The true desire for Fresh Wanderings really culminates to these two things: helping me see the beauty in simple day-to-day living and encouraging you to do the same. I am Angie, the writer, photographer, wife, mother, educator, and friend behind Fresh Wanderings. A few years ago, about 4 years into our homeschool journey, I came to a place of discouragement. Being home all day, doing much of the same thing over and over again left me feeling cooped up in my own home, lonely, and ultimately dissatisfied with the life I had been given, a life that deep down I knew was really everything I had ever wanted. With two littles in tow, laundry piled in heaps across my bed, and homeschool books strewn along every available surface I decided to document our days on instagram. I was desperate to see beauty in the chaos and was encouraged by how quickly my view seemed to change when I was consciously looking for the good. Maybe you have been there too or maybe you’re in that place now.
Through time I have learned that there are certain habits and interests that I need to cultivate in my own life in order to feed the longings of my heart. Things such as: giving myself time to create, working to free our house of clutter and making it a place we call home, removing obligations or self-appointed responsibilities that may be good but aren’t necessarily the best for our homeschool days, and most importantly daily time in God’s word. These are some of the things that bring life and, over time, have become four staples to the daily care of myself.
I hope Fresh Wanderings is a place where you can be encouraged to not only nurture those under your care, but to nurture yourself as well. A place that helps you embrace this season of the shaping and molding of your own heart while you strive to do the same for your children. This is a place where we will create, tend to the places we dwell, work through the how’s and why’s of what we want our children to learn, and most importantly renew ourselves, together. This is not about making our life picture perfect, raising children that never throw a tantrum or disobey, or always meeting the daily demands of feeding, washing, schooling, and nurturing with happiness, but it is about looking for the good, thanking God for what we do have, and letting Him refresh the messy parts.
The Apostle Paul encouraged the early church to do this very thing and this was his exhortation:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” – Philippians 4:8
Peace will be with you; what sweet encouragement that is for the wife, mother, educator, and friend who chooses to think on these things.
