Macadam Garden & Co

Riverside’s best kept Fourth of July secret is a church parking lot. First United Methodist has stood here since 1872, two years after Riverside itself was founded, and every year they open their grounds to the whole community. Five dollars to park, front row to the fireworks over Mount Rubidoux, and generations of families on the same lawn. Some places don’t just hold memories. They hold generations. Where does your family watch the fireworks?

Happy belated Fourth, Riverside. ❤️🤍💙

Stop and smell the roses. 🌹 Have you really done it lately? Stopped, closed your eyes, breathed one all the way in? It’s the most delicious thing — it floods every sense at once, and for a second you forget everything else.

Years ago, an English professor at Riverside City College told me: before you write, smell a flower. So on essay days I’d bring a rose to class, breathe it in, and then begin. I did little things like that for years before I understood why. We get so busy producing and scrolling that we stop experiencing our own lives. Then you step outside, you smell a rose, and you’re back.

And here’s what makes mine special. Two of these roses were gifts from my late husband. Alex planted them for me. The ones that welcome me home in the driveway are his. The ones whose petals I steep into my tea are his. So every time they bloom, he’s still here — still showing up, still nourishing me, just in a different form. I smile every single time I see them.

Sometimes the most healing thing isn’t another productivity hack. Sometimes it’s stepping outside, and smelling the roses. 🌹

What’s your version of stopping to smell the roses? Tell me below.

From my backyard to the jar. 🍋

To understand this scrub, you have to know the tree. This lemon tree is over forty years old. It grows over the fence — half my neighbor’s, half mine — and around here, whatever grows over the fence belongs to both of us. It’s survived droughts, storms, and years when the house next door sat empty. When nobody lived there, I watered it anyway. I couldn’t watch it struggle.

When I was a little girl, I used to draw the same picture: a house, a tree, fruit on the branches. That was my whole idea of a good life. And somehow, all these years later, I’m standing under it.

So that’s where this scrub begins. Sugar for a gentle polish, fresh lemon zest, a little vitamin E, jojoba and coconut oil, and a few drops of lemon at the end. Made by hand in small batches. Nothing you can’t pronounce.

Every ingredient is food — clean enough to taste. And when you do, you’re tasting my backyard. A forty-year-old lemon tree. A childhood dream that quietly came true. A piece of this land I love, in a jar. 🍋

🍋 Coming July 2026 · 📍 Local pickup in Riverside · ✈️ Shipping soon

🤍 MacAdam & Garden Co. · Old World Living in Southern California

My husband made me stop the car for her.

Years ago, Alex suddenly yelled “stop the car.” Crossing the road was the tiniest little thing — a cracked shell, a little limp. Somehow, she came home with us. We named her Shelly.

Today she’s one of the healthiest you’ll ever see, and the funny thing is we don’t really take care of her the way people imagine. The backyard is her home. She hibernates when she wants, wanders where she wants, eats whatever she decides is on the menu. But her favorite thing? Red rose petals. And she knows my voice, when I walk into the garden talking, she comes over, because there’s a good chance I’m carrying some.

That tiny thing with the cracked shell is gone. She’s strong, stubborn, and completely convinced she owns the place. And honestly? Maybe she does.

Sometimes I watch her cross the garden and think about how much can change in a few years. How healing isn’t loud. How growth doesn’t happen all at once. How living things get strong when they’re simply given time.

Five years later, Shelly is still here. Eating rose petals. Ignoring my advice. Living her best life. And every time I see her, I think the same thing: thank God Alex saw her crossing that road. 🌹

🤍 MacAdam & Garden Co. · Old World Living in Southern California

Some of the most important things in my life started very small.

This fig tree was a gift. Fifteen years ago, one of the families my husband worked with gave it to him — because he’d made a difference for their child. It arrived in a coffee can, barely bigger than my finger. We planted it, watered it, moved it, protected it. And we waited.

Today it’s taller than I am, and every summer it gives fruit. The squirrels usually beat me to it. I don’t even mind.

Because the most meaningful things don’t arrive fully grown. Not marriages. Not children. Not gardens. They start small. They ask for patience and care. And one day you look up and you’re sitting in the shade of something you planted years ago. 🌿

🤍 MacAdam & Garden Co. · Old World Living in Southern California

Nobody teaches us how to show up for the grieving. So I’m teaching my daughters.

Nobody wants to be the family touched by tragic loss. But tragedy comes anyway, to all of us eventually. And when it does, most people freeze. They send money. They stay away. They wait to be invited.

Here’s what I grew up knowing, and what I trained in later as a social worker: the grieving don’t need you to fix it. You can’t. They need you to show up. Cry with them. Give the hug. Sit in the discomfort. And if they say don’t come — send the text anyway.

Because years later, people forget what you said. They never forget who showed up.

I grew up around a lot of grief, young. Now I’m teaching my girls the same thing: how to comfort a friend who’s lost someone, how to stay when it’s hard. Because grief is part of life, and the kindest thing you can offer someone in it is to not look away. 🤍

Grief is strange because you’re not only mourning what happened. You’re mourning who you were before it happened.

I’ve met so many versions of myself in a short time. The woman who thought she had it figured out. The woman whose life fell apart. The woman who finally stopped fighting the change.

Each one felt permanent. None of them were.

The ocean taught me the difference. It never asks yesterday’s wave to return. It just makes room for the next one.

I’ve stopped trying to bring back who I used to be. Not heartbroken. Not euphoric. Just standing on the shore, realizing I don’t need my old life back.

Tell me below. Which version of yourself are you finally letting go of.

Every family has its characters. Ours have whiskers.

This is Callie. She was born in our home — her mother, Ponderosa, showed up during a difficult season of life and decided she was family. We agreed. Callie grew up here, in this garden, with my girls. Then she had a litter of her own. Most of those kittens found wonderful homes. These are the ones who stayed: Splashy, Jimmy, Gray Star, and Goldie.

The garden changes every season. Children grow. Families change. But some of the sweetest stories are the ones that quietly continue, generation after generation, in the same home.

A living family tree, with whiskers. 🐈🌿

🤍 MacAdam & Garden Co. · Old World Living in Southern California

These are my favorite co-workers.

I’ve been feeding the hummingbirds for years — long enough to measure seasons of my life by them. When I was a young mother, they’d come so close I’d laugh and move out of the way. They’ve been part of my life ever since.

Every few days: fresh sugar water, clean feeders, refill. And then they come. Not just the hummingbirds — the bees, the birds, the whole garden comes alive.

Don’t let the size fool you, though. These little guys are fierce. They know exactly what they want, and they’ll absolutely let each other know.

Maybe that’s why I like them. They remind me that the best things in life don’t happen by accident. They happen because someone keeps showing up. One feeder, one refill, one season at a time — and one day you look around and the garden is full of life. 🐦

🤍 MacAdam & Garden Co. · Old World Living in Southern California