Introductions: Meet Angela of Grassfed Mama

“Who is Angela of Grassfed Mama?” you may be asking. Let me start this introduction to this blog so you can learn more about who I am and where the Grassfed Mama blog all started.

Who is Angela of Grassfed Mama

Good Sunday morning! This is my attempt to get my thoughts out of my mind and document life as I see it. Sunday is a good day to start. I grew up in a Christian home where most Sunday mornings were spent at church, unless we were puking our guts out or had a fever over 104.1, haha. My parents believed that Christianity was more than just going to church and it really was a part of their everyday life. Thankfully they have passed their passion and love for God onto their 3 children: myself (the baby), my sister (the oldest) and my brother (stuck in the middle).

Our family was far from perfect – but we loved God and really wanted to honor him with our lives (how that looks has changed in my mind in the past 5 years or so – but more on that later).

Being a Christ follower is at the core of who I am. It is what everything else that I do flows from. Everything I do I try to run through the litmus test of “does this honor God?” I wouldn’t be who I am today without the love God has shown me. I will try to honor him through my life and my decisions. But I am FAR from perfect… I make mistakes everyday. Following God is a journey in itself – So I would say I am a Christ Follower. I will follow where he leads me.

So then, why am I home this Sunday morning? (Not a very good sign of a “good” Christian) I am so glad you asked! Our church has a Saturday night service now (2 services on Sundays which are also packed). We have outgrown our building (and will probably break ground this year for a larger building). We started this church 4 years ago with a dream and about 50 core people. Now we have about 1200 members. It has been an adventure that I feel I have had the privilege to witness. My husband is the small groups director and also plays bass in the church band, so he is up at the church now. He left me and the baby (toddler honestly) at home to enjoy a slow morning. I help organize the coffee shop, but I delegate most of the work and just do more of the admin organizing work. We have a great hospitality team! I love serving at church and showing people they are welcome and loved.

I got this crazy idea last night to start blogging: the modern public diary. I enjoy reading blogs, so why not write one. A little bit about me: I am a 27 year old full time wife and mom, part time speech therapist. I married my high school sweetheart (he was in college when we started dating though! haha) We have been married for almost 8 years now.

This is us heading to my Senior Year Banquet – ahhh, so young.

We have a beautiful 15 month old little girl – who has such a big personality for a little person. She looks just like my husband but is as stubborn as a mule (which my husband will swear she gets from me!)

My Homebirth Story 

My life has drastically changed since she was born in my master bathroom tub, yes I’m a homebirther. From her birth until now we have cloth diapered her, through joys of poop and all. It has been an overall great experience and I will definitely do it with my next. I breastfed her up until she was 14 months old. She started solids around 8.5 months and really enjoys eating!

I work part time as a speech pathologist (I was full time, until my mommy role took over most of my thinking ability) – I’ve been practicing in nursing homes for almost 3 years now. I really enjoy working with the elderly population. There is so much wisdom there. I feel like I am an old soul and sometimes fit in more at work than I do with my contemporaries.

My Healthy Journey 

Some health history that really shapes who I am: My family has a very rare genetic disease that haunts me. I am a carrier, so that means I have the genetic defect without any symptoms. But I have 50% chance of passing it on at each of my pregnancies. It is x-linked – meaning that it is passed by the mother, but would be expressed only in males because it is recessive and isn’t matched on the “Y” chromosome. This disease, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (namely PMD), has been in my family generation after generation. My uncle had it, my first cousin had it, two of my nephews have it as well. You can look it up to learn more about the disease itself – there is no cure and it is all encompassing since it is neurological in nature.

Gender Swaying for a Girl

Since PMD only affects boys, when I was ready to get pregnant I did some research into swaying for the gender you want… Sounds very silly when you think about it – but we did a few things to sway for a girl, and ended up with a very cute and spunky little girl.

It seemed easy at the time – we honestly didn’t do that much – seeing what some people do and still end up with a boy. So here we are again, thinking, praying, hoping to get pregnant again soon and I am delving back into the swaying research.

I did read Dr.Shettles book – which was basically the method we used with our first daughter (DD). Now I’m reading so much more information and it just gets overwhelming. There is some struggle as to how much I’m willing to do… I believe that God is sovereign. We are going to have the children that we were created to have – I believe that our children are really God’s children and we are just allowed to have the privilege of raising them – they are on loan to us.

Saying that, I am okay with doing a little swaying, but I feel that if I’m supposed to have a boy – a boy with PMD – then that is what I will have. God will use this experience to grow me into the person I’m supposed to be, teach me to lean and trust on him for support and not rely on myself.

Crunchy Mom

So, I’m starting to sound kind of crunchy… Well, I will own it. I believe as a Christian I have the responsibility to take care of the beauty that God has created – So, I do my best to be green – I really need to recycle more!

I am also very very cheap – so that plays into cloth diapers and cooking from scratch too. I try to eat as “clean” and natural as possible… mainly for health reasons, but I also feel like I am a temple of God, so why should I fill it with junk and expect it to run smoothly.

I had some health issues some years past where I really feel like I was reacting to the preservatives in foods, so from there started my journey with cooking and eating natural. I do a lot of research on healing ourselves without modern medicine. We don’t rely on OTC meds, but usually go to homeopathics first. We also try to support the local farmers as we can. We just found local beef and chicken!

I also love photography, cooking, and sewing. I used to really enjoy working out, but it is getting harder when chasing taking care of a very mobile toddler. So here is the start of my journey… 

I hope you enjoyed getting to know more about the writer behind the blog – Angela of Grassfed Mama.