Hey there, I’m Ariel.
I’m not sure how you stumbled across my little corner of the internet, but I’m glad you’re here. This is where I write life.
My blog began back in 2009 when I started seriously writing. Over time it’s taken many faces and has finally transformed into a space where I share what makes me hum.
I met my husband when I was 14 and we got married 7 years later. We’ve been together 26 years, and it’s only getting better. He’s my best friend, and I adore sharing this life with him.
I’m a proud mom of two amazing boys. Thing 1 is my little smarty-pants. At age three he asked me if his pee was more or less dense than water and at 9 he CLEP’d College Algebra. God help me. Thing 2 is my little dinosaur. He was born in a thunderstorm and has been wreaking havoc ever since! He’s a daddy’s boy and gets more joy out of wrestling and eating hot sauce than anyone I know. He’s a strong-willed, energetic, all-around wild thing, and I love it.
I suppose my wanderlust began as a military brat, moving from base to base all over the United States. After marrying into the military many years later, my husband and I moved to Okinawa, Japan where we spent an incredible four years soaking up the culture. We then switched gears and got to experience almost four years in Germany, drinking incredible beer and traveling all over Europe. Traveling and experiencing different cultures has absolutely changed my life in countless ways, and I love taking people along for the ride through my blog. You can find out more about our family’s adventures by clicking the travel tab at the top of the page.
Elizabeth Gilbert hit the nail on the head when she said, “Creativity is a muscular engine in your life, and if you don’t use it, it churns against you.” Creating–art, music, writing, photography–is who I am. I need it as much as I need oxygen, and I am constantly doing something that gets my imagination turning. A long time ago I thought that having too many of these creative endeavors was a negative thing, and that perfecting just one of them was the only way to go. But I have learned to embrace them all and am steadily trying to improve.
I was an elementary teacher for 11 wonderful years. I taught 2nd, 3rd, 5th and a 2/3 multiage class over the course of that time. In my classroom you saw reading workshop, writer’s workshop, math differentiation, hands-on projects, and lots of love and laughter. In the classroom I felt like I was making a difference. It was a great place to be.
In 2015, however, I made the decision to begin homeschooling my oldest son. You can read why HERE. It was a huge decision for our family, but it has been an absolutely amazing experience and has provided so many benefits for us that far outreach the educational.
Even though I am no longer teaching in a school classroom, I still love to create and share things I’ve made with other teachers. You can find my resources over at Teachers Pay Teachers, which you can check out HERE.
I have left this section off for a long time because this particular part of me has been in transition for a good decade, and I just haven’t known how to talk about. I’ve loved Jesus my entire life. I was raised in the church since birth, which I count as a blessing. Unlike many stories you might hear, my upbringing in the church was wonderful and full of people who wanted nothing but to love me and help me understand the nature of God. I was the definition of a Southern Baptist girl (please keep reading). But at some point God ripped me from my comfortability and placed me onto a lonely path to finding myself and himself. Only now am I starting to understand why. I’m evolving, and I’m starting to try to put it all into words. To read more about me, click here.