x.kristen blog

A meaningful life doesn’t just happen by luck – it’s created through consistent, practical action. Learn how small intentional steps can help you build community, connection, and a life at a ten.

Recently, I was reminded of one of the most surprisingly profound lessons I ever picked up… from my ex-husband. We were juggling some kid-schedule swaps. I wanted to take Jack for a couple of extra days, so we pulled out the fall calendar and made some weekend switches. He’s always easygoing about changes I request, […]

This week we had a very special visitor stay with us for the week. His name is Gus and he’s from Australia (which of course means I’ve had an involuntary/totally voluntary Australian accent the entire week).  We first met Gus as the First Mate/Captain on a Sailing Virgins Learn-to-Sail Adventure that Chad, me, and seven of our closest […]

This past weekend, we celebrated Duffin’s Day. Duffin’s Day is our made-up annual family holiday – based off of our made-up Family Name.We all have different last names, so we dubbed ourselves the Duffin’s based off of a hilariously named mountain biking trail we once went on – Duffin’s Trail. (Sorry, not sorry if you’re last name is Duffin’s – but […]

Oh my god. Today was tough. Not in any real sense of hardship, but tough in that “dragging myself out of bed and out the door” kind of way. The reason? I’d been totally off schedule for the last week. I just got back from an incredible cottage stay: late nights, late mornings, day drinking, […]

Why You Should Always Go All In The day I brought my son Jack home from the hospital, I was a total disaster. It had been a natural home birth ? turned hospital birth (complete with four failed epidurals) ? turned emergency C-section. By the time my then-husband tucked me and baby Jack into bed, […]

So, on Monday morning, I had a conversation with a longtime friend and coach, Stacy. She’s my person when I need a reset. We were chatting about following through on things and she mentioned she’d just done a fast, and I was curious. She offered to send me a video that explained why she does it, […]

How a Little Bit of Brave Creates Generational Confidence… This past weekend, I took my son Jack on a little Mommy/Baby overnight adventure to Elora. Yes, he’s 14, but our outings will always carry the “Mommy/Baby” brand – I only infantilize him in the marketing, not in real life. Chad was away on business and […]

so we’ve had family core values for a while now. i’ve made mugs and mini posters for the house before – and some have stuck for sure – the number of times i’ve hard my son tell me to ‘choose adventure‘ when i don’t want to jump in the freezing water and cliff dive with […]

i watched a tik tok recently – i went back to try and find it and there’s a ton of them now so i don’t recall the og one i saw – but basically it said: if something ‘bad’ happens – don’t worry about it – because it’s all just part of the plot. -tik […]