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Cloistered Away

is a lifestyle blog, focused on simple, purposeful family living, written by Bethany Douglass.
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a preemptive defense
“ also drove my sisters and myself crazy by folding the most personal moments of our childhood lives into her talks as further illustrations of God’s hand on us, or to make points about how
it’s a cruel, cruel summer
I’m going to reengage and confess that I’ve been a b*tch this last week. We all have — well, carried some form of the attitude anyway. Or at least it’s felt that way. I want to blame (what’s
mini-reads
So in this all-knowing-self-help-reference-book age of parenting, most of us realize how valuable it is to read to our kids and for our kids to spend time “reading” to themselves. But, in the overwhelming market of children’s literature, it can
we’re not gonna take it
Today the boys decided to have their “boy’s club” again and locked Blythe out of their room: “she’s always jacking with stuff.” Normally, I don’t allow it, but today they were playing “climbing up and
happy father’s day
“It was times like this when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”        – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird In
in-a-pro-priate
Today, I took the kids to go swimming. On the way (not really), I picked up a car-less friend who lives on this little dirt road, among over-grown landscape and wild vermin. Sounds appealing, right?
no weapon formed against us will prosper
Yesterday, Mark accused me of smoking weed — jokingly, but partly not. And just for clarity sake, I’m not. He’s simply grappling for some excuse as to why I’m so calm all the time in the
blueberry + cranberry-orange scones
I picked up this little recipe from my dear friend, Lynn, and they’re wonderful. I did have to add a little bit more cream because the dough was too dry to gather. They look impressive,