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When Toddler Dishes Taught This Working Mom to Feel Loved

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

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Ever feel like love keeps reaching for you, but some old instinct makes you duck away?

That’s been my story for most of my life, a quiet belief that something was fundamentally wrong with me—something that disqualified me from being truly, deeply loved. When people went out of their way with kindness, whether it was a thoughtful gesture or words meant to affirm me, I found myself almost unable to bear it. I’d deflect with a joke, change the subject, or pull back to what felt like a safer distance, convincing myself I didn’t really need anyone after all. And yet, from that very distance, I’d ache and complain that no one truly cared.

Where the Pattern Began
Looking back, I can trace much of this to childhood on our Wisconsin dairy farm. Farming carried relentless stress—long days in the fields, milking cows, haying season pressures that stretched my parents thin. The farm always came first, and while they poured everything into keeping it alive, we six girls learned to need less, do more, and stay out of the way. We never needed words to feel the pressure, but children read rooms like seismographs, absorbing every sigh, every moment of bone-deep tiredness. I internalized that needing anything made me a burden. So I shrank myself: good student, low-maintenance helper, hyper-independent. Better to be useful than to be needy.

That pattern wove into adulthood. My love language became acts of service—cooking, cleaning, organizing, stepping in quietly. It became both how I loved and my shield. Always doing meant never done for, staying safely in control as the helper, never the helped.

When My Children Started to Change Everything
Motherhood began unraveling this through hundreds of small moments. When my babies nestled against me, their complete trust felt like a start. But deeper change came as they grew, each finding ways to love me back through acts of service—their tiny mirror of what I’d modeled for them.

My two-year-old adores doing the dishes. She drags a chair to the sink, climbs up purposefully, rag in hand, and tackles plastic bowls and spoons. Counters grow wetter, floor becomes a puddle, but her earnest eyes shine with pride. The old me wants to take over. Instead, I hand her another bowl and say softly, “You’re such a good helper. Thank you.”

My six-year-old is mastering the art of folding laundry. When our daughter arrived, survival mode hit hard. For a while it was simply faster to do everything ourselves. Now that we’re coming out of that season, we’re intentionally pulling him into family contributions, even though it takes more effort and patience from us. He folds t-shirts into neat squares, pairs up socks as best he can. Sometimes I open my drawer to discover one of dad’s underwear tucked in with my things. I gently correct him as I place it in dad’s drawer. Now he proudly asks first, “Mom, is this yours or Dad’s?” Him learning to be involved feels worth it for his well-being in the long run.

Then there are the rocks. He loves bringing me stones that he finds: smooth pebbles, bits of quartz, sometimes just muddy treasures he knows I’ll appreciate. As an environmental professional with a geology background, his rocks land right in the center of my heart. He’ll run up, eyes shining, holding out his find: “Mom, I found this special rock just for you!” I take time to study each one with him, turning it over in my hands before placing it in this clear container where his rock collection resides.

The Moment Love Finally Landed
These imperfect acts were their love language, mirroring mine. Rejecting them would mean rejecting their hearts. So I’m practicing receiving: drying toddler plates, keeping laundry stacks as-is, treasuring every rock.

One overwhelmed day, I found my two-year-old at the sink, surrounded by suds and her pile of “clean” bowls. Water dripped from her elbows, face earnest, clearly seeing my exhaustion. No words needed—her effort said, “Mommy’s tired. I’m helping.”

That cracked me open. All my life avoiding burdenhood, here was my toddler seeing me and choosing to lighten my load anyway.

The Homesteading Lesson Love Teaches
Love arrived not as overwhelming force, but through soggy dishes, earnest laundry folds, rocks gathered for Mommy—humble acts from small hands noticing my need. My lived-in home holds these lessons.

My children teach me love shows in ordinary service. When I receive without fixing, I rewrite “burden” as “belonging.” They prove I’m not too much—I’m exactly right for their help, their effort, their love. And teaching my son to contribute builds his confidence for life ahead.

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Kitchen Counter Clutter: Working Mom’s Real Homesteading Fix

Where can you reduce clutter in your life?

My kitchen counter is a disaster. You know the one—the magnet for mail, kid artwork, and random tools that multiplies like gremlins when you’re racing to set the table for supper. Here’s how I tame mine.

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As the mom of two kids, this could be an easy prompt to answer by just pointing at the toy bins and calling it a day. They get a lot of toys and clutter, and my older one brings home a staggering amount of paperwork from school. Some weeks it feels like the trees of Wisconsin are being felled one worksheet at a time. We’ve invested in a Montessori-style bookshelf (affiliate link) and toy shelves (like this one and this one, affiliate links), rotating toys so only a small number are out at any one time. The rest live in bins in the closet, ready to reappear when boredom hits.

But today, I’m talking about my clutter.

Specifically, this counter.

This counter is where all our kitchen table collectings come to die. It’s the landing pad for everything that doesn’t have a place—or that does, but we’re too rushed to walk those extra twenty steps. Art projects, mail, library books, notes from work, random tools, torn pants, a stray sock, half-finished crafts—they all land here.

The ritual is always the same: supper’s approaching, someone spots the chaos on the table, and everything gets scooped onto the counter. Table looks perfect. Counter silently absorbs the mess. Out of sight, out of mind—until we need that space again.

That next thing is often my husband’s sewing projects. He bucks the stereotype by loving to sew and fix clothing. When seams rip or buttons pop, he grabs the machine—his grandmother’s cherished heirloom, used at least twice a month. There’s poetry in mending happening where our clutter gathers: one space holding what’s broken and what’s fixable.

My approach isn’t glamorous. About once a month, I get fed up and drag a garbage can over. No big project, no speeches. Just relentless culling.

Books return to shelves. Important mail hits my office. Kids’ art gets sorted—some displayed or binned, most released. Junk, expired coupons, ripped envelopes: trash. I ask: “Do we need this? Does it have a home?”

In a Pinterest world, I’d have labeled baskets and a command center. In my world, it’s monthly irritation-fueled blitzes. And that’s enough for now.

What this teaches me about homesteading: Progress isn’t pretty systems or spotless counters. It’s clearing space for what matters—family suppers on a cleared table, a sewing machine keeping clothes alive, kids’ art earning its keep. My home stays lived-in, not staged. That counter reminds me daily: make room for real life, even if piles return tomorrow. Clutter reduction isn’t elimination—it’s choosing what earns its place.

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Why I Chose Homesteading

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I turn 36 this week, and it feels like as good a time as any to tell you who I am.

I am

a wife
a working mother of 2 beautiful children
an environmental professional
a homesteader
a gardener
a reader
an animal caretaker
an aspiring writer (the blog you’re reading is me practicing)
an amateur historian
a perfectionist
a ruminator
a friend
a daughter
a sister

Growing Up on a Wisconsin Dairy Farm
I grew up on a dairy farm in Southeastern Wisconsin during the 1990s. It was a tumultuous time in farming—small family-run dairy farms were rapidly disappearing into larger, consolidated operations.

My dad secretly never wanted to be a farmer. Born an only child into a multigenerational operation, he inherited the responsibility anyway. Despite that, he managed to hold onto his land and his 60-cow herd through years of stress and hardship. All the while, there was this undercurrent—he’d tell us kids, “Don’t farm. There’s no money in it.” That story deserves its own post someday.

In 2001, my dad sold the herd and rented the land to a nearby large farm. By that point, my five older sisters had mostly graduated high school and left to make their own way. My parents took “city jobs”—Ma at the local grocery store, my dad first as a farmhand, then for a local horizontal drilling company. They bought beef cattle for me to care for during my teenage years.

The Teenage Rebel Who Wanted Out
Before my dad took over from his father, farmers traveled no more than a mile to access all their land. By the time he changed careers 25 years later, some had to drive an hour or more to reach the farthest corners of their acreage. The world I grew up in was already shifting fast beneath my feet.

But as a teenager, I couldn’t have cared less about the cattle I was entrusted with. Farming felt pointless. I was determined to “get out of Dodge County” and go to college in nearby Madison. Books came easily to me, and I wore that like armor. I had a chip on my shoulder—I thought I was smarter than the farm life, better than staying put, that I had everything figured out.

Pride, Pain, and Coming Back to Earth
Pride comes before a fall, as they say. I never had one dramatic crash, but I had low moments that humbled me.

When I was 17, I sustained serious burn injuries on my arms and chest. I received skin grafts on my arms. I spent a long season wrestling with shame and the fact that I was marked by scars. When I finally reached Madison—the dream I’d chased—I felt small next to high achievers who hadn’t come from farms and had flawless skin.

Even after landing a job as an environmental professional, I stood in rooms feeling inadequate beside people who seemed to know so much more. It took years to accept I wasn’t the smartest person in the room—but I still had something valuable to offer.

Love, Long Courtship, and Hotel-Hopping 20s
I started dating my now-husband at 19. We’d known each other longer, but that’s when our story began. He didn’t grow up on a farm but found agriculture fascinating. He thought it was neat that I’d spent my childhood around cows, even as I ran away from that identity.

After a long courtship, we married when I was 27. We loved each other deeply, but finding our rhythm took time. Through trial and error, we landed on shared ground: children, homesteading, and country living.

All along, I’d quietly loved making things from scratch, even if I didn’t call it homesteading. Freshman year of college, I made pizza entirely from scratch (except the cheese). It took three times longer than it should have. I ruined zucchini bread by confusing tablespoons for teaspoons of salt. Junior year, I bought a crockpot (affiliate link) that made my dorm floor jealous of the dinner smells wafting from my room.

Motherhood Opened My Eyes
I graduated grad school at 24 and we moved near Green Bay for my job. For the next six years—my freewheeling late 20s—we traveled heavily—for work and fun—with each other, family, and friends. Hotels became our second home. It was a wonderful season of freedom I hated to see end.

Then I had my son just before turning 30. Motherhood was like someone handing me color television after a lifetime of black-and-white. The challenges were endless—physical, emotional, exhausting. But when he smiled and grabbed my finger with his tiny, chunky hand, everything faded. I wanted to be better for him.

That first year coincided with Covid. No village. Husband working a lot. Our beautiful house on 18 acres of “dream land” suddenly felt hollow. Land doesn’t raise children. Pride in property lines doesn’t fill the gaps. As we talked about baby number two, we made a deliberate choice: we moved back to our hometown near Mayville, Wisconsin.

Dad Endured. I’m Choosing.
Dad held onto that farm through brutal years—not because he loved it, but because he was born into it as the only child carrying a multigenerational legacy. He’d tell us, “Don’t farm—there’s no money in it.” Now I’m choosing this life freely—not out of obligation, but because it fits who I’m becoming. We’re gardening, raising chickens, baking bread, and raising two children. The girl who couldn’t wait to escape Dodge County came back on her own terms.

At 36, I’m still a perfectionist and a ruminator. Still learning that I don’t need to be the smartest to serve well—I just need to show up, learn, and share what I find.

This blog is me doing that. Someone standing in the middle of her story. Rooted, growing, still in progress.

Practical Homesteading: growing food, raising kids, building community.

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Why Seahorses Are My Favorite Animal (Not Chickens!)

What is your favorite animal?

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I’m going off script here. You’d expect a homestead star from a homestead girly like me—like the clever pigs rearranging their shelter to face the sun or chickens pecking frogs and toes with equal fervor. I cherish those animals. They shape our daily lessons.

Yet today, I’m choosing the seahorse. I’ve never kept one. It serves no farm purpose. But that’s its magic—it prompts reflection on family roles from an ocean’s distance.

What fascinates me is its gentle role reversal. The female deposits eggs, but the male tucks them into his pouch, nurtures them, and births the young. This challenges “men provide, women nurture.” It models shared responsibility where both partners stay strong, gentle, and committed.

That’s not just ocean poetry—it’s our story since returning to our hometown. My husband and I share caretaking duties seamlessly. He minds the children during my work calls (sometimes after I paced with our baby in this baby carrier (affiliate link). No toy chaos waits behind—hard-won after frank talks that tested us both. He tends evening chicken feeds amid dusty clucks while I plan garden rows, much like seahorses exchanging roles beneath the waves.

Caregiving thrives on that flexibility. It’s the yin-yang balance of roles shifting as needed—under ocean depths where seahorses trade pouches and responsibilities, or right here in the farmyard dust where my husband and I pass the load back and forth. Whether it’s him stepping up with the kids so I can wrap a call, or me tackling garden rows while he handles the coop, this give-and-take nurtures what endures: a family that bends without breaking.

What animal has shaped your view of family? Or what’s your unexpected favorite animal? Share your story below!

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How Teams + Chickens Power My Work-from-Home Mom Life

In what ways do you communicate online?

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Online communication wraps my days like an old quilt—patched from COVID chaos into something warm and steady, threading work demands with homestead heart.

Work: Coworkers Made It Possible
Picture March 2020: lockdown just hit, my 4-month-old screaming through a call with all my coworkers, less than a week into daycare closures. A kind voice chimed in—”Hey, there’s a mute button”—a small grace that eased my overwhelm and turned chaos into control.

I wouldn’t have built this virtual career stride without my amazing coworkers who saw me through. That moment etched Teams mastery into me: nailing the mute through fussy spells while pacing in this baby carrier (affiliate link), leaning on chat pings for quick collaboration, sharing OneDrive links for big files without inbox jams from my stand-up desk (affiliate link), and email for the decisions that stick.

Now both kids know to hush during calls—proof of growth from raw survival to steady rhythm, all thanks to that team support.

Personal: The Good Stuff We Share
You know how Google Calendar just saves us? Color-coded birthdays popping up for relatives, schedule nudges so nothing falls through the cracks. Facebook, though—that’s our family laugh album. Me posting those glorious flat “nailed it” pancakes with a giggle, plus coop fixes glowing in sunset light. Email is for the heartfelt catch-ups that stick with you. It’s all that unpolished joy keeping far-flung friends and family right there with us, cheering the wins through the quiet stretches .

Homestead Recharge
Those personal connections keep me going, but after the workday’s emotional drain—especially tough Teams calls and tough reports—it’s the chickens that truly reset me.

I slip out to the run where hens cluck hello amid dust baths. Their simple rhythm grounds me in why I grind. It’s a feathered reset that clears my head for garden plots ahead. Those quiet moments remind me this online hustle fuels real soil and seeds. It’s where virtual threads meet tangible roots, weaving work grit into family purpose one contented cluck at a time .

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Signed House Contract at Used Car Lot-On Our Honeymoon Trip to Alaska

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

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We signed a house contract at a used car lot—on our honeymoon road trip to Alaska.

My husband and I postponed our honeymoon for a year because we both dreamed of driving from Wisconsin to Alaska. At first, we planned to fly, but then he asked why we didn’t look up the driving logistics. I did, and it came out to about 60 continuous hours on the road.

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” I thought.

So we began planning a three-week road trip for June 2018. We bought a new Subaru Crosstrek, figured out the perfect gear and packing technique, and anxiously counted down the days.

Affiliate Links for Recommended Travel Gear:

Trailer hitch

Rear mounted cargo hold

Cooler

Blackout Shades

The House That Hijacked Our Honeymoon
What we didn’t plan for happened the day before we left. We toured a beautiful house and property that was for sale by owner. We were actively looking, and this one appeared on the market that Monday. The day before departure, we put in an offer. The next morning, already packed and driving down the highway, we got the call: they accepted it. Then came the catch—they insisted we turn around, come back without a realtor, and negotiate the terms in person.

In hindsight, the red flags were glaring. At the time, we were just young and excited. We’d only made it to the next town over, so back we went to sit with them and work out an agreement that we later learned was heavily biased toward the seller.

The Used Car Lot “Realtor”
They had plenty of experience. They’d bought rental properties before, were about thirty years older than us, and had their real estate friend there “just to write up the paperwork.” We met them at his actual business building: a used car sales lot. Meanwhile, we had a suitcase in the backseat, a printed itinerary to Alaska, and a lot of naive trust that people were generally fair. We signed what they put in front of us, then handed the agreement to a lawyer we hired sight unseen because the deal needed to close before we returned from our trip— because this was the trip of a lifetime we’d already postponed once.

We told ourselves it was fine. We didn’t know enough yet to recognize just how stacked against us the whole setup really was.

Alaska via Internet Cafés
From Velva, North Dakota, we hired a real estate lawyer over the phone. From Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, we tracked down a home inspector willing to examine a property we hadn’t even emotionally committed to yet. From a restaurant with spotty Wi-Fi, we opened our email and read the lawyer’s first warning that the terms weren’t great. From Watson Lake, Yukon—somewhere between the Sign Post Forest and actual spruce forests—we began to grasp just how bad the terms really were. And from Anchorage, Alaska, with mountains filling the windows and our honeymoon dreams fading in the background, my husband was completely fed up and trying to convince me to walk away from the whole deal.

I pushed on anyway, stubborn and hopeful as ever. I hunted down internet cafés and libraries in small towns, asking clerks if they had a scanner I could borrow. I hunched over public computers, printing documents, signing them, re-scanning, and emailing everything back to the lawyer and sellers while other travelers casually checked weather reports or email. There’s a particular absurdity to signing legal addendums about well inspections with bear safety posters hanging on the wall behind you.

We felt like we were in a real-life Subaru commercial

Honeymoon Highlights Amid the Chaos
The road trip itself was everything we’d dreamed of and nothing like we imagined. We drove long stretches of highway that seemed to belong to no one, met kind strangers at gas stations, and watched the sky turn light again at 3 am . We ate sandwiches in the car, argued about which way to turn, and pointed out every moose sighting like excited kids. But running underneath all the glaciers and mountain passes was this constant undercurrent of “Did that email go through?” “What did the lawyer say now?” “Are we making a huge mistake?”

The glacier view to end all glacier views

What That House Meant to Us
Looking back, what makes this road trip so memorable isn’t just the honeymoon or the bad real estate decision. It was us—very early in our marriage—learning how each of us handles pressure. He was ready to cut our losses for the sake of peace. I was determined not to walk away from something we’d already invested so much in: time, money, emotion, and the dream of that house and property. We took turns being the calm one and the panicked one. We learned how to argue in a car without a door to slam and how to apologize at the next gas station.

In the end, the house did become ours, but not without real emotional and financial cost.

However, that property saw us bring home our first child, learn how to garden from scratch, fix a house that needed a lot of love, grade our first driveway, and bring home our very first chickens—the true beginning of our homesteading life. Five years later, we sold it. Not because we didn’t love it, but because we needed to move closer to family as we planned for our daughter.

The road from Wisconsin to Alaska became the backdrop for midnight phone calls, scanned signatures, and the slow realization that experience and age really do matter when you’re sitting across from someone at a negotiation table—or their used car lot “realtor.”

If I had it to do over, I’d bring a realtor, a lawyer, and a far more cautious pen. But that trip also forced us to grow up a little faster and see each other clearly, flaws, stubbornness, and all.

When I think of my most memorable road trip, I don’t just picture mountains or long stretches of Canadian highway. I see a young couple in an overstuffed Subaru, chasing one dream all the way to Alaska while fighting not to lose another one back home.

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Home Popcorn: Farm-to-Bowl Story

What snack would you eat right now?

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My snack of choice would be a humble bowl of popcorn. Not the store-bought microwave bags full of PFAS. (I know they say they now have “PFAS-free” options—I just don’t believe them. And as an environmental professional, I’ve seen enough contamination data to stay skeptical). But good home-popped popcorn. Popped with coconut oil (affiliate link).

(affiliate link) or lard, seasoned with nutritional yeast (affiliate link)and popcorn salt (affiliate link). Five minutes from counter to bowl.

Around here, that bowl carries a whole chain of ordinary work through many hands. Last year we tackled several rows of garden popcorn. My son and I started with a couple rows—his little boots shuffling between stalks, tugging ears bigger than his hands. He lived for using the corn knife while I held stalks steady with gloved hands. The next day my dad, sister, and family friend finished the other couple rows. Ma shucked them at the kitchen table while watching TV—a perfect calming activity. The shucked cobs dried in an out-of-the-way spot, turning quietly perfect over weeks. Once dry, my sister shelled kernels loose until they clattered into bowls. Finally, my dad and I used the air compressor to blast out every bit of chaff so only good kernels remained. Those gallon bags fill our pantry.

I scoop kernels into the hot oily stovetop popcorn pot (affiliate link)and kids drag chairs close to watch oil shimmer, then the first pop, then the storm. We eat by the gallon over months—post-dinner fuel, “movie night” chaos where kernels scatter everywhere from eager child hands. We all pitch in to clean the floor mess—all of us giggling as we chase escapees across the carpet, turning spilled popcorn into a game.

Although we’re starting to teach our son the work behind the bowl, they don’t fully know the drying racks or chaff under fingernails. Just “our popcorn.” That’s growing food, raising kids, building community—not Instagram projects. Hands passing cobs, kernels bouncing on the floor, small faces waiting for magic.

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Tractor Rumble

There’s something quietly magical about the sound of an old tractor rumbling across our little homestead.

That deep, earthy growl—it’s like a song I’ve known all my life. More than a machine, it feels like a heartbeat that steadies me, connecting me to something ancient and familiar.

When I was young, I spent hours riding on open-air tractors like this—sometimes with my dad, sometimes with one of my older sisters at the wheel.

I still remember the cold morning air, the scent of diesel and turned soil, the steady roar carrying across the fields. Back then, it was just life happening around me—the background music of home.

Now, when this engine comes to life, a quiet joy stirs inside me. It’s as if the girl I once was lifts her head again, smiling at something she forgot she loved. Maybe it’s nostalgia—or maybe it’s the sound of healing.

#FarmLife #RuralRoots #Nostalgia #HealingJourney #CountryLiving #WomenInAg #BackToTheLand

Homesteading Fails School: Practice Mistakes Before Buying Chickens

Come up with a crazy business idea.

My Crazy Homesteading Business Idea: The Fails-First Farm School

Today’s WordPress prompt asked for a crazy business idea. Mine? A homesteading school that teaches you how to fail on purpose—before you waste money on chickens that fly away or bread dense enough to break a brick wall.

I Grew Up on a Farm But Still Don’t Know How to Homestead

Here’s the irony: I grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, surrounded by cattle and hay bales. But when I wanted to start homesteading—gardening, chickens, bread baking—I had no clue. Why? Because as a kid, I steered toward book learning and school, not the daily farm rhythm. So when I started, I was buying homesteading books, watching YouTube videos, and Googling recipes (and honestly, I often still do).

If society functioned like it should, we’d learn these skills at home. Anthropological records show traditional societies taught this way. Kids watch parents garden, tend animals, preserve food, then gradually practice under supervision—making mistakes, getting guidance, building proficiency over years. That’s how you end up with adults who can butcher a chicken or predict the weather by cloud shapes.

Modern Parents Can’t Teach Like This

But modern working parents? We’re supposed to clock 40+ hours, chase carpools, and collapse before ordering takeout. No time or patience left to let kids fail at kneading dough a hundred times. So we hit 30, feel the pull toward growing food and raising kids closer to the land, and… Google “how to backyard chickens.” Then panic when they escape.

Enter: Fails-First Farm School. A place to safely mess up before you invest in your own setup.

The Weekend Curriculum: Practice Failing Safely

Spend 48 hours doing what parents used to teach over childhood:

Bread Track: Intentionally overproof one loaf, underproof another, nail the third. Learn by comparing failures side-by-side.
Chicken Track: Chase, catch, trim nails, clean coop—with someone saying, “Yup, we all look ridiculous first time.”
Garden Track: Plant mini plots showing overwatering, underwatering, crowding—then fix them.

No perfection pretense. Just realistic practice for working parents craving growing food, raising kids, building community—but starting from zero hands-on knowledge.

Who Needs This

Farm kids like me who chose books over barn chores
City parents feeling the homesteading pull
Working moms who want chickens but fear failure
Anyone missing the apprenticeship their grandparents got naturally

Why This Fits My Homestead

Growing food, raising kids, building community isn’t learned from screens. It’s watching, failing, practicing under kind eyes. Modern life stole that apprenticeship. Fails-First Farm School gives it back to adults who need it now.

Would I Actually Do It?

Right now, this is just a coffee-fueled “what if.” I’m still the woman who periodically produces a brick of sandwich bread. But watching working parents like me Google “chicken won’t lay,” I keep thinking: someone should build this.

What if we let working parents fail forward instead of faking perfection?

What’s your biggest homesteading fail? Drop it below—I bet it makes a great lesson.

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Wooden Cross Necklace Survived Fire, Lost at Super 8

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

What small object survived your worst day—but vanished from a Super 8 nightstand?

Mine was a simple wooden cross necklace—lacquer-coated wood, brass eye screw at the top, black cord. I received it at a Catholic Confirmation retreat my junior year of high school. Surrounded by teens from other schools, I fell inexplicably in love with it. Wore it constantly, except when bathing.

The Fire That Almost Took It
Two weeks after Confirmation—May 28, 2007—I sustained serious burn injuries to my arms and chest. My shirt collar burned away. The black cord was destroyed in the chaos. In the hospital, as I faced blood loss and skin grafts, I assumed the cross was gone forever.

Then my sister found it—miraculously intact in our driveway. She brought it to me while nurses changed dressings. I was at my lowest point physically and emotionally. That wooden cross became proof of rescue when I needed a miracle most.

My Anchor Through a Decade of Motion
I restrung it as soon as healing skin allowed. For the next 10 years, it never left my neck, carrying me through:
• High school graduation
• College finals when I doubted everything
• Early days knowing my now-husband (we got together at 19)
• Hotel stays traveling with him, friends, family
• Road trips, work trips, and my first attempts at bread in the breadmaker

Through hotel check-ins, late-night talks, suitcase unpacking—the cross stayed steady. My talisman during that season of motion, before marriage and kids.

The Super 8 Loss
Then one careless moment at a Super 8 in Fresno, California. Forgot it on the nightstand. Realized at the next hotel. Called back. Nothing.

Ten years of survival—gone. I was devastated.

What I Carry Now
That cross wasn’t jewelry. It carried a decade’s worth of rescue:
• The driveway miracle my sister handed me
• Hospital reassurance when nurses changed dressings
• Steady presence from teenage faith to breadmaker experiments with my future husband

Looking Back: Attachment’s Double Edge
Losing it taught me objects anchor but don’t last. Their power lives in what they witness, not what they are. That cross saw me from scarred teenager to traveling 20-something experimenting with breadmaker loaves. It helped shape the woman who now kneads bread by hand with her kids’ sticky fingers on our homestead.

Its lessons remain. Some fires burn cords but not meaning. Some things leave nightstands but not memory.

What object got you through your 20s transitions—college chaos, early love, pre-kids road trips? Did you keep it? Lose it?

Share below—I want to hear your stories.

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