Hello and welcome to Thriving on Ordinary! My name is Jen, and I’m just an ordinary mom living an ordinary life. I hope to share my enthusiasm for family, and all that entails, with you. Here is a little of my story that brought me to this point in life.

I was a basic stay at home mom. I cleaned, I cooked, I sewed, I volunteered at my kids’ school.  Since they were very little my two oldest kids talked about farming (by which they meant raising animals). I expected the phase to pass as I myself was not raised with animals, didn’t want to raise animals, was pretty sure I didn’t even like animals with the exception of my cat. The phase hasn’t passed yet and those same kids are now teenagers.

The kids spent several years begging to do 4-H. By this time my parents had bought some property and were talking about the kids raising larger animals like pigs and sheep. Being the smart mom that I am I decided they could have rabbits. Rabbits are small; they live in a cage, no big deal right? Well, let me tell you, rabbits are a gateway animal. Turns out I really like rabbits and three turned into many more than three. More than that I really like learning about rabbits. Who would have guessed? The rabbits were so much fun I gave in and let my kids talk me into letting them do a pig project.  This turned into one of them doing a pig project and the other doing a goat project. Turns out I like goats too.

We live in a neighborhood in a fairly small house. One small decision to let the kids join 4-H with their cute little bunnies and now 4-H has taken over our lives. Now in the summer, we make the trek to my parent’s house for the kids to take care of their animals. Luckily they don’t live far. To be clear, while it is hectic it is worth it. 4-H is a lot of fun and my kids have learned a lot. Best of all they have learned that they can try new things and learning a new skill doesn’t have to be scary.

I have learned that I can try new things and learning new skills doesn’t have to be scary! Here I am blogging, right?

I never would have guessed my life would include rabbits, pigs, and goats. I have done things I never dreamed of doing (and could have happily gone my whole life without doing). I guess I’ll save that for a later post.

Thanks for visiting my blog.