The Basic Ranch Mom

  A few days ago on my social media channels I asked my community to describe motherhood in only one word. Thankfully, those ladies came in clutch as they always do and gave me ALL KINDS of words. Some I was expecting and some I wasn’t, interestingly enough. When I threw that question out there, I knew I’d get the usual responses that truly do encompass how it feels to be a mom in such a positive way. Words like fulfilling, empowering, blessed, and strong were some that I expected to see come through. And they did. But they weren’t alone. The vast majority of you actually gave me a very different vibe: words like wild, whirlwind, tired, chaos, relentless, exhausting, overwhelmed. I have to be honest you guys, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Not because it isn’t true, but because we as mothers are really good at focusing only on the positive when describing our journey in motherhood to the people around us. When someone asks us how we’re doing, we tell them we are getting by just fi...

I have a confession to make: I haven’t been very kind to myself lately. Life has been busy. The kids have been busy. The ranch has been busy. And I’ve been going full speed ahead, juggling 20 things at a time when my plate technically only fits 10. It’s part of my personality, to take on too much and smile while I do it. And sometimes that works. But sometimes it doesn’t. When I do this - expect way more from myself than I have the capacity for - it almost always comes crashing down at one point or another. And lately, I’ve been dropping balls left and right. Instead of recognizing what’s happening, I’ve resorted to belittling. With the target being myself. We’ve all done it - negative self talk. We place our expectations at an unattainable level, and when we fall short at any point, we come down on ourselves harder than anyone else ever could. We look in the mirror and pick apart everything we don’t like. We yell at our kids and tell ourselves we are the worst parents in the world. We...

I used to think that bravery equaled the absence of fear. That only the strongest among us, those that feared nothing, were the special few who could be labeled as brave. I envied those people honestly. I was afraid of almost everything, and taking risks was not something I did. EVER. And because of that, I spent my time taking the safe route. Making choices where the outcome was virtually foolproof. Avoiding anyone and anything that might be the least bit scary to my perfectly packaged life. But like he often does, God had other plans for me. And I could only live on the safe path for so long before he asked me to take a chance and be brave. Like when he brought me a boy that loved taking risks (I mean LOVED it. Lived for it. Would eat risk for breakfast if he could). When that same boy flipped my life (see above: perfectly packaged) on its head. When he pushed me straight out of my comfort zone in every single way I could imagine, and then somehow convinced me to marry him (still try...

  Let me start off by saying YES, I am a football fan, so YES, I’m up to date on all things Travis and Taylor- hence the title of this kick off blog 😉 But in actuality this is my way of saying HEY FRIEND, and welcome to the Basic Ranch Mom tribe! And I might be a problem for you if you get addicted to scrolling reels on Instagram…apologize to your husband for me. My name is Kristin and I’m a ranch wife and mom of four on my family’s third generation seedstock operation. I met my husband, Jake, when we were both in college and working at the Buckle “slinging jeans,” as the cool kids like to say. He didn’t grow up in any sort of agriculture, but he took one look at the ranch and decided that’s where we were meant to be. And so 6.5 years ago we quit our jobs, sold our house, and took the leap - officially making me a ranch wife. The mom part came a little later, but here we are today. My official job title is marketing manager on our ranch. I spend my days creating catalogs, scheduli...