Recent Posts

the cover of the book Good Prose by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd featuring a stack of books

Book review: Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

The authors' fundamental assumption is that you can learn to write better. This book is their attempt to help you do that. Here's what I found helpful and inspiring in their work.
tags: writing books
the face of a eurasian eagle owl looking with big yellow-gold eyes at you with a surprised but friendly face

Ten Things We Learned From One Year Writing Our Blog

We've been writing a weekly blog for a year! Here's what we've learned about meeting our deadlines, writing and editing, building readership, running a blog, and appreciating life!
the skyline of Sydney, Australia across the water of the bay, the famous opera house on the right

Finding a Voice Down Under: A Short History of My Blogging Career (Study Abroad #3)

I started writing my first blog while abroad in 2009. Here's why I began, what I enjoyed about blogging, and the key reasons I continue now.
sunrise over the water in La Paz, Mexico with a quiet sailboat in the foreground

Important But Not Urgent: How I Manage Daily Incremental Routines

Before I had kids, I had a regular morning routine. Now? Mornings don't proceed the same way twice. Here's how I make a routine work anyway and ensure I don't leave important tasks behind.
word processing program with the words once upon a time

How I Wrote 50,000 Words in Less Than Six Months (As a Parent Without Childcare!)

I write a lot—so how do I hit 50k words while also caring for my young children? Here's my secret. It hinges on one plain fact: The job of your first draft is to exist.
woman sitting at a table writing in a small journal with a cup of coffee

My Experience Writing Morning Pages As a Parent With Young Children

Julia Cameron initiated Morning Pages as a creative practice. In theory, it's easy to squeeze into your morning and leads to profound changes. In practice? Read on.
pens on a small notebook in front of a computer and mouse

How I Manage Deadlines: 5 Ways to Keep Projects on Track

In college, I never pulled an all-nighter and often turned assignments in early. Here's how I did it—and how you can get better at managing projects, reduce stress, and never pull an all-nighter again.
a set of gears on the left and a lightbulb surrounded by puzzle pieces and question marks on the right

How I Prepared For My First TEDx Talk

How do you give a TEDx talk? Here's how I picked a topic I was passionate about, wrote the speech, refined it, practiced, and memorized it.

Join our community!

Did you know a group of owls is called a parliament?

About

We're Jacqueline and Randy, a blogging duo with backgrounds in tech, robots, art, and writing, now raising our family in northern Idaho.

Our goal is to encourage deliberate choices, individual responsibility, and lifelong curiosity by sharing stories about our adventures in living, loving, and learning.

Learn more about us.


Connect:

whoo@deliberateowl.com

Start here

Curious about our life and journey? Here are some good places to start reading:

Jacqueline and Randy leaning their heads together smiling at the camera

A Blog About Education, Lifestyles, and Community

A brief history of how the Deliberate Owl came to be and why we're writing a blog about us, our lives, and how we're living out our values.
Priests in red and gold celebrate a traditional Latin Mass

Discovering the Traditional Catholic Mass

How I discovered the traditional Latin Mass a few years ago, why that discovery changed everything for me, and what was wrong with the Novus Ordo Masses I'd attended.