My new friend Kerilyn over at MarriedtoaChef.com recently asked me what my mission and dream was for this blog. I figured after 6 months of blogging (where has that time gone?), I should look back at my original mission statement and make sure I was still on track.
My mission or goal for Emulsified Family is really two fold. #1 – To connect with others who are married to or dating a chef, a line cook, a general manager, etc. and to encourage them with the Word of God and through what He has taught me and continues to teach me on a daily basis. (And since we have kids, many of the posts will be about raising a family with a chef, because that’s my life and what I do all day long.) And #2 – To give a glimpse of how restaurant and family life come together to those in the “outside world” (aka not in the restaurant industry.)
As far as my dream for the blog, it really comes down to my personal vision (see below) and choices I try to make daily for my life. I just want God to use my husband’s career and our family for His glory and I want to be able to encourage others along the way. So to do that, I write about our family life which has a chef as the head of the household. It’s funny, sad, happy and many times difficult. But it’s real life, happening now, in our home. Where God chooses to take this blog and how He chooses to use it is up to Him.
I truly desire to create a home where my chef/husband wants to come home to after a long day in the restaurant. I want to support him in every way that I can. It’s so hard to do this well and I know I’m not alone in this journey, so my “dream” is really to share our life in hopes of connecting and encouraging other women in similar circumstances.
I feel like I’m failing at being a mom and a wife on so many days, and often have to confess what I’ve done wrong to God, my husband and the girls. It’s a never ending journey with a lot of bumps along the way. The other day was SOOOOOOO horrible. I sat down and just wrote to get all my feelings out. I’m sure some of it will probably end up in a blog post at some point with a title like “I’m failing at being a mom and wife.” Ugh!! But that’s my life. I know I’m not alone. So I blog.
When I read blogs online I really appreciate when writers are open and honest about their lives. It makes it so much easier to connect with them and makes me not feel so alone as I’m home taking care of the girls and my chef/husband is working.
So that’s what I’m trying to do with this blog. Thanks for asking Kerilyn.
So far it seems to be working. 🙂 Thanks to all of you who have reached out to me and told me you can relate. It really means a lot!
After reflecting on my mission and vision for the blog, I started to think about the past 6 months and what I’ve learned from this blogging adventure. I’ve narrowed it down to 6 things.
1. Even though I’ve developed 12 WordPress websites and helped others promote them, I still have so much to learn. I’ve learned a lot along the way about marketing and branding and still feel like I know nothing. Take Twitter, for example. I still feel like an idiot each time I tweet. It’s like another language!!!! Most of the time I just let Facebook post it over there for me. I still need to work on this a bit in all my free time. (What’s free time?) I’m so glad I had a pretty good idea what I was doing as far as the website development so I could focus on writing. (I did take a few minutes to write down some great blogging resources if you are interested.)
2. I like to write. Who knew? All through school, Language Arts was the hardest subject for me and I worked like crazy just to get a B. I never enjoyed writing until now. Besides the fact that I really like what I’m writing about, with blogging, I can press enter
anytime
I
want!
I can put things in bold to get your attention. Hyperlink to things I think might interest you. It’s much more fun than writing an essay in school. 🙂 Mrs. Woo, my high school English teacher, would be so proud of me (maybe).
3. I get really excited when another chef wife or significant other contacts me. Yes, this was the whole reason I started this blog, to connect with others like me, I just wasn’t expecting to be so excited about it!! The first message I got was via private message on FB and was from another chef wife on the east coast. My husband probably thought I was crazy when I called him all excited that I had communicated with someone else who was married to a chef. (Thanks Kim for the message!!)
4. I never realized that other people, not married to or dating a chef, might be interested in reading the blog and could even relate to much of what I was saying. This totally surprised me. I have gotten numerous emails from people who are married to someone in a totally different industry, but can relate to the long hours and struggles that come with that. I guess they are willing to put up with all the food stuff I talk about as they are still reading. 🙂 Thank you for sharing your struggles with me and for the encouragement.
5. There are chefs living and working in other countries. While I know the internet is world wide, it really surprised me that my blog has been view in 83 different countries. I give a lot of credit to this to a post I wrote about our kindergartner writing “Modernist Cuisine” in her homework. Modernist Cuisine tweeted about it and my website went crazy. (What a fun day.) But taking them out of it, people from 43 countries viewed the site just this past month. I wonder how my site is doing being translated into another language? I never thought I’d have to look into that. 🙂 Yeah!
6. You never know who you are going to meet online and who is going to offer to help you get your blog seen by more people. I met another chef wife who has helped me get published on The Huffington Post. 6 months ago if you would have told me I would have a post on HuffPost Taste that was liked on Facebook by over 1.2k people (and the number keeps going up each day), I never would have believed you. I am so grateful for her help (Thanks Alex!!) and have enjoyed chatting back and forth with her about living with a chef as well.
So for the future, I really have no idea where God will choose to take this blog. But for now, I’ll keep writing, sharing about our life as an emulsified family trying to combine restaurant and family life. So until the next post . . . thanks for reading!
My Personal Vision Statement
I choose to be a woman who:
• Is passionate about the Word of God and how that applies to my life, and that that passion is evident to others through my daily actions and my behavior. (Col. 3:23-24, Mark 12:30-31)
• Focuses on being content with what God has blessed me with (salvation, family, health, home) and not let anything rob me of that contentment. (Hebrews 13:5-6, Phil 4:11-13, 2 Cor. 12:8-10)
• Honors my husband (Prov. 31:10-12, 1 Peter 3:1-7, Eph. 5:33)
• Remembers my children are a blessing from God and trains them as the Bible says I should (Psalm 127:3-5, Proverbs 22:6)
• Honors my parents (and in-laws) (Eph. 6:2)
• Lives a daily life dedicated to integrity, commitment, challenge and joy (Romans 12)
• Trusts God to provide for our family and not worry about the future (Matthew 6:25-34, Phil. 4:6-7)
• Spends time in the Word everyday to grow in my relationship with God and to challenge myself (Matthew 6:33, Psalm 119:105, 2 Tim. 3:16, Phil. 1:6)
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