Why I Decided to Start Blogging

Inspired by the many interesting and inspirational blogs I've recently been reading on homemaking, housewifery, motherhood, etc., I've decided to start one of my own. I doubt I'll have more interesting ideas or stories to share than so many of the other women who are so much ahead of me in figuring out this whole thing: how to live a purposeful life of serving God and serving others through a Vocation to marriage and motherhood.

I live a fairly ordinary life. I live in a small rented house with my husband and my baby and our two cats. I have varied interests (in music, crafting, etc.), but no strong talents in anything, really. I am a "retired" high school biology teacher (I really only worked for one year), transitioning into a full-time housewife/stay-at-home-mom. But I still do some part-time tutoring on the side, to bring in some money (and keep my mind sharp!). I pray for the blessing of a large family someday, and God willing, intend to homeschool my kids. I know we'll never have a lot of money to spare - I don't expect that we'll ever make the same income our parents did - but I'm okay with that. I think it will ultimately be good for us, and especially for me, to have to give up some of my attachment to "things."

I think accepting an ordinary life is the first step. Giving up your dreams of having a high standard of living, or being the family who gets to travel to cool places, or building up a prestigious career. I'm fine being normal and relatively unknown. The hard part comes when you realize - as I recently have - that it takes more than this to attain holiness. Living in a humble manner is one thing, but actually BEING humble is quite another. It means accepting your "littleness" but loving and serving in a very big way.

I look for inspiration, firstly, to the Holy Family, of course, and to the Blessed Mother who lived this out perfectly. As St. Louis De Montfort says of her in the Preliminary Remarks of his True Devotion to Mary, "Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on earth more powerful or more constant than that of hiding herself, from herself as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only."

Another beautiful example of living extraordinarily, even amidst ordinary life circumstances, is the Martin Family, that which produced St. Thérèse. The parents, Louis and Zelie, were saints themselves who provided such a powerful witness to their daughters of how to serve God through their ordinary lives and actions, it is not surprising that all of their (surviving) children went on to join the convent.

As this blog develops, I expect it will be mostly a collection of random happenings, observations, and thoughts about the random things I encounter as I learn how to be a better wife, mother, and daughter. But I hope throughout, my strivings to better emulate the Saints will be apparent.