It’s Tuesday, which means I’m welcoming another wonderful Momma Writer to the blog. Marie Osborne isn’t a stranger around here and I’m always happy to host her words.
Have you missed a post in this ongoing Perspectives on Motherhood and Writing Series? Pop over to the archives page to catch up!
Why do you write/blog?
I started and stopped blogging several times. Way back in 2006, my husband and I took a big trip to London. I wrote a series of e-mails to family and friends about our adventures. I have always loved writing, but this was the first time I had really written about my life for a larger group of people to read. The reception was quite positive, and many people mentioned that I should write or that my style sounded like an author they enjoyed. Shortly after that trip, we moved to a new city, which is when I started my first blog. I wrote for a few months about some of our adventures, but didn’t keep it up.
A few years later, we moved again and again I started blogging. I wrote a bit longer and just as I felt my well of interesting tales to tell was starting to dwindle, we had a baby! I began writing about him and the adventures of motherhood, which morphed into the blog I have now. What started out as just wanting to tell funny, silly stories about living somewhere interesting or visiting somewhere new has now become a way to capture the everyday adventures in life and reflect on how my faith plays into that. Writing and blogging have become some of the best ways I connect with God and how He inspires transformation and introspection. It’s also an outlet for encouraging and uplifting others not only in what I choose to write, but also the content I choose to share.
How long have you been writing/blogging?
Technically, since 2007. But in it’s current form, my blog has existed since 2012.
How has your current season of life impacted your writing/blogging?
Being a mom to three under 3, I feel the need to write more as a way of processing my life, providing some variety to my day, and allowing me an outlet for my creativity. But being a mom also keeps me accountable. Motherhood forces me to re-prioritize. I praise myself for playing with my son and rolling around with my twins rather than posting to my blog several times a week. I sometimes feel like a lazy unmotivated writer, but in 10 years, I’d rather have memories of playing and splashing and singing with my kids then have a ton of page views. Though I still wish I had more page views. It’s a difficult balance. Motherhood has also had a huge impact on my subject matter, but I guess that’s to be expected.
How has this season of life changed your writing habits?
NAP TIME!!! I write when my kids are asleep. I praise Jesus every day when they are safe in their cribs and I get to sit at my laptop! HOORAY!
What is your writing/blogging battle cry?
To encourage, challenge, and laugh… from under a pile of diapers. I want people to be encouraged. That they are understood, they are not alone, their is hope, they are beautiful and loved and worthy and talented and powerful. I want to challenge myself and others to be better, more like Christ, less like our old selves, less like the negative voices tell us we are or have to be. I want to laugh at all of it all the time every where very loudly because it’s all pretty funny.
How does faith, writing, and motherhood intersect in your daily life?
In a crazy jumble in my head. I spend most of the day just a head down regular mom, feeding kids, playing with playdough, changing diapers. I pray and talk about God and Jesus with my son very organically, whenever he’s reading his Toddler Bible or he wants to sing “Jesus Loves Me” or we are snuggling before nap time. We don’t do organized study or devotion time. I steal an hour or so during nap time to write and reflect on my own.
Honestly, one of the best times where it all intersects is while nursing (not during the first 3-5 months because I was too tired to use my brain, but once they were sleeping through the night, life changed). I read my Bible or christian books on my phone while I’m nursing my twins. I pray during that time. I come up with blog or article ideas and type them into Evernote. And, of course, I’m cuddling and bonding with my girls.
Marie Osborne is a wife, mama, and blogger who loves Jesus and large non-fat lattes. When she isn’t laughing (loudly) with her 30-something husband, chatting (loudly) with her girlfriends, singing (loudly) with her 3-year-old son, or feeding (quietly… for the time being) her 9-month-old twins, she’s probably pumping and binge watching Netflix. You can find her on her blog encouraging, challenging, and laughing from under a pile of diapers.
Emily C Gardner 