation or my kid’s graduation, so what did I do? I made a date with about a hundred other things.

Let’s be real— Isn’t it amazing how much you can accomplish when you’re in a pinch? Deadlines are my best friend, too. Deadlines hold my hand and encourage me to move with direction and purpose. And that’s what the Legacy App did for me. It put that hard deadline—the empty nest—front and center.

There’s a question we often ask ourselves when we reach a certain age, and it’s this: If I could go back in time, what advice would I give my younger self?

Maybe I would tell myself to slow down time. To enjoy the little things. To embrace the hard things. Maybe I would tell myself that all that extra “stuff” we did wouldn’t really matter in the long run.

But the reality is this: I can’t go back in time and tell my younger self anything.

What I can do, however, is set my future self up for success. My future self wants a life of meaning and purpose. My future self wants kids who are self sufficient, who harbor strong convictions, and who embrace life with their own visions of what the future holds. Looking forward gives us the ammunition we need to do something concrete and real.

Once I realized our family had a filled-up life that didn’t make us feel full at all, we started making some meaningful vows:

In the future:

• We will not say yes simply because we have a fear of missing out.

• We will not say yes because we’re afraid to be home alone with our kids.

• We will not justify decisions to match our circumstances.

• We will only add things to the family calendar that reflect our values.

We knew we wanted our kids to be creative problem solvers, effective mitigators for conflict resolution, and strong adults who could deal with disappointment. We wanted to encourage our kids to pursue the things they loved, and we also wanted to protect the time we had with them here at home.

Obviously, we had to say goodbye to some very good things. We had to make some hard choices.

One of the ways we did this by taking a season off. Knowing we would have time together in the near future sustained us when things were crazy, and everybody was eating dinner at a different time and no one was ever all in the car together. We knew it was for a season, and that made it bearable. For example, as much as we loved sports, we didn’t miss church to play them on Sundays. The down-time allowed us to catch our breath and explore what matters in the context of the most important relationships in our lives.

Another thing we did was empower our kids to choose for themselves those things that made them feel most alive. One summer, our older son obtained his private pilot’s license, and our younger son attended a summer camp for entrepreneurs. Our oldest daughter went on mission trips, and our youngest learned how to cook.

Over the years, I’ve been paying attention to the stories that make us who we are. Memories from childhood shape our worldview and influence our choices. In the future, I hope my kids will remember their past with a fondness that will carry them into their own preferred future. I hope they will feel equipped to find meaning not only in the work they choose to do but also in their relationships—both with people and with God. I hope they know that their past does not define them and that the future is filled with opportunity.

Mostly, I hope they enjoy today. It is a gift, and it is a responsibility. Steward it well, my friends.

“Science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose”

— Daniel Pink

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How are you creating more meaning in your family? Please share in the comments below.

Apathy: What to do When Work Feels Meaningless

First, let’s talk about work.

In Physics, work is force x displacement. The formula looks like this:

W=F(s)

In life, work is the energy we devote to making a difference in our homes, businesses, or communities.

But when we feel like we’re devoting a lot of energy with little or no return on that investment, the work feels meaningless. We begin to wonder if the work we’re doing is making a difference at all. And when we’re the ones who feel displaced, something is terribly wrong.

The pandemic has exacerbated our felt need for meaningful work by shifting focus (and resources) to essential frontline workers.

If you’re not an essential worker, your business might have taken a real hit this year. Many people experienced layoffs, furloughs, and resource allocations.

It seems like everyone these days is thinking about work—how to get a job, keep a job, or make their job impervious to future challenges.

I get it.

Even though I’m “just” a mom, I’ve been getting questions about work my whole life.

“What do you do?” I’m often asked. Or sometimes, this one, masked with politeness, “Do you work outside the home?”

The repetitive nature of household work combined with a feeling that your value is being taken for granted every single day can make even the most doting mom feel apathetic.

Parenting is like taking a ride on an emotional roller coaster. One second you’re on top of the world. The next, you’re in the pits of despair. Exhilarating highs and sorrowful lows eventually bring on emotional fatigue.

Emotional fatigue takes a toll, and the result isn’t pretty; it’s apathy—that sinking feeling that everything is meaningless.

I never thought of myself as an apathetic person, even though I did use phrases like “I couldn’t care less” and “Whatever” a lot as a teenager.

That was pretend.

I was just acting like I didn’t care, when in fact I cared very much—about everything—but I wrongly assumed that looking cool had something to do with giving off an air of aloofness.

Eye rolls, hair flips, and sighing were all just part of the act.

Real apathy—I didn’t experience that until I became a mom.

It’s bad manners not to tell mothers they have the most important job on earth, but given what’s actually practiced, it is hard for mothers to believe this is true.

My friend Jen once told me, “It’s not hard to be a mom; it’s hard to be a mom in a world that doesn’t value motherhood.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes felt this way, too.

“Yet when I survey all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

— Ecclesiastes 2:11

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A recent article in the Harvard Business Review aptly titled “What to do When Work Feels Meaningless” outlines some helpful strategies, which include empowering yourself with small actions, participating in something called “job crafting” and imagining a more purposeful future.

Let’s simplify.

Whenever you begin to dread the work you’re doing, you need to ask yourself two questions:

1) What do I want most?

This question is important because it acts like a gauge for assessing if where we are is serving as stepping stone or a stumbling block to helping us get where we want to be. Also—and this cannot be discounted—we can inadvertently sabotage our own future by prioritizing what we want now over what we want most or even by refusing to think about what we want at all. Both are choices, and both can be dangerous.

2) And why am I doing this?

WHY might be my very favorite question of all time. It’s the one two year-olds ask when told it’s time for bed. Heck, it’s the one two year-olds ask when we tell them anything. But just because we’re all grown up doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask why. We should NEVER, ever stop asking this question.

As Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, so aptly mused, “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

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“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’””

— Viktor Frankl

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Learning to make meaning from our life stories may be the most indispensable but least understood skill of our time. Paul Wong, a meaning researcher in Toronto, calls meaning making “the best kept secret to the greatest human adventure.” (Adapted from Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler)

Humans have a unique ability to live in the present while simultaneously remembering the past and envisioning the future. Being able to do this gives us a real-time view of the over-arching theme of our lives.

When I realized what I wanted my life to look like, I was able to craft a story I could live with.

I know what you must be thinking: What do you do when you realize the life you envisioned doesn’t match the one you’re living? When the friend dies or the kids haven’t met your expectations or the husband walked out on you?

The only way to survive suffering is to find meaning in it.

The. Only. Way.

Frankl also said, “Our need for meaning is greatest when life is harshest.”

We must bring our own meaning to the story we’re living.

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The Role of Imagination, Discipline, and Gratitude

1. Imagine your preferred future. Make an effort to stay connected to whatever work you gave up. I studied Biology in college. Although I may never work as a scientist, I recently subscribed to Scientific American Magazine. The articles are interesting, and every month I’m inspired to think about the world’s problems in new, creative ways. Problems I can actually do something about! Small steps in the direction of our dreams prepare us for what’s next.

2. Discipline yourself. We can wake up every morning obsessing over all the things that have to be done—the minutiae that preoccupies our waking hours—or we can decide that today is the day we do something different. When I was a young mom with small children, I often woke up tired. Before my feet hit the floor, I would already be dreaming of how I could squeeze in a nap later in the day. This attitude set me up for disappointment. Sometimes I got the nap, but often I didn’t, so not only was I tired…but also frustrated. And worse—I didn’t get anything done! Decide what you will do today and make a plan for getting something done. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just a “some”thing.

3. Practice gratitude. Give thanks for the work you’ve been given. The work of your hands is never offered in vain. Remember, no work (no matter how small) is ever wasted. Your perspective makes all the difference. I can grumble about the things that annoy me (i.e. unloading the dishwasher for the 100th time) or give thanks for the opportunity to serve my family.

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Above all else, remember that the story you’re living doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. Jealousy is counterfeit flattery. It’s an insult to everything that person has experienced, suffered, worked for, and failed at.

“And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

— Ecclesiastes 4:4

The work you do is important for the sole reason that it belongs to you.

Want more good stuff?

Tune in next week for Part 3 of our series: We’ll be talking about Insignificance and the battle to stay relevant.

Don’t miss a thing!

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What Does it Mean to be a Mission Driven Woman?

I started Mission Driven Woman in 2018, in response to the behavior I was seeing in my friends’ lives. Educated, well-connected women were struggling to communicate their value in a world that shrugs off motherhood. They told themselves that duty called and then expressed regret over the talent and skills that suddenly seemed dormant, if not dead.

But we all know that dormant doesn’t mean dead.

In plants, dormancy is closely associated with environmental conditions. Some grasses go dormant in winter in order to conserve water and nutrients. Scientifically speaking, dormancy describes a state of quiet rest.

Do I even have to tell you about all the studies that have been done touting the importance of both quiet and rest?

Funny thing: I’ve yet to meet a mother who gets to enjoy an abundance of QUIET or REST.

You know what that means? We’re not dormant!

I think women go through a process of transformation akin to something that’s common in the insect world: holometabolism. You probably know it as metamorphosis. Insects such as butterflies, beetles, and bees undergo this common and complicated form of maturation.

Inside the cocoon of a butterfly, for example, the caterpillar is broken down and turned into something new. A caterpillar disintegrates from the inside out, using digestive juices to literally consume its own body. The new cells it creates are called imaginal cells, and imaginal cells are undifferentiated cells that can become any type of cell!

Anything at all! IMAGINE that!

Isn’t that what we’re doing when we take a break to build our family and raise kids?

We think we’re going to seed (aka dormant), when the reality is we’re transforming (holometabolizing) by creating our very own imaginal cells.

My Mom’s Story

My own mother got married young by today’s standards. She was only 19. At 22, she got pregnant with me and dropped out of college. I had two brothers born a few years later. Our family was very traditional. Mom stayed home and did all the cooking and cleaning, and my dad went away to work. Then when I was in high school, my mom got a job too: She began driving a school bus. And I don’t know, but maybe there were some people who said, “Man, that’s what happens when you don’t finish college.”

Why do you think she did that? Got that job? Do you think it was because it was the only job she could get?

Trust me—she didn’t drive the school bus because that’s all she could do. She drove it because it was one of the choices available to her in that season of life.

Hard choices require us to access our values.

My mom drove the bus so she could have the flexible schedule of someone who worked for the school system. She drove the bus so our family could have access to health insurance while my dad transitioned into new work that would challenge him in new ways and also afford our family additional opportunities for both education and recreation.

Then, in 2000, with her kids finally all grown up and graduated from high school, my mom started a new adventure in a response to a problem my dad shared with her. At the time, he was a lobbyist for a trade association of child welfare organizations, and during the legislative season, he spent the majority of his day tracking down government notices at the state Capitol.

Together, they created an electronic tracking system that freed up time and space at the Capitol for not only my dad, but all lobbyists. This technology did not exist before my parents created it! Now my dad is retired, and my mom still runs the business, adding new clients and continuing to innovate every year for a more streamlined process.

I’m quite certain my mom didn’t lay on the grass as a little girl, stare up at the clouds, and daydream about being a lobbyist.

But one thing I do know: She did have dreams.

And no one but her will ever know “what might have been.”

Nothing Wasted

Don’t let what might have been haunt you. No experience is ever wasted. We get to take our dreams as inspiration, then use our very own “imaginal cells” to turn what’s in our brains into something usable and totally brand new.

We live in a time of incredible prosperity and creativity, when it’s entirely possible to create brand news ways not only of earning money but of serving the world.

Ask yourself: Who do I want to become during this uncertain time? In this season, what choices are available to me?

For many women who dreamed of becoming something different than what they are today, the future can feel hopeless because the present is tinged with loneliness, apathy, and insignificance.

I don’t want that for you.

Remember: a season is just a season. All living things go through periods that feel like death.

Renewal awaits.

This week, look out for three short blog posts that are all about combating those feelings inadequacy. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Know someone who needs this encouraging message today? Please feel free to forward to a friend!

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The Homemaker's Dilemma

Is the Covid-19 pandemic the “biggest setback for women in decades?”

According to writer, Jessica Valenti, the answer is yes. She asserts that Covid-19 has assured that women are “forced back into the domestic sphere” and that “there’s no progress for women if we’re kept from the public sphere.” (Emphasis mine)

And this is the problem I’ve always had with feminism:

That women’s empowerment equals work outside the home, that we have continued to define our worth in terms of what it means to be a man. And what it means to be a man, evidently, is work that has nothing to do with kids, cooking, or cleaning.

As if escaping that particular domestic prison will somehow free us from years of virtual slavery. “We were made for more!” we chant. “We want equality!” we scream.

The truth is you were made for more, and equality is a worthy ambition.

Absolutely.
A hearty YES.
To all of it.

But before you throw aside “home,” let’s take a look at it from a different point of view.

G.K. Chesterton (who also has one of my favorite quotes about motherhood), said this about home:

“The place where babies are born, where men die, where the drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or a shop or a bureau. It is something much smaller in size and much larger in scope. And while nobody would be such a fool as to pretend that it is the only place where people should work, or even the only place where women should work, it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the division of labour.”

Home might be a humble place to be, but it is huge in the way that it shapes the human heart. In fact, home has often been described as the place we long for—more than where we’re from or where we lay our heads at night—it is the place that brings us the most joy.

The Beginning

And I think that’s why the very first thing God ever did—before he created Adam and Eve—was prepare a home for them. He made it both functional and beautiful, and it was all for them. And then maybe you noticed, too, in the New Testament, in the book of John that Jesus is described as the “Word made flesh who made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14)

His dwelling!
In US!

And when John the Baptist’s disciples met Jesus for the first time, they said, “‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’
’Come,’ he replied, ‘and you will see.’
So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him.” (John 1:38-39)

I hope that Covid-19 doesn’t prove to be the biggest setback for women in decades.

I hope that men do step up to the plate and pitch in. It truly does take a village to raise a child, and lately we’ve found our village shrinking, so all the moms, dads, brothers and sisters, are carrying a larger load than normal. I, too, have noticed that the division of labor is not equal.

YET.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re not getting there.

While the pandemic may set women back in terms of work outside the home, I do believe that inside the home, they are being appreciated more than ever before. Women were, are, and will continue to be the quintessential essential worker.

Hands down.

Women with side hustles and women who are building businesses once their children have reached school-age are doing everything they can to do to keep it together—and more. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re capable of so much more than we ever thought possible.

Remember that G.K. Chesterton quote about our homes? Here’s what he said about motherhood:

“How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?
How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

The Truth

I think the pandemic has given us all a chance to reflect on where we are and what we truly want our lives to look like. In fact, I have a friend who is a Vice President at a large national corporation. Before the pandemic she was often getting up at 5:00 AM and heading out on a plane for a week of meetings at various venues. Since March, she’s been working exclusively from home and hasn’t traveled at all. You know what she told me? She said that home has always been her safe place. She has always loved walking in the door after being gone all week. “I’m home,” she’d breathe as she crossed the threshold and her family embraced her. “Now,” she says, “I’m getting more sleep. I’m not exhausted all the time. I’m reading more books, and instead of spending free time planning for the next presentation, I’m exercising and making memories with my girls. I love being home. It’s the best place in the world.”

Perhaps one day soon she’ll be back on a plane. She’s a talented executive, after all, and her income allows their family some pretty sweet perks—like a backyard pool, private school, and several vacations a year.

But my friend knows that home is lovely, too.

And yet we continue to strive and climb and claw our way out of our comfortable homes in search of something—I don’t know what—as if we’re wasting our lives if we choose to do anything other than what’s commonly referred to as “men’s work.”

You want respect? Be proud of the world you’ve created for your family. Who says you’re wasting anything?

Instead of complaining about the unfair balance, what if instead you patted yourself on the back, because you know you’re not only capable but also thriving in this new world?

Men vs. Women

Study after study has shown that women are able to juggle more than men. They don’t compartmentalize ideas and tasks, but are more like a computer in that can keep many tabs open at once. With brains that are more symmetrical than those of men, the two sides are able to “talk” to one another. Additionally, women experience emotions on a deeper level, which is helpful in how women relate and respond to the myriad new challenges being thrown at us right now.

I wholeheartedly do agree with so many things about the women’s movement. I’m for equal pay for equal work, and I’m against discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.

But I often wonder—if values like homemaking, cooking, and caring for children were prized in society for what they really are—beautiful ways to honor our families and strengthen the ties that bind us—would more women endeavor to do it? If we gave homemaking the honor it deserves, would more women proudly declare their status as “just a mom”? Is the thing in us that makes us want more the very thing that makes us feel like we’re less?

“The fastest way to kill something special is to compare it to something else.”

— Craig Groeschel

Please, just stop it.
Stop comparing yourself to men.

C.S. Lewis said,

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

One day, you will enter a home that will satisfy all your earthly longings.

Until that day, my friend, keep going. You are doing a good work.

And we know that’s true because Jesus even said, “My father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2)

Home Sweet Home.

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In Defense of Ordinary

The Dream

Have you ever had a dream that felt so real you woke up and felt like you had to write it down, immediately? Have you ever had a visceral reaction to something that literally happened in your sleep?

I ask because that’s what happened to me last night.

I had a dream that I was talking to my therapist. This was weird because I don’t even have a therapist but I have been listening to Lori Gottleib’s book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone on Audible. In the dream, I guess I was meeting with her.

She began our session with that old standby: “So what brings you here today?”

And I said, “I’m not really sure. My husband made the appointment.”

This part was a direct replay of a conversation Gavin and I had had earlier that night. Gavin has been listening to the book, too, and I think he thinks I need to go to therapy. Teasing me, he said if I made the appointment I’d probably act like I didn’t know why I was there. I guess that means I most definitely do need to go to therapy.

True story.

So then she (the therapist) switched gears and said, “Tell me about yourself.”

And so I launched into this story about my life that began with college, with choosing biology over literature (because I thought it would be more challenging), applying to medical school, getting rejected, and then getting waitlisted, and finally receiving that long-awaited acceptance letter only to decide that motherhood was the path I needed to take (because challenging or not, the truth was I didn’t really want to go to medical school). I talked about spending the next two decades wondering about my destiny, if my choices were the right ones, and if I would ever truly find my way. My words were laced with disappointment.

And even in the dream I was disappointed in myself for verbalizing the disappointment to a complete stranger.

“Only boring people get bored,” is a phrase I love to tell my kids, but secretly I’ve always felt like I was the boring one. All the striving, the countless hours I spent trying to prove that the work I was doing mattered—and for what? So I could do something that other people found interesting? That other people would appreciate? That other people would validate?

If I was waiting for someone else to give me the credit I thought I deserved, I was going to be waiting a lifetime.

An Ordinary Day

But just before I woke up, I remembered watching these old home videos. And the ones I liked the best weren’t the ones with the awards ceremonies or the birthday celebrations or the recitals. They were the everyday ones, with the house a mess and the kids too and everybody just being themselves on an ordinary day.

There was this one video where I was feeding our new baby her first bites of solid food and in walks my four-year-old. He opens the fridge, searching for a snack. “Would you like some cheese?” I ask as I shovel another spoonful of cereal into the baby’s mouth. And then his little friend ambles into the frame. And there they are—just two friends hanging out after preschool on a Tuesday. It was so beautiful and ordinary. In the video, Gavin hands them a juice box, and they slurp it up and walk away. I dip the spoon into the cereal again.

In another, my daughter is at a dress rehearsal for her spring dance recital. She’s watching the girl in front of her, and so she’s a half-step behind through the entire dance, and I am laughing because we’ve joked about this often over the years. Dancing was never her thing. She’s an artist, an observer. Watching is what she does best. She paints; she doesn’t dance.

My other son is making faces at the dinner table. He’s usually so serious, but today he is being silly. He never smiles for the camera, but here he is—hamming it up as if he’ll finally annoy us so much we’ll have no choice but to turn the camera away from him. Instead, we keep rolling. He’s missing his front teeth, and he’s adorable.

There’s one of my baby girl, lying on a rug in the bathroom while water fills the tub. She is laughing and kicking her legs, and I remember with fondness how much she loved those evening baths. On extra fussy days, I’d just run the bathwater, swaddle her up, and rock her for hours on end.

They say the little things are really the big things, but those words never felt true for me. I could never understand why I felt behind, left out, out of touch, and dumb. While other people were getting promoted and meeting interesting people, I was home raising my kids. In my heart, I knew I was doing important work, but lacking the recognition, the narrative became one of martyrdom rather than maturation.

The home movies reminded me that motherhood was the part of adulthood I liked best.

And when I watched the videos, I found myself searching for the things that were just out of focus—those nuances I might have missed if I was zooming in on the subject only.

In an article by the American Psychological Association, painting teacher and landscape artist David Dunlop tells students “to stop identifying objects and instead see scenes as collections of lines, shadows, shapes and contours.” He says that by doing this, the artists’s sketches become more three-dimensional and complete.

In the dream, I felt like my pretend therapist was saying, “All along you’ve had exactly what you always wanted. And you almost missed it.”

Except she didn’t say that. Not those words. And not out loud.

Instead, all by myself, I realized that failing to notice the lines, shadows, shapes, and contours of my own life, I had internalized an incomplete picture of my reality. Eventually, it took on a shape I didn’t even recognize.

An Extraordinary Life

I woke up, but my eyes remained closed. I let that truth wash over me. I had spent the last twenty years stepping over the ordinary as if they were legos scattered across my living room floor. Instead of picking up the pieces, I walked around what was right in front of me. Miraculously, the house still got built, the kids got raised, and the marriage survived. We built the life we wanted, not because of anything I did, but in spite of it.

And for that I am grateful. As I sit here on the couch right now writing this blog post, the dog sleeps curled on a pillow by my hip. My two younger kids are playing a computer game together. My son helps my daughter study for a science test. They are friends, and they love each other. Why in the world would I wish for more when everything I could ever want sits right next to me?

Even ordinary days hold extraordinary magic.

Ready to take it to the next level?

Mission Driven Monday--Ashlee Gadd

Meet Ashlee Gadd!

She’s the founder of the popular blog, Coffee + Crumbs, a place where mothers across the world share stories of hope and grace. If you've ever longed to feel safe, known, and encouraged, and loved, then Coffee + Crumbs has a place at the table for you. In this episode, listen in as Ashlee talks about what it means to be a mother and how she’s thriving in a new (albeit short) season of rest. She's a 3 on the Enneagram, an Achiever, so I thought it was pretty funny when she talked about how she tricks her brain into resting by making a list of all the ways she's going to rest during her month-long and well-deserved sabbatical. This mom with three little ones is holding it all together and living her best life now. Join us as we follow our mission, not the madness.

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”

— Erma Bombeck

Important links from this Episode:

Coffee + Crumbs Blog

Ashlee’s Personal Website

The Magic of Motherhood, a book that’s a “love letter to mothers everywhere.”

Ready to take it to the next level?

Follow your mission, not the madness.