Nothing like homemade dinner to take you out of a mood and transform the day. As the scents of garlic and roasted tomatoes and broiled zucchini fill the air, a house becomes a home. Sausages sizzling in the oven and pasta---al dente---plated and buttered and ready for its dance with a fork. And of course, topped with fresh, raw basil from the garden. Harvested, washed, and finely chopped unto the pasta right before serving. Gratitude is born.

Caring for animals isn’t an easy task. And those of us that take part in fostering, rescuing, and/or adoption tend to put self-love and self-care far down the list of priorities. But take it from me, as a cat mama with quite a few rescues and a plant lady with hundreds of plants, a little spa day---homemade face mask, hair treatment, a cup of freshly brewed tea, and reading a few pages of your book of choice---is all you need.

There is an unlimited supply of life lessons from the garden. The trees sway and ride the wind. The roots are strong. Deeply ingrained with the surrounding soil. The limbs flexible and adapt to the ever-changing conditions with ease. The tree doesn’t resist the wind, as that would be futile. But dances with it. This ability is the tree’s strength, to not resist the inevitabilities of its environment. From the seed of adaptation grows the tree of resilience.

I often watch the cats. Eating their daily meals. Hypercarnivorous little lions. A perfect blend of raw organs and bones and muscle meat. Ground up, served, proteins rotated. Beef. Rabbit. Chicken. Turkey. Exotics. No fruits or vegetables or grains to shorten their lives or cause systemic and chronic diseases. Just a pure raw prey diet, and sometimes a little supplementation with moringa leaves, chlorella, cooked squash, or raw/fermented dairy.