I don’t pay attention to the news anymore unless I click on something by accident. Even then, I ninja-swipe like a wasp hovering near my face, because—much like the mail—nothing good ever comes from it. It’s either a bill, bad news, or a letter from a Jehovah’s Witness begging me to please reconsider my eternal salvation.
But every once in a while, a word or phrase hooks me.
I clicked on something random in my “for you” page—the place where my phone thinks it has me figured out. The headline said: “Museum Going Out of Business. Life-Sized Dinosaurs for Sale.”
Now, I’m not a dinosaur person. I don’t remember ever Googling anything close to that. And yet suddenly this felt personal. Why would this be recommended to me? How much does a life-sized dinosaur even cost? Are we talking movie quality or a sad six-foot foam thing?
The descriptions had me wheezing. One said the dinos offered “movement for realistic entertainment and child petting.” The listings were on Facebook Marketplace, right next to someone selling a stained sofa described as “pet-free” and their particle-board bookshelf labeled “probably real wood.”
And once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Then a photo of a massive T-rex appeared. Not six feet. Thirty-nine feet of pure ridiculousness. Price: under three grand. Fine print: buyer responsible for shipping.
That sent me down a whole trail of questions: How does someone move a 39-foot T-rex under bridges? Where do you park it? Who makes a collar that size so I can put a giant dog tag on him labeled “Burt Reynolds”?
Naturally, after processing the idea for a solid thirty seconds, I called my best friend.
“How big is your husband’s flatbed,” I asked, “and how willing would you be to talk him into a drive to New Jersey?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why? Do you need to bury somebody?”
“Not exactly. I need to convince Rob that buying a 39-foot T-rex is a great idea.”
She snorted. “Why would you want one?”
“How badly do you want to help me make the neighbors and the Amazon delivery driver lose their minds?”
“That is hilarious.”
“Think about it,” I said. “We could put a fence around him, give him a giant tennis ball, and add one of those church signs that says, ‘I identify as a German Shepherd.’ For Halloween, we could add fake blood and drape ourselves over his tiny arms. Christmas? Giant Santa hat. Easter? Big dinosaur eggs. The possibilities are endless.”
“Did Rob say yes?”
“I haven’t called him yet.”
“I’m in,” she said immediately.
A few minutes later my son wandered in to find me on my bed, giggling like I’d lost it, scrolling Etsy for vintage Christmas lights and over-sized pastel-dyed eggs.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked.
“How would you like a T-rex for a brother?”
“WHAT!?”
So I explained the entire saga, and he was instantly on board.
“We have to convince Dad,” he said. “This is epic.”
So the two of us approached Rob together.
“WHY would you want that?” he asked. “And what would you even do with it during the day?”
“I’d raise my teacup and say, ‘Good morning, Burt.’”
“And how would we even get it home?”
“Obviously, Tasha would help.”
“We are not getting a 39-foot T-rex.”
Our joy died right there.
Then—one month later—the same listing popped up on his feed. He called me sounding thrilled.
“Hey! You’ll probably say no, but I want a life-sized dinosaur.”
My son and I stared at the phone with rage in our souls.
“Burt already sold,” I said.
“Mom literally asked you for that a month ago,” my son added. “She wanted the 39-footer.”
“I don’t remember that,” Rob said. “Anyway, I want the flying one.”
“You’re right,” I told him. “We’re not buying it.”
Rob left for work at six. I woke up with a migraine roaring between my temples and brain fog thick enough to swim through. Getting out of bed felt impossible. So I didn’t. Not right away. I started with my one-small-step rule.
Before tea can be earned, the mug has to be clean. Before that—the dishwasher needs loading.
—
Round 1: One Small Step, One Clean Kingdom
I loaded the dishwasher just to clear a spot for my cup, and before I knew it, the whole kitchen counter had been cleared too. With a quick wipe down, I was staring at the abyss of pots in the sink, realizing it would be easier not to look at them anymore—and to have a spot for my dirty teacup when I finished drinking my morning tea. So, the pots were scrubbed, and since the kitchen was basically clean, I swept the floor to polish it off. But then I needed a quiet place to sit, which led to a clean living room—all because of one lonely mug. Sometimes, momentum smells like steeping lavender London fog.
—
Round 2: Pee-to-Power Cleaning Routine
I felt that familiar nudge to pee and thought, not yet. Instead, I cleaned the bathroom like I was racing my own bladder. Counters—sparkling. Toilet—gleaming. Trash—gone. When I finally sat down, I did so in a sanctuary of my own making. Strategy. Timing. Dignity, with a splash of Clorox.
—
With the house now oddly presentable, I finally sat with my tea and coaxed Nikolai into movement. That’s when Rob came home before our appointment for a “quick nap,” which usually meant I had time to spare—not a lot, but enough.
His alarm went off, and he mumbled something about two more minutes. He thought he still had the lead on the morning.
He didn’t.
—
Two-Minute Blitz
I showered. Shaved my legs like a ninja. Deodorant. Real clothes. Product through my red hair like I had all the time in the world. (I didn’t, but I acted like it.)
Bag—snatched. Laptop—grabbed. Hair clip—locked and loaded.
By the time Rob stumbled toward the door, dazed and struggling to put on his second shoe, I was already sliding into the car. Cool. Calm. Composed.
In the car, I brushed my teeth, styled my hair, and did my makeup in the mirror like a woman who’d slept through the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty—instead of a five-minute mama power snooze.
—
Boss-Mode Toolkit: How I Pull This Off
None of it’s luck. It’s systems disguised as chaos.
Spare hair clip lives on my purse handle like a faithful sidekick.
Toothbrush and travel-size toothpaste hide in my makeup bag.
I don’t lug a glam case—just the essentials: foundation, blush, lipstick, mascara.
Dollar-Tree hand-wipe pouches are worth their weight in gold—yogurt spill, sticky kid fingers, all handled.
Add a travel facial-cleanser pouch too. It tucks in like it was meant to be there.
And always keep a folding hairbrush in your purse. You don’t want to meet somebody looking like you just chased your ass and lost a war with an electric fence.
—
When we pulled into the parking lot, I looked like I’d had an hour to get ready. Rob looked like he was still wondering what century it was.
That’s farm-mom magic. That’s brain-fog who? energy. That’s I may not have slept, but I drink my power like some people drink energy drinks—with a teacup in my hand.
I didn’t just leave the house—I wrangled disaster into order like a gardener who rips the weeds out of her dahlia bed.
Exhaustion leaves my limbs resting, fever perspires—caressing my forehead. My journals on the nightstand, pen clutched like a weapon, blessed robe where last it hung.
A shadow in the distance— billowing thunder gathers the wind in, until the frames shake and howl. Weary from travel, a cough took pleasure in a rattle, and in my swelling chest began knocking on my rib cage.
Each shadow growing longer, a field mouse scurries yonder. I wonder if it’s my imagination, or dreams slinking down the hall.
My robe tie flickers across the bow of my bed frame— a chill tracing my flesh made me scream. At the edge, my toes retreat, to tangle themselves in sheets, as the mouse—teeth gnashing, eyes lit and flashing— drags a blush ribbon dancing toward hell.
Come, take this fever with you; go back through the depths you came through, and wreak havoc on this body no more.
Yet it ignored my pleas, and went on with its thieving, to claim a ring settling on the nightstand.
Glaring without admission, the bleak creature of my imagination would not break its stare from me.
This kiss of death upon my temple, and his malice of torture, coupled with the knocking—causing gasping— will be the undoing of this mind.
My pills in their bottle— I drown them to dull the horror, and wait for mercy to find me.
When I wake, low clouds linger; my ring sits upon my finger, and a robe ribbon lies across my knee. A songbird at my window, a coolness to my temple— leaves me in good company.
Dear reader: 9 days in Ireland followed by 15 days of bed rest at home from a virus I can’t shake and a rogue field mouse. If you can’t make poetry out of that, what can you do?! Happy almost Halloween! I’ll be back soon.
Rob’s outside swearing at his motorcycle, throwing wrenches like thunderbolts, while I’m trapped inside, forced to leave the window open for his extension cord.
The bugs? Oh, they’re loving it. It’s a 70’s disco party in my bedroom. They’ve got lights, they’ve got a dance floor, and I’m just trying to survive.
Then it happens— this beast of a creature comes flying at my face.
I swear, it’s like a kissing bug and a cockroach had a baby, with extra-long antennas, navigating with sonar and radio frequencies to nail me better the second time.
It flies to the wall— and I dare to get a better look.
Mistake. Because now the sonar’s pinging, and it’s coming back for round two. This thing’s on a home run mission.
I ninja-arm that sucker into the drywall, grab the nearest weapon—a bottle of chewable vitamins— and slam it down like I’m banishing it to the underworld.
I’m currently praying he’s dead.
There’s no rest in peace for bugs in my house. It’s more like a tombstone, and it reads:
“Here lies the devil’s mount, smashed by a 30 count. A bet was lost, so he went home, his ride was left to die alone.”
That’s right. In this house, bugs don’t just die— they get sentenced. In the South, we believe in Jesus— and if you’re uninvited, you’re fixin’ to meet Him.
Watching sunbeams skip across dew drops on the windshield while our rickety car dipped over uneven roadways was beautiful, but as familiar as Grandma’s kitchen. Midnight drives across the United States and waking up to crevices, deserts, and gullies unseen were part of my childhood. Rolled in between blankets pulled off my bed, with snacks and stacks of clothing toppling into my lap, for a girl who belonged to a family of travelers, it was a walk through customs.
I would rub the blurred vision away, attempting to make sense of where I had landed, piecing together the taste in the air for clues and small details. Sometimes it was my mom behind the wheel; other times it was my grandfather, and I’d say, “Papa? Where are we now?” My sense of direction was nowhere close to understanding whether the dashboard was pointed north toward Maine or south toward the coasts of Florida this time.
Always a grin across their lips and a comment resembling, “Oh good! You’re up! Guess where we’re going?” They were identical, my mother and her father—heads tossed back in laughter at my twisted confusion. I was never in on the joke they’d hatched only hours before. A bug creeping across the mattress, a bite waking them to gather maps without much planning, and suddenly we were on a road trip to some unknown place with an unsuspecting surprise.
A good portion of this is why I have been to almost all fifty states (minus two), lived in other countries, and wandered across much of Europe before I reached my thirties. For so long, I wanted to sit still without being pulled away repeatedly. Not a gift I received until adulthood. Yet it was all so exciting, and even now—facing the North Georgia sunshine, I know leaving home makes the taste of magnolia and iced tea swirl across my tongue even sweeter.
Not knowing where I’d land was enchanting. My childhood of spelunking, wading through waves of rippling tide grass, and watching bison tear across the earth hard enough to leave me gasping has carried forward into holding my son’s hand, taking him to places some children never get to experience.
At ten years old, he’s already seen more states than most adults manage in their lifetime. Sometimes the miraculous discoveries land right in our backyard. When I first laid eyes on the advertisement, I knew Nikolai had to see it. At two hundred and twenty-five miles, it was deemed one of the best long-distance balloon races in America.
While browsing the news, an article about Helen, Georgia’s race to the Atlantic held me captive. On a Wednesday night in May, I booked a hotel, packed our vehicle, and buckled my son into the booster seat. His face was the mirror of a younger me. I slid behind the wheel and grinned at the beautiful confusion etched across his features—stormy blue eyes asking all the questions his lips hadn’t readied themselves to speak.
“Guess where we’re going?” I teased, my voice tangled with laughter.
He didn’t have any guesses. I reached a hand toward the back seat, squeezing his fingers. Just my boy and me, setting off on wild balloon adventures. Snacks spilling into his lap, luggage stacked for a two-day trip—the boy never saw it coming.
That night, when I tucked him into a queen-sized bed with a different view of the mountains we had come to love, I kissed his forehead with a promise: spectacular things come in the morning. No glowing television, only shadows on the walls. Excitement so sharp we barely slept.
Our wake-up alarm sounded, but neither of us moved. Still, before the sun, we managed to greet the day, slipping on our shoes in the dim hush. Nikolai’s legs danced their way to the breakfast buffet, the boy nearly eating asphalt in his hurry to reach the car. Switchback roads curled ahead, fog blushing pink and gold as it cascaded into the valley below. I passed the time by asking what he might take on a long adventure.
“Water, snacks! I would need snacks. My binoculars Daddy bought me, and a picture of Daddy since he’s working. Mommy, I would have to take you.”
His words reached into my chest and clasped my heart. My camera, nestled in the passenger seat, slid against the upholstery, nearly tumbling to the floorboard. I caught it, the weight steady in my hand, and my creative mind bloomed with an image of my son—inside a hot air balloon, racing toward the Atlantic. He couldn’t fly with them, but I have a knack for breathing life into his ambitions. I dog-eared the thought and prepared to catch the ember.
Crowds of visitors followed a nature path into the woods where birds fluttered their morning greetings, until the turf gave way to tipped balloons and fire-breathing contraptions nestled in a woodland hollow. Awe and delight lit my son’s face in colors beyond anything he had seen before. Picnic blankets lined the hill for a front-row view, children clutching hands, bug-bitten limbs marked by the soil in the name of anticipation for liftoff. Families sat cross-legged, speaking reverently over hot cups of coffee and pre-made food—every nationality, every shade of skin—gathering for a tradition passed down simply for the joy of being a witness.
When the first balloon lifted, the crowd erupted in clapping, laughter, and well-wishes that echoed against bark and branches. My hands trembled, damp against the camera, as faces peered down from above. Their beautiful vantage became my living nightmare, making me feel effortlessly small. Yet the substance of dreams is believing impossible things. Success comes not only from attempting something massive, but from daring it, even with the risk of falling. Everything I wanted my son to remember was here, drawn out of the wonder of exploring the world.
I learned as much from this perspective as I hoped to teach him. Seeing through my son’s eyes revealed my mother’s and grandfather’s parenting in a new light. Teaching my boy teaches me in return. At four years old, his memory will be hazy, but mine holds it clear. Exploring wasn’t only about me as a child—it was tasting the old, dressed in new seasonings.
Contentment settled as I folded the blanket over my arm after the last balloon drifted toward a cloud shaped uncannily like a T-Rex. The balloons hung suspended in the air as we walked back to the car. Cobblestone streets, a bobbing river, and a hot cup of tea warmed both our hands. Nikolai stooped to collect stones for his pockets—some of which still turn up in random places around our farm today.
When we pulled into the driveway at home, he bolted to his room and dug through the toy box for his flight jacket, goggles, and pilot’s hat. Crayon maps spread across the floor. The dog was conscripted into service as co-pilot, and together they flew past the chickens, who clucked their disapproval.
By day’s end, long lashes rested on peach skin, bowed lips parted slightly, a pilot’s hat tugged low across his face, and an arm draped over the dog’s belly. This autumn, we’re going to Ireland, where history leaves castles scattered across the countryside. My boy will remember every taste, detail, and scent, carving his name from the United States into the world beyond it. I can’t imagine what he will teach me next.
In the early hours before dawn, I stumbled to the sofa in my pink bathrobe—my eyes squinting under fluorescent lights as I yawned and stretched in my pajamas and green fuzzy socks. I listened for the microwave to ping, signaling that my water had boiled—just in time to drop in a fresh bag of tea to wake up my brain.
I snatched my phone to scroll the news—a habit of selecting uplifting articles I might enjoy.
That’s when I came across a botanical mystery I’d never heard of—unusual and completely enchanting.
I gasped—just as Nikolai walked in with his backpack slung over one shoulder and a missing shoe on the loose. His forever-curious mind couldn’t help but plop down beside me, a hand strangling a dangling sock, to see what I was staring at. There on my screen was a picture of a rare thing more lovely than many of the flowers we had grown over the years.
While planning this year’s growing season, I couldn’t help imagining what next year might hold. After three years of waiting, the Everglass House would be finished. I’d finally be able to garden through the winter.
Being a lover of the unusual, I pictured a garden gate tangled with poisonous blooms—demanding respect and distance from the garden while increasing my knowledge of the strange. A farm full of furry faces and a boy to protect put that idea on a shelf.
So instead, I dreamed up a moon garden—just for me. With flowers that only opened at night when the frustrations of insomnia would strike. As a night owl at heart anyway, I enjoy the sounds of the widows and whippoorwills. It’s often hard to sleep in new places (like vacation hotel rooms) that don’t have an opera of tree frogs or the throaty rhythm and twang of Southern leopard frogs adding to the ambiance. When I’m not home, I’m thinking up ways to bottle them up.
The music of the night and the magic of unusual flora embracing the glow of moonlight kissing petals, in my mind, was a recipe of things imagined coming to life—because why not?
What’s more romantic than tiptoeing through starlit grass, hoping you don’t step on a copperhead, just to admire blooms no one else would even notice—much less adore?
So when that strange apparition appeared on my screen, desire bloomed right alongside it—wild, irrational, and entirely out of reach.
As Nikolai and I went down the rabbit hole of facts, it quickly became clear—finding one without falling for a scam was like digging for gold in a silver mine.
I tucked my disappointment into my pocket, saved the screenshot like a secret, and walked out into the drizzle with Nikolai, dodging mud puddles in the thick morning air. We dashed through a downpour over to Natasha’s house to wait for the bus. Niki—the walking encyclopedia—started spilling facts about the phantom we encountered from the moment we shook the water clinging to our clothing.
“They have to see it, Mom!” I smiled at his need to share—and sure enough, their eyes were wide with disbelief, just as mine had been.
“You need that plant, LaShelle,” said my habit-enabling bestie—the same woman who loads up her car with mystery greens and tells my husband she has no idea how those plants ended up at my house. Thank goodness for her and my other bestie, who basically deals in perennials like it’s contraband and I’m the willing addict. I’d be nowhere close to the garden of my dreams without them.
“I mean… it’s a cactus. I don’t do cacti. Or succulents (moss rose excluded). They’re like the introverts of the plant world, and I’m not a fan of the desert.”
Natasha narrowed her eyes. “LaShelle. It. Has. All the things you love. You literally collect them like trophies. Don’t even pretend.”
“Yeah, I know… but it’s not like I can make a centerpiece out of it.” I gave a helpless shrug. She rolled her eyes, and we moved on. I mentally tucked the specter away where it belonged.
A few months later found us in Arizona, juggling a family visit while Rob was off on his annual motorcycle trip. Nikolai and I were fitting it all in—sun, relatives, and a whirlwind schedule while shaking off jet lag—when I stumbled into the vibrant chaos of a desert farmers market, wild vivid color, dust, and distraction.
A birthday extravaganza for my mom, my brother, his fiancée, and my wonderful husband—all in the same month—left me snagging homemade non-GMO bagels for everyone and balancing motherhood.
I bobbed and weaved past vendors peddling chaos, handing out the universal phrase for “no thanks”: “Maybe later!” I zeroed in on the coffee and tea stand like it was a safe house—matcha never questions my choices, and lavender never asks about family reunions.
Rob was most likely still tearing down some canyon road like a cowboy in a helmet. He was supposed to meet up, but I was sure he wouldn’t make it.
I wasn’t there for the trinkets—but I had every intention of adopting a few. Not because I needed them, but because retail therapy speaks fluent serotonin. And unlike actual therapy, it doesn’t ask hard questions or bring up my childhood.
Then I saw it—a quaint little plant stand filled with things I hadn’t seen before. And one stopped me in my tracks.
A bizarre cactus—the very kind I said I didn’t want—with a white flower blooming at the top. As far as trinkets go, the living ones trump the rest.
“Umm, excuse me, sir? How much is this?” I attempted to ask the guy behind the counter.
A tall brunette was doing her best to melt the pavement—long legs, dramatic flat-ironed hair tosses, chic sunglasses perched across her nose. The kind of laugh that comes rehearsed—while the plant seller’s wife looked like she was counting to ten in three languages.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I rolled my eyes so hard someone probably heard them hit the back of my skull. Still, I wasn’t giving up—because like a kid holding their pee too long, I had to go… to the car with the thing I told my best friend I didn’t want.
The plant seller’s wife stepped in to tell me she had no idea what it was, but she mentioned the cost. I told her I’d think about it—not because it was unreasonable, but because I was tired of waiting for answers to questions I wasn’t going to get. As I turned to leave—bam—that vision hit me. The one I saw on that rainy morning before Nikolai left for school…
“Do you happen to have this bizarre plant I’m looking for? You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but if I leave without asking and find out you did… I’ll never forgive myself.”
She looked caught off guard, and I figured I was correct. She had no clue.
Clutching my wallet, juggling bags, and hanging onto matcha for dear life, I turned again to walk away—until the keeper of the plant tables finally spoke to stop me.
“What did you ask for?” His eyes lit up, voice suddenly curious—as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just heard. “That’s my favorite plant of all time. It constantly gets overlooked because people have no idea what it can become.”
I could relate.
“I actually do have one. I rarely bring them to market because nobody buys them, but… I brought one with me today. Just in case.”
I nearly gasped. Swooned. Needed a defibrillator. I called Rob right away—he had miraculously pulled over and answered. I didn’t cry, but I may have proposed all over again right there in the middle of a dusty parking lot with cactus fever in my voice. “If you love me,” I said, “you’ll buy me this weird and wonderful plant, and I’ll never ask for anything else ever again—until next week.”
Meanwhile, my brother and his fiancée were staring at me like I’d lost my mind. His sweet fiancée nodded enthusiastically—probably trying to understand my sanity.
Hands trembling, I whipped out my debit card, swiped—and in the blink of a flirty brunette, the floral drug deal was done. No need to call the DEA—I was high on chlorophyll.
We finished shopping while I rode a cloud—floating over oceans of giddy elation.
I wrapped my arms around her to skate through the market aisles, surrounded by floods of colorful items I no longer gave a crap about. The bite of spicy peppers and fresh-cut onions lingering from street-side taco trucks wafted behind as I neared the car. I shielded her sacred limbs with my umbrella fingers—terrified someone might bump me and snap her limb. Those nubs were the precious jewels in the Queen’s crown.
And then my mother spotted me and laughed. “That’s what you bought? Fifty dollars?”
I refused to let her rain on my excitement. “Absolutely,” I said proudly. “And she’ll need her own seat in the car.”
I nodded like I was punctuating a sentence. Thankfully, Niki was once again spewing facts about this incredible marvel people underestimate and look at with concern. I tucked her into a throne of my possessions, and we set off from one destination to the next—until we finally made our way to meet my wonderful husband.
I was beaming endlessly, like the sun does in the Mojave Desert—still trying to call Rob to prepare him for her arrival. Our car pulled into the parking lot of a run-down fast food joint—its neon sign half-lit, half-dead, and falling off-kilter. Rob’s motorcycle looked well-weathered, with a rogue tumbleweed clinging beneath the wheel well. Parked side-by-side with the bike his best friend John rides, battered with raindrops.
I held my breath, squared my shoulders, and walked with purpose.
Smiling as I entered and slid into a broken plastic orange seat next to my husband, I bit my cheek nervously as I began to explain myself.
“Hey babe! I missed you! Listen… about that plant you let me buy—yep, the fifty-dollar one. Um… I need to warn you before you actually meet her, okay? A little pre-introduction, if you will.”
His eyes were already suspicious. His hair a mess from the helmet and exhaustion clearly etched.
“What did you do?”
“I bought it like you said I could! Rob approved, I even asked first, so you can’t be mad at me,” I said with a tilt in my voice.
Now he’s really concerned.
“I don’t think I want to see it,” he said.
I could tell he was nervous—and I laughed hesitantly. That plant was traveling first-class—from the Arizona desert to the humid jungles of North Georgia—and he had no idea what he was in for.
“Look… she’s different, okay? It’s not about what she looks like—it’s about what she’ll become.”
Just… come meet her, but understand I warned you first. Smiling, I led the three of us—plus my mom—toward the vehicle, doing my best to keep the giggles at bay. I led them to where I’d put her. Holding her out in my hands, as an offering of my delight, I said, “Rob, meet the Queen.” And then I saw it—the horror. The color draining from his face.
“You spent fifty dollars on a stick?!” he cried, exasperated.
And honestly… I get it. Kinda.
“She’s not a stick!” I fired back protectively. “She’s the Queen of ALL Sticks!”
John was dying—full wheeze-laughing, side-clutching.
I scrambled to set her down gently—Queen of the Sticks—and pulled up a photo on my phone to show him the wonder she would one day become.
“It’s a stick! Planted in sand! You can’t be serious. Are you sure you didn’t get scammed?” he retorted.
“No, I know what I’m talking about here. It’s not a scam. She’s magnificent… you just don’t know her yet.”
He sighed—the sound of a defeated man shaking his head because he loved me, and the drug deal had been done.
On the way home, she sat front and center with a full view of the open road—Rob held her steady, shielding her from launching through the windshield or being smacked by Niki’s sleep-flailing feet in the back. Not because he liked her, but because he adores me. A true knight… reluctantly sworn into the Order of Botanical Nonsense. Like a reluctant midwife to a cactus baby.
I couldn’t resist. I snapped a few pictures and sent them to Natasha—and before I could even blink, my phone lit up with judgment.
“What is that?” “It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen! That can’t be the same thing.”
I leaned in close to the stick and whispered, “Shhh. You’re beautiful on the inside.”
When we made it back to Georgia, she didn’t just come home—she arrived.
First plant in the Everglass House, obviously. She’s already claimed a shelf like it’s a throne and demands filtered light like it’s a spotlight.
Rob still walks by now and then, muttering, “It’s a stick.”
And I just smile, sipping my tea like I’m not about to win an award for Best Supporting Plant Parent.
Because one day, she’ll bloom. And on that glorious, fragrant day— I will demand an apology in writing. Notarized. Possibly framed.
Every farm-related crisis happens at the most inconvenient moments. Thunder rattles the house and storm clouds gather in the distance, a fence is down, flower boxes hang by a single nail. In the middle of preparing the farm for heavy winds and downpours, few things catch me off guard. I keep bale string in my back pocket, a stick or stump nearby to wedge a gate shut or push some chicken wire upright temporarily. I’m the rock star of rig-it-until-it’s-functional. A VIP in farm management.
Blue lotion on the fly to ward off infection for our farm baby-boo-boos, and “never a dull moment” is a religious motto I utter under my breath like a prayer to ward off psychotic incidents. The hay is always gone when you need it most, having slipped your mind to replenish it. Cat food in hand. Of course, the dog food’s missing when it’s too stormy to whisk off to the grocery store. Every once in a while, the crazy kicks up a notch, and I’ll be left in a field blinking, wondering what happened to the peace and quiet the morning began with.
Such was the case in one of the more head-scratching moments of farm-life insanity.
Georgia had been raining for weeks. One of the most unusual summers we’ve ever had—nonstop downpours during a time when our creek usually dries out. The flowers were stunted, my mood just as dark and sullen as the skies, and every walk in the big field continued to knock my spirits down. Plenty of identifiable floral stalks, but not a single bud. Hundreds of dollars in planted seeds—seeds I feared had drowned beneath the endless rain. I wanted to sob.
Yet there’s never any time to do such things. Another storm was coming, and Niki needed help with chores to get safely inside. Damaging wind, hail, and possible tornadoes on the horizon.
The weather doesn’t care how much we hate what it’s doing to our farm—it will rage onward. We’re just along for the ride. We keep those spare ties to hold everything together. Nikolai, disappointed by the lack of warm lake swims and golden sunshine, was equally moody but trying to make the best of it. Scrambling to feed everyone, searching the house for a morsel of canine buffet before the flood, I glanced out the window and saw Niki scowling at a patch of ground.
Shirtless, belly sticking out, hands on his hips like a pint-sized farmer and eyes full of concern. My brain was already annoyed because time was of the essence, and it was being wasted. A convenience we don’t have. I sighed, slipped on my shoes since he’d stolen my boots—again—and stepped out the door.
He was already marching up the hill, briskly making his way across the gravel driveway, a scowl etched into his face.
“What are you doing? We have to hurry, kid. Where’s your shirt?”
“I forgot it—Mom, I have to tell you something.”
“How do you forget a shirt? Caspian’s hay is going to make you itch forever. Maybe even rash. Hidden spiders. Might even run into Frank. That’s a big no-no. Shirt. Now.”
“But Mom—”
“Now.”
With a huff, he stomped up the steps to do as I asked while I sorted through our list of responsibilities. Next thing I knew, he was running back out of the house—wearing half of a respectable outfit and the other half pajamas.
“Mom, you have to listen to me. I think Moose ate half a person.”
I laughed. Moose is old, gray, the lover of the farm. A friend to all things feline. The neighborhood kids’ favorite—a child nanny on four legs with a big grin.
“There’s no way that’s possible. What do you mean by half a person?”
“I found… legs,” he whispered.
“What kind of legs? A lot of animals have legs, bud—you know this. Chicken legs? We’ve seen those a million times.”
“I know what chicken legs look like, Mom. And it’s too big to be a possum. Definitely not an armadillo. Seriously. They’re huge, very long, and… there’s two of them.” His eyes—terrified.
Meanwhile, I was mentally preparing for a crime scene. Thinking back to the days prior, when a hint of death had caught on the wind—but I wasn’t sure where it had come from. Brushing it off, I had gone about my business. Running errands, managing the to-do list.
Now I couldn’t stop wondering—what exactly do you do if you find a pair of legs? I should call the police, right? Does that mean they’ll bring reinforcements? Finish off my seedlings by trampling my garden? Put a pause on the greenhouse build?
I gulped. How had Moose dragged home man legs?
Looking up at the sky, I ran through every technique people use to preserve remains without contaminating anything. I thought back to every crime novel and podcast I’d ever consumed. My brain came up empty. Only a mental image of horror—blood everywhere. I swallowed the fluid rising in my gut.
“Oh, and Mom? They’re… hairy and… attached.”
Attached?
Farm life has prepared me for many things, but this wasn’t one of them. I was already in a mood that morning after walking past one carcass—my summer snapdragons, torn apart by Ripley, our German Shepherd. I was still heartbroken, but this was a new level. Two legs. Not roots. LEGS. Hairy legs! I wanted to throw up.
“Where are they?”
“You can’t miss them, Mom. Just keep walking straight.”
Should I grab a bottle of water? Vomit messes up crime scenes, right? My DNA on attached hairy man legs—or woman? Women can have hairy legs too. God, please don’t let someone kill me before I’ve shaved all my girl parts.
I crept forward—slowly, cautiously, bracing for horror. Moose sat beside them, proud—like, I totally brought home this delicious prize, Mom.
Then I burst out laughing.
He wasn’t wrong. They were ridiculously hairy legs. Man legs? Debatable, since the rest was missing. Human? No—thank God. The deer they belonged to was probably part of a crime scene somewhere else though. Poaching this time of year is a no-no—especially on my land.
Nothing like a side of botulism for brunch.
Did I clean them up?
HA! No. I left them for my wonderful husband. Bless his heart. I’ve cleaned up more carcasses on our farm than I care to count. When Rob’s home—I save the dirty work for him. Moose only kills things that threaten our flock or things she believes don’t belong around us. She works hard for her scrambled eggs with cheese. She earns every sprinkle of cheddar.
The storm inched closer. The chores got done just before the downpour. And I ended up on the sofa smiling. A reheated cup of tea in hand. I skipped the podcasts, because the best crime scenes… are the kind I live through.
Only on a farm do you go looking for a corpse, find a pair of hairy deer legs, and still have to finish feeding the dogs before the tornado hits.
How I ran on the day I was lost—and the reason I never truly was.
I put my hand over my heart and begged it to stop rattling against my rib cage. Rain hammered my bare skin. The trees were suffocating me, and I was locked within them. If I stopped now, they would become my tomb. Strands of wet red hair clung to my face where salty tears mingled with the sky’s runoff. I was going to die.
Thorns and branches clawed at every inch of me, tearing tiny trenches that bled in beads. Wobbly legs carried me toward a break in the trees where I spotted an empty shoreline. Thunder rolled in the distance. Waves collided with the sand, frothing and swirling with rage. The last time I’d been here, sunlight kissed my cherry cheeks and a pink popsicle melted over my fingertips. My cousins laughed. My mom handed me napkins with a smile. This time, I was alone.
I gagged on sobs and sand, my breath clawing to escape. My mom was probably being told no one could locate me. I pictured her voice breaking as she screamed my name—fists clenched around the silence, unanswered. I imagined her describing the dress I wore. It had been beautiful this morning, delicate cornflower blossoms on white cotton. Now, it wouldn’t be recognizable. I’d used it to wipe away streaks of mud that painted my legs. I raked my hands across the hem, trying to scrape the grime from beneath my nails.
Earlier, I had twirled my way to the campground showers like a princess. But the longer I waited for my cousins to get ready, the more impatient I became. I ventured off toward camp alone—one trail led to another. Had I turned left? Right? Or gone straight? If I could just get higher… maybe I’d see a landmark, something to guide me.
I climbed a dune near the tide-worn slope, knowing full well my mom would be furious. It was against the rules to be out here by myself. But I made an exception—for life or death, rules bend. Even as the sand burned blisters into the soles of my feet, I refused to step into the waves. The climb was brutal. My legs finally gave out, surrendering to the pull of gravity and grit.
A jagged piece of driftwood sliced through my arch, staining the bark crimson. I screamed in frustration, my foot throbbing. I collapsed into the sand, letting the tears fall hot and fierce. Maybe some hiker would find my missing shoe, the one that got sucked into a mud pit. Or the other—the one I threw after failing to retrieve it. Maybe they’d find my body sometime after that.
Somewhere between the tears and the tide, I came unstitched from myself. The tiny speck of cotton and floral print among rolling dunes gave herself permission to cry—but not to quit. When the sun cracked through the clouds, she shaded her eyes with her fingers like a visor. There it was: a boardwalk stretching toward the woods. Relief escaped, wild and breathless. She still didn’t know how to get home, but she might find help.
She sprinted. The muddy dress flared behind her, torn and tangled. When she reached the planks, her stomach knotted tighter. She’d barely eaten breakfast. It was nearing lunchtime. The boardwalk snaked through an eerie marsh of stumps and skeletal limbs, but she forced her mind to stay focused. She laughed when a frog’s tongue shot out to catch a fly—and stuck to his own eyeball instead. He blinked, confused. She cackled harder.
Overhead, a seagull tucked its wings and dove through a seam in the clouds. It danced with the breeze and pierced the sky like a dart.
I bet he could see the way home… I wish I had wings like his.
I turned a corner—and froze. I wasn’t alone anymore. A man appeared on the path. Relief bloomed, then wilted. Something in his posture unnerved me. He tried to smile, but his pale eyes looked sharp.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I replied. Scrambling for words I could hurl like stones.
His body crept over mine, a position making my hair prickle.
“Catching up,” I said, pointing behind me.
My gut told me to run. So I did.
I ran until my chest felt full of splinters. I remembered how his eyes had lit up when he thought I was alone—and how they darkened when I hinted I wasn’t. That image gave me a second wind. I ran harder.
The boardwalk ended at a three-way dirt fork in the road, and no forestry signs to guide my next move. My stomach howled. Breakfast had been missed. The sky had dulled again, the path even more challenging to follow. I was out of energy. Hope was cracking under the weight of exhaustion.
Then I heard it. The roar of an engine.
A park ranger skidded to a stop on a four-wheeler. Relief poured over his face as he grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“I found her! I found her! Tell her mom I’m bringing her back!”
The static buzzed like a lifeline.
Through tears, I explained about the lost shoes, the beach, the mud. He patched up my feet while I talked. As he placed a sunshine-yellow sticker over the cut, he was the one who winced.
“The beach was cleared,” he said gently. “A boy your age drowned. Pulled under by the current. We tried to find him, but it was too late.”
He paused.
“When your mom heard the rumor that a child had washed ashore, she thought it might’ve been you. She was praying it wasn’t… even as she ran through camp trying to find you. We didn’t stop looking.“
He scooted forward and I climbed on behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. My legs dangled off the side, my fingers clenched tight. I rested my head on his back as we roared through the trees. My hair waved goodbye to the marsh. The dunes. And the girl who wasn’t left behind with the ghosts of the sea.
*You may remember this one, you may not. As I improve my skills, I go over my work to see if my voice is stronger *
Rob had a plan. A frugal, muscled, manure-laced plan. “Why would we pay for compost,” he asked with a straight face, “when we have tons of it sitting right there in Caspian’s pasture?”
He gestured toward the rolling expanse of the donkey kingdom like it was brimming with untapped riches. “It’s free!” he said. “Just a little labor.”
A little labor.
What Rob failed to mention was that this “free” manure came with a multi-step gauntlet of trials. First, you had to fill a wheelbarrow with the sacred poo—three full loads just to make a dent. Then came the real test: shoving it over the unforgiving lip of the gate, a move that required either brute force or a rotting shiplap ramp built out of splinters and one good heave.
Or, if you wanted to get fancy, you could slingshot it from the far side—right up against our Alcatraz-grade fence—and pray Caspian didn’t make a break for freedom.
And if by some miracle you managed not to baptize yourself in donkey droppings and drag your prize all the way up the gravel driveway to The Monet Garden—well, you could consider yourself divinely chosen. Blessed by heaven and flora.
Naturally, when Rob left on a work trip to Miami to fix helicopters (a much cleaner endeavor than air-frying manure), I took matters into my own dirt-smeared hands.
I added bags of pre-composted equine nuggets to the grocery list. At just over $2 a bag, it was practically a spa treatment—with no donkey braying in the background and no threat of slipping on hockey pucks.
I drove the car right up to the garden gate, lifted each blessed bag out like it was a newborn calf swaddled in black gold, and dropped it like it was fresh. No shovel wrestling. No donkey surveillance. No uphill martyrdom.
And the best part? I didn’t smell like a barn for three days afterward.
So yes, I technically committed a compost crime. But in the eyes of tired arms, overburdened wheelbarrows, and delicate nostrils everywhere… I am the hero this garden needed.
Let him think it came from the pasture. Let him believe I earned every shovel’s worth with biceps and glutes. I’ll never tell.
I am woman. I am gardener. I am compost criminal— and I have no regrets.
Everything’s bigger in Texas—including the regret.
Somewhere in the middle of BFE Texas, it happened. Two miles down the road from a dusty gas station, the betrayal hit me like a freight train: gas station hard-boiled eggs. They sat there, all innocent in their little plastic container, whispering promises of protein and convenience—but they were traitors.
The Texas sun was doing its best to cook me alive—hot as Hades, the kind of heat where your sweat sweats. And let me tell you something: when they say there’s no humidity in Texas? They lie.The air clung to me like judgment in a Baptist church on a Sunday, while the sun hovered above like a personal heat lamp, daring me to breathe.
Rob was waiting in the car, tapping his foot, muttering, “Hurry up, we don’t have all day.”
Oh, Rob. You sweet, clueless man. I wanted to yell back, There’s no stopping this train! It’s already left the station! But I had no strength left to explain.
I stumbled into the bathroom, hoping for relief. Instead, I found a Texas nightmare. Half-stalls that offered views instead of privacy. Walls that stopped halfway up, like they gave up on the concept of dignity. A wide-open skyline view of BFE Texas—because who doesn’t want to see the sunset while they’re fighting for their life?
Flies were mating on my drumsticks. Mating. I sat there, trapped, sweat pouring, stomach cramping, the scent of dust, cheap soap, and my own slow demise wafting in on the breeze.
And then, the sound—clink, clink, clink—the jingle of a dog’s tags outside, and a couple talking softly, like they were out for a leisurely afternoon stroll. Their voices drifted in like a gentle breeze. I sat there in the stall, dying, praying they didn’t hear me, praying the wind didn’t deliver a sample of my suffering. And if it did… maybe they’d think their precious poodle ate roadkill.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, a Hispanic woman sat in the stall next to me… FaceTiming her kid. Like she was in a coffee shop, just chatting away, smiling, letting her child see the bathroom sky and stained brick wall behind her.
Her voice rang out, all bright and cheerful: “¡Hola, mija!”
And there I was, gripping the walls like a tornado was ripping through my intestines, thinking, Lady, now is not the time for a virtual family reunion. Meanwhile, I was fighting for my life in Stall Two, and she was catching up with her kindergartener like it was just another Tuesday.
But then… she fell silent. A pause. A breath that hitched. And I knew: the eggs had claimed another.
We were in this together now—two strangers, united by the betrayal of gas station eggs, the half-stalls of Texas, the humidity they swear doesn’t exist, and the absurd, silent prayers that maybe the breeze would pin blame on the dog instead.
Outside, Rob scowled. “Hurry up already,” he called.
But there was no hurrying. My stomach was still pissed off, rumbling like an angry storm that wasn’t done yet. This wasn’t a bathroom break—it was a full-blown survival saga.
When I finally emerged, pale, drenched, my legs shaking like I survived an earthquake—I made a silent vow to all the creatures who were impacted by my internal hell:
I survived. But let it be known: I will never eat gas station eggs again.
Skin to stars, fear to freedom—the night I stopped asking permission and leapt anyway.
I sat on the dock with my feet dangling over the edge. Wisps of red hair, slick with sweat, clung to my forehead and neck like they’d melted there. I tried to pry them away, piling the mass of flames on top of my head in desperation to cool down, but they tumbled right back again. Sticky and stifling, the humidity made it all feel unbearable.
Maybe that’s why the idea came—born of a wicked Tennessee heat wave and the war-tangled grief I’d been carrying for months.
Fear constantly hummed in the background, like static ruining a good song on the radio. But somehow, the day had dulled it. The volume turned low enough to let in something quieter: a breeze through the pine needles, like church bells in the woods. The worst things were still there, tucked in a corner of my mind, waiting for me to wear them again like a second skin. The fear that my husband might not make it home. The fear of deep, dark water, even as my legs hovered just above the ripples.
I’d never really learned to swim—more flailing than floating. Graceful swan dives? Not a chance. And I never did shake the locker-room shame that clung to me whenever I had to undress in front of other girls.
Hush. Hush. Hush.
The waves whispered as I swirled my toes in the murky darkness at the edge of the rotting dock. If I was so afraid, why did I feel drawn closer? Why did danger call to me like an invitation?
The stars danced across the water like fireflies, even as summer began to fade. The moon shattered into shards of glass, and three of my favorite girlfriends gathered beside me. We laughed, still sticky from a day of trail rides, buttered popcorn, and watermelon for dinner. We smelled like manure and bug spray, and I was happy.
But even in that joy, I knew—somewhere in Afghanistan, my husband might be dodging mortars.
Every morning I woke to an empty bed was a fresh ache. I thought about death often, in the quiet moments between living. I needed something to rattle my bones. A shock to the system. A reason to breathe deeper.
He was always the one to pull me out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t the risk-taker.
I’d never been drunk (still haven’t). Never touched drugs. Never put a cigarette to my lips. I was proud of that (still am), but I wanted to know what freedom felt like. Real freedom—the kind that lives beyond the anxiety that chains you to the safe thing, the right thing, the expected thing.
To my church friends, I was the “bad girl” from Chicago—too many jokes, too much sarcasm. To my non-Christian friends, I was the tight-laced killjoy quoting Bible verses at the party.
Those pieces made up who I was, but none of them felt accepted.
There was another version of me—one most people never saw. Sure, I could be uptight, wildly critical. But I could also smack my bestie’s booty with a riding whip in a kink store. Play Marco Polo inside Walmart clothing racks. People-watch and laugh until my ribs cracked.
What I really wanted was freedom—the kind that came with letting go of all the versions of me that other people had decided were true. I needed liberation from the prison I’d built inside myself.
I stared at the water, dark and waiting, and I couldn’t shake the thought of how good it might feel to be fully submerged. To quench the heat. To stop spiraling through worst-case scenarios and just see what might go right.
The frogs croaked. The crickets joined. The trees pulsed with sound. We talked. We cried over things we’d never said aloud. We howled over memories long passed.
Link by link, the night unchained me.
It was like finding the key to a lock I didn’t know had been closed. A voice inside me whispered: I can do this.
“We should go swimming.” …Did I say that out loud?
“We don’t have enough swimsuits,” my blonde friend said, pouting.
“Do we really need them?” I asked, pulse racing.
“You mean like… skinny dipping?” my brunette friend giggled.
“Why not?” I said.
How deep was the lake again? Could my feet touch the bottom? Doubtful. Fish? Probably. Snakes? Most definitely.
Too late to take it back. A pact had been made.
We left our clothes in crumpled heaps on the landing. I slipped the useless hair tie from my tresses and curled my toes around the edge of the pier. My stomach flipped. Goosebumps prickled down my spine, but I was still—my bare back facing the woods, my eyes locked on the splintered sky beneath me.
I inhaled deep. Held it. Squeezed my eyes shut—
—and squealed before launching myself into the Milky Way.
Twisted red locks fanned around me like wildfire, and my heart paused mid-beat. Everything I’d been afraid of was left behind with the heap of laundry on the dock. For one sacred moment—
I was the brave one. I could do anything I set my mind to. And I could do it without someone holding my hand.
The lake kissed my skin with icy lips. The shock stole my breath.
I was swimming naked in a bottomless lake. I was doing the unthinkable. I was facing every single fear I’d ever known—and screaming, You can leave now.
My soul had never tasted such joy…
…right up until my foot touched something slimy.
My pale legs flailed beneath me, kicking water in every direction. I imagined I looked like a gladiator, a goddess reborn.
To anyone watching, I probably looked like a panicked fish slapping the surface, begging to be rescued. But I didn’t care.
A whippoorwill cried out from the shadows—like my soul reaching for light.
I was washed in pride. A caged bird, no longer.
Facing the unthinkable in the deep dark night.
*If this sounds familiar, it’s a rewrite. Proof I’ve grown quite a lot since I’ve been away without Wifi.*
Because cooking is hard, Pinterest is a liar, and my microwave just died of natural causes.
I have a confession.
A sad, broken microwave has been sitting on my kitchen floor for at least a month now. I’ve seriously considered making funeral arrangements. There may already be a eulogy typed up and tucked away on my desktop in a folder labeled Upload to Facebook. Every morning, I pass it like a fallen comrade on my way to make tea in its replacement—an equally doomed soul I’ll probably kill in six months. I’m hard on microwaves. It’s a known issue.
I’d like to be one of those crunchy moms—you know, the ones who only feed their kids organic food, make their own baby purées and granola, and wear “earth mama” linen with pride. Truth is, someone once added me to a Facebook group like that just because I’m vegetarian. I had no idea what a crunchy mama even was. The moment I figured it out, it was unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe! Not a shred of guilt was shed.
I’m sure there’s a kombucha-brewing, free-range-egg-loving, apron-wearing whole-foods chef reading this right now, silently judging me through his sprouted almond milk latte. If OpenAI ever creates an in-house chef who’ll look inside my fridge and magically transform forgotten veggies into gourmet meals, I will personally Venmo them my entire grocery budget. No shame. Just send that baby next-day delivery. I’ll be the one at the door, cash in hand, yelling, “TAKE MY MONEY!”
Back before the internet was a fast-twitch muscle and we all had to dial up with a chorus of beeps and static, I once asked my mom if I could microwave a potato—poke holes in it like we did for baking, only quicker. She told me no, because she said it wasn’t possible. Not because it was the truth, but because she didn’t like them that way. She wanted the full 45-minute oven bake. So I believed her. For years. Never questioned it.
Then, in my twenties, I was watching my grandmother’s twelve-year-old adopted daughter for the summer. We were chatting about dinner and I mentioned wanting a fully loaded baked potato—but complained about how long those took to make. She stared at me like I had six heads.
“You know you can just… put it in the microwave, right?”
She blew my entire mind.
I immediately called my mom, outraged. My culinary innocence had been manipulated. She just laughed. Laughed. “Why didn’t you Google it?” she said, completely unbothered.
And that, my friends, is where the story begins.
One day, Pinterest blessed me with a glorious photo of freshly baked bread—golden, buttery, heaven incarnate. I called my best friend. “We have to make this.” We gathered the ingredients, filled a cart, and headed to her kitchen. I was extremely helpful. I floured my hands occasionally and patted the dough like I used to pat my son’s back when I burped him as a baby.
We needed a DIY broiler. The internet said a pan inside another pan with a lid could work. She had a glass one and assured me we’d be fine—if we were very careful. We set the timer, slid the precious loaf inside, and checked on it regularly like doting new parents.
Then came the smell.
When the scent of burning reached tear-inducing intensity, she grabbed the oven mitts and barked something about boiling water. I missed the full instruction. The Pyrex shattered. Loudly. It exploded with such drama, it sprayed glass from her oven all the way into the living room around the corner. It sounded like a crime scene gunshot victim.
My husband loves to tease me about “hiring her as backup” so he gets decent food. She now waves from her porch with a muffin tin in hand whenever we pass—God bless her. She’s been adopted as family now.
The other day, my son looked at me, serious as ever, and asked, “Do all moms cook for their husbands when the husbands are perfectly capable of doing it themselves?”
I laughed. “I’m not all moms. Don’t hold them to my standards.”
Which is exactly why, when the microwave died, I just stood there. Defeated. Nikolai looked up at me and whispered, “Are we going to die of starvation if Daddy doesn’t replace it?”
On our wedding night—yes, we slept inside the church—Rob and I woke up ravenous. We padded barefoot into the church kitchen and peeked inside the fridge.
Milk. Eggs. Bread.
“That’s it. We’re doomed,” I said, already grieving.
Rob laughed and made French toast. I was floored. French toast was something I believed only IHOP was licensed to make. He thought I was kidding—until the nervous laughter gave me away. He married a woman who could not cook. Not even toast. And I’ve defiantly burned water more than once.
But I learned. Eventually.
I still hate cooking, and Rob still asks if I’m making dinner every time he hears the smoke detector. But my kid will brag that I make better food than his dad. I’ve got a mean vinaigrette game, killer soups, heavenly desserts, and I can build a sandwich like an artist. As long as it takes under thirty minutes? I’m golden.
So no, I’m not the crunchy mom. I’m the tofu-nugget, splash-pad, microwave-eulogizing mama. I love salads because they’re refreshingly easy and taste delicious—not because someone told me they’re holy. And when I bring home a new microwave, I bless it with more hope than Pope Francis at Easter Mass.
Lord, give me the strength to endure when Nikolai comes running into the room to tell me he accidentally started a small fire inside it.
May this one outlive its ancestor regardless. May its spirit be strong. And may it heat my tea until kingdom come.
For everyone who’s ever faked a smile and steeped strong opinions.
Let’s get this out of the way. I don’t just dislike coffee. I loathe it—with the fiery passion of a thousand scorched taste buds.
I can already hear the gasps from behind porcelain cups. I’m sure those of you who are reading this are reeling in horror, clutching your chest or gasping dramatically. But let me explain—before I’m cast out of brunch circles and removed from every beverage-related gift card list.
I remember the delectable scent of it drifting from the kitchen counter when I was young. That forbidden drink my mother’s fingers curled around every morning, her mug cradled like a sacred ritual. She’d pour herself more than one, and I’d watch, thinking: This is the answer to adulthood.
One day, she looked at me, eyes softening, and asked the question I’d longed for: “Would you like to try it?” I was elated. My heart skipped beats. It felt a little like swearing—something naughty, something only parents were allowed to do.
I shuffled over, inhaled deeply, and took a drink. My nose wrinkled. My eyes scrunched. My soul briefly packed a bag and left my body in betrayal. Once the flavor skipped past my taste buds, all that remained was bitterness.
She laughed and said, “You’ll grow to like it someday.” I’m almost 40 now. Still waiting.
My ride-or-die barista buddy tries to convert me every chance she gets. She pulls up to the coffee window and orders the sweetest, frothiest, most whipped-cream-laden brew they’ll allow. “You have got to taste this!” she says, eyes wild with caffeine. I give her a skeptical look. “I highly doubt I’ll enjoy it.”
But she’s determined to enroll me into a sorority I never wanted to join. Every once in a while, she convinces me and I discover one that doesn’t immediately attack my soul. Sometimes I even think, Huh… maybe that wasn’t too bad?
Then I sip again… and somehow, it leaves me contemplating ordering it for myself. I make a mental note to give it one more chance.
After the Boston Tea Party, when crates of precious sweetness were hurled into the sea (what did tea ever do to them?), drinking the leaf became un-American. A statement: We don’t need you for the crime of taxation without representation. You’d think tea would’ve earned a little respect. A symbol of our rebellion.
But no. It became a quiet protest against tyranny and deliciousness instead. And yet here I am—an above-29-year-old woman, trying desperately to uphold the dreams of my revolution-loving ancestors. Ordering tea in public, and still managing to make people think I’m betraying the founding fathers with every sip. Because—how could anyone not like coffee, right?
Still, I make another attempt. I order a drink I didn’t completely hate that I once sampled. I sit down with my laptop, take a few sips, pretending to be one of them. Not bad. Then a few more. And it hits me—this is still revolting.
I stare into the abyss of my roasted brew and question every decision that led me here. I try to justify my life choices. To seem less like the unpatriotic oddball quietly carrying contraband in my purse. Americans don’t drink steeped blends— except Southerners. Where sweet tea is its own food group and doesn’t count.
So I do what any desperate, tea-loving imposter would do. I discreetly tiptoe past the mixologists of espresso—to take my brew to the empty bathroom. I make it inside without a single sideways glance, dump it like crime scene evidence, and crank the faucet. I scrub the aftermath off my hands, dragging my palms across a cold metal grate, and hang my head in shame.
But let me make something clear: I am very far from being un-American. In the suburbs outside Chicago, when all my friends listened to metal, goth, rock, or emo— I wore cowboy boots and listened to country music. Yet I was the one they all made fun of. While all the city kids were going to youth nightclubs, I was tackling farm chores in exchange for riding lessons. I married a soldier. And somehow, I’m the one who absolutely despises Java. But I do. I really, truly do.
So I got back in line inside the chapel of liquid syrups, trying not to look like someone who’d just flushed her last sin. The barista raised an eyebrow. “Did you drink the entire cup I gave you that quickly?” My eyes widened. “Ughhh—yes? I’m practically jolt-juice deficient.” She laughed. “I get that. I’m exhausted, too.” I smiled, then put on my big-girl panties and proudly ordered a hot, caffeinated tea latte— like a boss in farm attire. Not because I’m anti-American. But because coffee is a disgrace.
I love my infusion black—like how my heart feels when someone offers me a cup of that roasted regret. I swirl in cream like it’s a declaration of independence. With floral notes that sing my country’s national anthem. And sugar? That’s not optional. It’s Southern diplomacy in a cup.
Some places steal your breath. Others don’t give it back.
Rob and I rarely had uninterrupted alone time, yet we managed to arrange something bordering on impossible: several weeks of freedom. We carved out real togetherness by driving Niki halfway to Arizona so he could spend part of the summer with my mom—a few sun-drenched days of being spoiled by Nona. All while we got to rejuvenate the spark in our marriage with dates, home projects, and long stretches without worrying whether that pool noodle we keep wedged behind the bed frame had slipped to the floor again.
Put simply, we could be as loud and comfortable as two happily married people wanted to be.
Beautifully quiet car rides—the hum of the air conditioner and uninterrupted conversation. Oh, the joy of not having to sidestep the small human who declared a sleepover between the bed and the bathroom like a landmine. Just… to exist as people again—not only parents. Older, significantly more tired, but censor-free jokes and rated R movies labeled Adult Supervision Required. Perhaps even a little late-night lakeside skinny dipping romance.
A summer bucket list for the unsupervised, because we had all the plans.
Somewhere between basking in the glow of this newfound liberation and making our way toward home after Operation-Nona-Drop, Rob thought it might be fun to visit Graceland. He booked us a hotel in Memphis. We were on a tight budget, but for the price, it looked beautiful online.
“Close enough to downtown,” he’d said.
It wasn’t a far stretch from our route back east. We’d lived in Tennessee for seven years prior to Georgia and had never been. This was our time, so why not risk it for the biscuit, fly like a jailbird, and go see Elvis?
We got to Memphis, and the first thing we noticed was how chaotic it felt. Car accidents happened at nearly every light. People loitering, glaring, joints dangling from their lips as cops drove by. An elastic band choking a girl’s arm as she stared at the sky, tripping over her own shoelaces as she walked.
It was a vibe. The kind that curls your instincts like a bad storm rolling through your bones.
Shortly after leaving Georgia, Rob realized our firearm was still sitting snugly inside the safe at home instead of on his side. My opinion errs on the side of optimism when these moments arise, but Rob’s is forever the better-to-be-prepared guy.
“We should buy a new one on our way to see your mom.”
“I really don’t think that’s necessary. We’re not going to need it. You worry too much—we’re going to be fine! No stress, remember?”
A big red sign screamed: BUY FIREARMS! He glanced at me, then passed the exit with a tight-lipped sigh.
“I’m proud of you!” I said, leaning over to pat his knee and kiss his cheek.
All I got in return was a side-eye and a clenched jaw, which I brushed off like a piece of lint on a sweater. You can take the soldier out of the Army, but you can’t take the Army out of the man. Or the farm life out of him—both of which I understood deeply and respected.
Yet I was eager to dive into our freedom. Our adventure together.
The streets in Memphis had me regretting arguments and passed exits, but I held onto my pride to make the most of it. Hotel rooms have doors. Doors have locks. And I was with my soldier. Concern put aside, a smile tacked to my face even though Memphis handed me a gut punch dressed up as a city skyline.
By the time we reached the parking area, my heart was trying to file a restraining order against my optimism. The hotel loomed over us like a bad dating profile.
Yellow and dingy, with blue stairs winding up to wrap-around outdoor balconies that served as entrances to the rooms. Clusters of people loitered outside, wearing things I wouldn’t be caught dead in.
Yep. We were doing this. We were staying here.
Hotels have doors. Doors have locks. One night in Memphis. In the morning, we’d be touring Graceland, laughing like teenagers over The King’s love trysts… ogling décor choices as if we were musicians seeking inspiration. High on delta blues, and if we were exceptionally lucky, it might even pour rain.
Ever so reluctantly, I gathered my things, held Rob’s hand, and climbed the steps to the floor with our room number listed. The building itself left my hopes for a clean room tanking by the minute. Key in the lock. Door pushed open… to a most pleasant surprise.
Wide sunny windows, laminate flooring that looked like wood (a huge step up from the nasty carpeting I figured was awaiting my bare feet). Pillows fluffed. The bedspread was clean and white, with fresh, unstained sheets. And one of the bigger TVs I’d seen even in more upscale hotels.
A fixer-upper? Sure. I’m all for second chances and up-class charm.
A smug nothing to worry about tossed in Rob’s worried direction.
“Shall we order in first or after?” My eyebrow lifted with a let’s-get-this-party-started attitude.
Rob tossed the room service menu on the bed and gave me a look that danced between trouble and tradition. “I vote we earn our carbs first.”
We settled in like people who hadn’t just walked past a possible drug addict in the stairwell. Comfort is relative, but pizza is dependable.
Some time later, a knock on the door came, the scent of bubbling cheese curling around the seal like a warm promise of safety.
I. Am. Starving! I announced, and Rob agreed.
“Let’s eat this whole thing and sleep until the sun rises again,” the love of my life quipped.
“Guilty pleasure TV shows?”
“Always. Plenty of time to watch something while we stuff our faces.”
Not more than a few bites in, a scream from the parking area turned my back rigid.
Sharp. Guttural.
Not wanting to be seen, we made our way to the windows we’d closed before the delivery guy arrived.
A parked, run-down sedan. A girl in a black dress, curls swirling around the face she was trying to protect as she was being hit by a man. His fist connected with bone. Her sobs lodged in my chest. I couldn’t look away—wouldn’t.
The passenger door was visibly wide open. A black stiletto lay scuffed, broken at the heel, and tossed across the pavement like trash. It offered barely a glimpse of the damage he’d already done. One side of her lip was redder than the lipstick she had probably carefully applied in a mirror. A cheek swelling, already turning shades of purple. The fear.
Save me. Help me.
It gripped my heart and refused to let go.
“We have to call the police. Right now.” My voice trembled as I watched the man pin her arm and strike—again, and again, and again. Not the first time I had seen violence. Not the first time I wanted to put an end to it.
Rob, voice low, tense: “She might be working for him. I don’t know for sure, but on our way up to the room, it felt like there was more going on—guys in the parking lot, money exchanging hands as she climbed into a car with him.”
I wasn’t listening. And I wasn’t watching anymore. Yet he heard me in a way only two people with many years of marriage between them can. I didn’t say anything—because I didn’t have to.
“I’ll do it. You stay out of it.” A compromise was made. Because his main concern was always me. He pressed the call button, eyes locked on the window.
A squad car arrived. Relief eased the tension in my muscles.
Her hair stuck to the sweat on her neck as she turned from my window. No screaming now. Just silence, arms wrapped around her own limbs, and a slow drift toward the police like someone who’d done this before.
The officers looked tired. Nodding. Gathering information. Then acting as if they were getting ready to leave.
They can’t actually be leaving though, right? No handcuffs?
They suddenly made the same walk we did—up the steps to find our room number.
“Were you the ones who called in? There’s nothing we can do right now. She won’t press charges. She denies everything.”
I was dumbfounded.
“Look, we’re stretched thin out here. We pick our battles. This, unfortunately, isn’t unusual.” His expression was grim.
They shook Rob’s hand. I followed them out to the balcony before Rob could pull me back inside, it felt like the fixer-upper was collapsing right on top of me.
Rob turned to me, jaw set. “We leave now and risk running into them… or we barricade and stay. But we don’t step outside until morning.”
We gave it the night.
Tried to nibble on pizza. Flipped through terrible T.V with the remote… until the sound of fists began again.
Not knocking—pounding. On every door. Voices yelling. Our hearts racing.
Rob peeked through the curtain while I froze—several men roaming the walkways. Hunting. Gathering reinforcements.
Rob didn’t hesitate.
“It’s done. We can’t stay here now, and the only exit is the entrance we took to get into our room. We’re unarmed, and there are more of them than us. We have to go. So here’s how we’re going to do this: They’re going to expect us to run, so we’re not going to do that. You’re going to get behind me, and I’m going to come right at them.”
“You’re… going to go right at them.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“Trust me. It’s a good idea. Leave our stuff here. I’ll come back for it. You’re going to head straight for the car and lock yourself in while I toss the key at the front desk guy, ask for a refund, and snag our stuff.”
“A refund? Seriously?”
“Yep. I’m not paying for this.”
Which is without a doubt the most on-point thing I’ve ever heard him say. His whole personality wrapped up in a single moment:
I’ll save the day—but I’m not charging it to my debit card.
“Ready?” I wasn’t.
He threw the door open and, with me behind him, we barreled down the steps until someone who appeared to be a thug ran up and hit the wall that is my husband’s chest. The man froze, eyes dilating.
“There’s a big-ass motherf**er up here!” he yelled back to the others. “I’m not doing it!”
Like a rat, he scurried off in the direction he came. We kept moving forward, my stomach lurching with nausea.
This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. This isn’t a movie scene. Why do the most bizarre things end up as footnotes in my life? Who is going to believe this if we even make it out of here? Is Nikolai going to end up an orphan?
I ran, ducking behind cars, holding my breath, and tried to catch pieces of what the men prowling the lot were saying.
Rob went to the lobby, tossed a key card at the owner’s face, and having secured our things—raced to the car with our belongings secured under his arm.
Meanwhile, I was in the front seat, head between my knees, frantically locking and relocking the doors for good measure. Praying they’d forget about me.
One guy circled vehicles. Pulled on door handles. And I felt I was done for—until someone called his name and pulled him in another direction.
Rob finally appeared, hurled the luggage in, and we tore out of there like extras who lived through a horror movie by accident.
We paid for our near-death experience in full. No refund necessary. And drove until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Eventually, navigating our way to a roadside motel reeking of stale cigarettes and, most likely, black mold.
But we could sleep without worrying about gangs, human trafficking, or drug dealers.
We decided to skip Graceland.
Later, we told the story to a friend who used to be a trucker. He asked what road the hotel was on. Rob pulled up the receipt on his phone. The guy just shook his head.
“Everyone knows to avoid that street. You got lucky.”
He wasn’t at all surprised by the turn of events.
In an offhanded conversation with a coworker, Rob told the tale again. The employee’s wife accidentally ended up at a gas station near where we had booked a night, and she was almost carjacked—while still in the driver’s seat with the doors locked.
A little digging revealed what we didn’t know then—Reddit threads and police records marked it as one of the most dangerous hotels in Memphis. Hundreds of calls had been made to police. Multiple raids had taken place. Drugs and firearms had been confiscated. Charges had been pressed for human trafficking. There had even been reports of shootings in broad daylight.
In the aftershocks of that night, I downplayed the details. The truth, as I now know it to be, is this:
When you think you don’t need a firearm… that’s probably when you need it the most. Unfortunately, I had to learn this lesson more than once.
Even though Rob won the argument about exits for firearms and was annoyingly correct, my husband isn’t bulletproof—but that night, he was the kind of man who waltzed his woman out of hell like a badass.
I didn’t care for the musty smell lingering in the air, almost as if someone’s grandma was haunting the place. What I fell in love with was the old knotted and stained hardwood floors groaning beneath the soles of my sneakers. The dust shimmering in the glow of a wall devoted to windows and the sunlight streaking through them. It had farmhouse charm long before that look became chic.
Have you ever seen something and thought to yourself, will there ever be anything as beautiful as this? The porch was perfect, not in a hugged-by-good-bones kinda way, more along the lines of being kissed by hints of floral in your lemonade. Big enough for two chairs, a little porch table, and some china for my morning tea. Perfect for spooky Halloween pumpkins on the steps and autumn leaf drapery woven through the black spindles on the balcony. And sure, the project was an undertaking, yet sometimes love makes the young do irrational things.
Our family arrived with stacks of cardboard boxes filled with childhood memories. Rob’s mom unpacked some drama and tried to dress our only bathroom in full Scooby-Doo attire, like she was sending us off to cartoon kindergarten. Every time I opened the door, I’d remove a bobblehead soap dispenser and that creepy shower curtain I hated. Then, later, I’d walk back in and feel like I’d stumbled into a Scooby-Doo meets Psycho crossover episode. I dedicated time to outwit her, snatching the items and smugly dropping them into the dumpster. Only to find her later, rummaging through it like she was filming a trash-to-treasure documentary, reigniting a war that always ended in petty revenge.
Meanwhile, my Papa would clap me on the back and wander the rooms, saying, “You’ve done good for yourself, little redhead. Real good.” I’d smile because with his words, the stress of the day melted, and all was set right again.
The orange shag carpet looked like a disco fever dream from the ’70s. Faux wood paneling ran halfway up the walls within the dining room, severely outdated but secretly awaiting a comeback. The fireplace mantel was perfect for hanging stockings, and I already knew where the tree would go long before Christmas came.
It was while sitting in hard plastic chairs surrounded by financial advisors and realtors that I knew the memories we would make from that moment on would change us. Cold metallic keys were slipped into our hands where a world of warmth awaited us. All the door knobs inside were painted over by a rushed seller. The windows wouldn’t open because they were sealed shut. But hope stretched on forever like a ribbon of asphalt and threaded yellow lines. Leading a winding road towards love and adventure. It wasn’t our first dance on a kitchen floor made of linoleum, but it was the first stage we called ours.
Most of our meals consisted of microwavable noodles and whatever we could find in the clearance section of the produce aisle. My soldier was in a low-ranking, bottom-of-the-food-chain phase, making the pay minimal. Physical training exercises were an excuse we made to hold hands in the car during the early hours of the morning, all to steal a little alone time back from the Army. Sweaty field-issued boots were dramatically unlaced and thrown against the wall by the door. Camouflage after-work attire made a pathway from entrance to shower like a cringe-worthy gym locker room.
I would help my husband wash and pack his rucksack before weather training missions. Or stand in the shadows cheering him on during paintball tournaments. Scrubbing past blue and yellow splattered paint stains, fetching the frozen peas to calm the welts that meant to teach far more about war than losing a game ever would.
When I wasn’t dealing with hospital or doctor visits, we were racing downtown with my heels on his motorcycle’s foot pegs and his hand reaching to grasp my knee to help us forget for a while. A rule was enforced (mostly by me) where date nights became mandatory. Relying on an over-sized change jar for coffee and tea beverages or hurling sofa cushions trying to find a spare quarter for dinner. If we remembered where we put our pennies, we could catch a movie. If not, we ended up sharing the kiddie swings at the park with our home-made picnic lunchables. Both usually ended in a fit of laughter, and the two of us dodging some shifty looking character on a park bench.
The house saw a fair share of arguments, too. Brutal tongue lashings. Late nights of restlessness and worried thoughts. Concerned moments if we’d even survive the marriage we built. Hurled picture frames and shattered hearts. Suitcases packed in silence. Vows made in a flurry of anger to never return.
The house became a silent witness to near-death experiences. Watching a soldier as he carefully washed the vomit out of his wife’s hair. Battling an illness together that they couldn’t identify, while he wondered if he could save her life.
I stood inside a flight hanger surrounded by thousands of other women. Tears, pouring like a busted pipe. Afghanistan—clearly labeled on the map but not wanting to surrender my husband to the aircraft. Wondering how I could fight through what came next, how I could be brave for him, and how I could hold the pieces together for both of us. I feared I’d never feel the strength of his love again.
For a time, the house sat empty. Quiet. Vacant. Overcome with grief as we sorted through PTSD, piles of health problems, and military paperwork. The stoic oak in the front yard that was my favorite was overgrown with weeds from the landscaper’s neglect. Pouring funds into our fixer-upper meant struggling with a bank account that was already in the negative from life events. One mess leading to the next while trying to tether ourselves to one another. For a while, we were wrapped up like a bow. Maybe dilapidated but we felt whole and we were working on it.
I was sitting with my legs twisted underneath me on the sofa in the living room. Staring at the fireplace and the painting of us hanging above the mantel. Dinner was simmering on the stove, the scent drifting down the hall, when Rob strode through the door holding a bouquet of wildflowers. I knew in my heart we couldn’t afford them.
“I discovered a field of daisies while I was out training with the guys the other day. I made a mental note to find my way back to them so I could bring some to you.”
The image of him in my head, standing on the side of a road somewhere in his uniform with cars passing by, picking armloads of blossoms by hand because we couldn’t afford to buy a single stem. A tidal wave of floral softness meets his strength and endurance. It became our marriage’s code of survival: to burn the white flag of surrender, meet each other on our own level, and to keep fighting like our love couldn’t survive unless we did it together.
We couldn’t keep our house. Five rounds of layoffs after Rob became a contractor conflicted with our desperate need for financial security. Served with a side of panic and a main course named health insurance. We bought the house before the market crashed. We couldn’t sell it. We tried renting it, but fixing things was nearly impossible. We lived in Germany for a while and moved back to the States. Yet we couldn’t live at home where the work didn’t exist and it left us drowning beneath two mortgages.
Seven years in the house we loved. Game nights, church events, marriage counseling, and learning what it takes to fight for what we have. Yelling over how to fold the towels correctly and which way the toilet paper roll faces. All for the ribbon of asphalt to bring us down a red clay dead-end. To the farm that isn’t being held by a bank note.
Bankruptcy and foreclosure took our house but memories and travel let us visit. Pointing from a foggy car window to tell our son about the life that existed before him. “See there? That’s where we sat on and watched the storms roll in.” The beautiful haven where we had a room designated as maybe for maternity. While we waited to see if we could survive one more ER exam room or another battle with mental health. Meanwhile, life took us to unforgettable places but everything changes when you leave.
The beautiful house on the hill was overtaken by someone who seemed to need more help than they ever received. My heart ached, but the house was old—and it had probably survived worse. The next time we came for a visit, the woods had been plowed and mulched. Where deer once felt safe enough to leap over our backyard fence was now a sprawling view of smog-infested highways and shopping centers you could’ve thrown a rock at.
Visit three had put on a display of devastation, gripped by a tornado touchdown. Many streets and structures had been leveled, but our gorgeous white house showed impeccable condition. The storm left the coffee shop standing, which led to a sip of something hot to comfort our spirits. We waved at the theater, drove by the park, and sat in our favorite booth for dinner from all those nights ago when we were able to pull enough money together.
While sprawled out on a hotel bed, waiting for Rob to return, he called me to explain he’d be late getting back. His company sent him to pick up a helicopter part, hours from where we were staying, but only three miles from where we once lived. I asked him to send a picture of our past in the present. He hesitated. The sound of a ping came through my phone’s speaker. The mailbox stood as proud and erect as it had ever been. The tree I loved still shading the places where Rob tucked me into the grass to plant a thousand tiny kisses into the crevice of my neck. But our beautiful house—leveled to nothing more than an empty lot.
Our house was being replaced by apartment complexes and heartbreak. To somebody else, it was unused potential. For us, it had been the foundation where we strengthened the bones of our marriage. I sobbed, feeling robbed and gutted. Rob was lost for words, the phone dangling in his hands as he apologized as if it was his fault.
He tried to bring me our mailbox, yet it was rooted and bolted in place. Only a couple of bricks found discarded as he searched for what remained, then he tucked them into the front seat of the sedan. A bouquet of memories. There is nothing left to visit. Our life from Tennessee is now scattered between the stepping stones of our farm in Georgia. The ones that lead to our front porch. The ones that guide us home. Where the land far outweighs the square footage. Where blooms fill the landscape, and the mountains and the woodlands embrace us. Our lives—transplanted.
A not-so-love story featuring nudity, betrayal, and livestock.
Frank is an asshole. Honestly, the moment a man tries to defend something that pees on him and lives in a box? Red flag. Immediate eviction. I don’t care how many mice it eats. My husband tried to convince me otherwise, and after Rob knocked on the door to our own house, I should have seen the dead giveaway coming.
“Look at him, babe! He was so afraid, he hid his little head so he didn’t have to see me. I found him hanging out in the shed, curled up in a cardboard bunker!”
I squinted suspiciously. The guilty often look innocent. I would know—and Rob should too.
It reminded me of the last time I had played innocent—big eyes, fake shock, the whole act. Rob had walked in and caught me mid-plant smuggling operation, and I’d tried to lie my way out with the confidence of a toddler covered in cookie crumbs.
“Where did that new rose bush come from?”
“What rose bush?”
Rob pointed at the one I had definitely bought in the Lowe’s garden section. “That rose bush!”
“You haven’t seen this seven-footer before? She’s obviously always been here. I sure worry about your memory sometimes, love,” I said as I shoved a few more plants under the porch with my foot so he couldn’t bear witness to them.
He knew. We both did. Which was how I understood his new “friend” was already a troublemaker. And I also didn’t want it anywhere near me.
“Aww, poor guy peed on me.”
I wanted to vomit. “Attempt to let it touch me and it won’t live to see tomorrow.”
“You can’t do that—they’re helpful to the farm!”
“The only good one is a dead one,” I argued.
Nikolai came racing toward us and all hope of running it over with the car vanished.
“Ohhh!!! Where did you find him? Can we keep him?”
Please. Lord, no. Don’t wish this on me.
“Kinda! He can live here and you can name him if you want. What should we call him?”
“Ummm… how about Frank?”
My house has a long history of hosting creatures that should come with warning labels and their own bail bondsman.
I. Find. Everything. Missing lizards Niki had misplaced in the car, frogs where they shouldn’t belong, bugs the size of Chihuahuas that had forced me into learning karate just to win a death match. I knew I would find Frank. Not if. When.
There had been a lot of mice in the horse trailer where we kept our feed bin. So naturally, Rob and Nikolai had lovingly rehomed him from the shed to the location I used more than anything else… to fatten up.
And of course, I had been left out of the loop. Why would anyone want to clue mom in?
Months had passed with me peacefully swaddled in a false sense of security, until one morning when I went to grab the horse scooper to feed the chickens. It was nearing the end of summer, as warm days crept into cooler evenings. Sunlight stretched across the greenery, birds cheerily gathering and stashing seeds, while I hummed a tune with a skip in my step.
Creaky hinges groaned. The door opened to dance with light, and I grabbed the feed bag.
Do you remember that game with the little clown—or sometimes a weasel in a box? You’d crank the handle, wind it up with dread in your gut, bracing for the inevitable—
All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey stopped to pull up his sock…
POP! went the weasel.
My hand reached into the bag and Frank launched out. At. My. Face.
Black. Slithering. Fangs.
I shrieked in horror and ran up the driveway, foot pounding pavement, screaming for my life. Stripping naked for the neighbors like I was starring in a one-woman matinee performance of Snake! The Musical… all to be sure he hadn’t found a way to attach himself to me. And then I made a vow to buy new chicken feed instead of sticking my hand into the old one ever again.
Izzy had been farm-sitting for me while I was on a trip with Rob. She had gone to the well-house to fill Caspian’s water bucket, and as she reached for the spindly blue knob… there was Frank. He exploded from the shadows at her as she screamed for mercy, fell on her rear end, and ran to her car to call me for an explanation.
I wish I could tell you it stopped there. But it didn’t.
One of my best friends found Frank hiding underneath the large, shallow black water bucket I had left out for the chickens when she went to refill it for their daily gulp-and-splash routine. He had chased her to our porch.
As if that wasn’t enough, Frank decided to up his game. Rob had been searching our old Ford truck glove box for a part he had stashed. The door flipped open, papers began rustling on their own… and then came the sound of a rattler. Rob had snagged a screwdriver for protection, heart racing. A flash of scales. A jolt so sudden and visceral he forgot to breathe for a few seconds.
Frank became an unintentional kebab.
Injured but not near death, Rob used his military first-aid skills to patch him up. He petted him. Whispered words of comfort and healing. The man even apologized to his reptilian mastermind. And Frank didn’t even own a rattle.
I couldn’t have been more appalled. Disgusted, even. And then Frank had been released, to commit more acts of trespassing and treason.
A few weeks ago, a ghost skin of scales the size of an anaconda was found and pulled out of the headlight within the Colorado farm truck we used regularly. I wanted to cry—because I knew Frank would return. And his last known sighting had been the well-house incident from Izzy’s account.
I had begged Rob to hook up the hoses for me before he left for work. They were long enough to hydrate the roses, Caspian, and some of the farm dogs, without needing to haul water.
I walked out to the field, ankles bare. Chest, arms, and face exposed to the breeze. Exploring the edges of the garden and preparing to pull the hose and press the button that would send water shooting out. The hose was coiled like a spring and I was about to launch… my anger through the speaker phone at my wonderful husband—on behalf of forgetting. The ends were unattached and unattended.
I had to go in. Turn the blue lever. And pray I was alone.
I. Had. No. Choice.
Honestly, if anyone deserves sainthood, it’s me—for not burning the well house down and pretending it was lightning.
I made noise. I pleaded for my sanity as I stomped closer toward the cement brick walls. Swallowed bile. Terrified. Replayed the time I had found him tucked into a hay bale I was pulling apart to use as mulch for the garden bed—when he was nearly in my hands.
The flashbacks crept in as I edged closer, cursing my husband, cursing the day Frank slithered into our lives and refused to leave.
POP! Goes the weasel.
I heard a rustle as I reached for the knob—something moving quickly. I begged my hands to turn fast as my rib cage thrummed.
A lurch. A movement I didn’t get a good look at had me reeling, running backward—unknowingly straight through the same patch of poison ivy I’d already face-planted into earlier at the well house. Which was probably now smeared on my ankles, arms, neck, chest… maybe even my lips.
Doing my best owl impression—mouth rounded in a panicked oooh, eyes scanning the grass—I once again stripped for the neighbors as Nikolai yelled:
“Hey Mom! I need you for something!”
Poison ivy oil sets in fast. The quicker you get your clothes off, the better your odds. So I danced, trying not to touch my face—except my ear itched from a mosquito. I stupidly shooed it away and touched my lobe.
Arms waving, running in floral tennis shoes with alabaster thunder thighs sliding sweatily together. I made it to the house without eating the rocks on the driveway, or getting bit by Frank. Looking like a possessed scarecrow mid-bender knowing he was still out there somewhere.
Watching me. Laughing. Mocking. Pissing me off for all the damage he had caused.
Whether he had been there or imagined—I blamed him for everything.
Because Frank is an asshole. Who deserves what he gets. Rat snake or not.
Niki was still behind me yelling, “MOM! MOM! MOM I NEED YOU!” While I was yelling, “After the shower, kid!”
One shock to the system and a sudsy Dawn dish-soap dip later, I thought I had it licked. 12 hours went by—clear. 24 hours—nothing. Day two?
A steroid shot in the ass for a poison ivy reaction was not what I had signed up for.
Frank. Is. An asshole.
And you never know where he’ll show up next. I’m already avoiding the truck where his skin was found… dangling like a promise, out of the headlight.
And if you see him?Tell Frank I’m coming with car keys in hand.
The one where my body taps out but Rob owes me matcha.
One of my biggest flaws is the deep, bone-stubborn need to do everything myself. I don’t just “like” independence, I wear it like a gold star. Top tier. Full ceremony. Fireworks optional but preferred.
I love my friends, truly. But asking for help? Barf. I’d rather be duct-taped to a flaming lawn chair than admit I need something. I want to hang out with people because I miss them, not because my kidneys have decided to make me feel as if I went toe to toe with Ronda Rousey.
And worst of all? Cancellation. I hate canceling plans. It feels like a personal failure wrapped in guilt and glitter.
So naturally, when life hits the fan, I start doing the most rational thing possible: hand-washing laundry in the kitchen sink like it’s 1842. Meanwhile, my best friend is texting me photos of her top-tier, NASA-approved washing machine like, “Are you good? You know you have an open invitation right?”
No. I’m clearly not good. But I’m also not going over there. Because, stubborn.
If “pain in the ass” had a sound, it’d be me, hammering fifty crooked nails into a dilapidated bug house. Muddy boots on my feet, the echoes bouncing off trees while my husband just wants to nap for, I don’t know, ten minutes tops (or four hours, don’t judge him… or do because it annoys me). That rage tapping is not a red-bellied woodpecker. It’s DIY’ing instead of D-I-recovering.
Flash forward to the actual crisis.
Rob finds me curled up like a discarded sock on the bed. I’m too quiet, which is always a red flag. He begs me to see someone but I say no. He threatens to drag me but switches gears towards a rational adult and pulls out the big guns:
Bribes.
He offered me matcha if I’d go to the doctor. A whole bribe-drink I still haven’t collected, by the way. Justice for matcha.
The cup urgent-care handed me was labeled “apple juice,” but it was suspiciously sterile, and I wasn’t allowed to leave the office until I promised to hit the pharmacy like a good patient. Meanwhile, Nikolai (who takes zero days off from being a legendary kid) wrote a whole song on the way to the truck titled “My Daddy Was Right, He Told You So!” Rob smirked, “If you didn’t have me, you’d be fertilizer.”
Honestly? Accurate.
Round one: urgent care. Round two: a different urgent care. Round three: Cipro.
Cipro, as it turns out, is my body’s least favorite hobby.
I was trying to be productive, dragging my disabled corpse to coffee shops just to write something coherent while we were still waiting for internet on the farm. (Because clearly, being near death shouldn’t affect your publishing goals.)
But instead of inspiration, I was met with that lovely, slithery heat climbing up my neck, my ears, my scalp… almost like Satan himself decided it was time to end all redheads. My breathing went sideways, and I realized:
“Oh. I think I’m allergic to antibiotics. That’s new.” The hives took one look at my body and said, “Let’s go clubbing.”
They hit my throat, my legs, my face, and gripped my soul like it was out for vengeance. The best part? My kid smacked a sticker on my back that said DOG FOODand I didn’t notice it until after our adventure. I mean… who needs ego when you’ve got labels and full-body histamine hell?
Rob rearranged his entire work life—again—to rescue me. Bless him and his ever-whitening head of hair.
We hit the ER, who gave me that “you’re fine-ish” vibe and sent me home with a shrug and maybe a wave. Just in time for the pharmacy to switch my seizure medication to a totally new brand. Mid-crisis. Because clearly, I was having too calm a week.
Let’s recap:
One raging kidney infection
Two urgent care visits
One allergic reaction
Full-body hives (with throat flair!)
Fever spikes
Brain on seizure roulette
And a surprise seizure med brand swap
Plus a sticker that screamed “kibble”
At this point, my body was like, “Survival mode? Nah, let’s try chaotic neutral.”
So here’s your update: I’m not better. I’m not worse. I’m just seasoned… in epsom salts, binging murder mysteries, burning through the mint chocolate ice cream, and letting the weeds take over the dahlias because frankly, I’m too itchy to deal with it.
Life is currently a beautiful mix of trauma and unclaimed matcha bribes. And honestly? Rob needs to pay up because I’ve earned every drop of it.
So if you’re wondering how I’ve been: I’ve cancelled all my plans. I’m not thrilled but I’m still blooming… with a rash, a fever, and possibly a tail, depending on the sticker.
The season that almost didn’t bloom—and the messy, magical way it still might.
The season began with late frosts and even later downpours. Seedlings nearly drowned in the muck while I slogged through chaos daily, searching for any sign of life. For the first time in farm history, the main source of floral happiness came from the kingdom of Dahlias. A huge, newly built garden bed surrounded by a beautiful white fence, full of more Dahlias than I had room to grow. Flower boxes lined the way, and a vibrant Pretty Polly rose bush was tucked into a massive pot I’d rescued from Aldi like a floral Cinderella.
Despite my reluctance and deep disdain—for Frank—I bought a twelve-foot above-ground pool. My neighbor smiled and said how happy she was to see Nikolai getting something fun this summer. I had to bite my tongue not to laugh. “This isn’t for him,” I told her. “It’s for the plants.” She was baffled. Possibly concerned. That’s fair. But thanks to my bestie, the WidowCall Pond is now full of magic where dragonflies tail you through the garden like loyal hounds, and frogs smaller than thimbles perch like royalty on taro leaves (often mistaken for elephant ears, which, fun fact, are actually poisonous). Because nothing says “welcome to the garden” like a plant that wants to kill you.
The lotus were late. The zinnias and cosmos were stunted. Over one hundred and fifty florals planted this year didn’t go as planned and neither did my body. Doctor visits and hospital bills are already a familiar part of my life, but this time it’s fevers and infections, too. The garden is wild. The weeding is out of control. And maybe that’s okay. (It’s not. I’m lying. I’m livid.) I stare out the bedroom window at the Monet Garden—aka Dahlia Kingdom—burning up with fever and fuming that I can’t fix it. Yet.
Still, the farm has its own rhythm. One day the field looks lifeless and I rage-clean my room just to feel like something’s in my control. A few days later, I walk out again and something tiny has bloomed. Buds, sprouts, and signs of resilience. I don’t know what this year will bring. But it’s stirring.
The boat pond is unfinished, but the greenhouse? Ohhh, she’s a sanctuary. A coliseum. A love letter from my husband made real. Is it finished? No. Is it breathtaking? Undeniably. Even my farrier was stunned when she visited. The stained glass isn’t installed yet—Rob had to order a DIY glass cutter and learn by failing (and nearly slicing his finger off). We had to hire hands to help lift the massive six-foot panels into place. Watching it happen, I white-knuckled my way through the entire process. There were moments I had to look away. Not from lack of faith—just from the sheer terror of impalement. You’ve never seen romance until you’ve seen a man defy death for architectural whimsy.
The French doors are open. The light is impeccable. One of my besties gifted me several outrageously large workbenches, the biggest I’ve ever seen (which now also need a small team to move). There’s much to do before winter, and the greenhouse is already threatening to overflow. I’ve got teacups to turn into bird feeders, a thrifted pot destined to become a fountain for the boat pond, and more aquatic blooms to order. My to-do list is so long it might actually be breeding. I’m almost okay with procrastinating. Almost.
And in the middle of all this? We got WiFi. For the first time in eight years. That’s right—Everpine & Petal has entered the modern age. I can now rest on the sofa and stream an audiobook without having to drive into town to download it. I can write without going to a coffee shop. I can submit essays. I already am. Some of what I’m writing, I’ll share here. Some I can’t yet. But the floodgates are open. The power’s on. And we’ve got a lot to catch up on.
So let’s start with all of that. Let’s start here.
I was determined to hang those flower boxes. I wanted to see the fruit of my labor blooming right outside my windows—colorful, wild, and just how I imagined them. It was the last thing I thought about before sleep and the first thing on my mind when I woke up. What to plant, what colors to pair, what joy they’d bring.
Relentless. On a mission.
So off we went—Izzy and I, in her SUV. The same SUV that, unbeknownst to us, would die in the parking lot before the trip was over.
As we pulled in, Izzy asked, “Do we need a cart?” I gave her a look. “Izzy. We’re here for me. I’m buying flowers. Have you met me?” “Cart,” she nodded. “Maybe two.”
We wandered toward the hardware section, me running through my mental list. Rob had taken the electric screwdriver to work. I didn’t trust myself with a nail gun. That left me with my old reliable: the hammer. And let’s be honest—some women walk into these places like warriors. I am not one of them.
She flagged down a bearded employee. “Excuse me, sir? Where’s the nail aisle?”
“Depends,” he said without missing a beat. “What size you lookin’ for?”
I, with full confidence and zero clarity, replied: “Big ones.”
He blinked. “There’s a lot of big ones. How big?”
“Really big ones.” I held up a finger like I was measuring some sacred relic.
Izzy started laughing quietly behind me.
“What are you planning to do with them?” he asked.
“Bang them in,” I said. “All the wood.”
Izzy snorted.
“How big is the wood?” he asked, still trying to hold it together.
“It’s big,” I said, realizing too late how far I’d gone. “There’s several of them… I’ve gotta bang ’em in deep.”
Izzy’s face was red. She had actual tears running down her cheeks. And there I was, a married woman, miming hammer motions in the middle of the aisle, while this poor employee tried to stay professional.
He cleared his throat. “So you need nails long enough to bang the wood in deep enough for your project.”
“Yes!” I said, too far in to turn back now. “Exactly. They gotta be hung right, you know?” I gasped. “The flower boxes!”
He chuckled. “Then maybe… start with something smaller than railroad spikes.”
Izzy leaned in, whispering, “You know, it’s not the size of the nails, LaShelle. It’s the motion of the ocean.”
I didn’t miss a beat: “Izzy, as a married woman, I can promise you—that’s a lie.”
We barely made it to the flower section without collapsing from laughter.
But the joke was on me. When I got home, I found out exactly why nails that size were a terrible idea. They were too long, too thick, too wrong for the project and my poor flower box paid the price.
To top it off, my best friend Natasha decided to christen my carpentry failure with the world’s smallest hammer as a Mother’s Day gift.
I’m keeping it forever. Every flower box has a backstory—and sometimes, it involves a lot of banging.
Everpine & Petal 