• : Author

    Jennifer Kooshian lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with her husband of 32 years on a small homestead near Lake Superior. They have five adult children and one grandson. She also has an ever-changing number of chickens, a mellow old cat, and an aspiring farm dog. The passions that God has pressed on her heart are hospitality, giving college students a home away from home, and helping people learn to grow and preserve their own food. Jennifer spends her spring and summer months growing vegetable plants and flowers to sell to her community and for her own gardens. Her fall and winter months are spent having local college students over for dinner and board games, participating in her church’s college ministry, crocheting, and dreaming of her summer gardens. She also loves living where 15 feet of snow is a light winter. She documents her homestead adventures on Instagram and Facebook as Cooper Island Homestead and runs an Etsy shop under the same name.

  • Examples of Unhealthy Expectations in a Relationship

    It’s been said that expectation is the thief of joy. Certainly, if your expectations are well-worn and rigid, when reality comes along, it just might not fit the bill. Many times in life, people become disappointed and frustrated because what they expected out of situations or other people didn’t pan out. Placing heavy expectations on yourself can also stifle creativity or increase your stress levels too. All this isn’t to say that expectations are altogether bad or unhealthy. However, [...]

  • What Depression Feels Like: How to Help a Loved One

    If someone were to ask you to describe the colors you see when you look at a variegated rose, would you be able to do it justice? Or if someone wanted to know what the burger you’re eating tastes like, could you convey the sensations, textures, and flavors in a way they’d get? In both cases, you could do a fair job of communicating what you’re experiencing, but it’s fairly difficult to express certain experiences such as depression through [...]

  • How to Forgive a Loved One Who Hurts You

    We don’t always choose the people we love. By dint of circumstance and the various situations we find ourselves in, our lives become populated with people and relationships that have a huge impact on us, for good or for ill. People such as our parents, siblings, and relatives who form part of our extended family are a given for many of us, and they are in our lives before we are even able to make decisions about such things. [...]