Hi there! I’m Brandi; a devoted wife and mother of three young children. Before becoming a mother, I attended college and started a career in Human Resource Management. My goals were to climb the corporate ladder, achieve a management or even executive level position, make lots of money & spend it on high quality things to fill my home.
All that started to change after giving birth to my first child; though it would take some time for me to acknowledge the shift. Upon returning to work when my baby was only 3 months old, my stress levels began to rise to new heights. To say I was experiencing internal conflict would be an understatement. What’s strange though looking back is how incapable I was to identify the cause of my deep frustration.
Ultimately, I decided to leave the corporate scene, but not before giving birth to my second child. Once the decision was made and the transition began, I was finally able to focus on the needs of my family and begin to provide for them in ways that are perhaps more important than financially.
Gone were the days of dining out multiple times a week. No longer would we feast on prepackaged meals from the middle of the grocery store. My kitchen and I began to become better acquainted, I became friends with a spade shovel as I turned the sod of part of the yard into a vegetable garden, and the local produce auction gained a new weekly bidder, and I finally dusted off the canner I had been storing for years.
Food is important. It’s what nourishes and sustains us. Isn’t it time we take responsibility for what we feed ourselves. Becoming better informed became an incredibly important pastime (and still is, there’s so much to learn!). Though I cringe, we do still eat fast food on occasion and we pretty much always have a steady flow of lollipops and ice pops in the house but the vast majority of what we eat now is prepared in my kitchen, by my hands, using as many organic ingredients as I can get my hands on.
Once I started feeding my family by my own efforts, it seemed to be a natural progression to also do other things myself. Suddenly, I wanted to grow and preserve my own food. I wanted to find, use, and even modify some DIY recipes like laundry detergent, wood tool butter, seasoning mixes, and more. Come along with me as I discover how to be more self sufficient, protect and respect the world we live in and discover how most everything in our lives does indeed at one time or another, find its way through the kitchen.