It’s been a whirlwind week here! I spent the first two weeks of June in one of my favorite places with a couple hundred of my favorite people. Every year, our homeschool group performs a musical production. It’s expertly cast and directed, and we love the whole experience. After the closing performance of Oklahoma!, cast, crew, and audience stayed to celebrate. It was a very late night.

The next morning, Mike and I left for the airport at 4:45. We landed in Florida in time to make it to 10:00 Mass. By Sunday around 6, I struggled to keep my eyes open:-). We’re here to see my mom, and we’re here to cheer my aunt as she shares her art collection with the world.

It’s been such a strange study in contrasts. I went from a chilly New England evening, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and chatting up a donkey to a hot, humid tropical morning and a bunch of events with fancy people that call for fancy clothes. In Connecticut, I was so very aware that several of my friends were there for their last official homeschool event as parents and participants. The babies of their families graduated this year. Their husbands are planning a retirement party for them. I did the math. In four years, Sarah will graduate, and my 35-year homeschool adventure will come to a close. I feel like the old lady at our homeschool co-op. Here in Florida, I’m a spring chicken. I can move the way I want, when I want, mostly. I can keep up with Christian’s dog when I take him on frequent walks, and we both need the outdoor break and the healthy expenditure of energy. But I look around, and I see the future, and it does inspire me to set some goals, make some plans.

Goals are a good thing! Healthy minds set goals. Interestingly, the more I recognize how completely out of my control most of life is, the more I appreciate setting reasonable goals—that is goals that are well-reasoned.

I recognize how important it is for my mental health to give my brain something good and praiseworthy to ponder, something excellent to aspire to, and something lovely to bring to prayer, it will just manufacture negative nonsense and try to make me believe it’s true.

Then, I will toss and turn all night long while anxiety has its way.

So I’m learning how to focus my brain on worthy goals and I’m looking forward to what comes next—in the short term and in the long term.

Nearly a year of mindset coach training has taught me how to decide how I want to show up, how to look at my life with curiosity, and make plans.

For seventeen years, I’ve thought out loud on my personal blog. It’s been a place to ponder, to share silly things and deep things, painful things and some of my greatest joys. I’ve been embarrassingly honest. I chose the word “embarrassingly” with intention. When you gather 17 years of rambling mama thoughts in one place, there’s a good chance you’ll embarrass yourself now and then.

But I thought I was being careful not to embarrass my kids. I never wanted them either to be embarrassed for themselves by something I wrote about them, or to consider me an embarrassment. As time passes, I am more and more sensitive to that possibility. And I am weighing it. Why does it make them squirm? Whose voice is suggesting it’s an embarrassment, God or the enemy?

I wrote my blog for an audience of four (actually, three at first). I was pregnant with Karoline when I began. Very much aware that a forty-year-old mama with a cancer history might never have the opportunity to speak to her own daughter when she turned forty, I wrote as if my grown daughters were my friends in my readership. It was never in the intimate voice a mother might use with her daughters, but I was always aware that one day, they’d have some written record of many good things and some honestly hard things.

I archived my blog last week. I flipped a switch that protected it from the public while I sift through memories in private. I’ve become increasingly aware that I have a large family and what one grown child might read and delight in, another might read with dismay. I am also so very aware that over the years countless women have written to thank me for articulating their own thoughts when words wouldn’t come or for holding their hands through a similar trial. All I ever wanted was to bear witness to the goodness of the gospel in the heart of a faithful home.

So, it’s going to take a minute or two to figure out how to continue to sing the praises of our good God—and to do it honestly—while still respecting the privacy of the people in my life. I’ll figure it out. Maybe?

I think that more private letters like these might be part of the solution. Maybe emails will be the place for graduation and grandbaby announcements, and for prayer requests and honest reckonings—all the things that would have been easy-breezy blog posts almost two decades ago. The archives will be carefully sorted and content that is suitable for publication under 2023 family standards will find its way back out into cyberspace.

Mine is a generation that knows a time before the internet and certainly before social media. That gives us the dubious distinction of being the first moms to make social media mistakes. On the one hand, I want to tell you all about those mistakes so that someone benefits from them. On the other hand, I want to be much quieter than in years past. Just as this whole blog-archive thing was unfolding, I learned that my regular column in the Arlington Catholic Heraldwon an award. I’ve been writing that column for 30 years—much longer than I’ve been blogging. What was interesting to me is that I think it won in the “Spiritual Life” category. Previously, it was considered in the “Family Life” category. Perhaps that is a clue to goals for the future. Perhaps the focus is spiritual life and not so much family life.

For sure, the goal for the future is to find ways to connect, to share the good news, to tell you I understand your struggle in a manner that is more about my heart open to yours and less about my children, no matter how they’ve shaped this heart of mine.

If you’ve hung in this long, may I please remind you that Beautycounter pays the bills in this ministry? Now more than ever, I am so grateful for your support. I woke this morning to the surprising news of a really great (and totally unexpected) sale—something on the order of Black Friday.

Beginning today, you can get 20% off almost everything on the Beautycounter site (a few exclusions apply), and you can unlock free shipping when the brand-new-today All Bright Dark Spot Minimizer is added to cart. Combinations can happen! For instance, there’s also a special on the Beautycounter perks program. This month, you can combine the 20% off offer with the Band of Beauty Member Welcome or Renewal Gift. Then, you get free shipping for a year, 10% product credit to spend on future orders, a free bottle of Glow First Priming Serum, and any member perks that pop up along the way. Never tried Beautycounter? New customers who apply the First-Time Buyer Code (CLEANFORALL20) will receive 20% off and Clean Deo in Clean Rose as a gift. Whew! That’s a lot! Text me at 703-298-6621 and we can work on details or colors or product selection to help you get the most bang for your buck.

Oh, and one more thing (me switching to email might be annoying if I don’t learn to post email more frequently and cut the length of these missives): Next week, we begin a new health coaching series at Take Up & Be Well. You can read all about it here. It’s a fabulous opportunity to connect with other women, learn some really valuable things about your health, and spend the summer getting well. I would dearly love for you to join us!

‘Til next time (which will be sooner than later),

Elizabeth