My name is Jessica and I'm married to Chris, my college sweetheart. We were "just best friends" for a while before we ever started dating, and I seriously thank God for that strong, solid foundation we started our relationship on! My husband is the funniest person I know, is amazingly spiritually sensitive, generous beyond belief, and loves me so well. I am very, very lucky to be able to journey through life with him!
My husband and I both have music degrees, and mine is in Pre-K - 12 music education. After college I taught for one year in Ohio teaching K-5 elementary music. Then we moved to PA {to my husband's hometown} and I subbed for a year/worked at Cracker Barrel {still love that place!}. The following year I got a full-time position, teaching K-5 music, 6 & 7th grade chorus, and high school drama {that last one was a little bit of a stretch but I survived!}.
I had always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and I didn't return back to teaching when my son was born. I started This Blessed Life in August of 2009, when Luke was just one month old.
Now we live in Connecticut {20 minutes from my hometown}, and we've since added a precious daughter to our family. Olivia, our little surprise, was born in January 2013 with a congenital heart condition that wasn't discovered until about 26 hours after she was born. She underwent open-heart surgery on May 1st, 2013, and is now a thriving, healthy girl - praise God! You can read more about her via the "Olivia's Story" tab on the header.
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Some things you should know about me:
I am extremely outgoing and get completely energized by being with other people.
I love, love, love New England and hope to never live anywhere else again unless God directs us to.
I also secretly - or not so secretly - have a total love affair with the South. The accents, the big hair bows, the food - YES PLEASE.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and Thanksgiving weekend is my favorite four days of the entire year.
I may not always have a clean house but I guarantee you it WILL be seasonally decorated and my cabinets will always be organized. I hope this helps my children cope in the future! haha! I am SOOOO right-brained and am very easily distracted - not to mention I am usually attempting to work on about 14 projects at once.
I read REALLY fast. Like freakishly fast. So if you notice typos on my blog, it's not for lack of re-reading. It's just that even when I re-read, I don't notice them. You could maybe say that I'm NOT detail oriented. lol!
I love the fall, Starbucks, the fall, monograms, Chipotle, the fall, and family traditions. Did I mention I love the fall?! ;)
Yard-sales and thrift-store shopping are some of my favorite things to do. I'd estimate that literally about 75% of the things in our house were purchased second-hand. And since we are a one-income family on a tight budget, this works out well all-around. ;)
I am really passionate about clean eating and making good food choices. I'm not as far down the path as some people, but I've self-educated myself a LOT in the last several years and we've drastically changed the way we eat. Mostly whole, healthy, closer-to-their-natural-state foods. But totally delicious!
Adoption is another passion of ours and before we had Olivia we had gotten licensed by the state of Connecticut to adopt through the state foster care system. We got our official license on May 4th, 2012, and found out I was pregnant with Olivia {surprise!} on May 30th. Our social worker just laughed when we told him. :) We still want to adopt someday!
My husband and I are committed Christians. We are part of an Evangelical Free Church, and while neither of us grew up in that particular denomination, we absolutely love it and feel at home there. The Evangelical Free Church believes that Christians should be "together on the essentials" {aka the major points of faith}, and agree to disagree on minor issues. We feel that this is freeing, life-giving, and biblical. Our church is a lovely, joyful place to be and we absolutely love attending there!
Okay, that's about it for me! :) Thanks so much for visiting!