We'll Be Back Soon + Chaos & Light

I thought Monday was a heartbreaking chaotic swirl, and then Wednesday’s insurrection at the Capitol put Monday to shame and perspective. (<---And everyone should be reckoning with how differently that day would have unfolded if those rioters had an increased spectrum of melanin, and the corresponding rate of growth still needed regarding racism in America.)


On the business front, we sailed into Monday with enthusiasm and the confidence of having accomplished successful test-runs; but from start to finish most things that could go wrong did. It started with circuit breaks (<--which hadn’t happened during the test-runs) that continued through the day (<--there were 152 orders of rice alone, so imagine the fractal of frustration when you can’t get an Instapot to run successfully <--repeatedly😵‍💫) and compounded with many more myriad issues I have nary the energy left to relay.

By the end of the “day” (it went 2:30AM-2:30AM) the entire team agreed we would/could never step back in that kitchen again. It sadly proved itself to be ill-equipped in every way to handle the scope of subscribers we had at present, and that isn’t even including the sweat-inducing wait-list lurking in the backdrop.

Tangentially (and most appreciatively), we expected (with good reason) for subscribers to be vexed and furious, but in alternate response/energy to the chaos on the Capitol: every single message we received was an emotionally overwhelming swell of support, encouragement, and a chorus harking to start a GoFundMe. We were even receiving lift-up texts from far-flung relatives and friends wanting us to know they were thinking of us, and those texts always seemed to arrive just after some calamity and when we most needed the spark. (<--If you’re lamenting the chaos of humanity, take heart that there is still a bounty of kindness and light-filled souls out there.)

In the meantime, above is how Q memorialized the day: he captured the layout of the church and my fixation with counting to 15 (<--a person’s weekly container count) on repeat perfectly. 😅

“We’ll Be Back Soon”… but in a different space. ✌️🤟🖖

Continue for: a week in review (the chaos, the light, the silver-linings, lessons learned, resetting in our local woods, and plans for the next step).

Live Kindly, Feast Kindly. Grow Forward.

Ian was a dang hero through this whole swirl.

The final pin to pop the ill-fit of the church, was that there was no storage and what we brought in needed to be taken right back out. So by the time we removed each 40+lb cooler bag up the stairs from the basement (this was 4 different trips with both cars <—and Crystal’s eldest daughter did the vast bulk of that nonsense), and all of our gear, and cleaned, and set things back up, we were locking the doors close to 1AM the following morning, followed by me reorganizing food and gear back at the Store, so this lesson-filled day was a complete 24 hours of absorbing wallop after wallop.

The biggest silver-lining learned, is that the PACE for all involved had become untenable. It had been 7-days-a-week all-hours-of-the-day operation (that caused other areas of life/responsibility to wither and drop), and at its current trajectory we were looking at no weekends or days off with our family for at least a year; and through Crystal and I had resolved ourselves to that reality as part of the process/passion, our families had (understandably) not. Crystal’s crew of incredibly helpful teenagers and J’s husband had been working around the clock --and their own jobs-- with us for months; and we would have kept going out of shear passion, but it looks like we needed a hard crash to stop.

Additionally, the one non Hey-Good-Luck! text we received Monday was from a loved one worried about the new strain of COVID popping up in a Saratoga Springs; and though that is hours from us, we know it is only a matter of time before Syracuse explodes with this more contagious variant, and maybe it is better that we will be launching post-explosion and nearer to the time when more of the community will be vaccinated? I seek silver-linings wherever I can. :-)

Our initial dream had been to rehabilitate the empty original South Onondaga General Store on our property into a Community Center with a kitchen for Your Kind Kitchen in the back (it would give us a rent-free space equipped to handle both cooking and vast space needed for the zero-waste containers/coolers), and we are back to regrouping how to make that dream a reality before looking at other kitchen options.

Onward, Upward, Stay Tuned.

I had made it through Monday without tears (though with the bit-lips of lady who’d had a DAY previous :-D), but Tuesday morning Q said, “Last night I was silently crying to myself as I was brushing my teeth, because you weren’t home to tuck me in and all you do is work lately, and it made me so sad my stomach hurt,” and that made my heart husk to ash.

As said above, the pace has been INSANE. Fall of 2019 I resigned from my bread-winning job to get more time with Q (and to also save myself from a social services mental/emotional stress heart attack), I had been happily balancing out work-plus-family while powering away at a greenhouse, but was laid-off when COVID shut down our schools (ie I needed to be home with Q); and when Your Kind Kitchen went from idea to plan-of-attack in a blink, our time shifted immediately back to Medicaid Service Coordinator hours and then vastly beyond that. I was somehow right back where I had been trying to flee, and again: it took a crash to realize that we need to set a healthier pace of growth.


Here seen: I’m back to getting a moment to sit down with him during his homeschooling, and he’d just said, “This is one of my favorite snuggles. I call it THE LATCH because you can pretend you’re swimming by and then latch right on, and there’s no shaking it off….and from upside down our arms look like hearts.” <3

We took a few days for a hard tech reset/disconnect and went out to the local forests.

Here seen: cracking icicles at Three Falls Woods.

South Onondaga back fields

Pleasant Valley Nature Preserve

Pleasant Valley Nature Preserve

Focus on helping him on his homeschool has especially taken a hit, so it felt like a weight off to be able to pull up a spot next to his standing desk and be present (not dictating from across the room while multitasking a million other things) for his lessons again.

(That rack is there to collect Your Kind Kitchen gear before boxing it up for temporary storage).

Old & New

It’s been Sarlaccs doodled in margins for many months, but it’s good for the ear to hear how he enjoys the sing-song lilt of skipping by 2.

A different and terrifying “Old & New”

Wednesday presented a whole other realm of education…like what it means to be an insurrectionist, how the Confederacy fought for the ability to keep slaves and this is the first time this flag has ever made it to our Capitol, and the shear alarming privilege of these souls overtaking a space where darker-toned souls would have found themselves massacred.

Q too wondered aloud how so many people could still “like Trump and not understand or see how mean he is…it’s like they haven’t ever heard him speak!” and also “How could the police let them crawl all over the building and break things and scare people? They kneel on necks and kill black people for little things, and this seems like a very big thing.”

Our Canadian friend (and favorite nutritionist) Kiran had some apt slides for the day.

And so with hearts heavy and American lessons in shame and growth learned (again and again), we got back to spreading light.

Below are a few Christmas Thank You notes I was finally able to list out for Q (<—so many of life’s to-dos have been dropped in the name of Kitchen work! <3 )

Sending out love is a big aim in this house, and when we get sidetracked for other reasons we feel especially bad, so there was an additional weight-off in sending out a stack of fresh art. (Didn’t photograph all, but here are some gems from a kiddo with a heart as big as his imagination.)

To our friends Mark and Di who live in Brooklyn. This is supposed to be Q “finally getting to visit and thanking them in person!”

This was lovingly kismet. Q wanted to draw something “space related for Uncle John, since he likes space so much”, he stumbled upon pulsars and wanted to draw those, and we’d later find out from Uncle John that pulsars emit radiowaves which beats if-not-ties with space as a passion. :-)

What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️

Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕  

Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥

Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎

Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️‍🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️

What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health,  Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health,  American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.

We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️

Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️

If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕

We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖