Meet Emma

Hi — I'm Emma.

I am a wife, a mom, and a person who has never once left the post office in a bad mood.

I live in Edmond, Oklahoma, where some days the air literally smells like dog food—which is every bit as awful as it sounds. But Route 66 also runs right through town, giving Edmond that small-town charm where you can still find great little mom-and-pop diners, all set against some truly incredible Oklahoma sunsets.

My house is made up of my husband, Blake, our infant son, Hunter, and my mom. I’d say we all get along pretty amazingly for a multigenerational household! It’s great having two extra sets of hands to help with Hunter instead of just one—not to mention that Mom almost always does the dishes, which may be the real secret to multigenerational harmony.

We also have three dogs ranging from 70 to 140 pounds, which adds up to more than 300 pounds of dog and a whole lot of barking. Between three adults, a baby, and the dogs, silence is generally a sign that we should probably go see what’s happening.

I’ve always had a lot to say—I can get started on everything from breastfeeding and babywearing to books, crafts, or my hair and happily talk forever. But when I became a mom, I started thinking seriously about the kind of childhood I wanted to give my son: less digital, more connected, playing on the floor, talking around the dinner table, and being fully present with each other. As I began slowing down my own digital life, I realized I wanted to connect with people who were interested in those same conversations, and This Good Life grew from that—a place where I can share, through real letters, my journey of trying to live a slower, more connected, God-honoring life.

Here's what I can promise about the letters. They're true. I write about my marriage and about being a mom, about the week everything went wrong and the week everything didn't, about ordinary Tuesdays that turned out to matter. When it's funny, I'll tell it funny. When it's been hard, I won't pretend otherwise — you'd see through that anyway. Friends don't perform for each other.

And my faith will be in there, because it's in my days. Not as a sermon — I promise you, no sermons — but the way it actually shows up: in the middle of the dishes, in the waiting rooms, in the good news I didn't see coming. If you'd tell a friend where God showed up in your week, that's the register. That's all it is.

I typically write at our kitchen table, which, if I’m being truthful, was completely cluttered when I first started working on This Good Life. Somewhere along the way, the project actually motivated me to clear it off, and now all that remains is a small clear storage box that holds the daycare kids’ water cups and my mom’s vase of Lego flowers. Don’t laugh—they’re actually quite lovely.

Then it goes in the envelope, and then it goes to you.

I'd love to write to you. There's something I still can't get over about it — that a letter I fold at my kitchen table ends up in a mailbox I've never seen, in a life I'd probably like a lot.

Come be my pen pal.

— Emma