Embrace Imperfection An Approach to Jigsaw Puzzles and Life

Amy Stone [00:00:03]:
Kathy Stowell, welcome to the Art of Imperfect Adulting.

Kathy Stowell [00:00:07]:
Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

Amy Stone [00:00:09]:
I’m so excited. Are you ready for a fun chat?

Kathy Stowell [00:00:12]:
I am so ready. I was looking forward to this for a while. I cannot wait to share my story and connect with you.

Amy Stone [00:00:18]:
Oh, that’s good. All right, so we are going to talk about farming and city life, which is going to be a lot of fun. Before we dig in, Kathy, I want to let you tell the audience a little bit about you to make a start making that connection.

Kathy Stowell [00:00:31]:
So.

Amy Stone [00:00:31]:
So let’s start with easy questions like where do you live today? And as much or as little as you want to share about your family.

Kathy Stowell [00:00:40]:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. So we live in a beautiful Nelson, British Columbia. So we’re only about three hours north of Spokane just to give you a visual on a map. So we’re in Canada. So, yeah, it’s a very mountain town. So, like a lot of, like, outdoorsy types. It’s like my sole location on the planet. I never want to move from here. We found this place, my husband and I, before we got married. And every time I got closer to the vicinity of this place, I just felt like, like my energy lit and I was like, I. I need to live here one day. So that’s part of my story. And our kids now, they both just had their birthday, so it’s really. I think it’d be the first time I get to say this out loud. I have a 16 year old and a 20 year old, which feels crazy to say out loud. My youngest is the boy. My eldest is a girl. I live with my husband. We’ve been together for 24 years. And we have two wiener dogs, angel and Wilbur.

Amy Stone [00:01:50]:
Oh, I love it.

Kathy Stowell [00:01:52]:
Yeah. And one of the wieners is scratching behind me.

Amy Stone [00:01:57]:
I’m not sure which one is driving nuts, but so cute. So have you ever. Have you heard of, like, that astro cartography? That’s like the. It’s. I think it’s like tarot cards, but they tell you. They draw the lines on the globe and tell you where you’re meant to live. Have you ever heard of that? I’ve never done.

Kathy Stowell [00:02:13]:
I would love to do that. No, I’d be super curious.

Amy Stone [00:02:15]:
I’ve never done it. I don’t even think I know anybody who does it. I know this from seeing, you know, ads on social media that this is a thing, so may not even be a real thing. All right, so true story about me and then we’ll talk about you. I took a career aptitude test As a sprout. My whole school did it. We were in middle school, and the results came back and said that I was supposed to be a farmer, which was hilarious to my father and to me because. And all of my friends, because at the time, I lived in New York City, so totally urban. I am an urban creature. So you shared with me before the show. We talked a little bit about you loving this location, but you had this idea of having a farm early on when in your relationship.

Kathy Stowell [00:02:59]:
Tell us a little bit about this dream for sure. So growing up, my father was a crop duster, so he had a plane. All his clients lived on farms. And sometimes he would take us as kids over the weekend and just, like, hang out on this farm. And I was so jealous. You know, I was telling the country kids, you guys are so lucky. And vice versa. They’re like, no, no, no. You guys are lucky. So I’ve always just felt, again, just a piece of me awaken and come alive in that type of rural environment. And. But, yeah, like you, I’m, like, super urban at the same time, and I could. I could go both ways. So a super downtown girl living in the big city. When I met my husband and on our second date, and it was like, immediately we met and we both, like. It was instant recognition. It was like, okay, you’re my person. And it wasn’t that I moved in with him. I just basically wouldn’t leave his apartment. He’s just like, baby, you should start paying rent. I’m like, okay. But on our second date, I knew he was into me because he was like, where do you see yourself in the future? And I couldn’t believe I said this out loud, but I was 29, and I wanted to have kids, like, in my early 30s. I’m like, you know what I got to lose? I want to have kids, and I want to raise them in a country setting, because I think that would be so amazing. And then he just said, cool. Like, he was into it. And then when I met his mom for the first time, like, shortly after, she’s like, so crank says, you guys want to live on a farm one day? I’m like, I think he’s into me. Right? So. And it just. From that point on, it was almost subconsciously we were keeping our feelers out for farm setups. And one thing led to another, and that’s a long story, but we found raw land, and we were going to build. Like, we got really into permaculture and building, you know, a straw bale, passive solar House, like just going like super at the beginning, off grid and just like self sustainable as much as possible. And know we took workshops in straw bell house building. We, you know, we even hired an architect and who specialized in straw bale. And we got cold feet. We were about to build the straw bale house and anyways, I’m jumping ahead. So we made the move to the middle of nowhere. But the, you know, the locals call it the middle, the center of everything.

Amy Stone [00:05:36]:
And so where is remote city that you. So now you live in British Columbia. Is that where you grew up?

Kathy Stowell [00:05:45]:
No, no, I was born in Montreal.

Amy Stone [00:05:48]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:05:49]:
But I grew up in Calgary and that’s where I met my husband.

Amy Stone [00:05:53]:
So the city we’re talking about to start is Calgary. And yeah. You guys were looking at spaces. It’s closer to where you are now.

Kathy Stowell [00:06:00]:
Yes, yes. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:06:02]:
Middle of nowhere, center of everywhere. Yeah, that is very, very cool. Your dad was a crop duster out of Calg. Calgary, which is when you fly the plane over the crops and drop.

Kathy Stowell [00:06:13]:
Yeah. And spray like toxic chemicals and so what?

Amy Stone [00:06:17]:
Yeah. And so one of the questions I had for you is that, you know, when you were young, did you. It was, did you have family that was into farming? And is this a dream from when you were a kid? And both of those things are true.

Kathy Stowell [00:06:28]:
I think you’re right. So my mom’s actually from Peru.

Amy Stone [00:06:33]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:06:33]:
My dad. Yeah, my dad, that’s how he met her. He was crop dusting in Peru, actually. And so we go to her home and she grew up on a farm.

Amy Stone [00:06:42]:
So there is a family connection. Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:06:45]:
Yeah, yeah. But in the Peruvian culture that was kind of like not really cool to be a farmer.

Amy Stone [00:06:52]:
Well, those are like Trevor, right? Well, those are like the Trevor Noah jokes where he’s like, he’s like, he’s like, no, no, I don’t go camping because that’s the way life was. So. No, we’re progressing.

Kathy Stowell [00:07:04]:
Yes, exactly.

Amy Stone [00:07:05]:
All right. So you guys are doing the dream shopping, which is like for farming. I mean, people have dreams like this all the time. Like I’m going to move and do a homestead. I’m going to renovate a house. All these things you guys have this dream of and you’re doing, you have this vision of what you’re calling a straw bale house. I don’t actually know what that is. Can you explain that to me?

Kathy Stowell [00:07:24]:
Oh, yeah. It’s almost like the walls for insulation. You actually use straw bales. So like LEGO bricks. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Stone [00:07:35]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:07:35]:
Pile the straw like to make the walls and Then you stucco. So the window sills are like super deep. And it just has like a very kind of like, like a, like you’re inside like a little like adobe house or something. And the cool thing about it, no pun intended, it’s like air conditioned in the summer. It’s super hot outside, but you stay super cool inside. Same thing in the winter. We actually did end up getting a straw house, but we didn’t build it, but anyways. But we end up. Yeah, we did live in one, but it was so like just energy efficient. So we had a little wood stove and you would light it like twice a day and it would just be like hot. And I like, I like my rooms really hot. It’s kind of disgusting.

Amy Stone [00:08:21]:
Listen, I live in Miami, Florida, so you’re not going to out heat me. So the. All right, so you have the dream and then where we stopped in the story and the trajectory is you guys were looking and thinking of building a strawberry bail house from scratch. And you said you got cold feet.

Kathy Stowell [00:08:37]:
Yeah. Okay. So it just came down to simplify, simplify, simplify. Because initially we shared this dream with our friends and everybody’s like, that sounds so cool. Let’s all do this together. So we started a club. I came up with the name. It was. Oh, shoot, it was the name. Crap. I call this crap community related and pertinent.

Amy Stone [00:09:01]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:09:03]:
And we met. We met like once a month or once a week, I can’t remember. And we were looking at maps of let’s all buy a giant piece of land and build. And we showed them this middle of everywhere or center of nothing place. And they were like, let’s do this. So we did all these field trips together and we found land and we got cold feet number one then, because we backed out of the deal at the last minute, we’re like, we can barely make a decision between the two of us. This is going to be tricky with like six other couples. They ended up though, like, like doing it. And they, they did houses. Yeah, they did. And they’ve been living there for like, man, like 12, 15 years now. And then we’re like, you know, we’re just going to buy this piece of land just down the street from y’all. And so that’s. We did purchase some raw land. And that’s when we got cold feet number two. Because while we bought the land and had like our neighbor who was a builder saying, yeah, like, I’ll book you guys in for the summer. Meanwhile, we bought another house in town to live in while we dream our build house.

Amy Stone [00:10:06]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:10:07]:
And then it was around that time my daughter was a baby, and I knew I wanted to have another kid. You know, Valentine’s Day was coming up, and that’s when I like to conceive children.

Amy Stone [00:10:19]:
You’re not alone. You’re not alone. If you have a birthday in November or December, your parents like Valentine’s Day?

Kathy Stowell [00:10:26]:
Both my kids, November 14th. My son was due November 14th. Luckily, he was six days late. So, yeah, we just had birthdays here.

Amy Stone [00:10:33]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:10:33]:
And so I said to. Oh, no. He’s the one who said. He’s like, I don’t think we should build this anymore. He was sweating about the cost. You know, they always say, if you’re going to build, it’s going to cost more and take longer than you anticipate.

Amy Stone [00:10:48]:
That’s right. And I was as much and twice as long.

Kathy Stowell [00:10:50]:
So he was threatened. And I was thinking more energetically. I’m like, I don’t want to be pregnant with this stress.

Amy Stone [00:10:56]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:10:57]:
So it was really. That was the first kind of heartbreak. And I didn’t think it was going to happen, but the universe was like. It was so weird. I looked online, I think, like, just a few days later, and the straw bell house we ended up buying came up for sale. And I could see how many people viewed it. It just got posted. And I saw my husband was coming home up the driveway, and I was, like, running outside with our baby.

Amy Stone [00:11:20]:
Get back in the car.

Kathy Stowell [00:11:23]:
We have to go by my house. And we walked in and we were just again, like, the soul place. It was like our soul house. We were trying to play, like, you know, poker face. Cool. When the guy was showing, it was a private sale, but whenever he was. The owner was looking away. We were like, we wanted it so bad. And it was the same architect built it.

Amy Stone [00:11:46]:
Oh, good. That’s really good.

Kathy Stowell [00:11:48]:
It was really wild.

Amy Stone [00:11:49]:
All right, so you call this. In the description you gave me, you called it a hobby farm. And so my next question is, what is the difference between a hobby farm and a farmy farm?

Kathy Stowell [00:12:02]:
We did it just for fun. We weren’t making money. And it was tiny. It was tiny. We wanted just enough milk to make my three triple shot lattes a day and Craig his yogurt for his granola in the morning. Okay, so I got like a mini cow. I got like a tiny bit.

Amy Stone [00:12:18]:
Oh, you did not. That’s so fantastic. I can’t even. That’s the cutest.

Kathy Stowell [00:12:23]:
It’s. Yeah, yeah. She was really tiny. I researched. I am a researcher And I’m like, what’s the best cow for? Like, number one priority was, you know, lots of fat content, because I like a lot of cream. And Dexter cow, so it’s a tiny breed from Ireland, and they’re built for colder climate. So even her, like, her udders were, like, furry. Oh, gosh. She was the cutest. Anyway, so she was our milk cow for, I think, like, five years. I milked her every day, and it was like. Anyway, so that’s the definition. We weren’t in it for the money. We were seeing how much of our own food we can grow. So it was for our own consumption and trading. You know, we had, you know, an abundance of eggs, so we would trade stuff. And, like, even the community, there was a lot of people who are into this kind of hobby farming. And so we’re learning from neighbors, like the old timers, too. Yeah, it was really.

Amy Stone [00:13:20]:
So how much? All right, so then the goals here were fun and, you know, a connection to the land, it sounds like. And subsistence. Like, producing, you know, producing your own stuff. So you grew fruits and vegetables for yourself, and you had a cow and chickens.

Kathy Stowell [00:13:35]:
Apple. Apple. Orchid. Chickens. Giant garden. Yeah. So meat.

Amy Stone [00:13:43]:
Wow.

Kathy Stowell [00:13:44]:
Babies. That was kind of hard.

Amy Stone [00:13:46]:
I.

Kathy Stowell [00:13:46]:
That.

Amy Stone [00:13:47]:
I can. I don’t have any experience with that, but I can totally imagine that that would be a challenge.

Kathy Stowell [00:13:52]:
It was intense. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:13:53]:
When my kids were little. Your mom is from Peru. When my kids were little, we had guinea pigs, and we took a trip to Ecuador, and they. They eat guinea pigs there. It’s a crop. And so one of my k. Looked over and asked the tour guide. She was like, what are the names of these guinea pigs? And the lady very kindly said. She’s like, we don’t actually name our food. And I was like. I was like, we’ll talk about this back in the room.

Kathy Stowell [00:14:18]:
Yep. Yep.

Amy Stone [00:14:20]:
So, all right. So you guys lived in Calgary. You. You. When you buy this house and you start this hobby farm, you’ve got two small kids. Were you also, like, still working outside? Was how much? And what was the divide? How much work did the hobby farm take? And, like, you know, were you still working remotely? Like, what was going on?

Kathy Stowell [00:14:38]:
Yeah. So. Yes. So when my daughter was born in Calgary, my husband immediately was able to work remotely from home. So that was nice. And then I was kind of like, ooh, what am I gonna do? So I didn’t know what I was gonna do for work, but I figured it out when we moved out there. So, yes, we were both working from home. My husband built Actually a really cool office building, like on the land. So he had a really cool commute to work.

Amy Stone [00:15:03]:
You know, like just walking down the path.

Kathy Stowell [00:15:05]:
Yeah, yeah, it was really sweet. So he was really nice and close. You know, when you’re. You do something you love, it doesn’t feel like work. Okay. So the thing, everyone’s like, don’t get a milk cow. You’re going to feel like tied down to the place. But I’m like, I don’t want to go anywhere. It’s like, even to this day, this, this area, it takes a lot to get me to leave. Like, my kids have never been in a plane before. Oh, no. My daughter, she went to Peru with me a couple years ago, but my son’s never been on a plane. We don’t go anywhere. So, yeah, like, I. I ended up starting my business from that situation. I became a mom coach. So I was able to do that with my kids at home. But the whole thing too, with the cow I eat, everyone’s like, well, you have to get up super early to milk her. And the thing is, you actually don’t.

Amy Stone [00:15:55]:
Because that’s the thing. My concept of farming, which is based on not farming, no one should come to me for farming advice. But my concept is that this would put you on the TV version of an agrarian schedule, like, you know, very seasonal dawn till dusk. And so, yeah, I know you can correct me because, like, that’s. That’s what I’m wondering. It’s like, how much work is it outside of?

Kathy Stowell [00:16:19]:
Well, my husband and I got really passionate about the concept of permaculture, which is like a kind of like a gardening farming philosophy originally from Australia. And the tagline for it is the lazy man’s farming. I’m totally like, it’s not exactly it, but that I know lazy’s in there. And I’m like, sign me up. Right.

Amy Stone [00:16:40]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:16:41]:
And so the garden was designed for, like, all these different ecosystems to work together. So we would let the chickens, like, run in the cow pasture and they would like, eat all like the weird worms off. You have the cow pad, yada, yada. Like, you know, everything’s kind of like working with each other. But I applied that concept with the cow. Even, like, if we wanted to go away camping, what we would do, we would just leave Daisy and her babies together. Like, her baby would do the milking for us. Right. So if we were like a farm farm, you have to be really strict then. No, you got to separate the baby and the mama. And I’m like, Dude, you know we practice attachment parenting. Like, no, they’re practicing attachment parenting. And this.

Amy Stone [00:17:29]:
You’re like, I read the Dr. Sears book, and I’m apply it to my cow. Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:17:37]:
They were very bonded and had a very close relationship. It was sweet.

Amy Stone [00:17:40]:
I love it. Oh, my God, that’s so good. All right, so I feel like choosing to have. Moving from Calgary and choosing to move to a remote location and having a hobby farm is a big choice. And so that’s a. That’s a sharp turn in your life. Right. And then, though, your story takes another sharp turn. About 10, did you say? We haven’t talked about this, but 10 years after you started, after you moved into this house.

Kathy Stowell [00:18:04]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:18:05]:
This change happens.

Kathy Stowell [00:18:06]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:18:06]:
Tell us. Tell us about what happened. And you decided to move back to more urban location.

Kathy Stowell [00:18:12]:
Oh, I love this opportunity to tell this story. I just feel like I don’t get enough time. It’s actually pretty magical in my head. So it’s funny not to give you too much information, but my husband turned 40, and this straw bale house we had was kind of, like, half built. Like, we only had one door in the whole entire house. So my. Our deal with the cow.

Amy Stone [00:18:35]:
We’re in your negotiation with the cow.

Kathy Stowell [00:18:39]:
We’re driving.

Amy Stone [00:18:41]:
We’re driving.

Kathy Stowell [00:18:42]:
Like, look, there’s a Dexter cow for sale. Let’s go. Look. He’s like, we’re not buying a cow. I’m like, we’re just looking. And I’m like, driving. But the deal was, I will milk every day because I don’t mind. I actually enjoyed it. I would listen to podcasts and, like, milk and. But he’s got a muck. He has to help me, like, clean up the stall. Clean. Yeah, he turned 40, and it was like, he went through this, like, midnight crisis, but a really kind of cool one. He really got into rock climbing, which is something he was into when we first started dating. And I’m like, you know, cool. Let me try it, you know? Anyway, so. But then he directed that energy to the hobby farm.

Amy Stone [00:19:20]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:19:20]:
But then he turned 40. He got into crop climbing. So he was gone. He was gone. So the TMI was there was no door to the bathroom, so I just, like, barged into the bathroom. He’s sitting on the toilet. I’m like, dude, if you’re not gonna muck the cow, stop. Like, we might as well move into town. And town is where we live now, which is about 45 minutes away. And I heard myself say that out loud. I’m like, oh. And I imagined Myself being an urbanite. Well, you know, here. We only have 10,000 people here, but.

Amy Stone [00:19:52]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:19:53]:
But we were homeschooling our kids at that time using a Waldorf curriculum, and there’s a gorgeous Waldorf school here in town. And I heard myself say that, and I imagine my kids going to this really precious home Waldorf school here. And I was just like, oh. So then we started talking, like, maybe we should think about this. And then we started kind of justifying in our heads, like, you know, our kids were at an age.

Amy Stone [00:20:15]:
I was going to ask how.

Kathy Stowell [00:20:16]:
Be easier. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:20:17]:
Yeah. So. Yeah. Like, so. So then. So really, like, your division of labor shifted. Like, you made a deal with car.

Kathy Stowell [00:20:26]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:20:26]:
When you got. I said car, but, I mean, cow. You got the cow, and you had this division of labor. But then your husband went through the midlife crisis thing is such a weird set of words. Isn’t that really a crisis?

Kathy Stowell [00:20:38]:
But it was healthy. Yeah. Right.

Amy Stone [00:20:40]:
It’s often a redirection of energy. And he was like, I would rather climb rock walls than clean up cow poo.

Kathy Stowell [00:20:47]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:20:47]:
And. And you were like, well, I would rather have somebody else deliver this curriculum that I love.

Kathy Stowell [00:20:52]:
Yes. Ooh, you’re really good at wording things. Well, thank you.

Amy Stone [00:20:56]:
The reframe. The reframe.

Kathy Stowell [00:20:58]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:20:59]:
Is the. Is the thing. All right, so you’ve got. So when did this move happen in terms of, like, different time in the timeline comparison from now? Like, when did you move back into the town?

Kathy Stowell [00:21:12]:
Okay. The move was very dramatic. We have to save some time for that.

Amy Stone [00:21:15]:
Oh, yes, I know. You can tell.

Kathy Stowell [00:21:16]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amy Stone [00:21:17]:
You can tell the drama about that. Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:21:18]:
Okay, good. We moved 10 years ago, so.

Amy Stone [00:21:22]:
10 years ago.

Kathy Stowell [00:21:23]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:21:24]:
Okay, so 10 years on the farm. 10 years you’ve been back in the city. Okay, so tell us the story of moving back. Moving out of the straw bale house and into the. Into the village.

Kathy Stowell [00:21:35]:
So it was very emotional. Again, it was kind of like this dream. The end of a dream and an era. It took us, like, a couple of years to do the move because we. We needed to find something perfect. And I wanted. I didn’t want to move right in town. I wanted to ease into it. I wanted to move to the outskirts. It took us a long time to found. Find a house we agreed on. Like, I swear to God, there was a poster of me and all the realtor offices. Like, do not talk to this crazy lady. I think I saw every single house for sale.

Amy Stone [00:22:06]:
You were Kathy.

Kathy Stowell [00:22:08]:
And I’m like, my husband’s gonna Love this. And he would shoot. So finally we found a house. We lived in it for a year before we moved into this house. And now this house. I love this house. We’re going to be here for a long time. But anyways, so we found a house and we had the date to move. I think it was like, July 7th or something like that. The first week of July, a week before we moved. My adorable godson slash nephew, he used to come visit with us. He. He was actually a. Not professional. He was a climber. My. My husband taught him how to climb, and then he ended up going in competitions, like, all over the place. Yeah. So he would come hang out with us in the summers.

Amy Stone [00:22:50]:
Oh, boy.

Kathy Stowell [00:22:51]:
It’s a very intense. I don’t know how much further to go. Okay, this is what happened. So I took my kids and my nephew to the beach for the day. And then on the way home, we saw a plume of smoke. And, like, from quite a distance, like, probably from, like, oof. Like from 5km away on the highway. I’m like, oh. And I joked. I’m like, can you imagine? That’s above our house.

Amy Stone [00:23:15]:
Oh, my goodness. So is it your house on fire?

Kathy Stowell [00:23:19]:
Our house wasn’t on fire, but the forest above our house, the forest fire.

Amy Stone [00:23:23]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:23:23]:
And it was interesting because our next door neighbor was actually the chief farmer, fireman, the chief fire marshal, whatever, of our town. So I called him. I’m like, hey, Fred, is that a controlled burn above us? Like, there’s. I see smoke. And he’s like, I’ll look into it. It turned out it wasn’t, so it turned into a fire. And then for the next, like, five, six days, it. My nerves are like. Because we just heard the planes, the helicopters, like, dropping, like, all the stuff, orange liquid stuff all over above our house, like, on our. You know, in our drinking water. Came from there. And I was just so on edge. Not to mention we’re moving, like, shortly. And it’s an emotional, too. Like, I had to sell the cow. Oh, no. Yes. We’re trying to sell Miss Daisy. That’s right. People would come to look at her, and I wouldn’t be able to talk. I’d just be like, balling my head off.

Amy Stone [00:24:20]:
All my goodness.

Kathy Stowell [00:24:23]:
So you milk someone for, like, five years. Like, we were on the same moon cycle and everything. We’re very.

Amy Stone [00:24:30]:
That’s so good. Okay. It was crazy.

Kathy Stowell [00:24:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so I was already, like, an emotional mess.

Amy Stone [00:24:37]:
And, well, it’s one of the biggest changes that we go through. Moving. And then a Fire is a natural disaster. It’s an act of God. So, yeah, for sure.

Kathy Stowell [00:24:46]:
So then what happened was. I can’t remember the timeline. I think it was around those days, or maybe even that day. No, it was. I think it was a couple of days later. We always went to the beach. There’s, like a beautiful river that flowed through this area. It’s, like, magical. Like, it’s so pure. Like you can swim and drink the water at the same time. And every day. It was our ritual the whole time we lived there. In the summer, we would go for a swim. I would. I would pull the kids on the chariot. We would ride our bikes. And then Craig would show up after work, and then we would switch, and I would ride his bike home. And then he would stay with the kids and then ride their bike. That was our little rhythm. So that happened that day. And my nephew came home from that little beach jaunt. He was so cute. He must have been only about 15 at the time. And he comes in and he’s like, something crazy happened at the beach. I’m like, what are you talking about? All these firemen came and said, everybody off the beach. What happened? This is horrible. A tanker truck to fill up the helicopter with jet fuel took the wrong road, and it wasn’t meant for trucks. And it fell into this pristine river. And all the contents of the jet fuel spilled into the river. It made national news. It was really horrific. So every. The fireman came, told everyone to come out. There’s. He said, the jet spills come. Jet fuel spill. And Craig said it was crazy because he said all the fathers all looked at each other, and then they all ran and did one final, like, jump into the river.

Amy Stone [00:26:28]:
Oh, my goodness. That’s crazy.

Kathy Stowell [00:26:31]:
And then Craig came home, and I’m like, what’s going on? Like, Cousin Cammie saying, there’s firemen and I might start crying. My husband started crying. He’s like, jet fuels in the river. And he was bawling so hard. Hope he’s not listening. And he said, I feel like it’s like my grandma dying all over again. Yeah, it was really harsh. And then that night, we went to bed. I remember we had people over for dinner that night. I remember I was so anxious, I couldn’t eat. There’s all this food. I’m like, I have no appetite. And at three in the morning, my friend called, and she’s like, did you get the notice? I’m like, no. She’s like, they’re going door to door. Everyone was getting evacuated at 3 o’clock in the morning because we got outside. Luckily all our windows were rolled down because of the smoke would come in through our windows at night because of the air pressure. Push it in. So we were sleeping with all the windows closed. As soon as we opened the door, it was like, bam. Like jet fuel in the air, like so strong in the valley. So they had to evacuate, I think like 500 people at 3 in the morning. Luckily we got the last room that accepted pets because we had to bring our dog. And it was really just. It was so scary. And we’d be like driving and there’s like jet fuel in the air and you could see like all these flames. Like, just scary.

Amy Stone [00:27:57]:
Kathy. So scary.

Kathy Stowell [00:27:58]:
It was so scary. And I honestly think I got high from like the jet fuel fumes because I felt like really out of it for a few days. I. And I think for a long time after that I couldn’t even get gas in my car because it triggered that kind of like I got the shakes now just thinking about it. So it was just, it was so emotional just because, I don’t know, like, my friends were like, you really should go back and do some kind of like, by ceremony with the children. But it was almost like I didn’t want to take them back there ever again. Like, I was really scared of that.

Amy Stone [00:28:32]:
So were you able to go straight from. So that. There’s a lot, actually there’s a lot in that story because, you know, you were getting ready to move and make a big life change anyway, which was your choice.

Kathy Stowell [00:28:43]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:28:44]:
And then. But the fire was not. And the threat on your helm from the fire, that’s a really big thing. So were you able though? And being displaced, being evacuated and displaced is a humongously emotional experience. I hope that most people who are listening never actually have to go through. But for those who do, it’s really hard. And in the moment, right. You’re just following instructions. They’re like, hey, you have to leave. And you’re like, oh, but it lingers. It lingers. And we were displaced for. We were displaced for a hurricane. Not as urgently as yours. Like, we were able to. We knew it was coming and we knew our zone and stuff.

Kathy Stowell [00:29:23]:
Scared.

Amy Stone [00:29:24]:
But I always tell people I was like standing out, you know, it took hours to get ready. We took photos of the house, we walked away from the house not knowing if we’d ever come back. And that moment always sticks with me. And in, to give full context, nothing at all happened in my house. I came home and it was. Exactly. But that moment of walking away, it’s like. It’s hard. It’s emotionally challenging. Challenging. But were you. Did you not come back to that house? Did you move straight into your next transitional housing?

Kathy Stowell [00:29:52]:
Pretty much. Pretty much. We stayed at some friends, really kind friends. We stayed with them. You know, this one friend, like, lent me underwear for my daughter because.

Amy Stone [00:30:03]:
Right, because you’re nothing.

Kathy Stowell [00:30:04]:
I was just throwing random things into a bed.

Amy Stone [00:30:06]:
You got there, and you’re like, I have 27 shirts and no pajamas.

Kathy Stowell [00:30:10]:
Yeah, yeah. And I was asking my friends, I’m like, can we, like, move into the house? We were going to rent a house a little sooner. She’s like, I can’t. My tenant. So we had to. We’re kind of in limbo for a little bit. But, yeah, after that point, Craig’s like, you know, it’s fine. I just really was reluctant to go back on many levels. So. Yeah, so I just went back to pack. And then, yeah, when everything kind of settled a bit, we went back and just basically moved from there.

Amy Stone [00:30:36]:
But your house was not burned up in the storm?

Kathy Stowell [00:30:39]:
No, no, it wasn’t damaged.

Amy Stone [00:30:42]:
And the cow was okay. Daisy was okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:30:44]:
I know. You know, there’s this lady. We’re friends on Facebook still, because everybody in Facebook was like, oh, my God, we got evacuated. And I said, you know, everyone’s like, can you do this? And I said, can someone just, like, huck over, like, a bale a hay over the fence for my cows? You know, she had her baby too then. And, yeah, this lady Crystal, I’m forever grateful to her. I’m grateful to the lady who called me at three in the morning because Fred never did. Just like, Fred, like, why didn’t. He knows I get very anxious. But anyways. And I’m also forever grateful to Chris for just like, I can take care of your account, like. Oh, thank you.

Amy Stone [00:31:25]:
Yes. That is very, very nice. All right. So that was 10 years ago. Ish. Do you guys ever talk about going back to farming or your city now for the future?

Kathy Stowell [00:31:36]:
Um, you know, sometimes, I don’t know.

Amy Stone [00:31:40]:
You know.

Kathy Stowell [00:31:40]:
No. Between you and me, my husband and I haven’t spoke of it. I say to my friends, I’m like, you know, part of me would love to end up in this area, like, you know.

Amy Stone [00:31:50]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:31:50]:
But I don’t know. I think. I think I’m a city slicker now.

Amy Stone [00:31:53]:
Okay. All right. Very good. All right, so come. You mentioned this a second ago, but we’ll come back to it. So when you moved to the rural location. You were not in a corporate job. You set up your business, the Mom Coach Club. I would love to give you a chance to tell people about what that is and what you do.

Kathy Stowell [00:32:12]:
Totally, Totally. Yeah. So moving from the city for, you know, my daughter was a baby, and my son came four years later, and I started a blog, just kind of talking about, you know, what me and the kids are up to. And then it turned into, like, a mommy blog. Basically, I was hyper, crafty, on the farm, doing a lot of, like, knitting, sewing all my clothes, you know, lots of, like, yogurt, butter, lots of things.

Amy Stone [00:32:41]:
If you’re gonna have a farm, go all in is what. I don’t have a farm, so I buy my yogurt.

Kathy Stowell [00:32:48]:
So. I love blogging. You know, I love writing, I love taking photos, and I love the exercise of gratitude. Like, just, like, taking pictures of my surroundings and be like, oh, my God, how blessed am I? And then just kind of reflecting on that, and I’m like, how can I monetize this? Because really, there’s no, like, legal industry in that area.

Amy Stone [00:33:10]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:33:10]:
So it’s just kind of like, what am I going to do for work? So I landed on. I. Well, first I became a simplicity parenting coach.

Amy Stone [00:33:20]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:33:20]:
And then I became a creativity coach because I wanted to help moms, the ones I was connecting with on my blog, because they were always asking me, how is it you’re so, like, productive and prolific? Because I was, like, had Etsy shop selling things and homeschooling, and I still seemed like I had a lot of energy. And so it came to, like, always checking in. How can I simplify? And that creativity coaching component was about releasing perfection, you know?

Amy Stone [00:33:52]:
Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:33:53]:
And stuff like releasing perfection and just.

Amy Stone [00:33:57]:
Just.

Kathy Stowell [00:33:58]:
Yeah. Taking messy action and, you know, just protecting that time. Even just like, little chunks of time here and there add up. So I became a mom coach. I just kind of smushed the simplicity and the creativity pillars there, and I started coaching moms. And then moms, my clients were saying, I want to support moms, too. So I actually opened up a coaching training program for moms called Mom Coach Coach School.

Amy Stone [00:34:25]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:34:25]:
And that’s something I still offer to this day. So I started it in 2014, so it’s, like, been 10 years. And. And Mom Coach Club is a monthly membership I offer for nine bucks a month. And what that is, it’s all things mom coach business. So I have a ton of trainings in there for all aspects of your business, and I offer new templates for workshops you can bring into community, you know, you know, go to your library and say, I’m going to be hosting a time management for mom’s workshop. So just all the things, all the things are in there. And, and I also work with my clients privately one on one.

Amy Stone [00:35:11]:
That’s spectacular. That’s really, really good. That’s good.

Kathy Stowell [00:35:14]:
All right.

Amy Stone [00:35:14]:
And you have a wonderful offer that you’re sharing with the audience today. I’m going to read because I have it in front of me so that Kathy doesn’t have to pretend to remember it. It is called find your life purpose as a mom coach. And so this is for people who are mom coaches or want to be mom coaches.

Kathy Stowell [00:35:31]:
They’re thinking about it maybe.

Amy Stone [00:35:32]:
Okay, very good. All right, so this is a two hour workshop where it’s help you find clarity on what your purpose as a mom coach might look like. Normally this is $67, but if you use the link in the show notes or in the email because you’ll be a subscriber of imperfect adulting, you get 75% off. So that is a fantastic deal. And I want to say thank you for making that offer to the audience. I really love that. I really love that. Okay, so now we’re going to wrap this up with three rapid fire questions. These are just for fun. They’re not about anything else we talked about. And the idea is that you try and answer them with just a couple of words. Nobody that I ever interview is concise enough that I am the problem. I am the reason it doesn’t work. But anyway, that’s the goal. That’s the goal. Okay, all right, all right. So this I like. So when I wrote these before I knew you, because this is our first conversation, so I didn’t know. So let’s see if these are any good. All right, so by any chance, did you have a favorite TV cartoon when you were growing up? And if so, what was it?

Kathy Stowell [00:36:33]:
TV cartoon. I had a favorite TV show.

Amy Stone [00:36:39]:
Now let’s go with that.

Kathy Stowell [00:36:40]:
Okay, let’s go with that. For some reason obsessed with Donny and Marie and I was obsessed with the fact that Donnie was obsessed with purple socks.

Amy Stone [00:36:49]:
Very good. All right, very good. When, when you, when you said that you with the Waldorf and the homeschooling, I was ready for you to be like, nope, no, TV is never. But all right, here we go. Next one. Also on an entertainment theme. So we’ll see if this is a hit or a miss. Do you like movies? And if so, what is the genre of your favorite Type of movie. So not your favorite type of movie. What type of movie you choose as a favorite? Like rom com, superhero, adventure, that horror.

Kathy Stowell [00:37:16]:
I love movies. I love movies. My favorite movie trilogy is Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight. I don’t know if you heard.

Amy Stone [00:37:25]:
Okay, I don’t know those. I don’t know.

Kathy Stowell [00:37:27]:
Okay. So I don’t know what that genre would be. It’s just them. Like, it’s Richard Linklater movies. So I guess kind of like B movies. B movies. The word alternative movies. But a lot of conversation. I like movies where it gets into the minutia of things, you know, like conversations. It goes really slow. But I like it because I feel like I’m. I’m like, there with them. I don’t know how to describe.

Amy Stone [00:37:49]:
All right, all right. I will totally have to check that out. I will totally. I’m totally. All right, so now. Now this one, I’m loving to figure out what your answer is because you had the homestead. Okay, so imagine it’s a rainy weekend day, like a Saturday morning. There’s nothing on your to do list. You don’t have any commitments. There’s no errands. There’s no chores that need to be done. So then what are you doing? Do you wake up and make breakfast for the family? Are you sleeping in and blowing everybody off? Are you watching tv, reading a book, trying to get somebody to play a board game with you? Or finding something around the house that needs to be done?

Kathy Stowell [00:38:24]:
I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to be doing.

Amy Stone [00:38:27]:
Tell me.

Kathy Stowell [00:38:28]:
I am going to treat myself to an extra latte because I always allow myself that when it’s a little humid outside.

Amy Stone [00:38:34]:
Okay.

Kathy Stowell [00:38:35]:
And I am going to work on.

Amy Stone [00:38:38]:
This and those is that it’s a crafting desk.

Kathy Stowell [00:38:41]:
It’s a jigsaw puzzle. I love jigsaw puzzles. And I love. My perfect thing is either doing it with a latte in my hand and watching Real Housewives of, you know, something. Something. Right now I’m watching cow tea. Or if it’s later in the evening, right before dinner, I like it with Real Housewives of Orange county. Or something. Something. And a glass of pinot gris and a little dish of jalapeno puffy chips.

Amy Stone [00:39:16]:
Wow, I love that. Oh, my gosh. So is it. I have a jigsaw question for you. Right? A puzzle question for you. Is that a dedicated puzzle table then behind you?

Kathy Stowell [00:39:25]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:39:26]:
Because the problem with puzzles in my life is if I start them on, like, the dining room table or like, you know, some sort of open table. Then there’s like a. There’s like a time limit because, you know, if you have people come over or whatever. Yeah.

Kathy Stowell [00:39:40]:
Well, you can get mats, apparently, that you can carefully roll it up. I’ve seen it on Amazon. I can’t see because I have mine all in disarray. So I have, like. Yeah, I think it’s best just to have a devoted. So this has moved around a lot. I just recently moved my office upstairs, so it’s kind of been moving. So right now it’s living there, and I’ll probably be there for a while.

Amy Stone [00:39:59]:
And is your puzzling method. Do you start with the outside in the corners, like a.

Kathy Stowell [00:40:04]:
As best as I can.

Amy Stone [00:40:06]:
Who don’t. There are. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to do a puzzle with somebody who wants to start in a different way, but it’s charming and it’s like.

Kathy Stowell [00:40:13]:
It makes no logical sense. But it also depends on the puzzle. So sometimes I do weird ones and.

Amy Stone [00:40:18]:
Like, the outside piece, if they’re not a regular shape. And then you have to start with the colors. But, you know, I’m not going to pick one of those. I’m not going to pick one of those. I got to tell you, I need the corners. I need to find the corners.

Kathy Stowell [00:40:30]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:40:30]:
All right. That is it. Kathy Sowell, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest on the Art of Imperfect Adult.

Kathy Stowell [00:40:36]:
That was so fun. Thank you, Amy.