In the middle of 2020, I had the opportunity to take a single, distance-learning grad class from New St. Andrews College that had a reading list crammed with books I already owned and had been wanting to read for years and from a professor I knew would push me. Although I published my own writing regularly on my blog, it had been almost two decades since I had objective feedback on my work. I wondered if I could hack it.
I talked the opportunity over with my husband, who said, “That’s a commitment. You have a lot going on. You’re going to need to cut something to make room for that class.” He was right. I was homeschooling four kids while my oldest attended the community college; I had three podcasts and two online businesses; I was the church’s women’s ministry coordinator; and even though in-person events and hospitality were more limited at the time, we were still doing what hospitality we could.
I looked at the syllabus. I looked at my calendar. I figured I would need six to eight hours a week for the class (a semester class spread over a full school year). On a whim, I opened up my phone screen time report. Woah.
Instagram was already disillusioning me. It seemed like people weren’t really reading captions, bullying was getting worse and worse, the ads were increasing, and half of them were for underwear on overweight women. Then the report told me the cold, hard reality
