The Guest Room

Some of my best family memories were made around the dinner table. TV off, phones away, often adding chairs for whoever was joining. Coming together to share about our day and laugh with each other over meals always served as a way to connect as a family before we were off to our own activities again. My parents made this ritual a priority for our family and I plan to do the same as my own family grows. I really credit those family dinners with being a foundation for our close relationships, the best classroom, and a huge source of encouragement as I grew up. Our family kitchen/dining room taught me some of my biggest lessons, along with the value of hospitality and community.

I see families out to dinner together, sitting in silence, or couples on a “date” staring at their phones and it makes me so sad to see the opportunity for relationship building being missed. We’re so busy and so connected that cooking a meal, stopping, sitting down to engage seems daunting. I took it for granted as a child, but the mom who works all day, keeps her home and family running, and still manages to put a meal on the table at dinner time is a superhero! Some days I feel like a superhero wife + mom and other days I ask my husband to pick up fast food on his way home from work. Some days we eat dinner at the table, but a lot of days we catch up on a Netflix show while we eat. While there’s definitely room for balance, lately I’ve been motivated to get disciplined in the name of a healthier marriage and family! I’m challenging myself to prioritize providing richer meals for myself and my husband, to set aside unplugged time to connect, and to start building the habit and setting an example of family dinners for our son.

The best way to make a goal a reality is to make sure its realistic. One tool I’ve found helpful is to plan out our meals for the next week or two and grocery shop with those specific recipes in mind. I do my best to make meals that overlap ingredients so that I can buy larger quantities and save a little money. The goal is doing more with less so that meal time is an enjoyable blessing without breaking the money or time budget. This makes meal prep throughout the week easier, but I’m always trying to figure out how to balance easy with creative! Thats one of the reasons I started this page – I need more recipes!!

There’s something fun about a shared recipe among friends. I have a special book of hand written recipes that my mom gifted me when I got married and they’re my very favorites because great memories are associated with them and I love the woman who shared them! So many recipes come from Pinterest these days and I LOVE what a convenient tool the internet is, but when another woman gives me a recipe card that she hand wrote because she knew I’d enjoy it, its like receiving a hand written card! So that’s what I’m aiming for here. Bringing a little bit of the personal feel to this page by sharing recipes from our own community. It’s my hope that this can be a place that inspires us to build community and make memories around the table. So follow along for some fun and simple recipes and if you’ve got a good one that you’d like to share, send it my way! Let’s get cookin’!