Hello Nest readers, I am Kelsey Hency. I am the Editor in Chief of Fathom, a digital magazine for Christian thinkers. At home I am “Babe” to my husband Mat and “Mama” to my daughters Faye (4) and Elliott Clare (1).
Days in my life are more controlled chaos than schedule.
I can count on a few paramaters—like pre-school, thank goodness I can count on pre-school— but within those boundaries who really knows what is going to happen? I know I don’t.
So today, we find out together. It’s a Monday. A rainy, dreary one, actually. But you won’t find me hating on Mondays. I love that the week brings scheduled time to start getting things accomplished.
I get up when the girls do which is sometime between 7 and 7:30. But today, Mat, my husband, gets up with the girls while I steal a little extra sleep. I was up Sunday night late enough to truly say I went to bed Monday morning so I stayed under the covers for a few extra minutes while Mat started getting kids dressed and fed.
At 8:00 I met the family in the midst of the morning hustle and jumped into making lunches while simultaneously reminding Faye that she can’t turn on music and dance until she has finished her breakfast and put on her outfit for the day. When the Biebs is calling who can finish fruit and a waffle? Not Faye.
Both of my daughters go to “school” from 9:00am to 3:00pm. They love it. I love it. Everybody loves it. My husband took the girls to school so I could go ahead and start working.
This week holds some extra responsibilities for me. Usually I would be onto something related to Fathom. But on top of Fathom, I also teach Women’s Bible Study at our church a few times a semester.
We are studying Genesis. The women do homework during the week then on Tuesdays we come together, they meet in small groups to discuss homework before we meet as a group where a teacher goes through the text for the week top to bottom. Tomorrow I do the forty-five-minute teaching.
That’s what I was up late working on. I’d just prefer to sleep tonight and my husband takes the girls to school so that I can work towards that possibility.
Seriously, I'm so thankful for a husband who is all in for helping me do the ministry I feel called to in our local church body. He makes and protects the space I need for the 40-ish hours it takes to put together one of these teaching slots.
The fam is out the door by 8:45 and I start the day by refining what I’ve got pulled together for teaching. I share this activity with breakfast —legit bread with peanut butter, banana, and honey. Have you tried Legit bread? Gluten free, grain free, and shockingly it tastes just like bread. Amazon that stuff straight to your door. You’re going to love it.
Around noon I switch to Fathom things. With just shy of three-hours before I pick up the girlies I click my phone to do not disturb, put on a Rat-a-Tat Spotify radio station, and get to work.
Today I am editing submitted articles and fielding some emails about contributors for future issues.
My favorite way to edit is alongside our managing editor, Jon. We both jump into an article in our Google drive. We can point out issues, work on flow and word choice together. Inevitably I laugh until I cry at least once while we are editing. This gig is currently unpaid for all of us. The reward at the minute is creating something we are really proud of and having a great time doing it.
Today I am editing on my own, but I am leaving a trail of questions for Jon as I go. Oh yea, I’ve got to take a picture for Instagram.
2:30 comes around quickly. Normal people have had lunch by now, but I gave up on the usual lunch times long ago. I can eat with my two girls around but I can’t reword clunky sentences and write headlines while I answer questions about unicorns and hand out Bamabas. I typically snack on fruit and an RX bar while I work and wait until 3-ish when I have the girls in tow to have lunch while they have a snack.
Today I decide to leave a couple minutes early and grab something on my way to pick them up. Do you have a snap kitchen close to you? I love that place. It’s like eating healthy meals without having to think about it. I picked up a teriyaki chicken with forbidden rice and eat it in the car. Glamourous. I know.
Making lunch this morning was an act of creativity. The cupboard is bare, as they say, so the only acceptable after school activity is a grocery store run. We grab the essentials for lunchs and everything for dinner — well, almost everything, I forgot the mango salsa makings for turkey tacos. Oh well, next time.
We get back just before the copy editor of Fathom, Brandon, gets to our house. He wants to talk about our vision for the next six months to a year. I love that. The Fathom team is crazy talented, thoughtful, and ridiculous fun. Brandon is the only one who lives here in Dallas. We get together every now and again to talk through Fathom things. Today, he brings a bottle of wine, cheese, and some bread. See, he’s great. Why didn’t I take a picture of him here? I don’t know, here’s another bottle of wine around the house to take it’s place.
Faye runs around and makes art projects upstairs while I juggle Elliott and talk with Brandon. He’s so gracious with me given the kids are running around. It’s not uncommon for me to stop half way through a sentence to address the kiddos needs. It doesn’t seem to phase him when Faye wants to pull up a chair and join the conversation.
Mat gets home, grabs the two girls, and lets Brandon and I finish the last few minutes of our conversation without the girlies. Having finished with Brandon, I pick up Elliott and sing the chorus of her favorite song (Jumpshot by Dawin – she loves the Boom-shaka-laka’s). We can only dance for a few minutes because Faye is covered in playground grime and Elliott desperately needs a wash day.
We are learning a lot about African American hair around this house. We wash her hair with shampoo and conditioner every two weeks. Just condition once in-between full washes. And use a ton of hydrating/conditioning products on the daily.
Full-wash days are full on. It’s a 45 minutes to an hour experience and more when we style after. She loves it…sometimes.
Post-bath is dinner making, family chats, and getting ready for bed. I don’t know if you know this, but four-year-olds are hilarious. We talk about unicorns, the rock family she is finding throughout the city, and she tries to make up jokes.
Bed time is a book, a Bible story, and your typical pre-sleep person hygiene.
Once the girls are asleep, Mat and I eat our turkey tacos and talk about Faye’s birthday party. She turns four next Monday and we having a party on Saturday. She’s been asking for a 7-eleven themed birthday party for six months. This kid. You can’t Pinterest gas-station themed birthday parties—turns out most kids are into flamingos and super heroes and not Slurpee’s and Cheetos—so we are brainstorming how to turn our back yard into convenient store without the typical helps of the internet.
Having decided we need to order those straws with spoons on the end from Amazon, I do one last run through of the teaching for tomorrow. Then I take a bath and Mat gets his computer out to work for a bit. He has given so much of his day to help me out, he has to get a few more things done before he goes to sleep.
As we drift to sleep I hear Faye shuffling down the stairs. She’s surely going to say something ridiculous sweet and slightly funny about loving us so much/maybe having a bad dream she can’t remember/she’s worried her horse is thirsty and that Elliott’s rustling around is “nervousing” her.
We’ll answer her, take her back to bed, and pray she stays there until 7am when we all get up and figure out what the next day will hold.
Thank you so much, Kelsey!
Instagram - @kelseyhency
Fathom Instagram - @fathom_mag
Fathom Magazine - www.fathommag.com
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