How to want more without feeling guilty for new moms: honest answers for Allendale

Allendale · this week's honest page

Some nights in Allendale the house is quiet, the kids are fine, the job is good — and you lie awake because something in you is still knocking. This is about opening the door.

And this is Allendale: a Grand Rapids-area community of strivers and settlers — very often the same person, on the same Tuesday That's not a coincidence — this is precisely the place the question was waiting for.

🎧 A note for Allendale readers (30 seconds, spoken)

“This is not a hustle book. It is not toxic positivity.” — There Is a Fine Line Between Gratefulness and Complacency

The pattern Allendale knows by heart

Comfort arrives as a reward, stays as a routine, and leaves as a regret — usually in that order.
You keep upgrading the life and forgetting the liver of it.
You've outsourced wanting to the next purchase, the next trip, the next anything.

The 10-10-10 on autopilot

List the ten things you did last week out of habit. Circle the ones you'd choose again on purpose.
For each circled one you don't love: either upgrade it or schedule one deliberate replacement this month.

You are allowed to love a Tuesday and still not want to live inside it forever.

The ending that spreads

It ends with a question, not a checklist — and that question is why readers from Midwest and everywhere else keep sending each other this book instead of just recommending it.

Questions Allendale readers ask

Is this a religious book? No — it's a personal-growth memoir-essay hybrid with universal themes. Readers of any background (or none) quote it the same way.

Is it available in audio? The heart of the book is read aloud on this site, and the Kindle version (free on Kindle Unlimited) is perfect for phone reading.

Next step, Allendale: the free sample

No account gymnastics — open the sample, read the first chapter, and decide with your own goosebumps. Free on Kindle Unlimited, $0.99 otherwise.

There Is a Fine Line Between Gratefulness and Complacency — book cover Kindle — $0.99 Paperback — $14.99

Kindle Unlimited includes it · Prime delivers the paperback · Group questions on the main site.