Welcome to Legacy Living! I’m a Christian mama with a law degree and this is where I write about building a legacy with my handsome cowboy and our two toddler sons, in rural Missouri.

I've been trying to watch lifestyle vlogs instead of TV shows or social media scrolling. My current favorite is Lydia Millen's channel - her episodes are lengthy, aesthetically pleasing and the perfect background noise as I do admin work or clean.

Btw, if you like Lydia’s channel, Lauren Grace is literally a younger Lydia and I’ve been enjoying her vlogs too (the Lydia influence on her content is strong!!).

When I saw Lydia’s book, Evergreen, was 50% off, I broke my "don't buy any more new books until I finish the ones on my nightstand" boundary and ordered her book. I'm so glad I did. It's exactly what I needed right now and it’s a quick read - I’m already halfway through.

Evergreen is all about seasonal living, and with spring in the air in Missouri, I've been thinking a lot about my own life seasons.

In gardening, every spring, you begin with a clean slate, sitting down to dream and plan what you want to grow in the coming year. You can choose to plant the same things as last year, or you can add something new to the mix. It's a constantly evolving process that shifts with seasons.

I'm realizing I can take the same approach to my own life: treating each season of the year (and life!) as an opportunity to re-evaluate what I want to plant and cultivate.

It seem so elementary, but I don't know why I have always felt like I wasn't allowed to change - that I had to remain who I was - the girl those who knew me growing up to be.

Maybe it's because we tend to do this thing where we put people in certain boxes and then expect them to always be that way.

But what will people say?

I'm watching With Love, Meghan (the Duchess of Sussex's new lifestyle / cooking show), and I've been astounded at the amount of negative commentary about her show. People are saying that she's trying to be like Martha Stewart or that it's wanna be trad wife content and how dare she do something so "privileged" and "superficial" when in the past she focused on women's empowerment and more "serious" issues.

It's like we expect people to be one dimensional; like we can't be multiple things at once, evolve, try something new, or focus on one hobby or interest in a season.

Personally, I found Meghan's show lovely and I've learned a thing or two that I want to apply to my own life. Yes, some of it is way over the top, but if that's how she wants to spend her time and it's where she finds beauty and joy, then it doesn't matter what strangers on the internet or the media think.

But maybe I'm taking comments made about Meghan personally, because I've been battling my own internal criticism that people will think I'm silly or that I've changed if I take up gardening or lean more into homesteading or other new to me hobbies or interests, or even change how I dress.

Who is she to do that? That's not "her." She's stepping outside of her "box." She was never outdoorsy. She's a city girl. She's never been interested in that before. She's only doing that because so and so is.

Part of me wants to use that as an excuse to remain as I am and stay in my comfort zone. But being married to Daniel, entering my thirties, becoming a mom, and moving to the countryside has fundamentally changed me, and honestly, I'm really glad about that.

The last few years, but especially the last year, have felt like a stripping away of all the things others told me I should be and finally getting to the core of what is starting to feel like discovering the most authentic me. It's like I'm finally in a safe, life giving space to become something new.

It's a little thing, but the other morning, the boys and I were eating blueberries at the kitchen counter and I was making silly noises every time I'd pop a blueberry into Luke's mouth.

And I had this thought that stopped me in my tracks: "Your siblings wouldn't believe this is you now."

Probably because as the oldest of ten at home growing up, I was the serious one, always looking out for my younger siblings and helping my parents - and that made me feel like I couldn't let loose or have fun, like I had to be the adult even when I was still growing up myself.

I also think that as long as I remained single and living near my family, I kept falling into that caretaker role for my siblings (and their kids) instead of focusing on my own personal growth and future?

In many ways, getting married to someone who didn't know me growing up and then moving to a town and church where no one knows me was a fresh start I didn't know I needed, and honestly, such a life giving gift.

Like I can show up as myself without hearing someone say, "Oh, you've changed" or "I never thought I'd see you like this" (in that tone that implies it is a negative thing).

Sometimes it takes leaving everything familiar and all the people who have always known you and have influence over you to be able to truly start dreaming together as a couple and building an enduring legacy.

Daniel often quotes a Russian saying he heard from his mom that it's good for brothers to live together but 200 km apart. Basically, that it's good for family to live close, but not too close. As someone who has always been really close to my family, that was a hard thing for me to accept.

But, in hindsight, I am so grateful that I became a wife and mom in a different state, away from the people who have always known me. It was hard to be away from family, but it also gave Daniel and I space to become our own family and that has made a big impact for us.

If you've been struggling to break out of your "micro culture" and are blending in with what your close friends, family, church are doing instead of figuring out your own family vision, sometimes the solution can be to leave the familiar and go somewhere new to start fresh, at least for a little while.

As they say, sometimes the issue isn't the plant, but where it's planted - transplant it to a different spot or into new soil and it blooms!

It’s okay to be a beginner

I've been taking solo walks after dinner again now that it stays out light longer, and as I see nature come back to life and bloom all around me, I keep thinking that's how I feel.

Like I'm coming alive again; like there's new growth in me; like there is limitless potential ahead (a part of this is probably also getting out of the postpartum phase now that Luke is one + weaning and getting my hormones back to normal!).

In the spring chapter of her book, Lydia talks about embracing "amateur status" - trying something new and allowing your interests to evolve, even if others laugh at you or tell you that you're being a "try hard" or that "you've changed."

But, so what? So what if you've changed? So what if someone else is doing what you want to learn to do or become? Every "expert" began from zero.

We're allowed to grow; to change; to evolve; to build something new.

In one of her vlogs, Lydia shared this metaphor: if someone is having a baby for the first time, no one would judge them for doing that without having a baby before or telling them that other people have babies so they're "copying" them.

You can start something new, learn as you go, and study others who have gone before you.

I'm not entirely sure yet what chapter of life I'm entering into, but I feel the newness of something new blooming down to my bones. The call to wipe the slate clean, to till the soil and prepare for a new "garden" is so strong in me, but I know to fully see and welcome what God has in store, I have to slow down, mute the noise and truly think about what I want to plant in this chapter of my life.

It feels like everything is now an option and that's so thrilling.

First up: I want to get back to learning gardening. I tried growing tomatoes and lettuce our second year of marriage in a small garden bed in our subdivision house and it went pretty well for my first try.

Last year, Daniel did all the gardening because I was freshly postpartum. This year, I'm hoping we can do more gardening together + I want to grow roses and Daniel says that part is gonna be all me because roses are allegedly hard to take care of and don't do well in Missouri🙂

Second: I want to cultivate more beauty and slowness in the every day. I'm an incredibly practical person - I've never seen the point of "wasting" time or money on "extra" decorations or external presentation. For example, when Daniel cooks his presentation is top notch. When I cook? Just slap it on a plate and hope it tastes good even if doesn't look good. But I want to change that and look for small ways to make things beautiful in our every day moments.

The lawyer in me that always has to think of every counter-argument wants to push back that I'm just succumbing to trends. Homemaking, gardening, slow living, being "crunchy", homesteading, etc - these are all things that have become popularized through social media in the last few years.

But, just because someone else is doing something similar to what you want to try, doesn't mean you shouldn't also try it. There's nothing new under the sun.

I once heard this example and it's stuck with me: "No dentist or banker ever goes into a community and thinks, 'Hmm, there's already a dentist and bank in town, so I won't open my own dental practice or bank here.'" It feels like there's a dentist or a bank on every street sometimes! Somehow, they all are in business even though they're basically doing the exact same thing.

So, who cares if someone else is doing what you want to do? I am obviously not speaking of outright copying / plagiarizing, but more so being okay with trying something new even though someone else may already be thriving in that hobby, lifestyle, market, etc.

This spring, I want to embrace learning something new, cultivating what is already growing in my life and growing into the woman I want to become, even if it's something different than who I used to be.

But most of all, I want to do this without caring what other people will think and without being influenced by what other people tell me I should be or worried that people will think I'm not who I used to be.

Our own little family

There’s been a lot of noise about a clip in Meghan’s show where she corrects Mindy Kaling for calling her “Meghan Markle”:

“You keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now…You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ It just means so much to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name.'”

That took me down an entire rabbit hole of figuring out how royals do last names, but that’s not the point here.

I saw my maiden name on a box the other day - I ordered new shoes for Levi and the name on the invoice defaulted to my maiden name since I didn’t update it in the retailer’s system. Seeing my maiden name next to my first name felt like it was meant for someone else.

Because since I took Daniel’s name and we became “The Sheremetas”, it’s truly been like building our own “little family name” (we had a neon sign made for our wedding that now hangs on our living room wall with our last name and it feels so meaningful to our story and legacy).

We’ve been signing off as “The Sheremetas” since our wedding thank you cards, but I don’t think the significance of that has truly clicked for me until I processed Meghan’s comment about becoming a “Sussex”.

Like it’s no longer Yelena Bosovik and Daniel Sheremeta. It’s the Sheremetas. One unit. One family. One legacy. A new shared identity. It’s something the four of us share and get to intentionally shape into whatever we want it to be.

So, it makes sense that with that shift from just me to becoming part of a “new” family comes a natural separation from single me and the start of something new that Daniel and I build together. It’s a mix of breaking from the past, embracing a new identity, and evolving to become a part of something bigger than yourself.

It’s funny, when I was single, this shift in identity and “losing myself” in marriage and motherhood scared me so much. And for the last three years of motherhood, I’ve been subconsciously trying to “bounce back to my former self,” but why?

Because I’m realizing “losing” former me is the one of the best things to have happened to me.

It’s allowed me to bloom and grow in ways that I don’t think I could have if I didn’t marry Daniel, because his love, vision and steadfastness has been a crucial part of my personal growth and transformation.

So, here’s to embracing beginnings. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead now that I’m finally allowing myself to be okay with evolving into someone new, not as just a “new” me, but as part of “the Sheremetas.”

Until next time,