Well, hello there. I'm Jeanice - mother of three, wife of one, designer, perpetual nester, lover of all things food, home and garden, color obsessed modernist and family vacation enthusiast. Welcome to Suburban Homestead!

I launched this blog in the fall of 2010. Having closed my business earlier in the year to focus on family, I knew I needed a creative outlet. Our family had just weathered a big storm, and as we stood at the end of that wind tunnel, wrapped in a big, warm blanket of hope, I found myself relieved, happy, and inspired. Our mid-century home was complete, my garden was in full production, and so I decided I would begin to document all the family moments I was so grateful for, for my kids, and for us.

For the first year and a half, I felt this blog was truly about a suburban homestead. No, you couldn't say we were living off the land, but I was having the time of my life planting, growing and cooking for our family. We lived outside San Francisco in a California ranch home (that was also my childhood home); we had a southern facing garden that continually produced bumper crops with little to no effort; we had chickens and happy kids that loved to get dirty; and we had a kitchen that made cooking and baking a dream.  I learned canning (jamming) and became temporarily obsessed with it.  I powered on with my no. 1 parental mission to raise non-picky eaters who aren't scared to try new foods (it's an ongoing process). I fine-tuned some details around the house and documented the efforts.  Then a friend asked me to help her with her house, and then another.  Pretty soon, I found myself working several interior-design projects and writing about them when I could.  The blog began to suffer a little neglect with so much going on, but I had zero complaints - all was good!

Then something happened - something that was not supposed to happen: Daddy suggested we move off the hill and onto the flats.

I said: You're dead to me.

He said: Whoa-whoa... what if  the new house needed work and you got a project out of it?

I said: Really?!? I'll start packing!

And so it goes... We moved quickly, falling for the first home we saw, another one-story ranch home. We moved in the spring of 2012 and while we took our time getting to know our new house, and brainstorming what future improvements we'd like to make, I held off on starting a garden that first summer. I was a tad embarrassed to have a blog called Suburban Homestead when I only managed to squeeze a couple tomatoes out of some mis-placed vines, and the abundance of apples harvested was all due to the work of the previous owner. But I'm feeling a bit more "on it" now. Adventures in raised-bed growing will be on the blog roll starting Spring 2013, and I think the family is eager to get chickens again.

So there you go, a little back story on us and how we got here. Thanks for stopping by and joining the party!