How I Found My True Calling & Passion
There is much to say that I don’t even know where to begin. I am about to turn 50 and I have been longing to be more transparent about my life and thoughts. I want to share a little about how I found my true calling & passion.
Instagram (connect with me here) is my main way to share my passion for gardening, sourdough, cooking from scratch and learning to be more self sufficient. I enjoy it but I am constantly finding myself annoyed by the changing rules. If you want to be found you need to make certain posts, or reels. The rules are constantly changing too but I am fairly certain that is the point. They want to keep us constantly engaged and scrolling.
In some ways I am so grateful for social media. I have learned so much from others and have met some amazing people I otherwise wouldn’t have met. In other ways I am completely over it and want to shut it all down and unplug forever where no one will ever find me! Clearly it’s a love hate relationship.
I am also completely over the censorship. If the powers that be don’t like what I have to say, I get silenced. So even though I am as close to authentic as I can be, I still have to play by their stupid rules.
Old School is The New School
Blogging and email lists is seriously kicking it old school isn’t it? The beauty of it is I pay for the website and you sign up for the email list so this relationship isn’t controlled by someone else. I put a lot of effort into Instagram but the reality is they can take away my platform and delete all my work if they want to.
Back to the original purpose of this blog post, how I found my true calling & passion. There are many people who find their passion and purpose early in life which is fantastic. There are also many of us that find their passion and purpose later in life. My entire adult life (17 years old +) I have been an advocate of someone. Preborn babies, foster children, woman in poverty, women and children who have been trafficked have all been passions close to my heart. Spending time advocating for the innocent will likely always be something I will do in one form or another.
In 2020 my focus shifted to something totally different and I would guess many of you had that same experience. Things changed dramatically and while I have always been a non conformist, an outlier, I had not fully questioned our food supply. My eyes were opened to it’s brokenness and I knew there was work to be done in my own life.
Choosing Wisdom Over Fear
Many people panicked. We can all remember the strange toilet paper shortage. Since I know God holds my future, I did not panic but I knew I needed to seek truth and learn. Learning to be self sufficient became an instant passion and I read, watched and researched like crazy. How could I feed my four children if the stores ran out of food? The scary answer was that I couldn’t.
The more I learned about our food supply and who controls it, the more my gut told me to prepare.
What The Husband Said
When I told him I was going to grow my own organic produce, he almost rolled his eyes. I am very much a princess. I am a badass in many ways however, not exactly when it comes to dirt, and bugs, and heat and being sweaty. His reluctance to believe I would actually stick it out was totally understandable!
Determination set in and I began in the spring of 2020. Let me just tell you that mistakes were made, like serious mistakes. But I kept moving forward, determined to figure it out.
In so many ways growing my own food is God’s will for me and I believe it is for all of us. Being connected to nature and using your hands to cultivate the earth and bring forth beauty in the form of food and flowers is God’s work.
And in the garden I found HIM.
I also found a new passion to share this with as many people as possible. Not to spread fear but wisdom.
Back to the Broken Food Supply
We are now in 2023 and we are seeing shortages with eggs. Last year it was baby formula. Food prices are crazy in much of the country. Take some time to research how many companies actually provide our food……it’s not good. Not only that but so much of the food in the stores is complete garbage. Processed food is likely one of the things that has caused all the health problems in our society. Diving into that is another blog post for another day, but I will say it’s not real food.
Humans need real food.
Now more than ever we need to learn how to grow food, make food from scratch, eat simply and not eat processed food.
I have many blog posts to help you on that journey.
https://unexpectedgardener.com/tips-to-prepare-for-food-shortages/ https://unexpectedgardener.com/free-gardening-for-beginners-course/
https://unexpectedgardener.com/4-tips-to-prepare-for-food-scarcity-right-now/ https://unexpectedgardener.com/6-things-you-need-to-understand-the-first-year-of-gardening/
So take my FREE course, read up on some options that you think you can handle and just start.
Start from where you are with what you have.
That is absolutely enough.
