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    Hi, I’m Krista.
    The wife of a very talented musician who takes me around the world in pursuit of excellence.
    Mama to Jakob, Audrey and Ella, who just happens to have Down Syndrome
    and an aspiring disciple of Jesus, defender of the oppressed, photographer and domestic diva.
    I write and speak on navigating through the fog of life - you know, when things don’t go exactly as planned and am fuelled by a passion to be a voice for those who have trouble speaking for themselves…oh, and coffee…lots of coffee.

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    • Ella’s Story
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Some men see things as they are and ask “Why?” I dream things that never were and ask “Why not?”

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This is one of my favourite pictures of myself. It was take in Aldeburgh, UK. I felt such peace on this beach. The ocean is home.

Hi Friend. My name is Krista and this is where I write about family, faith and special needs.

Life rarely turns out as we had pictured, and certainly not as we had hoped. And yet, through the fog of disappointment a light shines and the light is beautiful. I write about navigating through the fog and finding the light. It’s a rough world out there. I know because I’m in it – calling out from the trenches.

I am the wife of a musician. This could be the subject of a blog in and of itself. My husband, Ben, is a Choral Conductor (that is conductor of choirs), currently doing doctoral studies here in the frozen tundra, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta.

I am the mother of three beautiful children – Jakob, my feisty and courageously independent eight-year-old, Ella, my beautiful and ridiculously charismatic six-year-old who just happens to be blessed with an extra chromosome and Audrey, my itty-bitty one who daily reminds me to slow down and take time for the more important things in life. And I am follower of Jesus Christ, fumbling daily through faith in pursuit of holiness.

Food is my love language and jazz is my soul language. I enjoy photography, dancing (think more ballet and less disco) and am seriously addicted to coffee. I am passionate about being a voice for those who have trouble speaking for themselves and about finding the beauty in the everyday.


kristadawne

A new week and a new post for the #2021WritingChal A new week and a new post for the #2021WritingChallenge.

“I have been playing a lot of chess lately. I wanted to write “learning” there but I already knew how the pieces moved around the board and, quite frankly, I don’t think I am learning a whole lot. I still suck. There is an order in chess that I don’t quite understand. It is a game of absolutes and rules that, combined with logic and abstract strategy, create a simple game of great allure. As I understand it, and as the Queen’s Gambit would have me believe, people who are good at chess are often good at math. I am good at neither. Formulas are not how I bring order to my world; patterns, however, are.

Patterns bring order but they are also discerned by order. We all seek order in some way. Mathematicians and scientists use formulas and look for correlations in empirical data while historians dig into the past to find patterns and predictability. I care not to guess how many times the term, Law and Order, was used in the past two weeks with regards to the events in the United States. We build structures, implement laws and queue for the bus, all in an attempt to bring order to our world and yet, despite our best efforts, there seems to be constant chaos all around us.”

To read more follow the link in my profile.

#onebeautifullifeblog #chess #order #writingchallenge #writersofinstagram #writer 

[image of a chess board 📸 by Eugene Chrystiakov via @unsplash ]
For week two of my 2021 Writing Challenge I am wri For week two of my 2021 Writing Challenge I am writing about the word GROUND and how I keep grounded. 

Meditation, prayer, digging in my garden...

But also these three. These three precious humans keep my feet on the ground on a daily basis. They are a visual reminder of what really matters: my family is happy, healthy and here beside me. I am so grateful. 

#whatreallymatters
Little did I know last Friday when I wrote “Inte Little did I know last Friday when I wrote “Intend” that the UK would enter Lockdown #3 just days later. Between Brexit, Coronavirus, home-schooling, returning to work after two weeks off and watching the events in the United States, January has already been completely overwhelming. As someone who feels deeply and imagines greatly it is easy to lose my footing when the things that I believe maintain control in my world, be it democracy, solitude, or healthcare, are threatened. Not only that, but our family is facing some major decisions and we are desperately trying to discern the calling of seemingly silent God.

I know that God is there – he is there on Capitol Hill, he is in our hospitals and he is in our home and hearts. I know that in the confusion, darkness and loneliness God is there. I just can’t hear him or see him and because of this, it is more important than ever to keep my feet on the ground.
The ground is true. There is an indescribable contentment and peace that comes with being grounded and being one with the ground. In the past two years that I have had my allotment (a council owned piece of land that I rent to plant a garden- very British) I have often thought that I need a t-shirt that says, “I’d rather be at the allotment” because it is always true. 

As I work the ground, I am grounded. As the dirt gathers under my fingernails the stresses of the world melt away. I think this is because the allotment gives me a lot of time to think and brings things into perspective. Through practical and kinaesthetic exercise there is clarity. I remember my why – the source that keeps me going so that no matter what is thrown my way, I can keep my footing and weather the storm.

I also keep grounded through scripture reading, meditation and prayer. I was reminded of this today not only as I talked with my husband about how our ministry team needs to be grounded in prayer but also as I spoke with my spiritual director about the decisions ahead of me. She told me to pray that God would reveal to me his big picture for my life and in that, find grounding.

More in comments..
#2021WritingChallenge #inspiration #ground #allotmentlife
#flashbackfriday I was going through photos and #flashbackfriday 

I was going through photos and found this gem. Look at how little Byron was! The cuteness is unbearable. 

#fbf #fbfriday #lordbyrondog #puppylove #timeflies #colliesofinstagram #brittanyspaniel #brittanycolliemix #dogsofinstagram
“Choose love not in the shallows, but in the dee “Choose love not in the shallows,
but in the deep.” 

#christinarossetti #january #riverthames #quoteoftheday #clivedenhouse @cliveden_national_trust #moodydays #winter #capturequiet #buckinghamshire #newyearswalk #hello2021
Ready, set, write! Join me as I prioritise creativ Ready, set, write! Join me as I prioritise creativity this year. One word every week for 52 weeks to prompt a piece of writing, a work of art, a photograph- the choice is yours. 

Use #2021WritingChallenge and tag me so I can share it along. 

Here are January’s words. 
Happy writing!

(Intend is already up on the blog if you need a little inspiration or find an except on my IG grid)
We all had good intentions for 2020. Some intended We all had good intentions for 2020. Some intended to go on much-needed vacations. Others intended to visit friends they hadn’t seen in a while. Some intended to marry the love of their life in the presence of all of their friends and family while others intended to advance their careers.

Some intended to spend Christmas with loved ones but instead, spent it alone.

This past year, life didn’t go exactly as planned. We had to detour, adapt and find a new level of flexibility and resilience that we didn’t know was possible and like stretching any underused muscle, it was painful. This is why I have chosen the word intend as the first word for the 2021 writing challenge. New Year’s Resolutions seem too determinate – too much commitment in a world that is changing every week. To resolve to do something implies that there is a level of control or certainty but as we wave a bitter farewell to 2020, control still seems out of grasp.

Instead, I suggest that we set intentions. Historically, to intend stands in-tension with intentions. The famous proverb says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” but if we look further into the origins of the word intend, we discover that it comes from the Latin word intendere, meaning to turn one’s attention, literally to “stretch out”. Where do we want to turn our attention this year? How do we want to stretch ourselves in 2021?

Read more on the blog: link in bio.

#2021writingchallenge #create #2021writinggoals #writersofinstagram #writer #intend #newyearsresolution #newyearseve #coombehill #buckinghamshire #britishcountryside #travelengland #englishcountryside #chasinglight
I used to keep a journal. It was a curation of bea I used to keep a journal. It was a curation of beautiful things – pictures, quotes, memories and verses from the Bible that I needed reminding of. Some pages were modge-podged together, I remember one even had grains of sand bordering a picture of a beach sunset (I have a lot of those). Quotes written out by hand, maybe embellished with decorative flowers or funky fonts and glossy photos affixed with photo corners. Some pages were works of art while others were messy, with scribbled out lines and some were only the remains of pages that had been ripped out.

Now, we have Instagram and Pinterest. Ready-made inspiration and beauty at our fingertips for a busy society. Inspiration has become a drug – we want it, we want it fast and we want it now. We are spoon-fed beauty from mass produced, squeezy packets – easily consumable, readily replicable.

I would like to suggest however, that we slow things back down – call it a slow beauty movement. Curate treasures over time, make things instead of buying them, prioritise creativity.

That last one – I have trouble doing that. Prioritising creativity. According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, I am an INTJ. I take the test every few years because I am always trying to be a better, kinder and more “easy-breezy” person and sometimes hope that I have matured out of this personality type. Hopefully, without offending the 2% of the population who are INTJ’s (with a very small percentage of those, being women), let me explain. 

(Continued in comments)

#writinginspiration #2021writingchallenge #2021writinggoals #multihyphenate #onebeautifullifeblog #intjproblems #intjfemale
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