This blog is the story of life as I went from a world traveling pastors wife to a home-schooling mom of 4.

Old ladies and Instagram Pics

By Jen | January 20, 2015 | 8 Comments
Jen Powell talk about life and adjust to life in Orange County California. This is the real me.

Something weird has happened to me since moving to Southern California. I’ve recently discovered a lot of beautiful pictures and lives on Instagram from fellow OC moms. Perfect looking lives. Perfect looking people. Perfectly dressed. Perfect messy hair. Perfect kitchen and meals and plates and walls and pets and lives. I found a couple Instagram peeps that I thought would “encourage” me to be a better housekeeper or homemaker or homeschooler. I started following some of these beautiful perfect people. I started to feel ugly. I started to feel self conscious of my home. I started to think that my homeschooling was never enough. I started wishing I dressed differently. I started thinking that my life was no longer adventurous. I started thinking that I wasn’t taking enough risks. I started feeling that I wasn’t enough. I stopped in Target today to get a free ‘trenta’ ice water (I’m addicted…

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Aging or Ageing (if you are british)

By Jen | April 23, 2012 | 7 Comments

Today I sat across from my beautiful husband and was filled with thankfulness and gratefulness. I looked into his eyes and saw the same Justin that I married over ten years ago. The same Justin that I despised thirteen years ago. The same man that I moved across the ocean with. But I’ve been noticing something different lately when looking at him. Yes, the hairline continues to change, but now I see little small wrinkles around his eyes that weren’t there when we were married or when I despised him or when we moved across the ocean together. But he is the same man. A better man, but the same. And of course he must also notice these things in me. We sat together at this little coffee shop. It was Starbucks, Okay!? Starbucks! I wish I could say it was a glamorous little cafe in Barcelona, but I needed…

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A good dad

By Jen | September 22, 2011 | 1 Comment

I was looking through some pictures I just took in the last couple weeks and saw these from one of Justin’s futbol games and it just brought the biggest smile to my face! I am probably living vicariously through my kids’ life, but I think Justin is the coolest dad ever! He represents what my dreamy idea of a good father is and I am glad that I get to see it played out with my own children. Even better than having it myself.  

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I asked for adventure and I got it.

By Jen | September 6, 2011 | 10 Comments

In my last blog post I posted a few phrases that I didn’t realize would challenge me the VERY next day! These are my own quotes: “Isn’t there something so fulfilling about just LIVING LIFE and doing something crazy?” “Why do we take the easy route in life so often?” “Isn’t there adventure to be had?” “Why do we become complacent in our marriages or relationships or personal lives?” Little did I know that the very next day I would be challenged to these quotes. Do I really believe what I wrote, or was it just a moment of inspiration, something to never be lived out? Let me tell you what happened the next day. I got an email from a friend saying that there was a company called Transavia looking for blond children 4-6 and males and females 25-30 who were also blond to do some sort of advertisement…

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Inspired by Surfwise

By Jen | August 28, 2011 | 5 Comments

I love being inspired by documentaries. I remember the first documentary that I watched was one on Keith Green. Justin and I watched it together after being married for two years. Watching that documentary sent us on the journey of selling our house, our cars, and eventually moving to Europe. (Of course it wasn’t the only factor in our moving to Europe, but it did play a significant role.) Isn’t there something so fulfilling about just LIVING LIFE and doing something crazy? It almost brings me to tears of excitement just thinking and writing about it! The most recently seen documentary, just watched a few minutes ago, was Surfwise. Since reading about it a few weeks ago, I knew it would probably be a film that would somehow impact how we will live our lives. The only thing I knew about the film was that it is about a large…

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