#stayleafy
The Who, What, and Where of the Leafy Dreams Team
Being that I actually started this blog about 8 months ago it took me about 10 minutes longer than it should have before I realized we needed to introduce ourselves again. We have a new website provider, a new look, an online store (that is on a little pause while we gear up for farmers market season) and we are saving the world one salad blend at a time.. but how did we even get here?
Life has a very interesting sense of humor. It amazes me how many times two paths can cross over, and over, and over again seemingly unnoticed, or completely unnoticed for that matter. Nick and I worked for the same company, at the same locations at the same time in two different states, three times. Back in 2008 -ish we’ve worked at the same restaurant in Des Moines Iowa and never met. Somehow he managed to meet my best friend, who might as well have been attached to my hip but apparently I missed it. We had (and still do) have several of the same friends. I guess it just wasn’t the right time for us. I can at the very least say personally, I still had a LOT of growing up to do, that was after all, SEVENTEEN?! (HOW is that possible) years ago! Our next encounter was working for the same restaurant but this time I was a bartender and he was my bar manager. He was married at the time and I was engaged. A wedding I called off a whopping 6 weeks prior to the big day. But hey, still one of the best decisions I have ever made and looking back is certainly not something I was ready for back then. From there life did what it does best and played its course. Nick moved away and I kept working away and working my up within the company. In 2020, on my first day back at work after having a few surgeries done I walked in and saw my big boss sitting at a table prior to any other managers being in the building. This is never a good sign in our previous line of work. It doesn’t take very long to realize that our general manager at the time was being “promoted to guest”. Trying to stay out of the way and certainly not wanting to get in the cross-fire of however that turned out I b-lined for the kitchen and back office. No sooner do I turn the corner, look up and see our new general manager leaning up against the wall… Nick Smith. This guy just keeps popping up in my life. I was struggling with several health conditions at the time all secondary to failing kidneys for which I was on dialysis to try and recover some of my other organs (specifically my heart) so that I would be strong enough to undergo a kidney transplant. We worked together for a few months when we realized that we had both commented on an unknown mutual friend of ours social media. We discussed it briefly one day at work and decided it was better left as a “don’t ask, don’t tell type situation.
We were both personally going through some pretty hard times while we working together as managers for this restaurant. Not to mention it wasn’t very long after he arrived that the every other word you heard on the news was COVID or RIOT. It was a tense time for everyone and we had 150+ people looking to us for safety and at least a little comfort for the time they were within our four walls. It was immeasurably hard. There were many nights I drove home in silence, tears running down my face as I wondered how life got so turned upside down and worried for all of the members on our team. Curphews, quarentines, social distancing.. we are a population of social creatures and we were expected to not socialize. It was hard to tell sometimes if we were living in real life or if we had all accidentally taken the wrong pill and ended up in some extra twisted version of the matrix.
But it did have it’s perks, Nick and I formed a fast friendship, and we were dominating the take out game in Omaha. We relied heavily on one another to keep our teams moral up. A daunting task that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Making the phone calls one after another, telling these people that had become friends, family, that we weren’t going to have shifts for them for an undisclosed amount of time was rough. We offered them meals, it wasn’t much… but it was what we could do. To this day we both wish we could have done so much more. 2020 was a terrible year for so many people, but let me tell you.. this girl knows how to end a crappy year on a high note. I received a promotion on the 26th of December, and I got a new, kidney on December 27th 2020. I was released on New Years Eve and I was ready to take 2021 by storm! Or that’s what I thought anyway. I am not going to speculate as to what caused my kidney to have so many problems for the first couple of years but after a couple years of “will I, or won’t I loose my brand new kidney” my doctors finally diagnosed me with a “sleepy kidney” Scientific right? :) Short explanation: my kidney never really woke up from the transplant all the way, but I WAS NOT rejecting it. FInally a big needed breath of fresh air rushed into my lungs… right up until Nick and I both got Covid. HA! We made it through all of the pandemic time, working day and night in a restaurant and we never caught it. But when we caught it, we had a rough time. I had a stint in the ICU for an acute kidney injury, secondary to dehydration, secondary to Covid. I don’t think I really realized how sick I was until much later, when I actually started to feel, good, for the first time in a very long time.
So, 2.5 years into a transplant, a job that was draining our souls, and somehow no one managed to put together that Nick and I were dating when we both got COVID and told our boss, on the same day… But hey, at least we had company. Nick and I dated for a while (to this day neither of us can tell you how long we have actually been together, it just kind of happened over time) The only thing I can tell you for sure, is that life tends to happen exactly as it should. COVID was the final scare for me. It was time for a career change and it was time for Nick and I to get out of Dodge and move home. He took a job at another restaurant and I stayed on a medical leave to actually allow my body to finally heal. Now yes, there are a few more details in there but that is what enevidably led us to Leafy Dreams.
Now before anyone wants to write me off as the girl that dated her boss, which I am… we didn’t tell anyone and aside from some small chatter here and there most people didn’t have any idea. Or that’s what they’ve told us anyway. I’ve said this before and I will certainly say it many times again but Nick is my person. He is exactly what I need at the exact moment I need it even when he makes me absolutely crazy. He can be the ying to my yang, but we can also be completely in sync without saying a word. He has helped me through some of the hardest times of my life and I have stood next to him through some heart breaking tragedies. He is the best of me, he brings out the best in me, and I am fairly certain he would say the same about me. We were really lucky to find one another, at the exact moment that we found each other. The universe knew exactly what it was doing by bringing us together and without each other, neither one of us would have had the nerve to throw caution to the wind, start Leafy Dreams LLC and turn it into the amazing hydroponic farm it is becoming more of every day.
So stick around, stay tuned, and STAY LEAFY! We will share every step along the way, and we sure hope you’ll follow along. We love being able to share this journey with you and without all of you, we would most definitely not be where we are today.
#peaceloveandleafydreams
#stayleafy
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