Muddy Roots

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Jess at Muddy Roots.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jess at Muddy Roots in Boston, no, near about Boston, Massachusetts? Yes, Boston, Massachusetts, but located in Dorchester. Okay, cool. Yeah.

00:24
Awesome. So what's the weather like in in Dorchester? Because it's really gray and overcast and kind of chilly in Minnesota today. Yeah, looking at my window, it's about the same. I mean, we had like a pretty delayed start to our winter. So that was great. But yeah, it's gloomy. It's cold. You know, we're probably get snow soon. And that's what it is until, you know, till March, April. Yeah, I understand.

00:50
we're actually supposed to hopefully get a little bit of snow because really we haven't had any and we are coming up on Christmas next week. And I'm like, okay, if it's got to be gloomy, can we at least have pretty snow falling? You know? Well, that's what I said. I said to my kids at work, I was like, God, like, have you had like, have you had a snowy Christmas yet since you've been born? And they're like, no, you know? So, hopeful for that too.

01:13
Which is insanity because I grew up in Maine and I don't remember not having a snowy Christmas in the entire time Until I moved out of the state when I was 21 22 So Just the fact that that new england is not having Consistently white christmas is so weird. Well, it's not and I moved here almost four years ago and since then like

01:41
you know, the warmth of our winters and the fact that we really are like compared to what it used to be, barely getting any snow. I mean, we used to have 12 feet of snow, six feet of snow, and now we're lucky, you know, now we're lucky if we get a couple inches snow, you know, and I grew up in New York in Long Island, and I remember being little and small and going out into the snow and it coming up to my to my chest, you know, and growing up having these

02:10
you know, massive snowstorms every year that you kind of got to look forward to. You get to take them from school and, you know, with the way the climate's going, that's just not happening anymore. Yeah. And there's lots of people who don't believe that climate change is a real thing, but I think that climate change is real. I think that it's definitely here and I think it might be a little too late to fix it, so I'm, I'm kind of worried about it, but

02:37
I'm going to make the best of every day that I have alive on this planet. So that's where I'm at with that. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Sure. I mean, so we started or I started Muddy Roots. I mean, I started Instagram for myself to find an online community of what I was going through, which was chronic illness at the time that was undiagnosed and being a woman and just how long that was taking for me to understand what was happening. And so I sought.

03:06
community and I found a bunch of young women going through similar things, right? Just being young and it taking so long to get where you need to be. So in that time I had started that for myself, but was also at my wits with you know medicine in general and I've always been a gardener. My last name is gardener. My dad always used to bring us outside to our yard, force us to garden every year and do a vegetable.

03:33
Garden and plant all the flowers and just say, you know, your last name is Gardner and you will do this And you know, this is in Long Island, New York And I so I grew up like that right your parents Sometimes force you to do these things and you grow up and they just become part of who you are and you continue them You know, you don't start to stop doing them You learn to love them and appreciate them and you know, thank your parents for it later so when I was going through the midst of my illnesses and things like that and

03:59
you know, there really was no medication from me to help my pain, I, out of pure desperation in order to function and have some semblance and quality of life, went to my garden. And I started going herb by herb for what I was growing. Sage, rosemary, oregano were like mainly the three things that I started with and noticed that like, they helped my pain significantly when other things weren't. And that kind of led me down this rabbit hole.

04:29
Like if I was never taught about this, if I didn't know about this, if people don't talk about this, and this was almost 10 years ago, what else don't I know? What else can I find just by growing more, experimenting, being inquisitive, you know, and trial and error, really, you know? I wasn't like, I didn't go to school for this. It just was happenstance and desperation that I fell upon this. So yeah, muddy roots kinda.

04:57
started as a way for me to treat myself and also connect with a community of women and help people advocate for themselves and their body as I was learning to do that for myself and help women gain access to not only Western medicine, but other holistic options that I saw effective, you know? And we would kind of piggyback off each other, you know, because all of us were young and wanted to have a life worth living, you know?

05:25
Yes. And when you say oregano and sage and rosemary, do you mean eating them or do you mean teas or do you mean tinctures or all day above? I started with tincturing and now I, so yeah, it really depends like what I'm going to use it for, right? If I have a UTI, I'm going to use a tincture. If I have gastric upset, there's other herbs I'm going to use and I'm going to use that mainly like from a tea.

05:53
Yes, or you can put these things in salves and use them as muscle rub. So it really depends how I'm going to make it for what part of my body I'm going to use it for. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious because we did not have an herb garden this year. We didn't even really have a garden this year. The weather was horrible. All of May and June, it rained and rained and rained, and our garden was just a sad mess this year. But up until this year...

06:21
For three years straight, we had the most beautiful herb garden and we had rosemary growing, we had thyme, we had sage, we had, oh my God, I don't even know, all the usual suspects. And what I do with that is I cut them and dry them and put them in my pantry and we cook with all those things. Yes, yes. And so we eat a lot of our good for us herbs. For sure. We don't really do tinctures or teas. That's like such another way to just, an easy way to incorporate.

06:50
these things into a daily diet, right? They're not just seasoning. Yes. So yeah, for sure. Yeah, we do that as well too. We dry, you know, we have our garden in the back and we're lucky we live in Boston and we have a yard and my husband made me a garden last year so I can start using. So what we try to do at Muddy Roots, or I try to do anyway, is we set up our garden, we grow everything and we

07:19
shutdown shop for the most part when we're done with our garden for the year. That way we don't source out and unless somebody personally comes to me like, hey I like this product can you make it for me? Like you know then I'll do it but that's for the most part except for our skincare we keep that going. Fire cider I do all year round. But salves and tinctures normally stop probably by March and then start again come June. So it's a short window that it's not going on.

07:49
Okay. Yeah. All right. So I have a very specific question for you because you live in Massachusetts and I live in Minnesota and every state is different when it comes to the rules and regulations about what we people who aren't factories or businesses, you know, big businesses, can make and sell. So what do you have to do to be legal to sell the things you make? I mean, mainly as far as skincare, it's all good as

08:18
as far as you're accurately labeling, now it's tricky, you know, when it comes to fire cider and things like that. You know, that we can't sell at pop-up shops and things like that and I don't. You know, if people come to my house, they want a fire cider, I'll sure I'll make it for you and you can have it. But we don't sell that without a license. Okay. Yep. It's very tricky sometimes when you're trying to help people but the government is like putting handcuffs on you and saying,

08:47
No, no, no, you have to pay for this license and you have to take this test to be sure you know what you're doing and blah, blah, blah. So. No, I read, you know, and obviously like for sure things need to be regulated, but you know what? You know, they also regulate, I mean, you know, it's also the Twinkie, you know what I mean? The FDA approves the Twinkie. So. Uh huh. No, I know. I know it's so. It does need to be regulated. People do need to stay safe and they do want, they do need to know what they are ingesting and they have the right to know and you know, all that, you know, so I get it.

09:17
Yep, I just here in Minnesota, we don't really, we have to label everything. Like we make soaps, we make lip balms, we make candles, and even the candles sort of have to have a basic label that says what the candle was made with. And that's only because of fire hazard. But for sure, soaps and lip balms, we have to put every ingredient on them. Well definitely. And...

09:42
If anything, I mean many reasons, but for one being allergy purposes, right? Like sometimes sunflower is used or other oils and there's lots of kids. I work with them with sunflower allergies, you know. So it all depends. Yep. It's just all part of having a business and playing by the rules and trying to honor and respect and have compassion for the people that are going to be using your products. Now anybody with that being said is a...

10:12
welcome to come into my home, sit down, have a cup of tea and pick my brain and I'll give you any advice you want. I'll set you up with a plan, you know what I mean? And you know, go from there, you know. I, um, which is what I do for like most of the things that I sell, whether it be a T or tincture, you go home and I ask that you journal and you tell me like, how do you feel on this? What is your differences? And I want to know for like the next month, whether we continue or not, or do you need something else, you know?

10:40
That's amazing. I love that. I can't say that everybody does it, but I do. But that's how I learned herbs, right? Because you think of, well, when you get to know herbs that are aside from your garden and your pantry, and you learn that there are thousands other out there to kind of experiment with and learn about, it's kind of like a daunting task, right? How am I gonna learn?

11:04
all these things and I feel like I'm still pretty early in that even though I've been doing it for 10 years and researching and experimenting for 10 years there's always more to know and how the herbs interact with each other and all that and it's like just super daunting. So I read like about a couple of years ago you take one herb and you just try to really focus on that herb and you get to know that herb and experiment with that herb alone without adding it with other things and see how that makes you feel you jot it down before you start doing combinations and all that because then it's like you don't know.

11:33
It kind of all gets muddled. Yeah. It's kind of like when you start, well, you don't have kids, but I do. It's like when babies start eating solid food, you start them on one new thing at a time so that you can see if there's any reaction to it. Right. Yep. Cool. I am impressed. I think that that is wonderful that you say that the people that you help should keep a journal of how they're feeling. Because number one, it makes it easier for them.

12:02
but it gives you some feedback on what really works and what doesn't. And if they do have certain symptoms arise, I can probably find out why or what is it, are you someone who naturally runs low energy, high energy? If I'm going for an example of, or even heart rates, like if you're someone who is naturally a tired person and you don't tell me that and I give you Hawthorne.

12:28
you're going to be sedated. So these are things I need to know so I can give you a different herb for maybe the same thing we're trying to treat that's just going to make you feel different while doing the same job. Yes, because someone who's naturally not high energy and you give them something that's going to make them sleepy, that's not really a great plan. It's not gonna work. And there's so many, there's so many herbs, luckily actually, that kind of do similar things, right? So if one doesn't work or you have this effect from this one.

12:58
and we're trying to work on like blood pressure and things like that. So and you're taking it and you're sedating, there's a bunch of other words that we can use that's going to maybe even boost your energy, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm gonna throw this in because it's one of the things that I learned about an herb and it has nothing to do with people, it has to do with cats and dogs. Catnip, catnip. Oh yes, it grows wild in our yard and we've had like.

13:25
stray cats coming and we have a dog but we've seen this stray cats in our yard. One of them I know from like a mile or two down the road and it's found my yard. So you know. Yes, catnip makes cats crazy. It makes them hyper and crazy and stoned and it's really fun to give some to your house cat. But did you know that it's a sedative for dogs? It calms them down.

13:51
Yes, and it's great for their GI tract. I started using herbs on my dog, one of them being catnip too, when he was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel. I just started thinking, oh my God. And I asked my doctor in a holistic about what can I use and the things that were told to me I had in my cupboard, things I use on myself. Yes. But yeah, catnip is great and it's great for humans. And it grows wild here. I mean,

14:20
Wild, I mean, when I plant it. I don't know if it's native to here at all, but it does grow crazy in my yard. It grows wild here when we're not in a drought. Yeah. If it's dry, it doesn't grow. But the reason I discovered this situation about the difference between how it affects cats and how it affects dogs is we had our beautiful favorite dog, Spade, three years ago. And she was...

14:48
about three and a half years ago, she was about six months old. And they gave me some medicine to keep her calm because she's a mini Australian shepherd and they're freaking crazy. And the medicine they gave her, one of the side effects is hyperactivity. I'm like, you gave her something to calm her down and it might make her even worse. And so we gave it to her and she was, she was being her normal crazy self and she had a spay incision that was fresh. And she actually ripped a stitch.

15:17
We had to take her back in and make sure that it was okay and they fixed the stitch. And so I looked up things that I might have in my home that she could eat or, I don't know, drink that would calm her down. And I found out that catnip would work. And we had catnip and she had tried it before because she got some from when we gave it to the cats. And I put some in my hand and she smelled it immediately, came over and licked it off my hand and ate it.

15:47
And within 10 minutes she was laying on the floor, completely calm, tongue hanging out, just relaxed. I was like, huh, herbs are great. I love herbs. They're wonderful. And one thing I do notice, I mean, with some of them, you'll notice pretty immediately how it's going to make you feel. And I'm not anti-prescription or anything like that. But I know that if I take rosemary and I want to treat low energy brain fog, I know

16:17
or ADHD symptoms or things like that, I know that within an hour, I'm good. You know, I can feel the difference from just a strong rosemary tea and how it affects my mental alertness and my energy and my brain. Yeah, peppermint and spearmint do that for me. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah, it clears my brain immediately.

16:45
I don't know why. It just does. Well, that's the thing too, right? I mean, well, same with medications is like how it interacts and how your body metabolizes. It is so different. You know, I spent, I spent, I guess a little like brief, I'll get into it a little bit, but I spent like the majority of my childhood and young, a young adulthood on things like Ritalin, Biobans, Adderall.

17:09
Prozac, Wellbutrin, like, you know, all these things, right? And then when I was 27, I decided actually the year before I got into herbs, you know, I decided I'm going to for like the first time since I'm like literally four years old, clear myself and get off all these things and like kind of see what happens for the first year. It was like super difficult. And, you know, literally the detoxing that went on with me from things I didn't even abuse was horrific.

17:37
and I'm not gonna tell somebody not to take these things, but for me that was like my experience and it really freaked me out, you know? And I started looking into my herbs and thinking like, what can I do to replace this? Because it's crazy that we grow up. The issue that I find mainly is that Western medicine and things like this are not combined and they should be because it's opening so many other doors for people.

18:06
to treat themselves, you know, and make choices for their body. And when one thing fails, you have a million others. And it's not like that when we're not educated, when we don't know that these things are available and may work for us. Yes, I think that they should go hand in hand. And I was just talking with someone else on a podcast episode a week or two ago about the fact that Western medicine and...

18:35
our doctors don't like your general practitioner isn't going to say I think you should go visit an herbalist unless they've had experience with an herbalist. No and what led me well actually what I'm not sure I first seeked my first herbalist maybe like

19:00
six years ago, I want to say. And it was such an eye-opening experience. And then years after that, like maybe four years ago, a couple years after that, I started getting really bad GI symptoms. And I was somebody who had IBS. It wasn't severe or anything. But what I was experiencing was like dropping weight.

19:26
I couldn't eat anything, my stomach was in so much pain, and I kept running to my GI, and I kept saying, like, this is not normal for me, and I literally cannot function. I borderline almost have to leave my job to give time to myself to figure out why this is happening, because I can't do both, and to be in that position, not for the first time in my life, but to run and ask for help and have nothing to hold onto and no hope.

19:54
you know, when your life is suffering. And I went and I saw a naturopath and it changed my life, right? He changed my life with food. He changed my life with the supplements and the herbs that I was taking. And in six months, you know, I was fine, you know? And in that time, it took also my doctor six months to believe me and to run, or no, eight months I was fine, but two months before that, it took him the six months to run a test I was begging for with upper GI scope. That's all I wanted. I wanted...

20:24
And answer, of course, he kept telling me I was fine. And what did he find? Erosive gastritis, you know, with pre, like, you know, precancerous like things in my stomach. So I was just like, that really led to me to, I don't wanna say not trust because every practitioner is going to be different, but to be very open-minded to when you're not getting help, go seek it elsewhere, you know? You have to advocate for your body because not everybody's going to do that for you. Yes, absolutely.

20:54
and especially as women. I have talked about this a couple of times in episodes. I'm not gonna get into it too far, but if you are a woman in this world, especially in America, if you're not getting, if you don't feel like you're being listened to, definitely look for a second opinion. For sure. And I had a, so after they found like the precancerous cells and the changing in the erosive gastritis, he's now, you know, then he's like, all right, now you need a scope every one and a half years.

21:22
I go to my next scope, right? I had been on herbs this whole time, you know, and was pretty like non-symptomatic in my upper GI. Everything was good. They do my scope and they tell me everything's back to normal. There's nothing there. Nothing there, no pre-cancer, nothing. And they said, what did you do? I said, herbs and fire cider. And they said, what? And I said, herbs and fire cider. And they said, okay, we'll see you in a year.

21:50
I mean, in a year and a half, right? We'll do it again just to make sure. And if you're clear then you don't have to come back unless you develop issues. And I said, is this normal for this to happen? And they said, no. I'm like, all right. So even if you tell them this is what you're using because they're not trained in it, there's nothing they can do. There's nothing they can say. They can't even say like, they can't even recommend it to somebody else, right? It's not regulated. So they, you know, it's to them, it's like, oh, you know.

22:17
you know, good for her, but when the next person comes in and they're struggling like I was and they, you know, and you know, they don't have help. They need to be trained in both modalities. I stand by that. They have to be. Well, maybe in 50 years, that'll be the norm, but right now it's not. And isn't there a line, patient heal thyself? Yeah. And I think part of that comes from the fact that we know our own bodies.

22:45
best of all, right? We may not understand what's going on or why it's going on, but we know when things are not normal. I should tell my doctors, I've lived in this body X amount of years. I know when something is not right. And it's so hard when you know that to be sent home and to be told constantly to come back in two weeks if it doesn't go away, you know? Like, especially now after COVID.

23:12
I mean, I saw a drastic decrease in the level of care I was getting. Forget about wait times with specialists and things like that. I'm talking like being able to get tests. I'm talking the time I get in their office or anything like that. Like it's been really, really difficult, you know, for me to find proper PT and other things that I used to have that helped me, you know, a lot of things I do come out of pocket, unfortunately, now so I can receive.

23:40
good care. But I really do think like the more people podcast about these things, the more women speak up, it's going to be forced to change somehow one day. Yep. And I, this is going to sound really dumb. My podcast isn't necessarily about health in particular, but it's about all the things that kind of support health, if that makes sense. Right. Yeah. So what you're saying is important.

24:09
What can you do with the things that the earth gives you to help yourself? Right and there are so many things like Raspberry red raspberry leaf tea is one of the things that I heard about a lot when I was pregnant with my kids Yes, and elderberry for supporting your your respiratory system and

24:34
There are so many simple things that don't really cost anything except your time to learn how to use them, how to prepare them, and the time it takes you to harvest them. I think because we're not raised to be like this, right, quote unquote, homesteaders, which is such a vast word in how you choose to go about what you do with your land and your time and your resources. You know what I mean?

24:59
It does seem daunting. It seems daunting to me, and I'm sure it seems daunting to a lot of people who are not raised like this to go out from the way we are expected to live in society and go attempt that, right? It just seems even though making these things is, it's pretty easy once you learn and you know, it's not hard. But the idea of it seems like I can never do that. Yeah, but people go to college and spend

25:27
hours and hours and hours cramming information into their brains to spit it back out on a test and find out they're never going to use that information again. For sure. I went to college and I dropped out after six years of like trying to get this degree and finishing 80% and leaving and moving to another country and living there and just trying to figure out, you know, this is not it for me. I need to, I need to figure something out. I need to, I need to.

25:56
I need to do something else. You know, I didn't, it's funny too, because years ago in high school, they make you take those aptitude tests, right? And I went to college for fashion and on my aptitude test for like what career you'd be best at, it came back as nurse and a farmer. And I was really pissed off because I had just was getting about to spend all this money. And I had been interning for years even in the fashion industry before I got into college. And I was like, well, this is not correct, you know? And if you think about it, what I'm doing now is,

26:24
Am I a farmer by any means? No. Do I garden? Yes. Am I a nurse? No. But do I help myself and try to help any woman who comes into my path asking for it? Sure. So in its own way, it was kind of correct. You were a caregiver and a nurturer and the tests showed that. Sure. Yeah. Great. I love it. I took those tests too. And for me, it was singer, writer.

26:53
or broadcasting. And now you're broadcasting. Yeah, and I actually write too and have for years. You know, I've been publishing a couple magazines and... That's amazing. Stuff. So, the aptitude tests are sometimes they're pretty dead on even though you don't think so. It's crazy because, you know, I say like to myself personally, right, when I think of myself as an 18-year-old entering the world and you think sometimes. And maybe people, some people...

27:23
know more about themselves than I did, right? But I decided to go to FIT. I went to school in big New York City and I was somebody who hated big cities and didn't like to be around a lot of people. And still, you know, there's so many times in my young adult life where I knew things about myself and I didn't listen to what I knew about myself and just did what I thought. I'd make money, give me some level of prestige.

27:53
um, whatever that be. And then you grow up and you realize, man, like, it's hard, man, sending an 18 year old to college and telling them, what are you going to do for the rest of your life? You need to figure out within the next couple of years and hopefully stick to it. It's difficult. I don't advise it, right? You know, I don't know. Yeah, I did not go to college and my teachers were very upset with me. Really?

28:20
Oh, I told my English teacher, my senior English teacher, that I was not going to college. And the teacher I'd had for two years in a row, the two years before in AP courses, advanced placement English courses, the lady that had been my teacher for two years in a row, she said, so where are you going to college? And she said, there's a school in Maine that you could go to that's really good for writers. I will write you a reference letter. And I said, I don't need one because I'm not going.

28:49
I remember. Oh, yeah. She had tears in her eyes. She said, Mary, why you're so smart. And I said, because I know myself well enough to know that sitting in a lecture hall for the next four years is not where I want to be. Yeah. And I didn't know these things about myself. Like I knew certain things, right? But I didn't understand a bigger picture here of like many, many things.

29:17
And it's interesting because so much of growing up, in my opinion, is kind of growing up, evolving, and then for me specifically, unevolving, right? And getting back to the root of who you are and the things you love. My garden. You know, being in just empty spaces, taking walks, and trying to, the best I can in this society, to slow everything down. Yes. I've been trying.

29:46
And you know what is really hard? Like we live in Boston and I want so badly to get out of the city more than anything. And, and I have an Oasis where I live and I'm so lucky, but I know I'd be better off with. Space and land and less people and less noise and traffic and yeah, just a different type of life.

30:10
Well, you don't sound like you're old, so you have time. Sure. Yes, I'm 37, so I've got time. I've got time. But sometimes, you know, when your jobs are here and this is here and that is here, it feels hard sometimes to just bite the bullet and leave. For us, it would mean like starting over in many ways. Yes, and that's really hard. And what I will tell you, because we sort of did it on a small scale four years ago.

30:39
We left our cute little tiny house, not tiny house like tiny house, but our 850 square foot house, sold it and moved to a 3.1 acre place in the middle of corn fields and soybean fields about half an hour from where we used to live. And it wasn't a huge change because it was only half an hour away from where we used to live, but we don't have the option of having food delivered to where we live, no one delivers this far out of town.

31:09
Um, if we want to go to a real place to go shopping, like a Sam's club to stock up, we have to drive half an hour one way or 40 minutes another way where it used to be 15 minutes away. Um, there are, there are big things that happen when you move in a big way. Like if you move across country, that's a huge change, but even half an hour away to a place where

31:35
our nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away. That was a humongous change for us. Yeah, I mean, going from Long Island to Boston, I didn't think it would be such a big change, but I didn't grow up in the city. Yeah. You know, so.

31:51
So it's been a big change.

31:56
But yeah, yeah, it's, I'm ready to get out of land and, you know, make more herbs and make more things. And I think back to three years ago, and like even, yeah, three years ago, I didn't know how to make a single thing. I knew things about herbs, but I didn't know how to make a single thing. And I just randomly started experimenting. Not even for medicinal purposes, I started with soap.

32:23
Oh my goodness, is the dog okay? Yeah, I see.

32:33
He hates steps, so he cries. Is he a hound? No, he's a poodle. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I hope that's okay. No, I don't. I can always edit it out, it's fine. Oh, good, oh God, that's like not the first podcast that I've been on where he just like is quite loud. No, I love dogs. Anyone who has listened to the podcast knows that I adore dogs because my dog is my favorite thing on earth right now. Same, yeah, my dog's helped me through. He's just come with me everywhere he's helped me through.

33:03
through so many things. Yeah, it's so silly because we have the most beautiful home. We are so happy where we live. And we got this dog like a month or so after, well, two months after we moved in. And she was eight weeks old. And she was the cutest, sweetest thing. And she has just continued to be the cutest, sweetest thing in my life. And I feel like the crazy dog lady, not the crazy cat lady.

33:30
Yeah, I'm the crazy poodle lady. I always say this is going to be my last poodle and then I get another poodle. Well, this was the first puppy I've ever owned. So, so it's been a very big experience for me having a puppy that I have grown into the most wonderful dog ever. So it's a big thing for me. I love her and I talk about her way too much. So we have been talking for like half an hour and I really do try to keep these to half an hour. But.

33:59
I want to go back to the college thing real quick. Yeah. I think that if you are really interested in becoming a doctor or a lawyer or something that requires a huge amount of education to acquire the dream, college and university are incredibly important. Totally. But I feel like if you're not going down that road, it costs a lot of money to get

34:28
an education beyond high school. And if you can't ever pay back that money with the job you get, it's kind of pointless to do that. Yeah, and I think about, you know, when I was 18 and I went to college or 17 or over old, I couldn't see myself doing anything else but fashion and it was what I loved, you know, until I did it long enough and...

34:54
It kind of hit me like when I decided like, listen, I've been in college six years and I'm not I'm 80% done. I'm not gonna finish this degree. For me, it was like, coming to this, I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I didn't want to be in an environment. And it's interesting how it ended up working out. But I didn't want to be an environment who where you help women by addressing their outer appearance. And that's like, what really hit me when I chose like

35:23
I'm having such a hard time getting through this. And that was like the nail in the head for me to, and that started with like how I felt in the industry with myself and how difficult that was. And I saw how that was affecting me and my mental health and my body image and things like that. Like I can't sit here and be healthy and do this. I guess I can finish my degree, but if I do, I'm still gonna go elsewhere.

35:49
So for sure, I think like, listen, if you have a passion and it involves college and you really wanna do it, do it. But okay, and I feel like many people don't, not many people say it's okay if you wanna take a break or you don't wanna go that route or you wanna try something else and see how that works for you. And there's no shame in that because you just never know what's going to happen. I didn't think that me saying that I wanna help women and myself by not focusing on their outer appearance.

36:17
appearance would lead me 14 years later making, you know, tea from my garden, skin care from my garden, fire cider from my garden, helping women when they reached out to me with their diagnosis and, you know, finding them good doctors as I found them for myself. You know, like I didn't think that was where it would take me. I didn't know, you know, what would happen. Yeah, life is a wild ride. You never know where you're going to end up.

36:47
I'm going to tell you, I have met some incredibly beautiful people doing this podcast. I see people, they show up and they're on camera and I tell them they shut the video off because video never see light of day. And I've met beautiful people in real life who do grow gardens or who are homesteaders or farmsteaders or farmers or whatever. And I'm not saying beautiful as in aesthetically pleasing. I'm saying they know who they are.

37:16
They don't give a crap about what other people think unless those people are in their corner. That's right. Beauty is literally on the inside. And so I can see how with you trying to help yourself and other people, that outside beauty kind of lost its luster for you. Yeah, it really did because it's so interesting. Like, you know, we just got married in September and, you know, that was the first time in however long.

37:46
that I dress up, that I put on makeup, that my hair is done, that I'm not in my sweats and my boots and, you know, just chilling where so many years ago, my sense of fashion and how I creatively portrayed my sense to the world was so wrapped up in my overall being. And now it's not that I don't love it, it's not that I don't have it inside or that I'm not a creative person, but I don't hold onto that and say, if I don't portray this to the world, right, I'm not good enough.

38:16
Yeah. So you know, like planning my wedding for me really was like my everything I left behind in that way of being creative, right? With fashion and style and we didn't use a planner, you know, I did all that. You know, kind of giving that to the world and then that's over and going back, you know, to how I am. Sweatpants, sweatshirt, glasses, messy bun in my garden, making stuff in my kitchen. Uh-huh.

38:44
I think that's gorgeous. I think that's absolutely wonderful. All right, well, I'm gonna let you go because we're in like 38 minutes. And Jess, keep doing you. Do what you love and do what you're good at. All right, thank you so much for your time, Eda. Oh, you're welcome. It was a pleasure. Thanks, have a great day. You too.