Shaken, stirred and blended.

My life has been blended since before I can remember. My childhood memories don’t have a single snapshot of my mom and dad in the same house, rather my memories are of two different homes. What some may have labeled as broken, I simply knew as the norm – or rather, MY norm – a blended family upbringing. And in that less-than-traditional family structure, I knew I was loved and adored in both my homes, by both my families.

While I never set out to have a blended family of my own, when I fell madly in love with a man who had two young children and we embarked on the adventure of building our own blended family, it wasn’t all that surprising that this was my path. In a way, it felt like I was built and trained for this type of family. Then, on the heels of our engagement we found out we were pregnant, so I found myself embarking on first-time motherhood and step-motherhood at the same time. 

Once I surfaced from my state of overwhelm, I started to see blending as a prevalent theme in my life. And I have come to realize that we all face some sort of blending challenge - whether it be a family structure, or a work/life balance conundrum. So much of our energy is spent trying to blend and integrate the different parts of ourselves into our lives. 

It’s a Blended Life is my way of capturing the raw, unrefined brushstrokes of my journey of trying to mix it all together.