Dear Mama,
Welcome. This blog is meant to be a place that feels like a comfy couch, a porch swing, or a favorite coffee shop. A place where you sit down with a friend you trust, without any agenda, with your purse loaded with whatever you may need to get through the conversation: notepad and paper, phone charger, travel pack of Kleenex, water bottle…
Many of you, I haven’t met yet. A very special welcome to you. However you found my tiny corner of the internet, I pray this site blesses you!
But many of you reading these words in real time, the first few hours after I hit “Publish” (Eeeee! Exciting!) are the reason I started writing. You are not just friends, but kindred spirits with shared desires to be the best home healers we can be for our families. To transform from confused and helpless cogs in the wheel to educated, empowered, and vitally active caretakers and legacy makers! I’m so excited to start this new part of our journeys together!
We all have our own struggles and our own strengths. It doesn’t matter if we lean more Mary or Martha (IYKYK.) We are all imperfect on our own, made perfect only through faith in the Lord. We learn from each other and that learning comes through conversation.
I love a lot of things in life: I love to travel, cook, garden, photography, film, art, DIY, vintage books, and the list goes on. Maybe one day that will all make it here, some fun flashes of other lights illuminating our life. But I feel an urgency to get to the real reason I’m writing:
Dear mama, we have an incomprehensible load on our shoulders if we want to raise truly healthy kids and nurture our families in a holistic way. The 24 hours in the day quite simply are not enough for each and every one of us, all on our own, to do all the deep dives and figure out how to set ourselves straight and take the first steps and vet every source and run our own tests and cook all the food from scratch and be our own village – while also offering to be part of many other people’s villages.
What?!
No, seriously.
What on earth?
This is the load of modern holistic motherhood?
Talk about stress and overwhelm!
Now, let’s add to that this very important – but way too often overlooked “side” note: We need to do all of this while also taking care of ourselves. Just as well as we take care of everyone else.
Did anyone else’s brain just crack a little? Or did your shoulders droop, processing this ultimate demand yet once again. And are you now a little indignant and turned off, thinking something along the lines of, “How dare she reiterate all of that?! I was coming here for encouragement – not to already feel like I’ve failed!”
Hang on, Mama. Hang on.
This next part is where it gets good.
But let me start by telling you the absolute, unbridled truth:
I’ve failed at all of the above so many times. In some serious, life-altering ways. And yes, I will share my story with you as time goes on.
But here is the silver lining: there is never a failure without a lesson learned (if you are willing.) And oh boy, have I learned many, many lessons! Willing or not at the time they were being taught, the vast majority have eventually been learned and recorded…and now stand to be shared with you!
Those lessons are what most of you real-life friends will text or call or Whatsapp or email or literally drive to my house to learn.
“Which weeds in my lawn help take the sting out of a bite? It’s swelling like a balloon!”
“What do you know about parasites? She’s got them again, and I swear, we’ve tried everything!! ”
“What was that remedy you used for your insanely fast postpartum healing, again?”
Now, before I go any further, let me get one thing very, very straight and exceedingly clear:
I am not a doctor, although I grew up with one. I am not a nurse, although that was the initial focus of my undergrad degree. I am not a homeopath, although I’m on an extended maternity leave from a fabulous program and I hope to return to finish it! But here’s the truth:
Mamas, I’m one of you.
I’m a home healer.
I’m the one who makes sure my kids have a pinch of Redmond real salt in their water and the one that buys half a steer at a time from local farmers – then sends the house into a frenzy trying to find enough space in the freezer or otherwise preserve it fast enough. (Anybody else? Bless our sweet husbands for putting up with the “Picking Up the Steer Day!”)
I’m the one who can get my kids to happily drink “hot chocolate” every morning in the cool weather and eat ice pops every day in the summer (as long as I remember to make them ahead of time! 🙂 – smiling the entire time because I know that they are actually drinking bone broth down to the last nourishing sip and slurping up every icy dribble and drop of a homemade whey protein pop – and asking for more.
Ok…healthy recipes that kids will actually eat. That’s good, sure. But is that healing, you ask?
Yes, Mama. Yes, it is.
And I’ll explain why in my future posts. In detail. Not just “your food is your medicine” kind of platitudes. Real deep dives on what makes bone broth and whey – and so many other forms of food – such powerhouses.
We’ll talk a lot about nutrition and why it all matters. But fair warning: as of the writing of this initial message, no, there is no plan for this to specifically be a nutrition blog.
Will there be recipes and ratios? Goodness, I hope so! I looooove food – growing it, preserving it, cooking it, serving it, sharing it, and yes, you better believe, eating it!
But if you plan to come for the recipe, I really hope you’ll stay for the deeper education, inspiration, and empowerment.
Because you deserve it. You deserve to have at least one place where a friend guides you through this whole home healer gig that we are blessed to have, although it may feel too often like a burden. To get that guidance, step by step. To help you see things in a logical format. To give you the skills and the foundation you need to stop running to Google and trying to remember all the random pieces of desperately sourced information (no judgement…I’ve totally been there until I shifted my initial outlook…which is what I want to help you do, too, Mama.)
I want this blog to be the resource I wish I had when I first became a mom: which happened to be the second I got married and gained three amazing children! I’ll share my story of our first week that propelled me into a million dazzling spiderwebs of home remedies and resources that I never even knew existed the week prior to our wedding.
I’ll share a lot of stories. Those of you who know me in real life know that it’s practically impossible to have any length of conversation with me without my sneaking a story or two in there. It’s who I am!
And back to who I am, Mama, I really, really am one of you.
I’m the mother who wishes so badly that I could just take a backseat sometimes and blindly trust every doctor and every recommendation passed down to me. But I’m also the mother who just knows too much about the mess our healthcare system is and how vulnerable our children are to the fallout.
I’m the mother who will advocate for her children against all odds – but will do so with the utmost respect for the physician or provider. If I have sought their opinion, and especially if I’m paying for it, I will hear it in its fullest. Then, I will decide if I agree or not. The first is me acting in respect. The second is me acting in my rights.
Although it can be tiring and time consuming to acquire, I have not forgotten that there is such a thing as a second opinion. I have also not forgotten that ultimately, my children have been entrusted to my husband and to myself.
Each of our children is a precious blessing, racing their way through the days of childhood. The decisions that we make for them matter – not just for right now, but forever. We are doing all we can – alongside health care providers and practitioners when we feel it is necessary – to give them a strong foundation and an education now that they can take with them into their own futures and the futures of their families as well.
So, mama, if you feel the weight of every appointment, every remedy or prescription not just on yourself but on your grandchildren and great-grandchildren…you are not alone! We cannot allow that responsibility to strip us of the privilege we have to help our children at the moment. But sometimes, it can feel overwhelming and it really is helpful to have a community around you.
I am blessed to have a lovely community of like-minded moms in my life. We share and learn from each other. These women have moved me to tears and to action – but usually, it’s just so dang fun to have them in my circle and to know that I am in theirs. God bless them all!
But I’ve also been laughed at, mocked, and completely disregarded over my beliefs, views, and methods, many, many times.
So whether you’re entirely on your own, even at odds with your spouse or partner…
Or you are the one too many people turn to and you feel you don’t even know where to begin to help them…
Or you are in a great, supportive, like-minded community of crunchy, scrunchy, or just hear-me-roar mamas…
You are welcome here.
And if you are one of the ones who somehow, virtually turned left instead of right on your internet search journey, and you are absolutely the first one to mock and belittle the mamas like me…you think without any letters behind our names, we have no right and nor ability to be the home healers for the families that God has chosen to give to us….
You are welcome here.
Please, stay.
Know that if we were meeting in person, your cuppa would go on my tab and I would welcome you at my table for as long as you wanted to stay.
The truth is, this kind of life is a journey for everyone. It never stops. But it does usually start somewhere.
I’ll get to where I started…and I’ll get to where I felt called to start this blog.
But let me tell you where I didn’t start:
I didn’t grow up growing my own food. Or fermenting vegetables. Or making my own fire cider. Or walking outside barefoot ever – unless it was at the beach or the pool. (I’m smiling as I type that…oh, what a beautiful, healthy childhood, I am able to give my kids and to know I am!)
Before I was even old enough to rent a car, I put myself in the hospital or urgent care so many times with an unhealthy lifestyle that it doesn’t even seem real now, looking back on it all. I swigged the bottle of the thick pink stuff so many of us had as kids quite a few times (who knew it was called Amoxycillan?) And it took me more than 3 decades of life before I had to nerve to can anything in my kitchen.
Mama, if you’re the mama with the diet soft drink in her hand and the rap music blaring around her babies, yes, yes, yes: you are welcome here.
I hope the steps I provide will help walk you through some of your own core beliefs and viewpoints. I hope you like a little bit of a challenge and growing as a person. Even if you don’t, you are still welcome here.
And, hopefully it shows at this point in this post, but if not, let me say it l.o.u.d. and c.l.e.a.r.
I am a born again child of God who has given my Heavenly Father a run for His money more times than I – as an earthly mother – can even comprehend or care to admit. I was raised as a Christian, trusted in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was in elementary school, made my own choice to be baptized later on in middle school, and have always claimed a relationship with God. I can absolutely say that I have seen God’s hand on me and my life in endless ways, and I have often sought to please Him. But nothing has challenged me as a Christian as much as motherhood – especially my kind of motherhood. I am growing every day. I am just plain wrong so often. My children are my best earthly teachers, 90% of the time. My husband is also an incredible spiritual leader in our home. Even with all that, I still try to lean on my own strength too much, too often.
But I love God with all my heart, and I hope that my love and respect for Him shines through this blog.
And Mama, whether you are of the same mind and heart, whether we can call one another Sister in the Lord or not, you are welcome here! This is not a blog by a Christian for other Christians. This is a blog by a mama for other mamas.
This is a place I hope will quickly become a virtual meeting place for both time-honored traditions and cutting edge technology with room at that table for anyone who wants to be here to chat or listen about either.
It is my hope and my prayer that everyone can feel welcome here and learn the basics of health and healing. Enjoy some gorgeous art through the posts, as if it were on my walls. Bring home a recipe or two, in place of the actual dish. Feel encouraged by the time spent and refreshed to continue your own journey. And hopefully, Lord willing, with time, pop over to Youtube to hear some of these blog posts read aloud and eventually hear even more content on a podcast.
So, Mama, one last time, welcome to a conversation without any planned end. One that doesn’t need to be interrupted by bed time or an alert that, “Mom, we need more toothpaste” because the words will always be here, ready and waiting for you to engage in when you do have a moment to yourself.
Welcome to Our Life with Light! I am so excited to have you here!
Liana
Word Count: 2521 Words
Homemade Apple Font
Dear Mama,
Welcome. This blog is meant to be a place that feels like a comfy couch, a porch swing, or a favorite coffee shop. A place where you sit down with a friend you trust, without any agenda, with your purse loaded with whatever you may need to get through the conversation: notepad and paper, phone charger, travel pack of Kleenex, water bottle…
Many of you, I haven’t met yet. A very special welcome to you. However you found my tiny corner of the internet, I pray this site blesses you!
But many of you reading these words in real time, the first few hours after I hit “Publish” (Eeeee! Exciting!) are the reason I started writing. You are not just friends, but kindred spirits with shared desires to be the best home healers we can be for our families. To transform from confused and helpless cogs in the wheel to educated, empowered, and vitally active caretakers and legacy makers! I’m so excited to start this new part of our journeys together!
We all have our own struggles and our own strengths. It doesn’t matter if we lean more Mary or Martha (IYKYK.) We are all imperfect on our own, made perfect only through faith in the Lord. We learn from each other and that learning comes through conversation.
I love a lot of things in life: I love to travel, cook, garden, photography, film, art, DIY, vintage books, and the list goes on. Maybe one day that will all make it here, some fun flashes of other lights illuminating our life. But I feel an urgency to get to the real reason I’m writing:
Dear mama, we have an incomprehensible load on our shoulders if we want to raise truly healthy kids and nurture our families in a holistic way. The 24 hours in the day quite simply are not enough for each and every one of us, all on our own, to do all the deep dives and figure out how to set ourselves straight and take the first steps and vet every source and run our own tests and cook all the food from scratch and be our own village – while also offering to be part of many other people’s villages.
What?!
No, seriously.
What on earth?
This is the load of modern holistic motherhood?
Talk about stress and overwhelm!
Now, let’s add to that this very important – but way too often overlooked “side” note: We need to do all of this while also taking care of ourselves. Just as well as we take care of everyone else.
Did anyone else’s brain just crack a little? Or did your shoulders droop, processing this ultimate demand yet once again. And are you now a little indignant and turned off, thinking something along the lines of, “How dare she reiterate all of that?! I was coming here for encouragement – not to already feel like I’ve failed!”
Hang on, Mama. Hang on.
This next part is where it gets good.
But let me start by telling you the absolute, unbridled truth:
I’ve failed at all of the above so many times. In some serious, life-altering ways. And yes, I will share my story with you as time goes on.
But here is the silver lining: there is never a failure without a lesson learned (if you are willing.) And oh boy, have I learned many, many lessons! Willing or not at the time they were being taught, the vast majority have eventually been learned and recorded…and now stand to be shared with you!
Those lessons are what most of you real-life friends will text or call or Whatsapp or email or literally drive to my house to learn.
“Which weeds in my lawn help take the sting out of a bite? It’s swelling like a balloon!”
“What do you know about parasites? She’s got them again, and I swear, we’ve tried everything!! ”
“What was that remedy you used for your insanely fast postpartum healing, again?”
Now, before I go any further, let me get one thing very, very straight and exceedingly clear:
I am not a doctor, although I grew up with one. I am not a nurse, although that was the initial focus of my undergrad degree. I am not a homeopath, although I’m on an extended maternity leave from a fabulous program and I hope to return to finish it! But here’s the truth:
Mamas, I’m one of you.
I’m a home healer.
I’m the one who makes sure my kids have a pinch of Redmond real salt in their water and the one that buys half a steer at a time from local farmers – then sends the house into a frenzy trying to find enough space in the freezer or otherwise preserve it fast enough. (Anybody else? Bless our sweet husbands for putting up with the “Picking Up the Steer Day!”)
I’m the one who can get my kids to happily drink “hot chocolate” every morning in the cool weather and eat ice pops every day in the summer (as long as I remember to make them ahead of time! 🙂 – smiling the entire time because I know that they are actually drinking bone broth down to the last nourishing sip and slurping up every icy dribble and drop of a homemade whey protein pop – and asking for more.
Ok…healthy recipes that kids will actually eat. That’s good, sure. But is that healing, you ask?
Yes, Mama. Yes, it is.
And I’ll explain why in my future posts. In detail. Not just “your food is your medicine” kind of platitudes. Real deep dives on what makes bone broth and whey – and so many other forms of food – such powerhouses.
We’ll talk a lot about nutrition and why it all matters. But fair warning: as of the writing of this initial message, no, there is no plan for this to specifically be a nutrition blog.
Will there be recipes and ratios? Goodness, I hope so! I looooove food – growing it, preserving it, cooking it, serving it, sharing it, and yes, you better believe, eating it!
But if you plan to come for the recipe, I really hope you’ll stay for the deeper education, inspiration, and empowerment.
Because you deserve it. You deserve to have at least one place where a friend guides you through this whole home healer gig that we are blessed to have, although it may feel too often like a burden. To get that guidance, step by step. To help you see things in a logical format. To give you the skills and the foundation you need to stop running to Google and trying to remember all the random pieces of desperately sourced information (no judgement…I’ve totally been there until I shifted my initial outlook…which is what I want to help you do, too, Mama.)
I want this blog to be the resource I wish I had when I first became a mom: which happened to be the second I got married and gained three amazing children! I’ll share my story of our first week that propelled me into a million dazzling spiderwebs of home remedies and resources that I never even knew existed the week prior to our wedding.
I’ll share a lot of stories. Those of you who know me in real life know that it’s practically impossible to have any length of conversation with me without my sneaking a story or two in there. It’s who I am!
And back to who I am, Mama, I really, really am one of you.
I’m the mother who wishes so badly that I could just take a backseat sometimes and blindly trust every doctor and every recommendation passed down to me. But I’m also the mother who just knows too much about the mess our healthcare system is and how vulnerable our children are to the fallout.
I’m the mother who will advocate for her children against all odds – but will do so with the utmost respect for the physician or provider. If I have sought their opinion, and especially if I’m paying for it, I will hear it in its fullest. Then, I will decide if I agree or not. The first is me acting in respect. The second is me acting in my rights.
Although it can be tiring and time consuming to acquire, I have not forgotten that there is such a thing as a second opinion. I have also not forgotten that ultimately, my children have been entrusted to my husband and to myself.
Each of our children is a precious blessing, racing their way through the days of childhood. The decisions that we make for them matter – not just for right now, but forever. We are doing all we can – alongside health care providers and practitioners when we feel it is necessary – to give them a strong foundation and an education now that they can take with them into their own futures and the futures of their families as well.
So, mama, if you feel the weight of every appointment, every remedy or prescription not just on yourself but on your grandchildren and great-grandchildren…you are not alone! We cannot allow that responsibility to strip us of the privilege we have to help our children at the moment. But sometimes, it can feel overwhelming and it really is helpful to have a community around you.
I am blessed to have a lovely community of like-minded moms in my life. We share and learn from each other. These women have moved me to tears and to action – but usually, it’s just so dang fun to have them in my circle and to know that I am in theirs. God bless them all!
But I’ve also been laughed at, mocked, and completely disregarded over my beliefs, views, and methods, many, many times.
So whether you’re entirely on your own, even at odds with your spouse or partner…
Or you are the one too many people turn to and you feel you don’t even know where to begin to help them…
Or you are in a great, supportive, like-minded community of crunchy, scrunchy, or just hear-me-roar mamas…
You are welcome here.
And if you are one of the ones who somehow, virtually turned left instead of right on your internet search journey, and you are absolutely the first one to mock and belittle the mamas like me…you think without any letters behind our names, we have no right and nor ability to be the home healers for the families that God has chosen to give to us….
You are welcome here.
Please, stay.
Know that if we were meeting in person, your cuppa would go on my tab and I would welcome you at my table for as long as you wanted to stay.
The truth is, this kind of life is a journey for everyone. It never stops. But it does usually start somewhere.
I’ll get to where I started…and I’ll get to where I felt called to start this blog.
But let me tell you where I didn’t start:
I didn’t grow up growing my own food. Or fermenting vegetables. Or making my own fire cider. Or walking outside barefoot ever – unless it was at the beach or the pool. (I’m smiling as I type that…oh, what a beautiful, healthy childhood, I am able to give my kids and to know I am!)
Before I was even old enough to rent a car, I put myself in the hospital or urgent care so many times with an unhealthy lifestyle that it doesn’t even seem real now, looking back on it all. I swigged the bottle of the thick pink stuff so many of us had as kids quite a few times (who knew it was called Amoxycillan?) And it took me more than 3 decades of life before I had to nerve to can anything in my kitchen.
Mama, if you’re the mama with the diet soft drink in her hand and the rap music blaring around her babies, yes, yes, yes: you are welcome here.
I hope the steps I provide will help walk you through some of your own core beliefs and viewpoints. I hope you like a little bit of a challenge and growing as a person. Even if you don’t, you are still welcome here.
And, hopefully it shows at this point in this post, but if not, let me say it l.o.u.d. and c.l.e.a.r.
I am a born again child of God who has given my Heavenly Father a run for His money more times than I – as an earthly mother – can even comprehend or care to admit. I was raised as a Christian, trusted in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was in elementary school, made my own choice to be baptized later on in middle school, and have always claimed a relationship with God. I can absolutely say that I have seen God’s hand on me and my life in endless ways, and I have often sought to please Him. But nothing has challenged me as a Christian as much as motherhood – especially my kind of motherhood. I am growing every day. I am just plain wrong so often. My children are my best earthly teachers, 90% of the time. My husband is also an incredible spiritual leader in our home. Even with all that, I still try to lean on my own strength too much, too often.
But I love God with all my heart, and I hope that my love and respect for Him shines through this blog.
And Mama, whether you are of the same mind and heart, whether we can call one another Sister in the Lord or not, you are welcome here! This is not a blog by a Christian for other Christians. This is a blog by a mama for other mamas.
This is a place I hope will quickly become a virtual meeting place for both time-honored traditions and cutting edge technology with room at that table for anyone who wants to be here to chat or listen about either.
It is my hope and my prayer that everyone can feel welcome here and learn the basics of health and healing. Enjoy some gorgeous art through the posts, as if it were on my walls. Bring home a recipe or two, in place of the actual dish. Feel encouraged by the time spent and refreshed to continue your own journey. And hopefully, Lord willing, with time, pop over to Youtube to hear some of these blog posts read aloud and eventually hear even more content on a podcast.
So, Mama, one last time, welcome to a conversation without any planned end. One that doesn’t need to be interrupted by bed time or an alert that, “Mom, we need more toothpaste” because the words will always be here, ready and waiting for you to engage in when you do have a moment to yourself.
Welcome to Our Life with Light! I am so excited to have you here!
Liana
Word Count: 2521 Words