Thank you so much to everyone who entered our honey giveaway last week! Darlington’s tickled that so many of you were excited to try her honey!
Read More “Announcing Darlington’s Bee Barn Honey Giveaway Winner”
DIY Ranch Design Series: Darlington’s Bee Barn + Giveaway
I’m not sure if I shared this before with anyone outside of my family, but when I was little, I was a bit of a mad scientist. Growing up in the country with nothing to do and neighbors who lived a few acres away made me a creative kid by default. Couple that creativity with an entrepreneurial spirit and ta-da trouble in the form of liquid messes and missing bathroom products. Mom’s shampoo was always the go-to fragrance for my concoctions—perfume, shaving cream, bath gel—and dad’s foot powder made an excellent thickening agent. Grandma would find tiny glass bottles at the flea markets, and I’d go around the neighborhood to our five or six neighbors, selling my potions.
At the end of the day, I’d walk away with a few bucks, and then hand it over to Grandma so she could purchase bottles for me again. It was a vicious cycle—the overhead was killing me. Eventually, Mom and Dad bankrupted my business. I was convinced that the neighbors were devastated, but I guess that’s what happens when your family unwittingly invests in your business and you’re nine years old.
Keeping that spirit alive today, I wanted to build a space for Darlington where she could learn about business and fan the flames of creativity. Yes, she’s only three and a half months old, but it’s never too early for teaching opportunities!
Read More “DIY Ranch Design Series: Darlington’s Bee Barn + Giveaway”
A Mother’s Journal: The First Three Months
How do you even begin to articulate this stage in life? I’ve never been so besieged with thoughts, feelings, emotions, hormones, and bouts of lethargy, while at the same time the happiest I’ve ever been—happy from the depths of my soul. From the moment I wake up until I haphazardly fall asleep, I’m in awe of this little miracle. She breathes. She sighs. She sleeps. She laughs. And she looks at me like she knows me better than anyone else ever could. She is the best of us. We created her. Life as we know it right now is pulling from two polar opposite places and somewhere in the middle, we’re existing in a haze of weary bliss.
Even the blatant honesty of things—my body is the softest and lumpiest it’s ever been—doesn’t faze me. I’m the strongest I’ve ever felt. Birth made me a warrior, a fierce mama bear, and more passionate about helping women and women’s rights. I have more respect for single mothers and working mothers and single-working mothers. I don’t know how they do it all. It’s probably because they don’t have time to talk about it. The talkers are rarely the doers. In fact one of my clients has a saying, “If you’ve got time to lean, then you’ve got time to clean.” Ain’t that the truth?
But I’m not going to lie—I have help. I declined the whole nanny and night nurse thing because I don’t have to clean, unlike my mother. She did it all, and with three kids nonetheless, while my dad spent months on the road working. At night she was a cop, and in the day she was a mom, cook, housekeeper, nurse, tutor, and best friend. If I can just be half the mom that she was, Darlington will be the luckiest little girl.
Another amazing woman who inspired my foundation into motherhood is my best friend Kathryn. I was fortunate enough to witness her become a mother before me. She was a successful attorney, as was her husband, but she decided to put her career on hold to rear their two children and support her husband’s ambitions.
I asked her how she could give everything up. Before Darlington I imagined I’d gladly hire a night nurse to get a good night’s sleep and consider putting my child in daycare. Then in one answer, she completely changed my way of thinking and thus, is the inspiration for my first three months as a mother. You only get this one chance in these precious few months. You can go back to work, but you can’t go back to these times with your baby.