A Mountain Woman,
A Diagnosis,
& the Old Ways

I am a woman who lives close to hard things.

I have spent more than two decades as a funeral director’s wife in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. Death has been at our table, in our conversations, and threaded through our daily life for as long as I can remember. When you live that close to the end of things, you develop a certain clarity about what matters and what doesn’t.

I am a mama — five children, a house that needs work, a pantry I keep stocked, and a kitchen where most things are made from scratch. I homeschool. I keep books for a handful of family businesses. I am busy in the way that mountain women have always been busy — not frantically, but steadily, with purpose, from before sunup until well past dark.

And then came the diagnosis.

What the doctor said — and what I heard.

When you get a diagnosis like diabetes, the medical system hands you a script. Watch your carbs. Monitor your numbers. Here is your medication. Come back in three months.

And I understand that. I am not against doctors. But I am a woman who was raised to ask questions, to go back to the source, to look at what God put in the earth before I reach for what men put in a pill bottle.

My people have lived in these mountains for generations. They grew gardens and put up food and knew which roots to dig and which herbs to dry. They did not have perfect health — but they had wisdom. Hard-won, passed-down, God-breathed wisdom about how to tend the body He gave them.

I decided I was going to find my way back to that.

Tending the Temple.

That verse changed the way I thought about all of it. This body is not mine to neglect. It is not mine to abuse with processed food and convenience and the path of least resistance. But it is also not mine to manage out of fear or shame.

It is mine to steward — with the same care I give my garden, my pantry, my children. With intention. With faith. With the understanding that God designed this body to heal when we give it what He made for it.

So I went back to the old ways. Bone broth simmering on the back of the stove. Ferments on the counter. Einkorn and sourdough instead of modern wheat. Herbs from the holler that my grandmother would have recognized. Real fats — lard, butter, tallow — the way mountain people always ate before somebody told them it was dangerous.

I started tracking what happened. And things started to change.

Why this site exists.

I am not a doctor. I am not a dietitian. I am a mountain mama with a diagnosis, a deep faith, a well-stocked pantry, and a conviction that God did not design the human body to be permanently dependent on a pharmaceutical solution for something that food and lifestyle can address at the root.

I want to be honest with you about something: I have not arrived. I am not writing this from the other side of healing, looking back with all the answers neatly tied up. I am still in the trenches with this diagnosis. Some days are better than others. Some things I have tried have worked. Some have not. I am still learning, still adjusting, still praying over it.

This site is my way of healing — a place to document the journey as it happens, in real time, with all the uncertainty that comes with it. The recipes I share are the ones I am actually making. The articles I write are things I have actually researched because I needed to know them for myself. This is not a polished success story. It is a living record of a woman choosing every day to tend the temple she has been given.

If you are in the trenches too — newly diagnosed, years in, discouraged, or just looking for a different way — you are in the right place. We can walk this road together.

Pull up a chair. You are welcome here.

A word about anonymity.

I have chosen to keep my personal identity off this site — not out of shame, but out of wisdom. My family is known in our community. My husband’s work puts us in public life in ways that require discretion. And frankly, this health journey is mine to share on my own terms, in my own time.

What I will not hide is my faith, my convictions, or the truth of what I am experiencing. Those belong here. The rest is between me, my family, and the Lord.