I never thought that when I started this blog for my son, that what I had learned from my great grandmother, grandmother, mother and a whole host of strong Southern women about the kitchen would become life lessons to guide me through the unexpectedness of life.

I’ve come to learn (the hard way) that God always gives you what you need but sometimes it just doesn’t come in the package you thought it would be in. Having a baby is the most joyous, life changing event and then comes the first year of actually having the baby, living in yoga pants and being a walking zombie. I remember putting Jack in a bouncy seat in the kitchen while I tested recipes and waiting for my husband to come home from work. It was just what I had pictured.

Not long after Jack turned one, my husband came in the door and uttered the worst thing you can hear as a wife, “I love you but I am not in love with you”. In that instant my whole life as I knew it was pulled out from under me with the greatest force that I had ever experienced. He left to start a new life and here I was with a broken life, a baby, facing the long road of divorce. I always knew I was strong but watching my life as I knew it fade away was painful, worse than a death really. But I knew one true thing, I was a strong, Southern woman and I wanted to be just that for my son.

Being a single mom of an active little boy is not exactly what I had pictured but it’s now the picture I embrace every day with gratitude. I have wonderful memories of the women that helped shape me and hope that Jack will have those too.