Jill Winger

Man, do I love efficiency. I always have. If I can make something more streamlined, less clunky, and even faster, that’s my love language. And I suppose it’s the love language of our modern world, too. It can be a beautiful, useful impulse. Until it isn’t. After I published my last essay about celebrating humanity in the things we create, someone emailed me about a Bible camp they’d attended, where the curriculum they ...Continue Reading

A quaint little business on Main Street in a small town. It’s the stuff Hallmark movies are made of. The historic building, creaky floors, foot traffic, nostalgia, community… we loooove to romanticize it. After reviving the oldest operating soda fountain in the state of Wyoming, I can tell you firsthand that yes, there is something deeply meaningful about bringing an old place back to life. Yet, like most things we ...Continue Reading

I saw a quote the other day that said something like: “Mid-life is when you finally do the things your sixteen-year-old self wanted—but stop apologizing for it.” My first thought: Hell yes. My second thought: But why do we forsake our first loves to begin with? Why do we tell ourselves the dreams planted in us from birth aren’t meant for us? How do we get ourselves into these pickles where we wake up one day and ...Continue Reading

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while… At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old gatekeeper, I haven’t... However since I’m forty now and have seemingly lost my fear of saying things… I’m going to say it today. I’ve hinted at this in a few recent posts and podcast episodes, but it feels like time to put it in one place: After fifteen years of promoting and advocating for the homesteading movement, never in a ...Continue Reading

Lately I’ve been finding great joy in not paying attention to things. Not all things. I’m still reading books and working on skills and learning new stuff. I mean the other category of things. The halftime show(s), the latest political dumpster-fire, what-I’d-look-like-as-an-AI-caricature, who-wore-what to the Grammys type of things. I’ve been letting all of that slide right past me. And it’s ...Continue Reading