About Me

Hi. I’m Bethany.

I’m a goofy, logical, creative, easygoing, confident, and nerdy woman in my thirties. I’m a Ravenclaw, Enneagram 9ish, and I have ADHD – specifically ADD, the non-hyperactive version. I love Jesus, have an amazing husband, two awesome kids, and two sweet old rescue mutts.

I do the stay-at-home mom thing and homeschool our kids, as well as work part-time at our church as treasurer. I also do freelance graphic design and photography, and have modeled and acted in the past.

I’ve lived in eight states in almost every major region of the country, but was mostly raised a Midwesterner until my family moved to Florida when I was 18. I married a New Englander who lived in the same house his entire life until he went away to college. To both of us Jacksonville is definitely home – until we can work out moving to Hawaii.

My favorite things to do include: traveling, going to the beach, going to Disney World, photography, drinking coffee at all hours, reading fiction, running (longest distance: marathon; favorite distance: 15K), going out to eat, watching TV, enjoying my city, and shopping at thrift and discount stores. (TJ, Marshall, and Ross are my BFFs!)

On this blog I write about running, family, homeschooling, Florida, being a white mom with black kids, Christianity, travel, silliness, thrift store scores, and whatever else I want to talk about. Sometimes I’m serious, sometimes I’m controversial, sometimes I’m only funny to me, and sometimes I’m actually funny. Always I’m grateful for someone listening, so if you’re out there, say hi!

In 2016 I grew out my long-time pixie cut… and then happily chopped it off again, ran a half-marathon every month, bought a new house twice the size of the one we spent the previous decade in, and travel hacked our whole family to Korea and Kauai for a few hundred dollars in airfare.

In 2017 we finished five years of homeschooling and enrolled the boys in a local hybrid school (3 days in class, 2 days homeschooled), which has been very good for all of us. I ran six half-marathons, added a new state, and ran a race in another country for the first time! I also completed the runDisney Castle to Chateau and Coast to Coast Challenges. I dyed my hair purple all year. We traveled to France, Belgium, Mexico, and Disneyland. We went to Connecticut in summer for the first time in a long time, and I had an amazing time with my church worship team at the Gettys’ Sing! conference in Nashville. I got to see Hanson in concert twice. (Yes, that Hanson.) We went to Disney so much with our passes that my boss thinks we live there. Oh – and I stopped going to Universal as much because they took away my favorite ride: Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge. #stillbitter

In 2018 we said good-bye to my dad when he passed away after a five-year battle with Multiple Myeloma. We had a missionary live with us for a while. I didn’t run nearly as much as I usually do. We went to Maui thanks to snagging $350 roundtrip tickets, Connecticut for a long-awaited family wedding, St. Louis for fun where I almost got stuck in the City Museum, on a cheap cruise to Mexico, and to Washington as a family to visit friends, Australia and New Zealand as a couple for our 15th wedding anniversary, and Illinois and Missouri and New York by myself to check off half-marathons in three more states – and to a Mexican all-inclusive for a much-needed end-of-summer Mamacation!

In 2019 we said goodbye to my husband’s grandma, who went home on her 85th birthday. The boys and I had an epic spring break in China and walked on the Great Wall! I started working as a travel agent! We went to Colorado to see friends, and on two cruises with family. Some friends moved in upstairs and that was surprisingly easy to adjust to.

In 2020 we dealt with Covid life and all that meant (including the loss of my job as a travel agent). Before that we spent a fun weekend in New Orleans and Baton Rouge and spent spring break in England and almost got stuck there because of the travel ban. In the summer we took a road trip to Wisconsin to see friends, and to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which was gorgeous. We also went to Aruba, which is now one of my favorite places. We had, oh, something like five trips get canceled, plus tons of other fun stuff, like birthday parties. I basically stopped running for most the year due to depression. For myriad reasons we returned to full time homeschool, and to all of our shock, it went fantastically.

In 2021 I decided to try to shake the 2020 funk. Among other life changes, I started intermittent fasting, which ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I also ended up getting diagnosed with ADHD, which explains so much about my life. My kids finally caught Covid, but my husband and I were vaccinated and still haven’t gotten it. (The kids are vaccinated now too!) At my eldest kid’s request we took a snow trip to the mountains of North Carolina, joined my mom in south Florida (Everglades, Miami Beach, the Florida Keys), and completed our sampling of all the major Hawaiian islands by taking a trip to the Big Island. We also had a work trip to St. Thomas, which has amazing snorkeling. In the summer I took a solo trip to Iceland – my favorite cold place in the world – and it was… indescribable. I came back completely rejuvenated – and utterly giddy because I had watched a volcano erupt multiple times from half a mile away the night before I got home. In the fall I decided to officially leave the travel agency because it was more stress and less income. Stupid Covid. In November we went to Greece, which was my youngest kid’s dream come true, and in December I finally took them to Washington, DC, which was so good.