Let’s chat. 

I wanted to chat a little as we launch into a new school year – those always feel like the beginning for me! When I’m coaching people on using instagram I always tell them to define their relationship with the app. “Why do you post and why do you scroll?” It’s a different answer for everyone and that’s the point, but I think it’s important to know our own answers for so many reasons.

So I thought I’d answer it for you so you know why WE do what we do and what we’re wanting to bring here.

Let’s take it back. 

Where did this start? About 7 years ago I started posting on the instagram app, filters and boarders and all, hi 2013.  It was our newlywed journey of melding our (vastly) different definitions of food and learning to love our bodies well with that part of life.

“A husband and wife journey: Loving our bodies with what we love to eat”

became our tag line and I didn’t tell a soul I was posting. When I hit 400 followers I started to let people know I was there and shortly after that we got featured on Vogue.co.uk and a few more people joined our journey. 

The fumbling fast forward

We started doing a few small partnerships, kept posting, got a blog to share recipes, wrote ebooks… I figured out (kind of) what I wanted this world to look like. I loved the creativity, the flexibility, the learning and the challenge and a year in I quit my job and it became my job. We then started a business on the back of instagram making thousands of paleo doughnuts. I had kids. The business kept me up more than my newborn. No joke. A year later I closed the doors on doughnuts. 

It’s been an unpredicted and somewhat unpredictable ride! 18 months ago Jared quit his job suddenly I became the only one working. My online world took on a slightly different feel being our only income, it was an exciting and also nerve wracking one. So far I feel incredibly fortunate that there’s more work than I have time for and our income hasn’t been scary. Hard work, too much hard work at times but there’s always been enough and I’m grateful.

Beyond Food

With our first child the journey began to be about more than food as based on the same values in choosing food we looked at baby clothes and started to ask the same questions. Where does this come from? What’s it made from? How is it affecting my body? How is it affecting the people who made it? How will it affect people and planet as it leaves out home?  Those questions we’d applied to food began to get applied to other things around our home, and we shared the journey. 

And now: 2020.

I’m constantly assessing out what I want to bring to you in our online home. I only want to use these spaces to help and bring change, it’s not a journal of all of life for me.

What I want to BRING is really our journey and answers on those questions:

• What effect do the things we bring into our home have on us personally, and on people, and on the planet? 
• Before they come to us, while they are in our home, and when they leave the home?
• In the choices we’re already making every day largely without much thought – what impact are we unknowingly having?

Those are the questions I ask of everything we bring into our home and it’s not always the easiest and it’s a constant journey of learning and growing and changing.  

Is it a fun journey? Yes and not always. There are pieces I love but some of the realisations about our impact aren’t fun, but I’d rather know and grow than not know. Above all I do this out of conviction and I want to share the journey to make it feel more normal or possible to others. 

A “how we” not a “how to.”

I never want to be a “How To” guide. We’re not exerts in anything, we’re not getting this right. I’m just sharing the journey being the mum who lets her kids have no socks for months cos I need to know another child isn’t being made to work so my kids can have socks so I just won’t buy till I’m sure. I’m the one who will call a company to ask questions on the packaging or ones the manufacturing process, and I’m the blogger who sends the extra email to asks for no swag (PLEASE don’t send me another tote bag with that!) and asking why they want to hire me and who else they’re hiring too to understand before I say yes. But I’m not a certified anything, I’m a mum on a journey. This is how we do the journey but it does NOT mean it’s right or it’s how it should be done by all.  

I don’t make the choices I do because everyone should. I make them because I’m able to, and then because I’m able to I’m personally convinced I should use that ability to make choices that care for us personally but also always for people and for the planet.

And I’m constantly learning new aspects of the way my life affects others, and so we’re constantly changing the way we make choices. There are new things we say no too. New things we incorporate. New things to research. New areas we realise we’ve unknowingly caused harm. It’s a journey, a lot of day by day steps forward on that matter to us. There will be mistakes, there will be change, I’ll learn from your responses and feedback and questions, but there will be a journey and it will always towards those thing we care about. 

The online juggle: motherhood and work time

Over the last years I’ve worked more hours a week than I want to without child care and with Jared studying full time. My top priority is motherhood and building our “real” life first and the online window in on it second so I’m readjusting my time a bit to work a less which means some streamlining! I’ll trying to make more tailored instagram more towards showing those aspects of life so that when I’m there it’s with pointed helpful snippets.

I’m also bringing back the blog more as it makes the content I do create live longer and be more searchable which is better for my time and yours. And then I’ll be back to sending out a short weekly email that points to the blog and any other helpful info so that when I’m writing we make sure it actually gets to you to help you! If you want to get those weekly emails you can pop your name in my address book HERE! And this isn’t about one way communication – reply and say hi when the first one comes in, I genuinely love that. 

Thanks for being here for the ride! We so value you.

x

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