“Why don’t you just buy the already minced garlic, Julia?” “Why don’t you just pop it in the microwave?” “Holy cow! You wait how long before baking your bread?!”

Because, I’m not in a hurry, and yes, I will wait 24 hours to wait on my nutritious and fermented bread before I bake it for my family. But, first, let me go get the eggs, wipe a few noses and answer a couple of emails while the oven is preheating.

How did we get here? Not 2 years ago I was buying easy snacks for school lunches, reaching for the Tylenol as soon as a fever hit, didn’t ask questions and sure as heck didn’t read the ingredient lists.

It all started with a clove of garlic while I was living in the darkest place mentally, emotionally and spiritually I have ever been. In the hardest season of marriage, motherhood and trying to keep a house in order while working full time, God met me in a clove of garlic. I ran out of my huge tub of minced garlic in the middle of heating up oil and chopping up an onion and I’m sure my initial thought was, “Why did I even bother cooking?” Because any little thing that went wrong in my life at that time was devastating. Every. Little. Thing.

I look over and notice I have actual garlic bulbs in a mason jar in my spice cabinet. It was for aesthetic. It was to look cool if a friend came over. It was useless to me because I would never use it if I didn’t have to. But that night I did.

I took a deep breath, that I know the Holy Spirit helped me out with, and started peeling, then mincing and then letting it fall into the heated pot with oil. Y’all. When I tell you the aroma that fresh garlic gave, especially after the work put into getting it into the pot, sent shivers down my spine and I have never bought a jar of pre-minced garlic again.

God met me in a clove of garlic.

Although I can’t completely recollect the rabbit holes I went down after that to get me to where I am today, it was the beginning of what felt like everything good that is in my life today. Don’t get me wrong. There was plenty of good before but in that moment when I smelled that garlic, I knew something had shifted.

I am welcoming you, sweet friend, on this blogging journey to let you in on my urban homestead. I want you to see how easy it is to slow down. To start to understand where things come from and how they are made. And, if you are like me, doing it while working a full-time corporate job. I have three children under four years old, 5 chickens and a dog and live at the end of a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood in town in middle Tennessee. I have an amazing (incredibly smokin’) husband who partners with me most of the way (depending on how wild my aspirations are that day) and is in fervent prayer as he leads our family into a life that is not as well-received as I would hope.

I cannot wait to share with you recipes, our journey through messes and mistakes in our garden but still bore beautiful fruit, the journey of impulsively buying chickens and ducks (the ducks are now processed in our freezer), and how God is showing His goodness in the most unlikely of times.

Thank you for being here!

PS- No shade on anyone who buys pre-minced garlic.

-Julia