Welcome friends!

I’m Krysta!

Right now I am sitting in my master bedroom, shades drawn, with apple cinnamon tea in my monogrammed mug, a rose candle, and my feet swaddled in a heating pad because it’s snowing and freezing outside.

I live in the mountains. I’ve called Steamboat Springs, CO home for the last nineteen years but I’m originally from the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. For those who don’t know, this makes me a bonafide valley girl.

Like, for real, like.

But I’m a mountain woman now (not really—I just learned to ski last year and refuse to wear those vest material, insulated skirts) so I hope we can still be friends.

I am married to Jeremy, a wonder of a man who runs a successful general contracting company (JSM Builders represent!) and together we own three restaurants in our small town: Mambo, Besame, and our newest, Yampa Valley Kitchen. We build both spec and our own houses and I love getting to do interior design when the occasion calls. And it does a lot. The thing is, when you’re married to a home builder, you tend to move a lot. We have moved seventeen times in seventeen years in this town but are looking for something a little more permanent—maybe with land so I can have a garden and chickens.

We have four kids. Isabella is nineteen, Jeremiah is fourteen, Olivia is twelve, and Ellie is seven. My kids and husband are my favorite, which I understand is a very basic mom thing to say, but it’s the truth and so I will allow it. Olivia, our middle daughter has Angelman Syndrome which means we are a special needs family. Never heard of it? Don’t worry neither has anyone else.

Cooking, writing, and reading are my jam. Jesus is my jam. Home life is my jam. Pizza and chianti are my jam. Saying things are my jam is my jam.

I guess the first thing you should know, now the the backstory is out of the way, is that I’m a writer. And listen, that might seem obvious now, but on my first blog bio I wrote “I am not a writer” because I tend to be super self-aware. At a certain point though, after writing consistently for years and years, I had to look at myself in the face and be like “self, you write everyday. You read books on writing. You string words together in your dreams. I don’t think people who are not writers do that.” So here I am correcting falsities.

In 2008 I started a food blog because I love food. That’s why you’ll see a lot of food here. Browning whole chickens in olive oil after stuffing it with oranges and garlic commands my attention and captivates my senses in a way not many things can. I make my own chicken stock and salad dressings. I brine my meats. I slow cook ground beef for tacos so it’s perfectly succulent come dinner time. I take dinner way, way too seriously. In this way, I don’t mind telling you I’m kind of snobby about food, so expect that if I share a recipe it’s quality. Quality is my jam.

Sorry.

The food blog didn’t let me talk about anything other than food though, and eventually I found it limiting, so I quit that blog in 2013 (RIP Krysta’s Life In Food!) and started this “Lifestyle Blog” which means I can write about anything I want without anybody getting mad. Everything fits under the lifestyle. Just everything. This blog was originally called Feels Like Home, but now-a-day’s I’m just using my name to keep things simple. You’ll find I mostly write about four things here: Faith, food, family and writing, but my apologies if you’ve stumbled here on a day that I talk about celebrity crushes or make-up instead but, LIFESTYLE.

You can’t be mad.

I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s be friends.