About Me

Welcome to This Side Of The Pond! I'm Joyce and I've been blogging in my little corner of the Internet since 2009.

When I started this blog a) we were living in England, b) my girls were in university on the other side of the pond (technically now this side of the pond), and c) I had no idea what blogging was all about???

Since then we've moved three times, both my girls have graduated (one twice!), and I've decided I use too many words to meet the traditional definition of blogger, but I'm okay with that. Making a short story long is my superpower. 

We've moved nine times in our 35+years of marriage (you do the math) with stints in Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey (twice), Maryland, England (sigh), and most recently South Carolina (the Upstate, not the Low Country).

My college sweetheart (aka the hubs) retired in February 2015, went back to work in 2016, re-retired in 2017, got his real estate license in 2018 and you can see why I need to eat my Wheaties, right?

We built our dream house on a lake in rural America in 2016. I'm a big city girl who needs water and wide open spaces. The home build took a whopping fourteen months which I whined wrote about ad nauseum on the blog. Everybody asks me if I'd do it again and I love the completed house so much I just might.

Except I probably won't because this house is home.

We've raised two extraordinary daughters who are the absolute joy and delight of my life. They inspire and amaze me with their brains, humor, faith, creativity, and most of all with their tender caring hearts. They're best buds and have been since the word go.

Daughter1 and her husband are wrapping up an army commitment (his) and will move from Tennessee to Ohio next year as my son-in-law begins an orthopedic fellowship. They are parents to the two most adorable little men you would ever want to know and a beautiful little miss who is the apple of everyone's eye. 

Daughter2 and her hubs were married mid-pandemic (January, 2021) and are currently living in Tennessee, but of course not the same city as Daughter1, because complicated logistics are the story of us. They are parents to the most scrumptious little boy there ever was and we love every minute we get to spend with him. 

I like to say my blog is a happy slice of mid-life. I write about small moments and the big wide world, growing up girls, the empty nest, home, travel, England, transitions, and beauty in the great outdoors, all with an overarching theme of God's extraordinary grace poured out over my life.

So glad you're here...why not get comfy and stay awhile?
SaveSave