Recent Posts

book cover of Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz

Book Review: Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz

A good life means you don't work for the sake of work—you work for the sake of leisure. But what is leisure? What are the benefits of reading, studying, or thinking for its own sake?
a young girl three and a half years old sits on a rock in the mountains in Glacier National Park, looking down at a flower in her hand

How Do I Raise My Kids to Revere Life, Love What Is Good, and Reject the Bad?

I don't want to raise the next generation of materialist, short-term focused consumers. But how do I help my kids counter modern culture, resist temptations, and internalize the right ideas?
two magnolia blossoms open in soft sunlight

How to Build Self-Discipline: Why Awareness and Intrinsic Motivation Are Key

Self-discipline is the ability to do what needs to be done, to stay in control, to accomplish your goals. How do you build discipline? Here are strategies I use.
toddler sitting on a brick path by a lawn looking sideways, holding a large green pushbroom

Cooperation without Coercion: How to Motivate Children (5 Things to Try)

What do you do when your strong-willed child won't cooperate? Children love cooperating... but they also love showing their independence. Here are 5 things to try.
the cover of the book How Children Succeed by Paul Tough featuring the title over a line of colored pencils in the background

Book review: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough

Why do some people succeed and others fail? This book argues that it's not just how you're born. Instead, the key is noncognitive skills—and the good news is, you can practice and improve them.
sun setting on a hill of red sand in the Sahara Desert

How to Practice Self-Denial—and What You'll Gain By Doing So

Human desires are insatiable. But if we do the counterintuitive—practice self-denial instead of giving in to those desires—we build virtue, gain freedom, and step closer to the eternal.
marble statue of aristotle showing his head and shoulders

Forming Good Habits and Breaking Bad Habits: Aristotle's 4 Levels of Virtue

Virtues are good habits. Vices are bad habits. We can learn from Aristotle's four ascending categories from vice to virtue when struggling to become better people.

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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.