What is Heart and Home Living About?
Our Mission is about Simplicity
Hi, I’m Stephanie and I want to share our story with you. As a mother of seven, I have been deep in the trenches. Every minute. Every day. For almost three decades. My mission is to inspire hope, health, and simplicity on the other side of complexity in your daily life. Whether you are married, single, a mom, a dad, a man, a woman, young, or mature, I aim to inspire that “hope, health, and simplicity on the other side of complexity” – that will likely become a regular mantra throughout the site because Heart and Home Living is about simplicity.
What does “simplicity on the other side of complexity” even mean? Let me tell you our story. I first heard this term at a homeschool conference years ago sponsored by Rachel and Oliver DeMille. Like you, my first reaction was “WHAT does that even mean???” How do you take something complex and make it simple? To say I was totally confused would be an understatement. But as time has gone on, I have come to understand what that means.
Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity
“Simplicity on the other side of complexity” really is a simple concept. It suggests after navigating through something very complex and understanding its driving intricacies, one can eventually arrive at a simple and elegant solution or insight. This means that achieving simplicity often requires a journey of grappling with complexity. To get to this point, we must understand different facets, explore various options, and synthesize information. Once this process or journey is complete, we may gain clarity and insight leading to a simpler, more streamlined approach or solution. Simplicity is not the absence of complexity. Rather it is the ability to distill complexity into its essential element resulting in a clearer and more straightforward understanding or solution. Heart and Home Living is about simplicity. I want to help you find it.
Simply put, through my blog posts, I aim to encourage you through an increase of knowledge. I hope to inspire you to apply your knowledge in new ways to simplify your life. Come get to know the rest of our story as I share exerpts of real life in my posts as well as weekly encouragement and inspiration.
“Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety. It is the goal, not the starting point.”
-Maurice Saatchi
Meet the real Stephanie
Meet the real Stephanie: Hi there! I’m Stephanie and my journey through homeschooling, practicing as a registered nurse, homemaking and homesteading, and decades of life experience have given me insight into life. My family will readily attest, I am not a perfect mom, homemaker, or businesswoman. But, I aspire to be. If you are like me and have goals, hopes, and dreams, journey with me. Feel free to meet the real Stephanie, me, by reading about me on this page, and through my posts.
Get to know me
- Favorite movies: Little Women, Baby Boom (because I can’t choose just one)
- Happy place: playing the piano, baking
- Home State: Idaho
- Currently saving for debt payoff
- Biggest goals: Create an income that allows my family to be debt-free while allowing us to be at home; create a healthier lifestyle
Why did I create a blog: More of Our Story
I have always been a “type A++” personality, although it has mellowed somewhat as I have aged. Growing up, I watched movies with strong, independent female types like the characters played by Diane Keaton in “Baby Boom” and Christina Applegate in “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”. True, I grew up in the 90s when many moms worked outside the home and strong independent women were touted as role models to young impressionable girls. These movies helped shape my independent thinking and fostered a desire to be my own boss and in the process, do my own thing while supporting my family.
“The evolution of knowledge is toward simplicity, not complexity.”
– L. Ron Hubbard
This specific mindset worked to my advantage as I worked as a busy registered nurse on a hospital floor or nursing home, managing other nursing staff. It also was beneficial when my husband and I started our short-term rental business almost a decade ago. I possessed the organizational and management skills necessary to make those career options work.
However, when my sweetheart developed a long-term debilitating autoimmune disease, we began to rethink our overall strategy to earn income. We needed one that was not so dependent on either one of us physically. We needed to change our story. After spending several months considering what we wanted the next phase of our financial and family life to look like. After considerable time researching (like a year), I decided it was finally time to create a blog. But I didn’t want to create just any blog. I wanted one that would offer hope and encouragement to men and women seeking to create a life they love by expanding their knowledge base, moving out of their comfort zones, or finding peace in the storm.
Things I am passionate about:
- Health and Wellness
- Homeschooling
- Homesteading
- Personal Finance
- Food
- Joyful Parenting
- Family Science
- Baking
For a decade and a half, I worked as a Registered Nurse, specializing in long-term care. During that time, I also worked in our local hospital in the Medical/Surgical wing. I loved those I cared for, but hated the red tape of government bureaucracy. After giving birth to four kids and committing to care for my aging father who suffered from Alzheimer’s Dementia, we decided it was time to change our story. For me this looked like coming home. Permanently. A few years before this, we had begun the lifestyle journey of homeschooling. From this point forward, and having studied family science in college, I dedicated myself even more to studying and practicing family science.
Now, more than 30 years after our story began, and seven kids later, I am an accomplished family science practitioner. With four teens/tweens at home, I am still deep in the trenches. I don’t have all the answers. My kids still drive me crazy some days. I make dinners that just do not turn out. My home oscillates from very clean to looking like a tornado tore through it. During some seasons, our finances look pretty shredded. And, at this moment, our bees are dead (well we think they are). And I currently struggle with our family’s new dynamic of having dad more fully at home. But there is a multitude of joy in the journey. Using the experience that has populated my life, I look forward to helping you find that joy!
