When I was little, my dad used to say, “You don’t have any iron in your nose, do ya?” Usually after I’d wandered off in the completely wrong direction.  At the time, I thought it was just one of those silly dad things , kinda like “don’t take any wooden nickels” or “you’ve got more nerves than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!”

Years later, I found out something wild: humans actually have microscopic deposits of magnetite (iron) in our noses and brains that help us sense direction.  It’s like a built-in compass that nobody talks about!  Suddenly, my dad’s weird little saying wasn’t nonsense.  It was ancestral poetry!

That got me thinking: how many old sayings, passed down like family heirlooms, actually hold more wisdom than we realize?

Let’s dig into the dusty corners of the language attic and pull out a few gems that still have a place in our modern world.

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🧠 1. “You’ve Got a Gut Feeling”

Translation: Your gut knows things before your brain does.

Turns out, the “gut feeling” isn’t just emotional, it’s biological.  The gut has over 100 million neurons, often called the “second brain,” and it’s deeply connected to our nervous system.  When you get a bad vibe about something?  Your gut might’ve read the room before your eyes even caught up.

Modern Takeaway: Trusting your gut isn’t flaky, it’s neurobiologically legit.

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🪵 2. “Don’t Borrow Trouble”

Translation: Worrying about what might happen just drains your energy.

This one used to confuse me.  How do you borrow trouble?  But it’s actually a perfect metaphor!  Worrying is like taking out a high-interest loan from a problem that hasn’t even occurred yet.  You’re emotionally overdrawn before reality even shows up.

Modern Takeaway: Anxiety isn’t preparation.  Stay in the present.

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🌾 3. “Make Hay While the Sun Shines”

Translation: Use the good moments wisely, they don’t last forever.

Back in the day, if you didn’t cut and dry your hay while the sun was out, you might lose your crop to rain or rot.  It was literally the difference between survival and scarcity.  Today, the same principle applies, capitalize on your energy, your peace, your joy.

Modern Takeaway: Don’t wait for the perfect time.  Act when the window’s open.

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🔥 4. “That Rubbed Me the Wrong Way”

Translation: Something about that didn’t sit right, and there’s a reason.

This one always gave me tactile ick vibes.  It turns out our bodies are constantly reading social cues, from tone, body language, and micro-expressions, and sometimes they raise little red flags before we consciously know why.

Modern Takeaway: Your discomfort is data.  Don’t dismiss it.

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☕ 5. “A Watched Pot Never Boils”

Translation: Obsessing over progress slows it down, or at least makes it feel slower.

Patience was built into our ancestors’ everyday life.  They waited for crops, for letters, for trains.  And somewhere along the way, they learned that over-focus breeds frustration.  Sometimes, you have to set it and forget it.

Modern Takeaway: Let go a little.  Life’s timing is better when you’re not micromanaging it.

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👨‍🌾 Final Thoughts on All This:

We think of old sayings as dusty relics, things our grandparents mumbled while whittling something or stirring a pot.  And hidden in those quirky turns of phrase is a rich inheritance of insight.  Our ancestors knew things, about nature, bodies, emotions, time, they just said it in their own language.

And maybe if we listen closely, we’ll find that wisdom still fits like an old coat: a little worn, but still warm and feels like home.

There’s a moment you never forget:
When the person who raised you, loved you, and limped through your teenage chaos, starts to hurt in a way the experts can’t (or won’t) explain.

My mom’s legs had been crying out for years. Puffy, blistered, aching.
And what did the professionals say?
🩺 “Hmm.”
🩺 “It’s probably just aging.”
🩺 “We don’t really have an answer.”

Meanwhile, she’s got skin so sensitive it breaks open like thin ice and veins puffier than my pride after a good loaf of sourdough!

So guess what we did?

We stopped waiting for a diagnosis and made a damn balm.

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Introducing: Venous Support Balm

🧴 The DIY that said: “I see you, Mama.”

This wasn’t just a lotion.
This was my love letter in herbal form.

It was me, looking at yarrow root powder and going, “Can you keep away this swelling?”
It was me, whispering to the chamomile, “Be the calm her legs forgot.”
It was me, finally doing something when nobody else would.

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What Happened Next?

We rubbed it in.
We spoke kindness into the skin nobody had treated with reverence.
And that night?

“It doesn’t feel so hot anymore.”
“It didn’t leak today.”
“Can you bring more tomorrow?”


YES.  Yes, I can!

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What’s In This Little Healing Jar?

🌿 Yarrow Root Powder – venous tone support, helps shrink those ballooning veins.
🌿 Calendula – builds back skin resilience like a contractor for capillaries.
🌿 Clove – moves that stuck blood like a tiny plunger.
🌿 Chamomile – because her skin deserves tenderness.
🌿 Bees Wax and Manuka Honey – anti-inflammatory and circulation support with heavenly vibes.

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Why This Isn’t Just a Hack, It’s a Herstory! 😉

This balm wasn’t about vanity.
It was about dignity.
It was about making her feel seen in a world that only saw charts.

She pays extra for care that doesn’t come.
She asks for help and gets told she’s fine.
So I stepped in, not just as her daughter, but as her advocate, her apothecary, her cheerleader.

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If You’re Where I Was

Make the balm.
Say the words the doctors don’t.
Touch the skin that everyone’s ignored.
And let your love be louder than their apathy.

Because sometimes, healing doesn’t come from the clinic.
It comes from a jar you made in your kitchen… with herbs, hope, and hell yes energy!

Let’s be real, compost isn’t glamorous.  It’s stinky.  It’s messy.  It’s literally a pile of old banana peels, eggshells, and last week’s regrets.  And yet… it might just be the wisest teacher in the whole garden!

Why compost?  Compost is transformation in slow motion.

It doesn’t ask you to pretend your scraps never existed.  It says, “Bring me your moldy strawberries, your cracked dreams, your burnt toast mornings.  I can do something with that.”
It doesn’t rush.  It stews.  It simmers.  It processes.

And when it’s done?

It feeds everything!

That’s the magic.
That the very things we think are too far gone, too rotten, too broken, too used up, might just be the exact ingredients we need to nourish new life.  In our soil and in ourselves.

🪱 Worm Wisdom: Lessons from the Decomposers

The worms don’t judge.  They don’t go, “Ugh, cabbage core again?”
They say, “Perfect. Let me break that down into something beautiful.”

What would life look like if we treated our emotional leftovers like that?
Not as failures.  As future fertilizer!

That heartbreak?  Compost it.
That lost job?  Compost it.
That moment you yelled at your kid, your partner, your dog, or your reflection?  Compost it.

Let it break down.  Let it be worked over by time, microbes, and a little grace.
Then watch what grows.

🌱 A Little Dirt Never Hurt

You don’t have to be clean to be worthy.
You don’t have to be perfect to be powerful.
And you sure as heck don’t have to be polished to be planting something good.

Get your hands dirty.  Turn the pile.  Mix it up.
And remember: compost may start as a mess…
but it ends as nourishment! 🌺

You know the ones.  The creeping thistle of a comment made years ago.  The dandelion puff of a betrayal you thought you’d blown away, until it seeded itself again right when you weren’t looking.  Garden grudges are just like real weeds: persistent, sneaky, and surprisingly good at stealing the sunlight.

And just like in the garden, if we don’t deal with them, they take over.

The Roots Run Deep

Some grudges look small on the surface, an eye-roll, a forgotten birthday, a time someone didn’t show up when you really needed them.  And when you try to pull it, you realize the roots stretch all the way back.  Not just to the moment itself, but to a whole tangled ecosystem of unmet needs, childhood wounds, and old stories you’ve told yourself to survive.

And here’s the hard truth: you can’t just yank it out and call it good.  Healing, like weeding, is a practice.  It’s sweaty, humbling, and a little dirty.

Companion Planting for the Soul

Here’s the magic… Every weed is a teacher.

That bitter memory?  It might be showing you where your boundaries need reinforcing.  That old betrayal?  It might be nudging you to finally speak your truth.  Forgiveness doesn’t always mean replanting a relationship, it can just mean choosing not to let it hog your nutrients anymore.

Try this: Instead of asking “Why did this happen to me?”, ask, “What can I grow from this?”

Compost It

The best gardeners know that even the mess has value.  Dead leaves, pulled weeds, and spoiled produce all go into the compost pile, and from that dark, broken-down matter?  New life bursts forth.

So yes, go ahead and feel it.  Be angry.  Grieve.  Name your hurt.  And then, in your own time… toss it on the pile.  Turn it over with intention.  And watch how your garden begins to thrive!

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✍️ Journal Prompt:

What grudge have you been tending to (maybe unknowingly)?  What would it take to pull it up by the roots?  And what might you grow in its place?

Earth doesn’t need to prove herself.
She simply is.

She holds everything, the mistakes, the miracles, the compost of old versions of us, and she asks nothing but patience.  She says, “Stay.  Grow slow.  You’re safe.”

So far this week, I found grounding in the smallest things.  My hands in warm water, washing my blender bottle.  A rock I picked up and didn’t put down for some reason.  The smell that fills the air when I water the lavender.  My body knew what it needed before my brain caught up.

Sometimes Earth is a whisper.
Sometimes she’s a full-body “no!”
And sometimes she’s just a nudge to rest already, before life makes you.

I let her guide me this week.  I stopped rushing.  I made lotion.  I cleaned off the table that I’ve been avoiding.  I made a list, then promptly ignored it.  And the world?  Still turned.  The garden?  Still grew.  My worth?  Still whole.

There’s a lesson in the compost: nothing is wasted.
There’s a lesson in the roots: what supports you is often unseen.
There’s a lesson in the stones: stillness can be sacred.

So if today you don’t bloom, if today you’re still underground, know this:
You’re not behind.
You’re becoming! 🌺🎆 💐

There’s a kind of fire that doesn’t destroy.
It doesn’t rage or scorch.
It calls.

It’s the kind that glows behind your ribs when you hear your name said just right, or when an idea lands so hard that you have to stand up and do something (I prefer a little dance.)  That’s the fire I’ve been feeling so far this week (I’m aware it’s only Tuesday), not chaos, not burnout.  Just a steady burn.  A forge.

It’s the pull to protect what matters, and create something new!  A primal knowing that says: this is mine to tend.  Not everything is, but this, just this.

And isn’t that the trick with fire?  Knowing what to feed, and what to let go to ash.

Fire doesn’t waste time.  It demands clarity.  It burns away the excuses, the distractions, the dead branches of “maybe later.”  It says, now!  It says, what are you waiting for?!

So I asked myself:
Where is my energy calling me?
What am I meant to heat, to shape, to guard with my whole spirit?

The answers didn’t come as words.  They came as a clench in my gut, a rush to my cheeks, a sudden urge to clean the entire house, make lotion, and reorganize my seed packets at 2 AM.  (Fire’s weird like that.)

It said:
Make the thing.
Say the truth.
Draw the line.
Be the damn flame! 🔥

This isn’t about lighting the world on fire.  It’s about tending to your hearth.  The part of you that knows what deserves your heat.  Your time.  Your ferocity.

So if you’ve been feeling that inner spark, that restless energy, that urge to move or make or scream or shine, that’s fire talking!  Don’t ignore it.

It might just be calling you home.

Some days, I don’t feel like a person, I feel like a tide.  Rising, receding, reshaping everything without ever meaning to.  I’ll be making coffee and suddenly find myself crying over the freshly grated cane sugar that I insist on using.  Not sad, just… full.

Water doesn’t just break down doors.  It seeps.  It softens.  It returns again and again until even the hardest stone gives in.  This weekend, water showed up everywhere for me, not just in the rain that pelted the hen coop roof like it was trying to make a point, but in my dreams, in my bones, in the quiet ache behind my ribs (my heart, I think… 🤔)

Emotionally, I was flooded.  Not drowning, just submerged.  The kind of submerged where you can hear your own heart beat louder than the world.  That in-between silence, like being underwater and knowing you’ll surface when it’s time.

Plants don’t resist the rain.  They open to it.  Let it soak them down to the roots.  And maybe that’s what this weekend asked of me, to stop resisting.  To let the feelings come.  Let them flow.  Let them carry away the sediment of old stories I’ve told myself for far too long.

There’s wisdom in water.  She reminds me that “stillness” is action.  That “rest” isn’t retreat.  That “soft” isn’t weak.  This weekend, she asked me to pour myself back into the cup of my own care.

And so I did.  I cried.  I stretched.  I sat still.  I soaked.  I let the storm pass through, and when it did, I noticed something had shifted.  Something had healed.

We are mostly water, after all.  It would be foolish to pretend we’re anything else.

This week, the wind had opinions.  Not just your casual breeze-through-the-trees type… no…  this wind was dramatic.  A full-body exhale from the universe.  It rattled the cover on the coop, flipped a bucket across the yard, upended the trellis, and left me standing in the garden like some accidental oracle, squinting at the sky, wondering what kind of message I was supposed to be decoding! 🤷🏻‍♀️

The chickens didn’t care.  Morticia gave me the side-eye and went back to scratching the dirt like always.  But me?  I felt it.  The whisper.  The warning.  The shift.

I’ve come to think of the wind like an old friend who’s just a little too into astrology.  It doesn’t always make sense, but when it shows up loud and persistent, you listen.  This week, it was howling in all directions, stirring up old seeds I forgot I’d planted.  Thoughts I buried with good intentions.  Feelings I mulched under because I didn’t have time to deal with them.

Gardens are honest.  They don’t care what you meant to water.  Either you did, or you didn’t.  Emotions are the same way.  The wind doesn’t lie.  It just points out what’s already shifting inside.

At one point, a gust knocked my shovel over, startling me right out of a deep train of thought.  I laughed, because honestly?  That wind was right!  I was spiraling into old stories again, ones that didn’t need tending anymore.  They’d gone to seed.  The wind gave them one last puff, and off they scattered.

I think that’s what this week was about: letting go of the stale, the stuck, the stories that no longer root well in my soul’s soil.  The wind may seem chaotic, but sometimes it’s just doing a little energetic weeding on our behalf.

So if you felt a little off this week… if your thoughts were gusty and your emotions swirled like leaves in a dust devil, you weren’t alone.  That was just the wind, reminding us we’re not statues in a still life.  We’re living things in a living world.  And sometimes, before we can bloom, we have to bend a little.

There’s a moment, right after the spilled coffee, just before the overdue bill, and somewhere between “I forgot to thaw dinner” and “why is the dog licking the wall”, where it happens…

She arrives.

Your evil twin.

Not evil in a villainous way (she’s not plotting world domination).  No, she’s more chaotic neutral.  She forgets her affirmations, rolls her eyes at gratitude practices, and suddenly can’t remember why she walked into the room.  She’s impatient, short-tempered, sarcastic, and dangerously close to downloading another self-help app just to delete it again.

And if we’re being honest… she’s also us.

Stress doesn’t create our evil twin.   It reveals her.  She’s the version of us that hasn’t had her needs met, sleep, nourishment, connection, a solid cry in the car.  She’s not here to ruin our lives, she’s waving a red flag, screaming, “Something’s not right!”

So how do we deal with her?

Not by shaming her.  Not by pretending she doesn’t exist.  Instead, by recognizing her, and then making space for recovery.

When we treat ourselves like the villain during stressful times, we’re missing the plot.  The evil twin isn’t our enemy.  She’s our warning signal.  A living, breathing “check engine” light with mascara smudges and a short fuse!

Let’s look at this honestly, with a little humor, because sometimes that’s the only thing standing between you and a grocery store meltdown, am I right?! 🤷🏻‍♀️

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YOU vs. YOUR STRESS TWIN

A totally scientific, not-at-all chaotic comparison chart (also see illustration above)

Grounded You / Stress Twin You

Remembers to breathe / Forgets how lungs work
Meal preps with quinoa / Eats 7 cheese sticks over the sink
Uses kind words / Mutters insults at the printer
Responds with curiosity / Reacts like a dragon guarding treasure
Embraces imperfections / Thinks missing socks = personal failure
Practices gratitude / Gives the side-eye to inspirational quotes
Asks for help / Hisses like a cat when offered support

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Reclaiming the Wheel

We don’t get to banish our stress twin, but we can befriend her.  We can slow down, hydrate, nourish, unplug, and say, “Thanks for showing me I need a break.”

And when she shows up again (because she will), maybe we greet her with a hug and a snack instead of shame and silence.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we don’t need to be perfect to be powerful.  We just need to notice when we’ve switched into survival mode… and then gently guide ourselves back home.

You ever agree to do something bold and brave… and then immediately wonder what demon possessed you to say yes in the first place?

Yeah.  That’s me right now, packing my bag and my nerves to head to South Dakota for a speaking gig.  Public speaking, they say, is scarier than death for most people.  And today, I believe them.

But here’s the thing, I’m still going.

Not because I’m not scared.  I’m terrified.  I’m sweaty-palmed, heart-racing, second-guessing-my-entire-outfit scared.

I’m going because I’ve finally learned that courage doesn’t mean the fear is gone.  It means the mission is bigger than the fear.

And this mission?  Helping others grow food, find themselves, and live a little more like their great-grandma told them to?  That’s a mission I’ll shake through.  That’s a mission I’ll stand up for, even if my voice cracks and I forget my notes and need to breathe into a paper bag behind the curtain.

Here’s what I remind myself (and maybe you need to hear it too):

You don’t have to be perfect to be powerful.  Some of the most memorable talks come from people who were real, not rehearsed.

The nerves mean you care.  And that care is exactly what makes your words land.

You can be scared and still spectacular.  Fear doesn’t cancel out your magic.


So if you’re staring down something big, something brave, something that makes your stomach flip?  Good!  That means you’re alive.  That means you’re stretching.  That means you’re becoming.

Wish me luck!  I’ll be the one with the quivering hands, the oversized thermos of protein coffee, and the wildly passionate heart that refuses to shrink back.

Now it’s your turn!  What’s the “South Dakota” in your life right now?  What’s the scary thing you said yes to, and how are you showing up for it anyway?

Let’s be brave… together! 🥰