my story

I hit my breaking point with hustle culture in the summer of 2019. Navigating new motherhood and career highs and lows alongside turbulent family circumstances, loss, and grief left me feeling deeply burnt out. I knew I couldn’t go on the way I had been, but I didn’t know what was next either.

A seed was planted in the spring of 2020. During those early days of the pandemic, my firstborn and I were spending more time outdoors than ever. It was the first time I had slowed down enough to notice that our backyard maple tree grows tiny chartreuse blossoms before it pushes new leaves.

In that year of staying home, I became fully re-enchanted by the beauty of nature right in my own backyard. I threw myself into gardening, and found so much comfort and healing with my hands in the dirt.

When I became pregnant with our second child that fall, I decided to step away from the small business I had built altogether. Though I knew it was the best choice at the time, it was a real struggle to leave behind the life and identity I knew and step into uncertainty. Yet, it was out of this fallow period that I was inspired to start living and working slowly, sustainably, and with the seasons of nature.

I didn’t have a plan; I just felt called to share what I was learning and bring people together. Yet I trusted that if I kept taking the next step, the path forward would appear. It was a wildly different approach than anything I had done before. In January 2022, I hosted a winter sowing workshop at an outdoor park pavilion, where eight of us huddled around the fire, snacking on frozen scones and lukewarm cider. That was the beginning of what would become Cross Quarter Club. Learn more →