What Thyme & Tools Really Means to Me

Sometimes, when I’m standing inside my greenhouse with my hands covered in soil, checking on a new seedling or deciding what needs to be watered next, I think about how unlikely it might seem that I ended up here.

My life has taken me through corporate offices, elementary school classrooms, culinary school, catering kitchens, children’s cooking classes, motherhood, and eventually into my own backyard greenhouse. For a long time, those experiences felt like separate chapters of my life. Now I realize they weren’t separate at all.

Each one gave me something I needed for the next chapter. Each experience taught me a skill, changed my perspective, or helped me understand a little more about the kind of life I wanted to create. Somewhere along the way, all of those experiences became Thyme & Tools.

I Thought My Future Would Be in Business

My education actually began far away from gardens and greenhouses. I earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a focus on e-commerce. At the time, I imagined myself eventually running an online business.

It’s funny to think about that now because I couldn’t have known exactly what that business would look like or how many turns my career would take before I got there. But even then, there was a part of me that wanted to build something of my own.

After college, I entered the corporate world. I worked as an administrator for an office automation company during the days of copiers and fax machines. I also worked for a commercial insurance company and later for Food & Wine magazine.

They were good experiences, and I learned a lot about organization, communication, professionalism, and how businesses operate. But something was missing. I remember the feeling of being inside a windowless office from 9:00 to 5:00 every day and knowing that this wasn’t how I wanted to spend my life.

I wanted to create and work with my hands. More importantly, I wanted to feel like what I was doing mattered to someone. I wanted to help people.

There was nothing necessarily wrong with the corporate world. It simply wasn’t right for me, and eventually I gave myself permission to admit that.

Finding My Way into the Classroom

One of the paths I explored was teaching in New York City, where I worked with children from kindergarten through fifth grade. I have always loved being around children, especially watching their imaginations come to life.

Children don’t always see the limitations adults see. Give them an idea, a project, a handful of materials, or an opportunity to create, and they can take it somewhere completely unexpected.

Teaching allowed me to experience that firsthand. It also taught me that learning doesn’t have to happen only through textbooks or worksheets. Children learn by doing—by touching, asking questions, experimenting, making mistakes, and trying again.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that lesson would eventually become a huge part of my dream for Thyme & Tools.

Trading the Office for the Kitchen

After realizing that corporate life wasn’t a good fit for me, I decided to follow another part of myself that had always been there: food.

Cooking had been part of my life for as long as I could remember, so attending the Institute of Culinary Education felt like a natural transition. Suddenly, I was working with my hands, creating and learning about ingredients, technique, preparation, flavor, and all the little details that transform individual ingredients into something people can gather around and enjoy.

The kitchen also taught me something important about people.

After culinary school, I worked independently as a party chef and waiter for weddings, showers, birthdays, and other celebrations. Those experiences were completely different from sitting behind a desk. One minute I might be preparing food, the next I might be serving guests, and later I could be washing dishes or cleaning something that needed to be cleaned.

Nobody was above any of it, and that’s something that has always stayed with me. Everyone is equal in a kitchen.

A successful event doesn’t happen because of one person. The chef needs the dishwasher. The server needs the person preparing the food. The person plating the meal needs the person cleaning the pans. We all needed each other, and we had fun while doing it.

There was a sense of community and teamwork that I hadn’t experienced in the same way in the corporate world. I loved being part of it.

Then I Became a Mom

Becoming a mother changed my perspective again. Suddenly, taking care of another human being became the most important responsibility in my life.

Food wasn’t just something I enjoyed making anymore. It became part of how I cared for my family. I wanted to give my daughter nutritious foods, expose her to different ingredients, and create healthy habits that could stay with her as she grew.

Then, when she was three years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and our relationship with food changed overnight.

Now I needed to understand exactly what was on her plate. I needed to count carbohydrates and understand portions. I quickly learned that not all carbohydrates affected her body in exactly the same way and that the same foods could sometimes cause different blood sugar responses at different times. Food became more than nourishment; it became information.

Thankfully, I wasn’t starting from zero. My culinary education had already taught me so much about ingredients, food preparation, and nutrition that I had a foundation to work from. I simply had to adapt what I knew to our new reality.

There were adjustments, of course, and plenty to learn, but my culinary background gave me another tool to help care for my daughter.

Looking back, this is one of those moments that makes me think about how our past experiences sometimes prepare us for things we could never have anticipated. When I enrolled in culinary school, I certainly wasn’t thinking that someday this knowledge would help me care for my three-year-old daughter with Type 1 diabetes.

But years later, that knowledge became incredibly valuable to me as a mother.

Bringing Food and Children Together

Eventually, another piece of the puzzle appeared. I began working as a food specialist at a summer camp for young children, and suddenly two things I loved—children and food—were living in the same space.

I created recipes with the kids, led cooking activities, and introduced them to different ingredients. They could touch the food, smell it, mix it, get their hands dirty, ask questions, make a mess, and then enjoy something they had helped create.

I loved watching that process.

When children are involved in making their food, something changes. An ingredient isn’t simply something sitting on a plate that an adult is telling them to eat. It becomes something they recognize because they touched it, measured it, mixed it, and helped transform it into something new.

That experience strengthened a belief that had already been growing inside me: children should have opportunities to understand where their food comes from.

And I wanted to take that idea even further. What if they didn’t just cook the food? What if they grew it, too?

The Dream Before the Greenhouse

Before my backyard greenhouse was ever built, I already had a bigger dream in my mind. I imagined a place where children could learn how to grow food and then experience what happens when those ingredients make their way into the kitchen.

They could plant a seed, care for it, watch it grow, harvest it, and eventually experience the satisfaction of eating something that began with their own two hands.

That’s the kind of education I want children to experience. Not because every child needs to become a gardener or a chef, but because understanding food is a life skill.

Growing food teaches patience. Cooking teaches independence. Gardening teaches responsibility. Sharing food teaches community. And getting your hands dirty teaches you that some of the best learning happens far away from a desk.

My backyard greenhouse became a way for me to begin exploring that dream on a smaller scale. I could learn what worked, make mistakes, experiment with growing vegetables and herbs, and understand the challenges that come with caring for a greenhouse through different seasons.

What I didn’t fully understand when I built it was how much the greenhouse would eventually give back to me.

During a difficult period in my life, I began noticing how differently I felt when I stepped inside. The greenhouse gave me somewhere to slow down when everything else felt like it was moving too quickly. There was always something simple that needed my attention—watering a plant, checking the soil, trimming a leaf, starting a seed, or just standing quietly and noticing what had changed since the day before.

Gardening didn’t make life’s challenges disappear, but it gave my mind somewhere peaceful to land for a while. Working with the soil and caring for something living helped bring me back into the present moment. Instead of thinking about everything I couldn’t control, I could focus on what was directly in front of me.

That realization changed the meaning of the greenhouse for me.

It was no longer simply a test run for a future dream. It had become a space where I could breathe, reset, create, and reconnect with myself. It showed me firsthand why mindful gardening and time spent in nature can be such meaningful tools for supporting our mental and emotional well-being.

And that experience added another layer to the dream I had been carrying.

I still want children to understand where their food comes from. I still want them to get their hands dirty, grow something themselves, and experience the pride of bringing something they’ve grown into the kitchen. But now I also want them to experience the quieter lessons a garden can teach: patience when something takes longer than expected, resilience when a plant doesn’t survive, curiosity when something new appears, and the simple joy of watching something grow because you cared for it.

I want adults to experience that too.

That is when the vision for Thyme & Tools became about more than gardening and food. It became about creating opportunities for people to grow, create, connect, and slow down.

Maybe that’s what my greenhouse was teaching me all along.

What I Hope Thyme & Tools Becomes

When I picture the future of Thyme & Tools, I see much more than a greenhouse. I imagine a place where children can experience the entire journey of food—from planting a tiny seed to harvesting what they’ve grown and eventually bringing those ingredients into the kitchen.

I see a space where gardening, cooking, creativity, and education come together. But I also hope it becomes something for the larger community—a place where families can connect, adults can slow down, neighbors can gather, and people of all ages can experience what happens when we become a little more connected to our food, nature, and one another.

There are many ideas I have for what that space could eventually become, and some of those dreams I’m keeping close for now. I don’t know exactly when or how every piece will come together, but I know what I want the heart of it to feel like.

I want it to be welcoming. I want children to be able to get their hands dirty and ask questions. I want people to learn without feeling like they have to be experts. I want families and neighbors to feel connected. I want people to leave having experienced something they can carry home with them.

At the center of it all is a belief that has followed me through so many chapters of my life: some of our most meaningful learning happens when we use our hands, create something together, and share the experience with someone else.

That’s the community I hope to build.

So, What Does “Thyme & Tools” Really Mean?

When I originally chose the name, Thyme represented so many things I love—herbs, food, gardening, cooking, and the simple pleasure of growing something yourself and bringing it into the kitchen.

But Tools has taken on an even deeper meaning for me.

Of course, there are the literal tools: the garden tools, kitchen tools, and all the things we use to create. But when I look back at my life, I realize I’ve been collecting another kind of tool all along.

My business degree gave me tools for understanding how to build and manage something of my own. Corporate America taught me about organization and professionalism, but also helped me understand the type of environment that didn’t fulfill me. Teaching showed me how much I loved watching children learn. Culinary school gave me a deeper understanding of food, while catering taught me teamwork and humility.

Motherhood gave me an entirely new set of tools. Raising a child with Type 1 diabetes taught me how valuable food knowledge can become when someone you love depends on you. Working with young children showed me what happens when kids are invited to get involved instead of simply being told what to do.

And my greenhouse continues to give me new tools every season.

I once looked at my career and saw a path that zigzagged all over the place: business, corporate work, teaching, culinary school, catering, motherhood, children, food, and gardening.

Now I see something completely different.

I see preparation.

Everything Led Me Here

When I look back at all the different jobs and paths I’ve taken, I realize I was meant to be there at that time in order to collect all of the knowledge I have today. Everything led me here.

I needed the business education because someday I wanted to build something of my own. I needed the corporate experience to understand what kind of environment didn’t fulfill me. The classroom reminded me how much I love watching children learn and create, while culinary school turned a lifelong love of cooking into a deeper understanding of food.

Catering taught me about teamwork, humility, and community. Motherhood completely reshaped my priorities, and my daughter’s diagnosis showed me just how powerful food knowledge can be when you’re caring for someone you love. Those little summer-camp kitchens filled with tiny hands and messy ingredients showed me how excited children become when they’re invited to participate.

And I needed my greenhouse to finally bring all those pieces together.

At 20 years old, I couldn’t have drawn this path on a piece of paper. I’m not sure I would have believed it if someone had shown it to me. But perhaps that’s the point.

Sometimes we don’t recognize what we’re building while we’re building it. We just keep collecting tools.

Thyme & Tools Is Still Growing

Today, Thyme & Tools is a blog, a greenhouse, and a place where I can share what I’m learning about gardening, food, mindfulness, and creating a life that feels a little more connected to the things that matter.

But in my mind, it has never been only a blog. It’s the beginning of something.

Someday, I hope Thyme & Tools has a physical home. I hope it’s a place filled with plants, creativity, learning, food, and the sounds of people connecting with one another. I hope children have opportunities to discover where their food comes from and feel proud of what they can grow and create.

I hope parents and families find new ways to experience food together. I hope adults find their own reasons to come—whether it’s to learn something, grow something, meet someone new, or simply slow down for a little while.

Most of all, I hope it becomes a place where people feel welcome to participate.

You don’t have to be an expert gardener or know how to cook. You don’t need the perfect backyard or a greenhouse of your own. You just need to be willing to learn.

If my own journey has taught me anything, it’s that we rarely know which experiences will matter later. A job that doesn’t feel like the right fit may teach you something you’ll need ten years from now. A class you take because you love cooking may someday help you care for your child. A teaching job may reveal how much you love helping children learn, and a backyard greenhouse may become the first tiny version of a dream you’ve carried around for years.

Sometimes a collection of seemingly unrelated experiences eventually makes perfect sense.

That is what Thyme & Tools really means to me.

The thyme represents what we can grow, cook, and share. The tools are everything we collect along the way.

And I’m still collecting them.