Author: almostfarmgirl

What now?

Published on by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

When my browser opens, I get a countdown of the days, hours, minutes, seconds until Trump’s presidential term ends. It’s a little thing, but it’s hopeful to me. A reminder that we have done this before and can do it again. That, right now–assuming the house legislation introduced by a Republican Representative to allow for a third, nonconsecutive presidential term, doesn’t pass–Trump and his house of cards has an expiration date.

I’m baffled that we’re here again, and I alternate between frantically clinging to whatever joy and beauty I can find and feeling absolutely despondent. I dip low, but I know that I cannot live in the low places. I know that the best way for me to show up is with my joy and my whole self.

These first two weeks have given me whiplash. An EO intending to end birthright citizenship. Exiting the Paris Accords and the World Health Organization. Slashing Federal funding to basically everything including Medicare and Medicaid, Headstart, Meals on Wheels. Ending NIH research, including active trials.

ICE raids. Gitmo being reopened to house immigrants. Talks to send US citizens to internment in El Salvador.

Discussions related to ethnic cleansing in Gaza that would turn the nation into a US territory and displace the current occupants.

Meanwhile, several states have drafted legislation to classify abortion as murder and a few of them offer up the death penalty as the punishment. Idaho drafted legislation that would push the issue of same-sex marriage, legal at the Federal level in the US since 2014, back to the Supreme Court who will as likely as not use the same justification they used to overturn Roe to push the issue back to the states. Legislation is pending vote for a bill that would severely restrict voting rights, especially for women. More legislation is pending that would codify a national abortion ban.

Trump wants to withhold Federal Disaster Relief to blue states, and he seems to believe water flows from the top of the map to the bottom of it.

The tax plan Trump just released means my taxes are going up, so, likely, are yours. But at least the millionaires and billionaires are getting a tax break.

It all feels very dark and sticky.

<<<>>>

Last week, while journaling, I realized that my body had shifted into fight or flight mode. The barrage of bad news was being interpreted by my body as a physical threat.

I’ve felt scattered. Anxious.

I feel overwhelmed. Tired. Already tired.

And yet, we all know that this was the plan, and that, if they overwhelm us, if they can exhaust us into not paying attention, they will win.

So what’s next? How do we do this?

<<<>>>

I spent the early part of the morning looking into a piece of House legislation that is getting noticed on social media. H.R. 8281, introduced by a Republican in Texas and also known as the SAVE Act, introduces new rules to govern voter registration. Specifically, this law would require proof of citizenship when voting. Driver’s Licenses would not suffice. Instead, voters would be required to provide a US Passport or a birth certificate with the name matching the voter’s current name. This legislation is part of a response to the myth of voter fraud, which MAGA conservatives have long championed, but it also is part of a long-standing republican tradition of disenfranchising voters.

H.R. 8281 would disenfranchise thousands upon thousands. Anyone without a passport (which cost hundreds of dollars and require months of processing) and anyone whose name doesn’t match their birth certificate would be disallowed from voting. This includes all of the women who changed their names after marriage.

One of the posts I saw pointed me to an app called “5 Calls” that connects you to your representatives and legislators. Input your zip code, and it allows you to call them directly from the app. It gives you a script if you want it, and it also provides a list of pending legislation that you might want your voice to be heard on.

I called my representative today about H.R. 8281.

Tomorrow, I will call about H.R. 722, a national abortion ban proposed by a Missouri Representative.

I told my friends about the app. Some of them told their friends. Several of them have also made calls today.

<<<>>>

Trying to stay fully informed right now can feel like trying to drink directly from a firehose. Social media convinces us to keep our attention glued to it as headlines speed past like the broken lines between lanes on the interstate.

We get dizzy and overwhelmed with the trying.

<<<>>>

I found myself in the barn for an hour and a half as it snowed today, grateful that a friend had come out yesterday to help me put coats on everyone before the weather turned. Grateful that I had the hay in the barn to fill nets. Grateful for the eggs I collected from my chicken coop, even as I worried about the sparrows who keep getting in the coop amidst concerns over the spread of bird flu.

I noticed the soft hums of the llamas, the almost muted nickers from the horses, the definitely not muted squealing from the pigs and piglets. Those are the grounding sounds of my very present life. And, in a world and with a news cycle demanding my attention, I deliberately shifted my attention to them.

<<<>>>

This year, I made a resolution to pay closer attention to my life as I live it. To my time, my energy. To the way I spend my money and the way I engage with the people around me. It’s so easy to make our way through life on autopilot. To numb ourselves to the heartbreak that feels sometimes like it’s pressing in from all sides. To bypass feeling.

But you can’t selectively numb, and a heart guarded against heartbreak and disappointment will try and protect you from love and joy as well. So we do our best. We feel the heartbreak and let it propel us into real actions, however small, instead of despair.

As Joseph Campbell, in “A Hero with a Thousand Faces,” wrote “We save the world by being alive ourselves.”

<<<>>>

Almost everyone I know is talking about living in tension between staying informed and staying sane. I’m navigating it myself. I think we will be navigating it for a while.

But here’s what I’m learning:

First, action doesn’t always look like you will expect. It’s not necessarily the stuff of heroics. It’s mundane. It’s calling your representatives and asking your friends to do the same. It’s paying attention to where you’re spending your money. It’s maybe spending less or buying less. It’s supporting local organizations who are already doing the work.

Maybe it’s voting in your local elections coming up. If you’re Peoria, IL resident–some of you are– please plan to vote in the local mayoral election coming up. (Incidentally, three House seats are up for grabs, which would shift power in the House of Representatives and shift the entire narrative here; if you’re in Florida or New York, pay attention.)

Second, it’s important to recognize where and how we can act. That is to say, I cannot control NIH funding or do much about USAID being locked out of their good work (aside, of course, from contacting my elected officials). Rather than despair over what we can’t do, we have to act in all the ways that we can. Donate food to your local food pantry. Visit local business that proudly support equal rights. Spend your money, time, and emotional energy in ways that maximize your impact.

Third, community acts faster than government. Show up for it. Reach out to your friends. Meet with them in person. Stand alongside the people in your community that are already doing good work. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; we just have to offer what we can to the people who already loaded up the cart.

Fourth, take care of yourself and those you love. Sometimes, that has to start with disconnecting with the chaos and reconnecting to what you need. Take walks. Make art. Dance. Eat a beautiful meal. Do yoga. (I moved my own body out of fight or flight mode with very intentional yoga practice.) I know it’s repeated enough to be cliché, but you cannot pour from an empty cup. Refill it, and come back around.

Art and movement have always been our quiet saviors in moments of historical darkness.

When I was going through my divorce I stumbled on a quote by Najwa Zebian that I committed to memory: “These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.”

Sometimes, I remind myself not to try and carry mountains.

Sometimes, I remind myself that I am simply meant to climb.

Sometimes, I remind myself that I am not alone in the climbing.

If you are climbing right now, know that I am with you. And if you are trying to carry the mountain, know that I have tried it before as well. Take a seat. Take a moment. We’ll be here when you’re ready to start climbing.

One step at a time.

<<<>>>

I saw a poem today that I will leave with you to hold close.

The plot has not yet twisted, but we already know the ending.

The One where it’s Cold, and Joy is Still a Form of Resistance.

Published on by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

Day one of Trump’s second term.

It’s cold outside. My weather app reports a wind chill of -25. I’m sitting at my desk while I eat some oatmeal, drink some coffee. Work up the nerve to go outside and take care of the barn.

<<<>>>

I’ve already blocked someone on social media today, a person who barely knew me through my ex. I laughed as I did it, honestly, the thought suddenly occurring to me that I don’t actually need to stay “social media” friends with someone who only ever seemed to pop up to insult me.

To be honest, like so many, I’m debating taking my leave of Zuckerberg’s media empire entirely. TikTok was already a cesspool. I’ve never really been a fan of Twitter. I’m still there–here, if you’re reading this through Facebook–but investigating other options. (Note: If you enjoy this blog and follow it on Facebook or Instagram, maybe consider joining the email list.)

Several friends have reached out today. Between the overt Nazi Salutes at the inauguration–Elon’s Nazi Salute(s) really were just icing on an ugly cake that we already knew was laced with arsenic–and the executive orders and pardons already granted, we can feel the tone of what’s coming.

<<<>>>

And yet…we’ve been here before. The presidency of this lunatic looming, and I can’t help but remind myself that we survived it once before. Not everyone, mind you, but most of us. Democracy. America. I understand that I’m expressing a survivorship bias, but it’s still a fact: we did this before. We can do it again.

Last time Trump took office, I was in a very different place. My marriage falling to pieces. I was only weeks away from filing for divorce. Heartbroken. Soulbroken. I wanted to believe that Trump’s racist and xenophobic campaign promises were empty, but I still braced myself for four years of ugliness. And it came. It found us.

We know more now. We know that Trump’s ugliness is deep and wide, and that it revealed a deep and wide ugliness in the soul of our country. We know that his vile promises aren’t empty, but that he doesn’t really care about most of them either. (The wall, the TikTok ban, kids in cages: all policies he walked back for his own convenience.)

I know that the next four years will reveal an awful lot of rot in our country and our countrymen (and women…fellow white suburban women, I’m looking at you…), but I also know that his presidency, even with the halls of government stacked in his favor, will not be a monolith.

<<<>>>

Last time, if you had told me on the first day of Trump’s presidency that joy was rushing towards me at the speed of light, I wonder if I would have believed you. But it was. The first nine months of that term would mark some of the worst days of my life, but joy was coming. Falling in love. Building community. Rediscovering who I was and who I could be.

I guess that’s what I’ve been thinking about today: regardless of who haunts the halls of power, we are still here. Still living. Still showing up. And mark my words: some of what is coming is going to be beautiful. Not because of Trump, but in spite of him.

<<<>>>

I said the same thing to almost everyone today, including myself: Joy is resistance. He does not get to steal four years of joy from my life. I will not give it up. But also, I have found that it is stronger, sneakier, more expansive than we like to give it credit for. And, even more than that, it makes us stronger. Joy steels your spine and opens your heart. It reminds us what we’re here for.

<<<>>>

It’s still so cold. And it will be, for now, but the weather app promises more reasonable weather will come in time.

And, honestly, even though the polar vortex weather always puts me in a foul mood, I’m beginning to subscribe to the Scandinavian idea that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.” That, at the heart of things, it’s up to us to respond to the thing’s we’re facing as best we can.

The cold will greet me, maybe even take my breath away. But the barn and it’s creatures, the sky and this ridgeline, they will do their healing work, just like they’ve always done.

And I will remember that joy rushes towards us so quietly that, even when all feels lost, we never know all the ways it is planning to show up.


The One Where Joy is Resistance (and some of you will leave, I hope respectfully, after reading this.)

Published on by almostfarmgirl12 Comments

It’s warm outside. The bird song is louder than it should be for November. I try not to let my concerns over the t-shirt weather spiral. We all know the planet is getting warmer.

I haven’t been terribly political in this space. Partially because it is more convenient to keep my politics out of my writing. My art. It’s less vulnerable. I’ve dropped hits here and there, but mostly I write about the ranch and the animals and how I process the things I feel about my life and the world. About my love. About loss. About potatoes.

But today, for the past few days, I’ve been gutted. Heartbroken. I voted enthusiastically for Kamala. Donated to the campaign. I have the hat. All of it. Tuesday I was so hopeful that I was about to witness the historic moment: the election of a woman president.

And instead, I watched as state after state went red.

<<<>>>

I was raised to keep the peace and be polite and feminine. I was raised in the evangelical church, not one specific one, but in and out of many. I was raised with and in the height of purity culture. I attended Christian schools. Was homeschooled with a Christian high school curriculum that taught the threat of Catholicism and Islam in our history textbooks and taught the importance of male headship in families in civics texts. Our science books taught that evolution was a hoax. I attended a Christian University where I took almost enough Biblical Studies Classes to have a minor.

I was devout. I gave ten percent of my income away like clockwork. I believed abortion was murder. That LGBTQ people were going to hell and that “hate the sin; love the sinner” was an acceptable position. If I keep digging, I can unearth uglier and uglier beliefs that I was fed. I was willing to eat them up.

I’m not sure I need to spell all of them out here.

And yet, I was first called a “baby killer” when I was a young teen and told my uncle that I disagreed with one of his environmental positions (drilling in Alaska, I think) because I thought we needed to protect the earth. He used that term again when he emailed me a racist email about Obama (a doctored photo of Airforce One with a minstrel show style, cartoonish President Obama painted on the side eating watermelon) and I told him I didn’t mind political emails but that I didn’t want racist ones. That time he added “libtard” to modify “baby killer.”

I never quite toed the line. But I voted McCain. (I wouldn’t do it now, but I actually don’t regret that one.) I would have voted Obama during his second election cycle, but my mom threatened to kick me out of the house if I did, and I thought she would somehow know. That year marks my only election cycle voting third party.

I married young, to a “good Christian,” wearing white, with all that implies. I followed the script.

<<<>>>

I’m working on a book that details more of this. The whole story. The divorce after his infidelity and lying and nearly breaking myself to save a marriage that I was told was the only one god would ever recognize in my life. The deconstruction. My shattering and rebuilding. Finding my way back into my body after years of being told it was sinful and not to be trusted and of the world. After a lifetime of having it implied, and sometimes even outright stated, that it would belong to someone else when I married, that no one else would want it after it had been touched. That no one would want me.

All here on this ranch with these creatures. It’s a book that may only ever act as therapy, but that I’m telling you about only to say that the story is too long to tell here.

<<<>>>

The rise of MAGA and Trump saw my final and complete break from conservativism and evangelicalism. The best of what I was taught in my church upbringing was Jesus, a radical who was murdered for speaking truth to power and shining a light on the way society failed to protect its most vulnerable. I kept looking for evidence of his command to “love thy neighbor” and wasn’t seeing it. When I questioned Conservative policies during the first Trump presidency, for example my horror at the policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexican border and keeping those children in cages, I was reminded that “libtards” support killing babies. That my support of them made me a baby killer. I was guilty by association.

<<<>>>

(To be clear, I do believe in a woman’s complete right to her own bodily autonomy. But, again, there’s only so much space in one post.)

<<<>>>

Today, as I write this, I’m sad and scared for the most vulnerable people in our society. I’m scared for women, well aware of those who have already lost their lives to Trump abortion bans. I’m scared for myself.

I’m scared for my queer friends. I’ve listened for several days to close friends who are exploring their options to leave the country. They’re scared that their legal marriages will not only be made illegal, but that the existence of those marriages will put them on a list that confirms their queerness.

I’m scared for Gaza and Ukraine.

I’m scared for the millions of undocumented immigrants who he has been so open about rounding up and deporting on “day one.”

As a former evangelical, I’m far more terrified than most of Project 2025.

I’m in disbelief that half of our voting populace sees no problem with voting for a man who’s been credibly accused of rape 26 times. Who’s most famous audio is a recording of him bragging about getting away with assualt “grab em by the pussy.” Who sent dearly needed Covid supplies to Russia when American hospitals couldn’t get them and Covid deaths here were so rampant that our hospitals had refrigerator trucks outside to stack the bodies. A man whose win was celebrated by the Klan, by literal Nazi’s, by dictators who he considers his close friends.

<<<>>>

(I was about to say that I won’t dwell on all of that in this post, but to many of you I’m sure it feels like I already have. If you’re reading this and want to tell me how disappointed you are in me, maybe just don’t. Maybe just hit unsubscribe.)

<<<>>>

I have spent the past few days feeling gutted. And I’ve cried, a lot.

But I’m still here. Still at the ranch with the critters. And today, while I was trying not to think about the heat in the light of an new administration known for gutting environmental policy, I heard the a bird song in the distance. Long and lilting. And the air smelled like the fallen leaves that crunched underfoot. The azure of the sky a backdrop to shifting branches holding onto their final leaves. I pulled my hand to my heart, closed my eyes, and tried to take in the song.

And for a moment, I smiled, feeling the moment of joy that sprang from that birds song and holding it close.

<<<>>>

If Trump’s coming administration is anything like the last, it will be really bad for a lot of vulnerable people. But I’m not seeing resignation. I’m seeing people reaching out. Loving. Preparing.

<<<>>>

Julia Cameron wrote “Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention.”

A therapist friend of mine has been reminding me to fill my emotional reserves. Feel joy and hope and allow it to fill me up. Lately, for months now, I have been touching my hand to my heart every time I see something lovely that causes me to pause. Today I did it when I heard the bird.

There will be much to do, I think. But for now, remember that “Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention.” And remember that Joy is, and always has been, an act of resistance.

Much Love.


On the Guest Cottage and Curating Space (PS – I missed you)

Published on by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

I am sitting at my desk.

I could make a list of everything on my plate that feels more urgent than this: this moment, at my desk, taking time to put down the words that have been circling in my head for months. Maybe longer.

More urgent. More useful. More practical. More important.

I’ve been absent from this blog for so long that it no longer feels necessary to apologize. You weren’t expecting me, so I need not apologize for being late.

Instead I will just be back. Slipping into my own absence, checking to see if things are as I left them.

<<<>>>

John and I finally bought the ranch this year. Without much fanfare, failing even to pop the bottle of fancy sparkling wine that we had tucked into the fridge for the occasion, we shifted from renters to owners (or, at least, mortgage holders) and began chipping away at the most unsexy list of projects you can imagine. Addressing drainage issues, water damage. Repainting. Reorganizing.

Day by day, moment by moment, progress began taking shape, first with the items that couldn’t wait (flooding in the basement every time it rained was getting beyond old) and then with the changes that brought us closer to our goals.

<<<>>>

Offering our guest house on Airbnb has been a goal of mine for a long time.

For years, I’ve heard this place described as “magic” by those who visit. Friends or acquaintances would come, and they would tell me that everything seems a little more real out here. That this place and the animals, the woods and trees and sunsets offered up a reminder to settle in. To breathe. They would leave more relaxed than they came and tell me that the hours they spent here offered respite from the worries of their daily life.

That experience has always seemed like such a sacred thing to be able to share.

The Guest Cottage, in process. The patio is going in soon.

Once we held the mortgage on the ranch, we started working towards sharing it.

Since April, I’ve been chipping away at all the work that needed done. The house needed paint inside and out. The floors needed to be refinished. The roof, per insurance requirements, required replacement. For months, all my time and all our money poured through the little guest cottage at the edge of the woods, and we come closer to our goal by inches. Even now, I’m waiting on to hear from our contractor on three remaining window replacements. Just today, I ordered gravel and sand so we can finish out a patio.

It’s getting close.

<<<>>>

The guest house is small, about 750 square feet, but it feels bigger when there is no longer an inch of it I haven’t touched. Every step of the way, I found myself making decisions about the space I wanted to curate. I changed the colors on the walls inside and out. Brightened the ceilings. Chose new stain for the original 1940s wood flooring. I picked new light fixtures and blinds. New entry doors. New hardware. A new vanity.

It feels like an entirely new place, and I can see myself in every decision.

Here’s something I didn’t expect: the whole process felt incredibly vulnerable, and it gets more and more that way the closer we come to finishing. The more that I changed, the more the little house began to feel like a reflection of me.

Last weekend, I sat on the floor framing art prints while John worked on putting in a new light fixture. I flipped through the prints I bought, flowers on vintage book pages, and reflected on an observation a friend had recently made (Paige, I hope you don’t mind that I quoted you): “This project is the perfect intersection of your passions. English. Gardening. Vintage craftmanship. Nature. It’s the perfect Cherity piece.”

One of the prints I framed this weekend. I don’t think I could love them more.

I had wondered if anyone would notice.

I stacked those prints next to the already framed photos of my critters and began drafting in my mind the gallery wall where they would meet.

There’s a vulnerability in creating a space like this. I suppose plenty of people can probably do it without pouring out so much of themselves, but, for me, it feels like an offering. Here. See this place I love. Here. See these things I find beauty in. Here. Share the joy I’ve found here. Here. Take a deep breath and let yourself settle in.

I’ve been surprised by this place and this process. By how different it feels to build something like this from the ground up. It feels so wholly new.

Soon it will be live, and we will share it, but, for now, I thought you might like in on my latest adventure.

I hope to have more to say soon, but either way, it’s nice to be back in my little corner of the internet. I hope this finds you well.

All my love ~ Cherity (AlmostFarmgirl)

On Steadiness and Wintering

Published on by almostfarmgirl1 Comment

“I turned the heat up four degrees,” John walked into the living room with an air of resignation wearing a zip up jacket, heavy sweatpants, and chunky wool socks, “and I don’t even care.”

I nod as he sits down next to me on the couch, acknowledging both our tacit agreement to keep the heat low and his deviation from it.

The house is big and poorly insulated and drafty. It’s expensive to heat, fueled by propane that accounts for one of our biggest singular expenses and much of it sits unused; we exist in only so many rooms of this sprawling 1970s ranch style home. Usually we keep the heat on low and bundle up, using a space heater to make our bedroom a little cozier.

But today?

Fuck it.

We are officially into mid-March, and in the midwest that means circling back to roughly the sixth iteration of winter. Admittedly, it’s been cold for months, but now, with temperatures swinging only just above freezing and regular rains, it’s now cold and damp.

I’m over cold and damp.

The horses are back in winter coats. Ponies have been coming in overnight during the rain and snow, and piggies are still piled in deep, deep bedding that renders them completely camouflaged except for their little snouts sticking up above the hay. I’ve had flashes of “sweatshirt but no coat” chores, but mostly I’m still shrouded in Carhart during my morning and evening rounds.

All of this to say, John can turn the heat up tonight; propane bill be damned.

<<<>>>

Winter out here is hard. It’s long and it’s cold. Come February, I’m over it in a way that I can’t quite describe. Come March, during years like this one where the daffodils pop up promising a change of seasons without any evidence of warmth to back them up, I start to feel a bone deep sort of exhaustion.

It’s the weather.

But, also, right now the weather isn’t the only thing making me feel unsteady and tired. There are some big personal uncertainties that it’s probably best not to discuss here, but that have been making me feel unmoored for months.

There’s my mother’s health. She went into the hospital last year in August and has been in and out of the hospital, notably with a nearly two month stint in the hospital in November, and dealing with health difficulties ever since.

There’s the loss of my dear rescue horse, Jiminy, who passed of old age recently, and watching the decline of one of my favorite llamas of late.

It’s the weather, and it’s more than the weather, and it still feels like the weather. It still feels like something is ubiquitous and in the air.

<<<>>>

It seems like nearly everyone I know is going through this sort of season. Shaky. Uncertain. I have friends dealing with job uncertainty. Personal uncertainty. Relational uncertainty. We, all of us, seem to be trudging, dragging our feet through mud. Our lives seem to be reflecting the season with its slow growth and the deep chill.

That’s not to say that everything is bad. I’m in a healthy relationship. I have the best friends. Supportive family. I’ve started regularly teaching yoga, which I didn’t expect to do but very much enjoy. And even the unsteadiness offers it’s lessons. I recently told a friend that the unsteadiness in my life is a masterclass in stability.

A while back someone told me that I’m the calmest, steadiest person they know. I didn’t quite know how to respond. It was like they held up a mirror, so that I could see what they see, but that reflection of me seemed like someone else entirely.

I told my dad about that comment later, and he asked how I see myself.

“Oh. Like Beaker. From The Muppets.”

“Which one is that?

“The one that runs around screaming all the time…because he’s on fire.”

Dad shook his head, “I think it’s safe to say that version isn’t entirely accurate.”

<<<>>>

John and I picked up a new foster dog yesterday, an 18 month old German Shepherd mix named Steak who the foster organization renamed Stella. She was an owner surrender with her sister to a local animal control.

She climbed into my lap for a hug

Honestly, I wasn’t going to bring home any more fosters until my life found some more solid ground, but she was on the (very) short list for euthanasia, and I’m a sucker for German Shepherds. So we carved out a tiny bit of margin in our lives (with a hacksaw, I’m pretty sure) where there previously was none, and we brought her home.

She’s sweet as pie, and anxious, and a little bit dog reactive, so she won’t be as easy a foster as I had hoped, but she also moved from her home with her sister to a shelter with her sister and then to my house without her sister in the span of weeks. The poor thing is scared and overstimulated and confused.

I recognize some of those emotions in myself, I think. And I believe that it’s only a matter of time until she can relax into feeling safe. She’s already starting to recognize some steadiness in me. I’m starting to recognize some steadiness in me.

<<<>>>

It snowed last night, as though this spring wasn’t wintery enough without putting on a show about it.

Stella is in her crate licking a peanut butter bone. My dogs are chilling on the bedroom floor while I write and John eats breakfast. We didn’t get great sleep last night; Stella howled her insecurity, making sleep elusive, so that’s something we will have to figure out.

And, we will.

The thing I know about winter is that, eventually, it makes it’s way into Spring. The thing I know about wintering is that it doesn’t last forever. The thing I know about unsteady ground is that, if you keep standing up, it usually teaches you to find your footing.

Meanwhile, chores beckon, as they do every morning.

It’s good to know some things in life are one hundred percent predictable.

Preparation and Presence: Some Thoughts on Fall

Published on by almostfarmgirl5 Comments

The barn swallows that make their summer home in our barn have flown south, announcing with their absence that summer is at it’s end.

I suppose they leave one day at dawn. That’s the best explanation I have for the fact that I never notice them leaving so much as I notice that they’ve left. I notice their absence. One day I walk up to the barn, and it’s just…quiet.

Of course, there are other signs of the changing season.

There’s the cricket song that seems to get louder as the weather begins to chill, like a finale to the symphony they’ve played all summer.

There’s the sounds of the Great Horned Owls hooting in the evening as they call back and forth across the property.

But the barn swallows…they herald in the change of season in such a tangible way to me, always appearing and disappearing like magic. Coming and going without fanfare. One day come, announcing summer, and one day gone, my hint of the coming autumn, sandwiched between the first acorns and the fire-red maple leaves.

The presence and absence of barn swallows signal the liminal spaces of my year. The inbetweens.

<<<>>>

I’m almost always a little taken aback by fall. It reminds me of guests arriving early while I myself am running behind. The knock at the door when your hair is still a bit damp, and you haven’t finished putting away the things that had fallen out of place since you last entertained. The glance at your watch and the deep breath you take when you knew something was coming but thought you should have had more time before it actually got here.

Ideally, by the time autumn arrives, the barn is fully stocked with hay. Blankets are washed and put away from last winter, ready to be used again when called upon, and there is a supply of straw set aside to keep little piggies warm as the cold starts to settle in.

Of course, life almost never behaves “ideally.”

<<<>>>

It recently crossed my mind that farm life forces me to strike a balance between presence and preparation in a very visceral way. “Be here now,” only goes so far before you find yourself unprepared for what comes next.

And yet, we don’t have to look very far to find evidence that most of the business of living can’t be prepared for. I can buy hay; in fact, I must buy hay. It’s a necessary preparation, but the preparation is not the living. Stacking hay makes way for winter, but I also must take the season as she comes.

And, if I focus too hard on what comes next, I miss what is right in front of me.

<<<>>>

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself in my veggie garden on my hands and knees, pulling newly turned earth through my fingers in search of potatoes. I started the chore simply because I knew it needed to be done before we have a freeze, but I fell into a rhythm quickly and began to enjoy the process.

Potatoes keep you honest. They force you to pull the weeds you ignored, to turn over the earth, to search with your hands. Potatoes require that you get dirty (or maybe they don’t, but I can’t see the fun in that…)

I felt childlike, pulling my fingers through the loamy dirt in the garden, appreciating the texture of soil that we’ve tilled compost into for three years running. I was reminded of the holes I used to dig in the yard as a child for no real reason. (To see if you really could dig to the other side of the world I think…have I mentioned before that I was a super weird kid?)

I pulled potatoes in shades of purple and gold and red, and they each felt a little like a buried treasure. I almost gleefully tossed them into a box.

I garden for about a hundred reasons: feeding my family, feeding my critters, feeding my friends, reducing our carbon footprint, and appreciating the seasonality of food all come to mind. But the most meaningful reasons for me are the reminders that the garden provides and the presence it brings me into. I dig in the earth and remember that I am part of the earth and that she provides for me bounteously if I let her. That the water I need literally falls from the sky and that the food grows out of the ground I walk on. That potatoes can be pulled from loamy soil in shades of ruby and amethyst and gold, and that real wealth is not metal or stone, but is the food and water and sunlight that sustain us.

When I’m in the garden, especially when I’m literally in the dirt, I’m present. Appreciating the bounty of fall without my thoughts wandering to the coming cold.

<<<>>>

Fall is a liminal space, and sometimes it’s hard to exist in such spaces without thinking yourself forward or backward, but fall on the ranch encourages me to acknowledge what’s coming while sitting with what is here. Soon the freeze will come. Pastures will go dormant. Plants I’ve tending all year in the garden will die back. More of the wild things will migrate, and those of us who make our home here year round will tuck in for the coming cold.

Hay that we’ve set up in the barn, potatoes we’ve dug, squash we’ve harvested, it will all be there to sustain us. The preparations will prove their value. And we will take the winter as she comes.

But, in the meantime, I have more vegetables to harvest and more digging to do on my hands and knees in the cool, loamy soil.

I hope fall is finding you well. I hope you take some time to pause and notice; the swallows have informed me that fall is here, and the leaves are about to remind us of just how beautiful change can be.

Rose in our back woods.

Gardens, celiac disease, and being kind

Published on by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

“Your garden looks great this year!”

“Wow! The garden looks fantastic! Last year by now it was crazy.”

“Man, I’m proud of you. You really kept up with the garden.”

First tomato crop
Butterfly garden.

My gardens are impressive this year. Huge. Productive. Largely weeded. I’m getting comments from nearly everyone who sees them, especially if they’ve see my gardens in the past. Mostly, come July, let alone September, my gardens are lost in the weeds; this year, they looks comparatively manicured. Still, when I hear the compliments they feel a tiny bit sideways. That isn’t how they’re intended.

It’s just how they land.

For some reason, my past attempts feel like failure. More than that, like personal failings.

Why exactly did I succeed this year and fail before? Am I just lazy? Why do I feel blamed for what I didn’t do instead of proud of what I’ve managed to accomplish.

Then I pause, remind myself, sometimes out loud: “Life is easier when you aren’t sick all of the time.”

<<<>>>

Just over a year ago, I found out that I have celiac disease. The changes I have made since–namely ridding my life of all forms of gluten–have been life altering.

Celiac is an autoimmune disorder caused by gluten (a component of wheat) that triggers all kinds of seemingly unrelated symptoms. My symptoms included headaches and migraines, digestive upset, stabbing pain in my stomach, severe fatigue, joint pain, chronic inflammation, peripheral neuropathy, mood changes, and bloating. It also, likely, contributed pretty substantially to both my anxiety and depression. (I mean, I still have those, but they are much more manageable now.)

It’s a pretty extensive list of widely varying symptoms, and before I figured out what was going on, I wasn’t sure whether I was dying or a hypochondriac. (I was beginning to feel pretty sure it was one of the two…)

Over time, gluten exposure can kill the intestines of people with celiac; as such, undiagnosed, it can be deadly. Either way, it makes life pretty miserable.

Within two weeks of getting ridding my diet of gluten, I began to understand what it is to feel healthy. Those weeks were full of epiphanies: You mean it isn’t normal to feel ill after every time you eat? Wait…I literally had a low level headache all of the time? I can make it through a day without taking a nap?

And the weirdest one…

My face isn’t round????

These photos were taken about a week apart. Like I said, not round.

(All of the inflammation had made my face swollen. I lived my entire life thinking I have a round face; I don’t.)

Later, I learned that celiac disease is genetic and that it affects 1% of the general population.

It affects at least 20% of my maternal cousins.

I didn’t realize how much pain I was in, or how fatigued I was, until it went away. I had been running the farm by pushing through pain, and I had beaten myself up for all the ways I hadn’t been able to keep up. Like with the garden.

<<<>>>

Why am I telling you all of this?

Partly, it’s because I discovered this problem by following an internet research rabbit hole. I tested the theory by removing gluten from my diet on my own, and THEN I talked to my doctors about it. I know there are a lot of people out there living with this thing who aren’t aware of it, and I know that it’s possible that telling my story could help. I had been living chronically ill for so long, I didn’t recognize many of my symptoms as symptoms, and I sure as shit didn’t think anything on that random list was related. I’m not the only one.

Also, and this lesson comes up over and over again in my life: it turns out I am often too hard on myself.

<<<>>>

I spent part of the evening shredding yellow squash from the garden for the lasagna I made for dinner and for the muffins I will make tomorrow. Earlier today, I stuck probably thirty tomatoes in the freezer, part of a hack that makes them easy to peel for salsa and canning. I have more green beans than I know what to do with. Honestly, I will probably feed a bunch of them to the pigs this weekend instead of their grain.

I have watermelons to pick, pesto to make, potatoes to dig, and butternut and acorn squash ripening on the vine. My tomato cages have collapsed under the weight of the plants, and my sunflowers, which I honestly just grow for the birds, are 8+ feet high.

My garden looks pretty great this year.

It’s never looked this good before, but it turns out, I’ve never been truly well to take care of it before either. I wish I would have known to give myself a little grace about it before now.

We have all heard the saying “be kind to people, you never know what they’re going through,” and there is so much truth there.

We need to be kind to ourselves too though, and we often are not, not realizing that we don’t always understand everything we, ourselves, are going through.

One of my zinnias from the butterfly garden.

Be kind, loves. Especially to yourselves.

Love like lilacs…on Grandma Alyce and a life well-lived

Published on by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

Everyone and everything I love is holy…

I pause as the sentence pops to mind. It does occasionally, even though it came to me completely by accident at first, the consequence of a mistype and autocorrect.

<<<>>>

A few years ago, a friend and I were chatting about therapy. She was gearing up to go back, but was dreading the work. I was thinking that I probably needed to get back on antidepressants first, because as my depression sat, I didn’t think I would actually get anywhere.

“It would be a fairly nihilistic therapy session,” I began.
“Therapist: so what brings you in today
Me: everyone and everything I love is “

And here’s where I started to write “going to die” and autocorrect changed “going” to “holy.”

I think sometimes the universe interjects itself into our lives, and in this case, I think it was letting me know that I was missing the point.

<<<>>>

Everyone and everything I love is going to die…

My 92 year old grandmother, Alyce, passed away on June 28, leaving behind 9 children, 21 grandchildren, and 26 great grandchildren. Less than a week before, John and I drove up to visit her in the nursing home to which she had recently been moved. We met my cousin Erin there, and the four of us passed the afternoon.

Me, Grandma, Erin, and John

It wouldn’t turn out to be my last visit with her, but the possibility clung to me, a thought I worked to push back. I wanted to enjoy my time with her, and I did. We talked and laughed. Hugged. I turned pages for her while she looked at our wedding album. She told us about the singer who had come to the nursing home the week before. The song she requested. I wish I could remember the name…

Grandma was moved to hospice the next day; it was her choice, and we knew it was coming. She chose to transfer when it became apparent that her congestive heart failure was getting the better of her; she was tired of the doctor visits. Of struggling to breathe.

Maybe, in some ways, she was just tired.

A few days later, I went back to see her again. This time at hospice. She couldn’t speak much, could barely stay awake. The nurses (god bless hospice nurses) kept her comfortable and answered our questions.

Family rotated through. My cousins sat with me. I called my dad and told him to come. I watched several of her sons say their goodbyes. My father audibly. My uncle with a hug.

Her heart was giving out, but her mind was still sharp. She worked to say “I love you” to each of us.

Strange, there was so much sadness in that room, but what struck me over and over was the way love spilled out from every corner. The way it permeated the air.

We stood with her on the edge of death, and it was holy.

<<<>>>

We sat vigil with grandma, no one leaving until the next person had come in. She was never alone.

We talked about her life as we held space for her. Memories each of us had. It’s strange how the people you love, the people who love you, hold different pieces of you. Strange how you can come together and add pieces, one after another, until you paint a vibrant picture.

It’s remarkable how you can come to the end of a 92 year life and leave everyone you know wishing it was longer. I think every single one of us will miss her. And I think the ones who didn’t know her, like my cousins’ children whose memory is still too young, will hear stories that will make them proud of her.

<<<>>>

On July 3, we attended her Celebration of Life.

It’s funny. Knowing her my whole life didn’t quite prepare me for her eulogy. For learning about all of the living she did in the space before me, before my aunts and uncles, before even my grandfather was part of her story.

She had told me about her childhood here and there. I knew that her parents had divorced, in a time when almost no one divorced, and that she had been in the custody of her mother as a young child because her father was willing to take his sons but “didn’t want the girl.” Then she was handed around between caregivers. Her mother. Random relatives. The upstairs neighbor. Her grandparents.

She had a traumatic childhood, one that gave her every excuse in the world to perpetuate the trauma she experienced, but she broke the cycle during a time when people weren’t talking about breaking trauma cycles and mental health resources were far less available. She raised loved and loving children. She was known for welcoming everyone who came through her door (and usually feeding them, even though she actually hated to cook).

I found out that she was a writer, too, in high school. Creative writing. Press club. Even the editor of her high school newspaper. How had that never come up?

I listened to stories about the jobs she held: preschool teacher, Headstart teacher, Meals-on-Wheels deliverer. All jobs that lifted others up. Cared for them.

Hearing new stories from her life felt a little bit magic: a reminder of the depth and breath of nearly a century on this planet. A reminder that we were celebrating a life that had been well lived.

<<<>>>

I asked her what her favorite flower was once. She told me about how her children would bring her lilacs in the spring, and she told me about how she would have liked to have purple roses for her wedding to my grandfather, but that they were poor, so she made her wedding flowers out of tissue. I like that she answered the question with stories.

We had daisies and lily of the valley at her funeral, because I guess those were her favorites, too.

But I think about the tissue roses, and how she made something beautiful with so little. And I think about the lilacs, and how the answer to what she loved wasn’t about the aesthetics. It was about the way her children showed their love. It was about the story.

<<<>>>

Have you ever walked into a grove of blooming lilacs in the evening when the air is heavy? Or walked into a midwestern farmhouse where the cut flowers are sitting in a vase on the table? The scent always registers before the source. It permeates the air.

I think about her final days in hospice, and it occurs to me that grandma spent her final days surrounded by a love like lilacs. A love you felt hanging in the air before you could pin down a source.

<<<>>>

Everyone and everything we love is going to die; everyone and everything we love is holy.

I miss her.

I didn’t see Grandma all that often, but I feel her absence. The planet was better with her on it.

But, also, the planet is better for her having been on it. That, I think, is the most we can wish for anyone in the end.

Well, that, and a holy love.

Like lilacs

Grandma and Grandpa

It’s been a while: Writing, Updates, and the Rule of Three

Published on by almostfarmgirl9 Comments

Hello, lovelies.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Nearly a year since I wrote a blog post from start to finish, more time than I would like to admit. Event after event, thought after thought passed. I made mental notes, sometimes physical notes, drafting out what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite get in all down: the right words in the right order to say the right thing. Putting sentences together so that they are good (and not bad), so that they fall almost like a conversation between us sitting at my dining room table.

I had posts I wanted to write about dear creatures I lost, but sometimes it feels like I speak too much of the loss that gets wrapped up in this kind of life and not enough about the beauty, even though so often they feel like one and the same. I wanted to write about some of the goodbyes.

I wanted, too, to write about some of the hellos. The new fur friends out here, who came to us either by chance or breeding. About the joy of watching baby llamas prance in the front pastures. About my infatuation with the trio of potbelly pigs I named after Shakespearean characters. About the foster dogs who have come and gone on their way to their forevers. About the one I kept.

I wanted to tell you that I got engaged. That I got married. That the boyfriend I mentioned from time to time has upgraded to husband.

Engagement photo. With a horse. And a bike.

Every time I sat down to write something new, it felt like I wouldn’t be able to catch you all up. That too much had happened. That I had been too lax in reporting this almost farm life.

Maybe I was right. Maybe I let it go too long. Or, maybe, I need to extend some grace to myself for not doing everything, all the time, during one of the busier seasons of my life. Maybe I need to thank you for the grace you are offering by coming back, by reading, by sitting down for one of these one-sided conversations after all this time.

I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.

I suppose, now that I’m sitting here again behind this computer, I will have to settle for catching you up in bits and pieces. Fits and spurts. And I’ll start here.

<<<>>>

John and I got engaged and planned our wedding over the course of about 5(ish) months. Engaged in July. Married in December.

Wedding. In San Diego.
Because if you get married in December it’s best not to do it in Central Illinois.

We did it all quickly to squeeze the wedding it in between his last two semesters of college, allowing him, as my spouse, to use some of the free credits I had earned in my years as an adjunct professor at same college. John had planned to propose to me after graduation, but it made sense to move everything forward to put us on slightly better financial footing as we started our lives together.

So I planned a wedding in five months.

In the meantime, I decided to finally take the leap into yoga teacher training, which has been calling me for years.

I guess that’s how I found myself living in one of the busiest times of my life. Farm and work. Wedding planning and yoga teacher training. And while I was living that, John worked through engineering college and held an engineering position as well.

I’m (finally) feeling things slow down.

<<<>>>

A few weeks ago, a dear friend and mentor reached out to me to suggest that I attend a writing workshop she is hosting in the fall. I told her I was interested. That I would need to think on it. Talk to John. Research flights.

She told me, in the most loving way, that she “got this feeling you [I] need to keep writing.”

I sent in a deposit.

I have this theory–I’m not sure I’ve shared with you–that when the same message comes at you from three different directions, it’s a message from the universe. (I’ve had it happen several times, perhaps the most notable when three people asked me, in as many days, if I had considered the possibility that my ex husband was cheating on me. The day after the third repetition of the question, I found his texts to his mistress.)

This time, however, it was a reminder to write, coming from three unconnected people within a week or two.

“Have you been writing?”

“When are you going to finish that book?”

“I’ve got this feeling that you need to keep writing.”

The truth is, I’ve had the same feeling. Not because this blog is wildly popular (it’s not) or because I think what I have to say is a necessity for anyone else (I don’t), but because I feel more “right” in my own skin when writing is part of my routine. It helps me make sense of the stuff in my head, the words I write helping me untangle my thoughts the way you might untangle yarn knotted up by a playful kitten: slowly, methodically, and without judgment.

Plus, the universe told me to do it, so there’s that…

<<<>>>

It’s interesting. All in all, things in my life are good and steady in a way that they weren’t for a long time. I’m grateful.

This is a truth.

Also, it’s easy to let the things we love just…slide.

That is also a truth.

Life gets in the way. Things get busy. God knows the laundry doesn’t stop.

I rationalize: This can wait. That can wait.

Then, suddenly, I realize that it’s been months since I’ve written in anything other than a journal. My riding boots have gotten dusty, sitting unused, while I worried about cleaning stalls. I spent so much time stressing about doing things “right” that I fail to do them at all.

Even in all the good, there is still this search for equilibrium. For balance. For a set of scales that allows me to love and be loved and love myself in equal measure.

Life is tricky that way.

All of this to say, I’m writing again. I’m going to try to keep at it because it is something that I love.

And, I hope, as you read this, you find yourself pulled towards grace and loving yourself…and maybe to that thing that you haven’t picked up in a while.

Maybe the universe is reminding you, too.

Either way, I’m rooting for you.

Leg Yields and Core Values.

Published on by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

“Leg yield off the wall to the center of the arena, and then switch sides and leg yield back onto the wall. It doesn’t matter whether or not you get there. I just want you to try.”

I hear my trainer’s instructions from my spot in the saddle, sitting on a gruella lesson mare named Violet. I turn down the long side of the arena and begin my leg yield, concentrating on the simultaneous use of my hands, legs, and seat to achieve a desired outcome. My focus is on the leg yield, but the second set of her instructions are sticky, and I find myself repeating her words for the rest of the lesson, then again on my drive home: It doesn’t matter if you get there…just try.

<<<>>>

I started taking riding lessons again. Once a week I drive an hour and a half to a dressage barn to ride horses that aren’t mine.

Me and Mac. Gearing up for a lesson.

I did the math, and I’ve been riding on and off for about 27 years. With the exception of reading, singing, and possibly writing, that makes it my the most long term pastime of my life, but in recent years, especially after my marriage to a man who regularly made it a point to criticize my skill in the saddle, my confidence had plummeted, and I didn’t feel up to restarting or riding my horses on my own. When my bestie and riding buddy, Lauren, moved away from the ranch to take up her next adventure, I made the leap back into lessons, hoping that I could rebuild some of the confidence I had lost.

Once upon a time, you could put me on about any reasonable horse and point me at a jump course (or…insert whatever discipline I happened to be riding here…), and I would take off without hesitation. I would do it because I knew that, in all likelihood, I could do it.

But for years now, I’ve been less sure. I’ve been uncertain, and I’m not good at uncertain.

<<<>>>

It doesn’t matter if you get there…just try.

I’ve been thinking a lot about core values lately. If you haven’t heard the term, your core values are your (five or so) fundamental, guiding beliefs. These are the ideas that move you. If you’re living in alignment with them, you are likely to consider yourself on track or successful. If you aren’t living in alignment with them, you will probably feel like shit about yourself or your decisions.

In the pre-pandemic, before times, I taught my students about core values in my business communication class. I did this because I wanted them to understand their internal ethic when it came to how they wished to do business. (Additionally, I think the discussion itself is a valuable tool in anyone’s toolbox; knowing your core values can, among other things, actually make you less susceptible to advertising.)

Values can fall all over the map of human beliefs. They can be a positive force (kindness as a core value, for example), but many of them are not (popularity or wealth building as a core value comes to mind). Some are more neutral (success, because the term really only means what you believe it to mean for you). Some are evaluated based on the reactions of other people external to yourself (again, popularity comes to mind). These values will likely cause you pain, because you’re not actually in control of whether or not you’re living them out. Others, like love, are judged by your own internal rubric.

Research suggests that you’re better off having values under your control (judged by your rubric, not how you think others perceive you) and values that are growth-minded instead of measured by a singular event. (If success is a core value, don’t define it as having a nice car, because when you have the nice car, there will be no where else for the value to take you. They tend to feel empty when that’s the case.)

(Here’s a list with about 500 examples of possible core values. They’re worth a glance.)

Your actions, feelings, and the way you perceive yourself are guided by your specific set of values. It’s best to understand what they are.

<<<>>>

Here are the questions I’ve been asking myself lately: What’s driving me? Am I driven by values that I actually want to be driven by? How am I measuring my success or failure as a person?

Can I change my values to reflect more of the life I want?

I realized the more I dug down that I am judging myself by core values that I don’t actually believe in. A few of them are cultural–material success, productivity, capitalism–and some are ideas that I grew up with and internalized uncritically as a child. (It occurred to me as I worked through all of this that much of the cognitive dissonance we experience as humans comes from the conflict between your values and the values instilled in you by your family of origin (the values of your childhood).)

Growing up, my mother’s mantra was “Be the best.” She continued, quoting her father, “Be the best. If you’re going to be a ditch digger, then be the best ditch digger, and soon you’ll be in charge of all the other ditch diggers.” Honestly, there are some worthy values buried in there, and for some they might have walked away with values of personal responsibility or hard work, but that’s not how it landed for me.

Instead, I got stuck on “be the best,” which distills down to the core value of “best,” and, for many of us, this is a toxic value. For one thing, it’s based on how you compare to other people, and we know that that is problematic, but also, because I valued myself on whether or not I was “best,” I was, and still am, resistant to trying anything that I don’t already know I’ll be good at.

Here’s a fact: I am not the best at anything.

This is not a disparagement. There are certainly things I’m good at, but there is no category in which I am Simone Biles or Michael Phelps. I am not, and will never be, the best. And I’m learning to be ok with that.

<<<>>>

I made a list.

Here’s are the five values that I want to have guiding my life. (Some are hyphenated, so it’s possible I cheated a bit, but I think they’re different faces of the same idea.)

* Authenticity/Vulnerability
* Compassion
* Creativity
* Fun
* Learning/Self-Knowledge

These are my chosen core values. Some of them I do a pretty good job at living out. Others not so much–I am just terrible at fun to be honest–but knowing what I want them to be helps me to measure my actions accordingly.

Here are a few of the values I find myself living by that I’m working to untangle, recognize, and remove:
* Best
* Materially Successful
* Productive

All of these values fuel my perfectionism, which, ironically, makes me way less productive, successful, or likely to ever be the best. I judge myself by them regularly, even though I don’t believe they should be guiding values in my life.

<<<>>>

Back to the lesson:

I worked on leg yields on and off for the rest of the lesson. None of them were flawless.

Once upon a time I used to tell adults that I wanted to ride in the Olympics someday. I don’t think it was ever true. I didn’t have a burning desire to be the best in the world. I really just wanted to spend time with horses, and I felt as though I had to justify it in a productive way, even then. Even as a child.

I will never be an Olympian. I don’t want to be.

Riding lessons take about 4 and a half hours out of my day for me to sit in the saddle for a half an hour. But you know what? It’s a FUN half an hour! It isn’t productive. I will never, ever be the best, but I am learning a lot of new and interesting ways to fail.

It’s reminding me that trying is it’s own reward, even when I don’t achieve my goal, whatever that goal happens to be.

My instructor is still echoing in my head.

“It doesn’t matter whether or not you get there. I just want you to try.”

<<<>>>

Drop a comment if you took a look at the list! What are your core values? Are the values guiding your life the values you want guiding your life?