Peaches & Potatoes

I’m excited (and a little bit nervous) to be back after taking some time away. Some of ya’ll have been following our family from the beginning—almost 17 years. Welcome back! And if you’re a more recent reader, a very warm welcome to you, too.

I’m also excited to take this blog in a new direction, with more of a focus on natural health. Here I’ll be sharing the simple things we love that help our family feel our best—from homeschooling and our favorite books, art and poetry, to real food, herbal remedies and non-toxic home and personal care. I’m so grateful to God for the healing I’ve found, and my hope is to help you and the people you love feel your best, too.

I thought I’d start by sharing some of our story and the latest from our family!

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(Photo by Emily Price) This is one of our family’s favorite trails, which follows a little creek just down the road from our home in Idaho.

Starting Fresh

I actually started blogging back when Ben and I were newlyweds in 2008. I called our blog “Peaches and Potatoes” as a nod to our home states—I was from Georgia, known for its peaches, and Ben grew up in Idaho, known for its potatoes. We met in college in Idaho, and we’ve lived in the Gem State ever since. I guess that kind of makes me an Idaho girl now! But we’re still “Peaches and Potatoes,” because we’re all about wholesome food, and because our lives are a somewhat quirky combination of sweetness and starch, so to speak.

For years, I just had a simple family blog on Blogspot. You long-time followers might remember when I used to share all about our lives and little ones—and before that, our struggles with infertility. Well, I thought you should know, I’ll be doing things a little differently now. After some personal experiences in recent years (including a time when we couldn’t share what our family was going through, because police and others were involved), I’ve decided to keep things more private here, especially as far as our kids are concerned.

For that reason, I tried blogging under a different name on Wix for awhile, but that didn’t feel quite right.

So, I’m starting fresh with our original name, “Peaches and Potatoes,” and a new blog on WordPress hosted by Bluehost. It was an easy to way to get my blog up and going again, and for just a few dollars a month. (If you’d like to try it yourself, you can use my link for a discount on site hosting by Bluehost. The WordPress platform is free. Let me know if you have any questions!)

I’ll still be sharing openly from our lives, including how God helped us overcome infertility and other health problems, along with things we find useful or beautiful.

Our Family

As for our little ones, some of them aren’t so little anymore! Our first “miracle baby” is a tall, handsome 11-year-old boy now. Our sweet girls are (almost) 10, 8 and 5—each special and unique but as close as sisters can be. (It makes me so happy, since I didn’t have a sister growing up.) And two years ago, we welcomed the most beautiful, perfect baby boy to our family, making it complete.

As you can see, we no longer struggle with infertility! It’s truly a miracle, too, after suffering multiple miscarriages and being told we might never have children of our own. I can’t help but want to share my story of healing without fertility medication, which I plan to do in coming posts.

(Photo by Emily Price) I know this is a couple years old now, but I love it. We finally had new family photos taken just recently.

Baby Blues

Still, it hasn’t been easy, and in spite of a perfectly smooth pregnancy, postpartum has been anything but this time around. I’ve struggled to “bounce back,” and this baby’s been a handful. Thankfully, we’re over the worst of the nighttime wakings (Earthley’s teething tincture was a life-saver for a few months there), and I’m starting to feel more on top of things again.

But he’s our last, and he’s such a joy, so I’ve tried to embrace the exhaustion along with these precious moments. I’m not sleeping (or showering, or eating, or getting things done…) nearly as much as I’d like some days, but I do feel extremely blessed. My older kids have been a big help, too! Even more, we’re all healthy, and I’m grateful for that.

Homeschooling

We’re also in our second year homeschooling and loving it. It’s our first year using Ambleside Online, which is a free online resource for studying classical literature, art, music and more. It’s been such a rich experience! We enjoy starting our day with beautiful songs and Bible passages before jumping into our reading and other subjects.

Of course, it can be stressful sometimes, too, and I’m still figuring things out. But mostly it’s been wonderful keeping our days slow and simple, spending time as a family—especially with Ben working from home now—and exploring beautiful Boise, Idaho together.

(Photo by Emily Price) This trail along a creek near our home is one of our favorite places to explore (not usually in white clothes, obviously…but it did make a special place for family photos). We watch the ducklings here in the spring, pick grapes and wild blackberries and play in the water in the summer, and in the winter, the kids “skate” on the frozen creek. At the end of the trail, there’s a view of snowcapped mountains over the city of Boise.

Change of Plans

It’s hard to believe we’ve lived here in the Treasure Valley for nearly 12 years now! I’m so glad I get to live in such a nice place full of friendly people, where I can see snowcapped mountains on my walks around the neighborhood and drive down clean roads lined with pretty houses and sweet-smelling trees and flowers. (I don’t know what it is, but the trees here smell SO good, especially along the river, which is my favorite spot in the valley.)

But, the truth is, I’ve been homesick for the South and my family almost as long as I’ve lived in Idaho (it’ll be 20 years in all this fall—I spent 8 in Southeast Idaho for college and Ben’s pharmacy school), and we were planning to move to Georgia awhile back. Sadly, our dream of buying grandparents’ farm in the Appalachians fell through a few years ago. After that, we tried to buy the farm next to it, but about a year ago, that fell through, too.

It’s been heartbreaking, and I still struggle with a deep sense of loss. But I’m slowly healing. We love our home and life here, too, and we’re grateful we get to be fairly close to Ben’s side of the family in the West. I’m trusting God’s greater purpose in all this.

I grew up visiting my grandparents’ farm in North Georgia. To me, it felt like “home.” Now that it’s gone, it feels like a part of me is missing, and the grief has been real. But earthly things all pass away, so I’m trying to let go and lay up eternal treasures instead.

Getting Back Into Blogging

Following that loss though, between overwhelming grief and baby blues, I almost gave up on blogging altogether. Not to mention, with five kids to raise and homeschool, it’s just harder to find time to write.

That’s why, when I finally decided to try blogging again this year, I made a goal to spend my baby’s nap time working on my blog and writing. This is usually when I read to my younger kids or help my older kids with schoolwork, so it’s been an adjustment. Not everyone’s been happy about it, either, but we’re finding our rhythm.

But the biggest reason I took a break from blogging was because I’ve been holding back, and that’s what I’m really trying to overcome.

Trying Times

Something in me changed a few years ago when we almost lost our third baby. She was four months old at the time and stopped breathing one day while she was napping. By a miracle, we found her in time (thanks to the 11-year-old girl who was helping me with the kids that day—our guardian angel!), and I was able to revive her after a few minutes of frantic CPR.

(Let me take this opportunity to encourage you to, please, get trained on infant CPR if you’re a parent or caregiver here or here. I’d been through a course years earlier and remembered enough to make a clumsy attempt, but I wish I’d been better prepared. I also recommend using a firm, non-toxic crib mattress like this one we have now—the reclining “rock and play” our baby was in was possibly a factor—and research the connection between vaccines and SIDS. Our second baby had a serious vaccine reaction and became unresponsive about an hour after her 6-month shots. This close call with our third baby was enough for us, and we no longer vaccinate our kids.)

That baby is now a healthy, feisty little girl, and I praise God for that every day. But back then, I wasn’t ready to share that experience with the world. Up until that point, I’d only been sharing sweet and funny moments on my blog and social media, and suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t anymore.

(Photo by Emily Price) Praise God for this girl! What would I do without her fiery spirit? Heaven knows, she’s the one who teaches me patience.

I kept waiting to feel ready, but I never did. Life seemed to keep turning upside down.

Not long after almost losing our baby, Ben was forced to leave his job after working literally day and night for weeks on end, close to the point of a physical and mental breakdown. He was unemployed for several weeks, then he worked only part time for a few years—mostly nights and weekends on a very inconsistent schedule. We had to live on less than half our previous income and lost our healthcare benefits.

During that time, I also struggled with my health, and we suffered our fourth miscarriage. (We had three before our first baby, years earlier.) A few months later, when I was pregnant with our fourth baby, we unexpectedly became temporary caregivers to three kids, and soon after, an elderly neighbor. Legally, we couldn’t share much of what was going on in our lives, but it was tumultuous, to say the least (although joyful in many ways, too—I wouldn’t trade those relationships for anything). Then, like I mentioned before, our long-time plans to buy my grandparents’ farm in Georgia fell through and I was devastated.

With no family nearby for support, my health became even worse, probably mostly from stress. I had frequent, painful skin infections and rashes all over my body, along with severe food and chemical sensitivities and digestive issues. It was a discouraging time.

Finding Healing

In the years since, God’s led me to find healing through real food and natural remedies—and, most importantly, peace through His Son Jesus Christ. And, of course, I’m grateful my family’s still together, all alive and well! We’re almost never sick now, since we made changes to our diet and lifestyle. Even more, Ben started working from home (reviewing IV orders for our local hospital), which is nothing short of a miracle from heaven. It’s made our lives so much easier.

But in some ways, I feel like we’re still recovering from the last few years, and I just hope I’m strong enough to handle whatever else life has in store for us.

All that to say, I’ve wanted to get back into blogging, but I haven’t always wanted to share life’s ups and downs as we’re experiencing them, which is how I used to approach it. It’s hard for me to know what to say when I’m just trying to make it from one day to the next.

I also haven’t wanted to try to portray a “perfect” life and home, like some bloggers do. I love our life, and we have a beautiful home, but it can also be messy and chaotic at times, and I don’t like feeling pressure to present a certain “aesthetic” day in and day out for all the world to see. If I’m being honest, I’m not always in the mood to be inspirational, either.

(Photo by Emily Price) As hard as these last few years have been, I’m still so grateful. Being a mother to five healthy children is truly a miracle, especially after struggling for years with infertility and other health problems.

Rethinking Blogging

So I’ve had to rethink my approach. And what I finally decided is just to share the things we love that’ve helped our family, especially with our health.

To put it another way, this blog is about simple, healthy living for families. I’m excited and humbled to share some of our experiences overcoming infertility and other health problems, along with writing about topics close to my heart like:

• Real food and Bible-based nutrition
• Natural and herbal remedies
• Non-toxic home and personal care
• Safe essential oil use, especially with babies and kids (no MLMs here, and less is more, I say!)
• Homeschooling and our favorite books, poetry, art, music and more

My hope is to share what helps us feel our best and, by doing so, help you and your family enjoy more health and happiness, too.

My favorite “quiet time” ritual: my leather journal for writing down inspiration (I’ve bought it twice so far), buttery-sweet organic chamomile tea (with plastic-free tea bags) and organic dark chocolate …and one of my favorite books of all time, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (actually, lately, I’ve been reading Janette Oke’s old-Western Christian romances, but I’m always up for re-reading Alcott or Austen)

If you’d like to follow along, you can sign up for my email list below, or visit my about page to read more of our story. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, and feel free to reach out to me anytime at jenny@peachesandpotatoes.com! I’d love to hear from you.

Take care, and come back soon, ya’ll!

P.S. If you’re here from my other blog, The Good Day Mom on Wix, you’re in the right place! I tried that for a bit, but it didn’t feel right, so I’m back here. I also switched from Wix to WordPress hosted by Bluehost. (If you’d like to try it yourself, you can use my link for a discount on site hosting by Bluehost. The WordPress platform is free to use. Let me know if you have any questions!)

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