I am aware that we are in the sweetest of sweet spots in our family’s life. It’s rather unfashionable to say so – the more correct thing to say is that there is beauty in every season, and that we shouldn’t elevate one over another – but sometimes unfashionable things are also true. Of course (of course!) there is beauty in every season: I fully expect to delight in our family when everyone has graduated from elementary school, when we have teens, and when kids are home on college break. I will relish the days when we can all huddle around the same game board and no one is whining to be carried on a hike.
And yet: so many people say that the years between six and twelve are the golden ones for family life, and I can see why. Our kids are squarely within our sphere of influence. They like our home the best and spending time together the most. They don’t have phones or computers – there’s no algorithm shaping, splintering, spoiling their psyches. They’re growing more capable every day and look out for each other while on the go. They’re full of questions and eager for answers, willing accomplices, sweet and genuine and unguarded. They smile and hug and snuggle and hold our hands.
They also bicker, and vehemently express outsize opinions about inconsequential things. They complain and whine and dawdle and melt down. I lose my patience and come down hard in the wrong places and make the more expedient choice instead of the one I know is better in the long-term.
This is family life, with all of its joys and furies. This is our life together, and here I am to mark one more year in its span: to pin it down in my memory, to examine it from each side like the jewel-tone butterfly it is. Thank you, as always, for indulging me. xo
As ever, our year began by celebrating another birthday for our big girl – this time with a “birthday day of fun” with one of her best friends. We went to the Life & Science Museum in the morning, a rock climbing gym in the afternoon, and rounded out the day with her first ever sleepover. We invited a contractor into our attic to talk about renovation possibilities, cousins came to visit, I re-sorted my bookshelf after almost a decade of rainbow order, and Shep played his first basketball season at a gym in our neighborhood – bliss! We also kicked off reading Little Pilgrim’s Progress in the mornings before school, something we’d continue all year until we finished in December. Finally, my beloved paternal grandmother passed away on the 19th anniversary of John’s and my first date – and my maternal grandparents’ wedding anniversary.
We wished for snow in February but were disappointed. Instead, we made classroom valentines, hiked on sunny days, made crayon sun catchers (still hanging many months later!), and cheered on the NC State gymnastics team with friends. We spent a long weekend in Virginia with grandparents and cousins and took our first visit to the National Zoo. I celebrated my birthday at the end of the month with antiques shopping and a solo lunch date, and on the blog, I shared some thoughts on beauty at age 37 and 6 small changes I’m glad I made.
We spent lots of time outdoors in March, including on the field and sidelines for another soccer season for June and Shep. We celebrated the first blooms from our fancy daffodils, shopped for Easter baskets for kids in our community, and *almost* put in an offer on a home in our neighborhood after a 24-hour scramble to get pre-approved for a mortgage. We flew to Connecticut to honor my grandmother’s life at her memorial service – I gave a eulogy based on these remembrances – and loved getting to visit with family at our farm. A week later we left for another spring break on Jekyll Island, this time in the turret and with friends! On the blog, I shared a second installment of our family’s faith formation practices.
April was filled with adventures big and small. We biked to church one morning – 9 miles round trip! – I chaperoned a field trip for June, and Shep took some tune-up swim lessons before his first season of neighborhood swim team. Perhaps most notably, I flew to Texas for DG’s annual retreat and met Cultivate’s new vice president, Jessica. It’s been a year of much change for CWM and this was the week it all kicked off. I left feeling hopeful, and though it’s been a year of ups and downs, I’m grateful for our small but mighty team. On the blog, I shared an update on our mortgage payoff plan.
We kicked off May with two back-to-back weekends of camping with friends, and then John and June one-upped us by camping a third weekend during their 22-mile backpacking trip! June, John, and I were all terribly proud of how well she did on this epic adventure with dad. In between, we picked strawberries, biked all over our town, finished soccer, and started neighborhood swim team. Shep graduated from our beloved preschool and grandparents came to town to celebrate. I also organized a flower bar at church for Mother’s Day, a sweet opportunity to serve some ladies I love.
In June, the two bigs finally cashed in on their Christmas IOU – tickets to The Lion King at DPAC! Their faces absolutely lit up when the cast sang and danced their way down the aisle inches from our seats. School let out for the summer and we adjusted to the work-from-home life with two kids around. Verdict: incredibly grateful to be able to do it, not without its frustrations. We rounded the month out with more cousin visits, a sweaty Durham Bulls game, hosting a neighborhood kindergarten breakfast, first swim meets, and one of our favorite weekends of the year: a trip to a North Carolina beach town over Father’s Day/Juneteenth. And in the midst of it all (how?!), I traveled back to Texas for Cultivate’s big PowerSheets photo shoot.
In July we were off to Michigan, one of our happiest of happy places! We tubed, hiked, fished, dined, and napped in the sun with 35 Thomas family members. Soon enough it was time to send June off for her first summer of sleepaway camp – two weeks in the North Carolina mountains! After a flurrying of planning and packing, we walked away from a big piece of our heart with a lump in our throats. Thanks be to God she thrived (even if she did only send us one letter, ha!). On the blog, I shared a mid-year update on my goals.
Sleepaway camp flowed right into another week of Cousin Camp – with an Olympics theme, naturally. We continued the cousin time with a week together in Maine. It was a treasure, as always, despite the fact that John was knocked out by COVID for almost the entirety of our stay. An especially dear memory is taking the Whaler to a tiny nearby island one afternoon with just my dad and the three kids.
Back at home, we celebrated Shep’s birthday with his own birthday day of fun – a train ride to Greensboro to visit the children’s museum with two buddies and their sibs. And soon enough it was back to school for all three, but this time both June and Shep were biking to elementary school!
On the blog, I shared a simple trick that makes the most of my clothing budget.
September: more soccer (this time, for Annie, as well!), our annual camping trip with the Rays (this time on Lake Gaston!), and a 12th anniversary trip to Asheville where we dined and dreamed. Just a week later, we helplessly watched as damage from Hurricane Helene mounted across Western North Carolina. Closer to home, I pushed through considerable nerves to speak for the first time on behalf of The Connected Family. It was a gracious group (including some EFM reader friends! Hi!!), and I’m looking forward to doing more of it in 2025. On the blog, I finally shared my apple cider scone recipe and an anniversary sort-of poem.
After much heartache over the fate of our fall mountains trip (the area we had planned to visit was too damaged to receive travelers), we rerouted to Bryson City in October. We were grateful to be there and gratefully received by shopkeepers and restaurants eager for tourists. We gathered for the 9th anniversary of Articles Club, visited the state fair, cheered on our favorite babysitter at the Homecoming game, celebrated Lara and Ari’s vow renewal, and I saw Kendra Adachi (the Lazy Genius!) speak at Quail Ridge.
November was a quiet month. We mostly stayed home, welcoming my family for an early Thanksgiving weekend and celebrating Nancy’s new baby with a nesting party (an absolutely brilliant idea – more about that soon!). I began painting this year’s book ornaments and we ended the month in Virginia with all of John’s family for Thanksgiving proper.
December was full of delights old – baking favorite recipes, reading beloved books – and new – most notably, attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah with dear girlfriends. As a family, we unfortunately battled sickness all month, but it didn’t stop us from enjoying Christmas at home and a few days in Blowing Rock with my family immediately afterward (including snow tubing for the first time for all three kids!).
For us, each year in the life of our young family is a delicate balance – between travel and staying home, between “new” and “the same,” between pushing and choosing rest, between work and play, between freedom and control. We do not get it right all the time, not by a long shot – but we try. We think deeply about it, and pray for wisdom, and act carefully, and adjust as we go. It’s both rewarding and overwhelming to see a year in our life summed up like this, but as always, I’m choosing gratitude. It’s not hard, and for that I am, well, grateful.
Friends, however often I can show up here, I am so grateful for what we’ll discuss in 2025. Thank you for always meeting me here, and for sharing so generously with me! It’s one of the delights of my life. Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant new year. I’m finishing up my 2025 goals and reading list and can’t wait to share, so I’ll see you soon! :)
I hope you’ve all had wonderful holidays, friends! Our days have been full – hosting family, traveling to see family, and squeezing in some favorite traditions. Still, I’ll always make time for the two posts I have planned for the end of the year: today’s best of and my traditional final post, our year-in-review. They help me count the fruit from another precious year, and that’s an opportunity I’ll fight for even in the midst of these full, chaotic, slow post-holiday days. I hope they can serve as an opportunity for a little reflection on your own 2024, if you haven’t had a chance for it yet! In the comments, please share a few of your best memories, finds, and favorites from 2024, if you’d like. As always, I can’t wait to hear!
Best adventure, travel, or trip: We had a number of memorable adventures this year, but the one that glows brightest in my mind is our long weekend cruising around on a golf cart on Bald Head Island. While I treasure our time in our families’ special summer places, the novelty of traveling to new places with just our little family always leads to rich memories.
Best trend you tried: Gen Z socks! Inspired by the mom (five years my junior) who ziplined alongside us on our anniversary trip, I was emboldened to try out a pair. (And found this ivory version looks better than stark white with my coloring.) I mostly wear them with workout outfits so far and feel young and hip whenever I do :)
Best new podcast listen, newsletter subscribe, or blog follow: I have long loved Coffee + Crumbs’ essays and podcast episodes, but this year I subscribed to the personal newsletter of the founder, Ashlee Gadd. She is truly an incredible writer and I love learning from someone who’s a kindred spirit – but with kids just a little older than mine.
Best meal: Dinner at The Pure & Proper in Black Mountain, NC. Just ask my family: they teased me for days (weeks?) about how much I raved about my dish – short rib with pumpkin pesto – but I stand by my enthusiasm.
Best movie:Twisters! John and I had a blast seeing it on opening night at the theater (and listening to the soundtrack for many weeks afterward).
Best album, song, or artist: This one is always tough for me to answer! I will say I enjoyed having this Nancy Meyers’ inspired playlist on in the background throughout December.
Best kiddo milestone: While the more obvious answer is Shep starting kindergarten, the one closer to my heart is adding him to our big kid read aloud crew. (The two milestones coincide at our house.) These evening read alouds have been the sweetest time with just June for the last few years, and though I’m sure we’ll continue to split off for certain books in the future, it’s been fun to welcome him in as we read through some of my favorites this fall.
Best life or mom hack: If a hack is something that makes a desired outcome easier, then the Brick certainly wins for 2024. This little gadget, attached to the side of our fridge, has made staying off my phone and staying present with my family at the times that matter practically seamless.
Best beauty purchase: Friends, I realized a dream I’d had since high school this year: laser hair removal! (Chalk it up to dance class five nights a week in those years.) I’m only three treatments in but giddy at the idea of never again shaving my underarms or bikini line.
Honorable mentions go to this hair oil, which takes the crunch out of my curly hair and adds shine when I blow dry it, and this concealer, which I was relieved to repurchase when Beauty Counter came back online.
Best faith grower: The Bible Recap! One of my 2024 goals, this is the first time I’ve read through the entire Bible with commentary along the way. It did exactly what I was hoping it would, and more – I’m more familiar with scripture and its narrative’s shape, I made connections I hadn’t understood before, and I’m finishing with a greater hunger and love for God’s Word.
Best new tradition: I wrote about this earlier this year, but our Christmas card album. I scrapped a half-filled-out Christmas memory book that I felt lukewarm about and replaced it with a simple album to hold our Christmas cards and newsletters and I couldn’t love it more.
Best habit you created: Implementing a default 20-20-20-60 workout on days I’m not able to do a full session. (I do 20 push-ups, 20 Romanian dead lifts, 20 squats, and hold a plank for 60 seconds.) It takes about five minutes and I can do it anywhere, so there’s no excuse not to!
Favorite blog post written: It’s no secret that I’ve written fewer posts here this year than usual, and I hate that that’s the case. I also accept that in this season I cannot do it all, and that getting The Connected Family off the ground has taken extra effort. Still, there are posts I look back on proudly, particularly this one about my grandmother (that formed the basis of my eulogy), this post on beauty, and this Marvelous Money post about helpful decisions we keep repeating.
Most surprising goal progress: I would have to say clarity on our housing future! This felt like a bit of an oddball goal when I set it – I had no clear outcome in mind – but we’re finishing the year having taken steps down several potential routes forward and armed with much more information than we had this time last year. With this being such a source of uncertainty for so many years, I’m grateful.
Best home improvement: Sadly, I can’t say it was recovering the white chairs (I’m just eh on the blue velvet I chose), but I am delighted by the cafe curtains we added in our kitchen and the green shoe cabinet we added in our foyer! Painting a desk for June’s room and finding a dresser for Annie were wins, too.
Best little luxury you’ve enjoyed: This is not new, but it is a luxury I enjoy each month: on Articles Club night, whether I’m hosting or not, John will take all three kids out for dinner at Chick-fil-a around 5:30 or 6. This means I have uninterrupted time to pick up the house, set the table, prep my dish, get dressed, or do a late read through of our articles for the evening before the gals arrive at 7:30. I’m grateful for the physical and mental space to get ready for one of the best nights of each month – and for the love from John it represents.
As always, I’m ending the year so grateful for the delights, big and small, that filled our year. I’ll be sharing more in my year-in-review post soon, but in the meantime, please do share: what are some of your “bests” from 2024? Can’t wait to hear!
Whew! Pals, I did not mean there to be such a big gap between today’s post and my last one – but such is life at the end of the school year, I suppose! :) Thanks for being here. Onwards to today’s topic…!
If you had told me a few years ago that I would get into rucking, I probably would have looked at you in confusion – and asked the number one question submitted to the question box when I asked what you wanted to know about rucking on Instagram a few weeks ago: um, what is rucking?!
Well, friends, John and I are a few months into this rucking adventure, and I’d love to share what we’ve experienced so far – the good, the hard, and my advice if you’d like to try it, too. Let’s go!
What is rucking?
Rucking is simply walking with weight on your back – simple as that. Unlike hiking, it doesn’t need to take place in the woods (though it can!). Rucking is an important part of training for many branches of the military, and so the idea of rucking as exercise kind of moved in popularity from military communities out into the wider world in the last decade or so.
Why were we interested in getting into rucking?
Funny story :) In the last year or two, an interview with Michael Easter popped up on one of John’s regular podcasts, as part of a publicity round after publishing his first book. We did a double take – Michael was a fellow graduate of our college class, and in fact was an English major alongside me! It is not common to see a classmate pop up in the news – we went to a tiny school! – and so this was an unexpected delight. In the book and in the podcast interview, Michael extolled the benefits of rucking, which was the first time I remember it piquing our interest. His enthusiasm was later echoed by Peter Attia and others, until it felt like we were hearing about rucking everywhere we turned.
What appealed to us about rucking:
— It would not require adding anything additional to our schedule. It might seem silly, but this was the biggest one for me. Since we were already in the practice of taking a walk several times each week, we could simply add weight and get more out of what we were already doing. Balancing the need to exercise with all the other things I want to do is a constant struggle for me, so this was huge, and easily what got me on board so quickly.
— The health benefits. From my understanding, rucking builds muscle and strength while improving cardio and endurance. (You can burn up to three times more calories than walking alone.) The pressure the weight puts on your muscles and joints also helps to build bone density, which is particularly important for women.
— It’s simple. You just need a pack, some weight, good sneakers, and a place to walk. There are no fancy moves to learn and no subscription to buy.
— It’s outside, and can be done with others. We’ve been able to incorporate our kids (more about that below!), and though we haven’t yet participated in any group rucks, we enjoy being able to ruck side by side.
Last fall, John bought us each one of these ruck plates – 20 pounds for me, and 35 pounds for him. (Experts suggest starting with 10-25 pounds and gradually scaling up until you’re carrying no more than 1/3 of your body weight.) We put the weights into normal backpacks we already owned and set off on our first ruck.
It was awful. We were both terribly uncomfortable – the plates sat low on our backs and bounced as we walked – and ended up cutting our first outing to less than ten minutes. I freely shared my very negative impressions with John, ha.
We returned the plates (that was a heavy box to ship off at UPS, yikes) and decided to go all-in with official GoRuck gear – backpacks and plates. We got another 20-pound plate for me, and this time a 30-pound plate for John. This was a leap of faith – our initial attempt was not a positive experience, and the GoRuck gear is not inexpensive – but it seemed like our best option if we wanted to make a real go of it.
While the GoRuck gear was noticeably more comfortable, the weight quickly fatigued my shoulders and back and caused pain between my shoulder blades for the first few weeks. I would complain bitterly to John on even our short 10- or 15-minute loops – somehow it made me feel better, ha – and constantly adjust my straps to try and relieve the pressure.
But we kept going! John gamely encouraged me to “embrace the suck” (which is apparently something that rucking people say), and slowly, over several weeks, the pain started to lessen and we were able to increase our distance. Now, half a year later, we regularly ruck for 30-40 minutes several times a week with no pain or fatigue, at a sub-20-minute/mile pace.
Our thoughts on rucking so far:
Rucking has been a great workout for us. When I have my pack on, I can feel my whole body working — particularly my calves, glutes, rear, and core. I’m grateful for that.
That being said, the greatest delight I take from rucking is twofold: first, as I alluded to at the top, I feel like I’m gaming the system by getting more benefit for my body without adding anything to my schedule. It feels like some sort of cheat code and I am HERE FOR IT. I suppose I’m working both harder and smarter? :)
My second source of delight is knowing that I’m doing something that will make future-me grateful. My bones don’t feel any different right now – I can’t notice any changes and haven’t looked at any scans – but just knowing that what I’m doing today (even when it feels hard), is making it more possible for me to enjoy my favorite people, activities, and places for a long time to come is thrilling for my future-oriented, big-picture-loving brain and heart.
I’m not particularly motivated by pushing myself to complete challenging physical tasks (that’s all John), but increasing the likelihood I’ll be strong, mobile, and independent in the future? That will get me off the couch.
Rucking with kids
A last aspect I wanted to circle back to: though my rucks have mostly consisted of 30-40 minute rucks around our neighborhood thus far, John has set off on longer routes – and he’s taken our two older kids (5 and 8) with him. (They don’t carry packs!) On many Sunday afternoons this spring they’ve set off on treks around our town, a little platoon of adventurers, five miles or so at a time. They’ll stop along the way to play at a playground or get ice cream downtown and return after a few hours, tired but happy. June and John even rucked to our friends’ house one memorable afternoon – 10 miles!! (To be fair, I picked June up toward the end – she completed 9 of the miles :))
I like to think this might be just the beginning of our family’s rucking adventures together. From keeping us connected to keeping us fit, I’m hoping it will be a part of our family’s culture for many years to come.
What questions can I answer for you about rucking? Has anyone else tried it? I’d love to hear!
A few years ago, I began a new holiday tradition: filling in a Christmas memory book.
This checks out, right? Holidays, traditions, and intentional memory making are kind of my thing (or, one of my things, anyway!), so this wasn’t a surprising development. What may surprise you, though, is how poorly I stuck to the tradition in the years since. I filled in about half of the questions the first year, and then a handful the second year… but always a bit half-heartedly. The prompts felt repetitive, and my answers weren’t capturing what actually mattered to me about the Christmas season.
This past year, I never pulled the book out of the Christmas boxes. And wow if this wasn’t Cultivate What Matters 101: if a goal (or a tradition, or project, or memory book) doesn’t really matter to you, you’re unlikely to follow through.
(Cut to me, not following through.)
So I sat with that for a minute. On the surface, this memory book seemed to be checking all the boxes: I love Christmas and value celebrating it in a meaningful way. I love writing. I love records that add up over time. Still, this book wasn’t doing it for me! As I packed away the Christmas boxes, though, I hit on something that I thought actually would be meaningful to me…
As longtime readers know, I pour significant time and effort into creating our Christmas cards and newsletters each year. It’s a project that connects me to my grandmother and to fond childhood memories of sitting around a table with my siblings and parents, adding our signatures one by one to the year’s letter. It scratches my creative itch, it connects me with people I love around the country, and it satisfies my desire to tell a story about the year as it’s ending — to tie a bow on it, if you will. It delights me to no end.
What would be meaningful, I realized, was finding a better way to enjoy those Christmas cards I work so hard on, as well as a few photos from each Christmas season. No, it’s not a 1:1 switch, but once I realized that this mattered much more to me than recording what we ate on Christmas Eve (spoiler alert, it’s always the same) or what songs everyone was loving that year (spoiler alert, they’re almost always the same), it was an easy one.
Now, our Christmas cards, letters, and photos live in a simple album that’s easy for everyone to flip through. I couldn’t love it more.
I know this is a tiny, simple switch, but to me, it”s emblematic of a larger idea, and so it seemed worth sharing, in case you might need the same reminder I did:
You can change traditions, no matter how long they’ve been running or how much money they cost to get off the ground. You can tweak them, refresh them, or scrap them completely.
You can change the way you capture memories. You can start something new (even if it won’t capture your whole marriage or your kids’ whole childhood!) and you can retire something that no longer fits (even if you’ve invested many years into it!).
Saying goodbye to what doesn’t matter (or what matters less) makes room for the things that matter more (and the things that matter most). That’s a reminder I always need. You, too?
Friends, I’d love to hear: have you scrapped or significantly changed a tradition or way you record memories? It can be really hard!
