In trying to be a good mother, exposing my children to this huge new world of growing plants, I’m the one learning the most. Many years out of my own formal education, that’s currently my favorite part of this adventure. I crave garden knowledge and remain curious beyond my time capacity for curiosity. (I do also have a career in finance to focus on.) I’m learning how important the environment and care is for each of these plants. You need to follow the steps on the back of the seed package, but WOW, there is so much more to learn to be successful. Sure, seedlings need constant attention in the early stages, but they also need to be left alone to do their thing. I just transplanted many seedlings after this interesting step called “hardening off” where you set the seedlings outside for a few hours a day for a few days before being officially placed in the ground. Evidently, they need to experience “the real world” a little before they go out on their own. I hear a lot of “Mom, I’ve got it” these days. This “hardening off” step speaks to my soul as a mother in this helicopter mom world. 

This garden is teaching my household so many real, beautiful lessons. Lessons of responsibility, curiosity and patience. We are responsible for how we care and feed these living things, just as we intentionally care and nourish ourselves. We remain curious, seeking answers to questions or in exploring new things. But above all, be patient, and allow the result of the hard work to bloom in its own time if we give each plant what it needs. 

Caring for something beyond yourself finds its way back around and feeds each of us. Mothering is in our nature. This is loudly showing up in my young boys as our souls want to care for something. Nurturing gives us purpose. To the plant mothers, business mom-bosses and human mamas, Happy Mother’s Day. We’re all raising something; let’s make it count.

Hustle & Salt is my personal memoir/novel. It has been written, professionally edited and rewritten over the course of five years. Somehow, it makes me smile and want to cry looking at this sample book cover… Knowing that it’s not finished. I have a lot of emotions about this reality. These writings are forever expanding and evolving and this kind of writing has proven to be quite a colossal undertaking. It was easily one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done. I'm really proud of my work and it's message is important to me. It represents thousands of hours, my own meaningful life experiences and lots of research. At this point, I’m not sure what will come of it. A lot of change has happened as of late. I’m very much IN my life right now and not at a place where I can write about it. I’m certainly learning and taking notes. For better or worse, I'm also not quite ready for what comes next when I press publish on a book about my life and my perspective on the world.