Quit my job and discovered a new passion

Background

Hi there! I’m P.K. Tran Weiland and I live with my husband and two year old daughter in Northern Virginia. Having spent a decade working in sales, I decided in August 2019 to quit and find my passion. That’s right. I left so that I could devote my time to networking and volunteering in hopes of finding something more meaningful. That’s not to say I didn’t love my job. In fact, I did for many years. Those of you with kids may relate to what I’m about to say. Once you have a child, your whole perspective on life changes. I am a different person today than I was just three years ago. We all evolve and change and that’s a good thing.

To make sense of all of this, I’ll go back to September 2016 when I got pregnant. Once I realized I was no longer eating for myself, I made some real diet changes. I replaced french fries, greasy burgers, and alcohol with baked sweet potato fries, veggie burgers, and mocktails or green smoothies. When our daughter was five months old and starting solids, I read even more blogs and articles to find healthy recipes for babies.

Culinary Nutrition

Fast forward to December of 2018, when I completed a course from the Academy of Culinary Nutrition in Toronto. I wanted to learn more about nutrition and get more comfortable with recipe creation. This 14-week course was no joke as it required a commitment of 15 hours per week. On top of that, I was back at work after a 15 month maternity leave.

After completing the course, I considered starting a healthy meals business for busy families, but this faded over time. While I can cook, I wouldn’t say I’m amazing. I also realized I would need to spend all day and night preparing food for other families, which would take the fun out of cooking.

Volunteering

In the spring of 2019, I volunteered with FoodCorps, an amazing organization that connects kids to healthy foods in schools. I got the opportunity to help one of their elementary schools celebrate Earth Day. We prepared the grounds for raised beds, pulled weeds, and planted new flowers. During breaks, I would offer my taste test station serving beets and a variety of home-made gummy bears. The FoodCorps service member invited me to come back to help with their after-school program. I planned out recipes and ingredients we would use to create delicious and healthy dishes. A lot of the flavors in the recipes were new and different, but all of the kids tried everything. Some even came back for seconds and thirds.

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It was such a cool experience working with them. When the school session ended I felt there was something missing in my life. I knew I wanted to keep working with kids and food in some capacity.

I distracted myself that summer with family vacations and holidays. Once we neared the end of summer, I knew I needed to make a change with work. I’m so grateful to have worked for an amazing and flexible company; however, I was no longer passionate about what I was doing. After long consideration with my family, I knew I needed to quit all together. There weren’t enough hours in a day to pursue something else while working. I stayed up late catching up on work on days our daughter stayed home with a fever or other ailment. Working, taking care of our household, and trying to research something else became unmanageable. It was time to QUIT. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a supportive husband who encouraged me to take this leap. Thanks Jake!

After quitting, the first thing I did was apply for the Farm Educator role at Arcadia Farm in Alexandria, VA. I knew nothing about farming, but knew enough about food to assist with their nutrition education lesson. I volunteered once a week working with different schools and age groups teaching kids about healthy eating. The best part was seeing them grate the veggies, creating a salad and tasting it together. For the majority, this was the first time they had ever tried a beet…and some loved it! It was also a ton of fun walking around the garden and tasting plants. The look on their faces after trying cranberry hibiscus, lemon balm, and chocolate mint leaves was amazing. These were a first for me too so every week was an adventure and new learning experience.

Networking

When I wasn’t volunteering with Arcadia, I spent the rest of my time networking with as many people as possible. Each week I’d cold email or connect with people from LinkedIn to learn more about their organizations and roles. Luckily in the DC area, my network has helped with introductions too. I was open to talking to anyone who would want to talk to me. Since I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I kept an open mind and explored all sorts of options. I connected with people advocating for sustainable organic food, working to eliminate food insecurity and helping to promote healthy eating for kids.

Then, I decided to expand and connect with female entrepreneurs across a variety of industries. I found myself increasingly excited learning about all these different business models, and how these founders started their businesses. A few years after college I considered starting my own business but ended up not doing so out of fear. It was at this point, I started to switch gears and think about ways to incorporate food, kids, and gardening.

My experience at Arcadia taught me so much about the power of experiential learning in the garden. I witnessed numerous transformations with particular kids. Once you had them playing in the garden, tasting plants and veggies from the ground, their demeanor completely changed. By the end of these trips, kids were jumping for joy and so happy they came.

It wasn’t just at Arcadia. I also shadowed a school field trip at the US National Arboretum’s Washington Youth Garden. They have similar educational opportunities for kids, and again, saw many transformations in kids there as well.

Passion

Eating a healthy diet led me down a path of wanting to grow my own food. I’ve become obsessed watching tons of videos, reading books, articles, and listening to gardening podcasts. Vegetables and herbs straight from a garden taste so much fresher than those from the grocery store. In my attempt to create a home garden for my family, I found it to be research-intensive and overwhelming. What containers do I use? When do I start planting? When can I expect a harvest? How do I deal with sunlight, and watering, and pests?

I created Growmuse as a way to document my journey growing food with my two year old daughter. Family, friends, and past coworkers have asked what I’ve been up to lately. It seemed easier to write it all down and share it. Candidly, I’ve felt insecure about my writing since high school when I couldn’t pass the test to get into AP English, not once, but twice! In college I even forced myself to take an English course when it wasn’t a requirement in hopes of improving my skills. I hope with every post, my writing gets better! If not, just let me know. I love constructive criticism.

In closing, gardening should be second nature to our children. If you’re like me and have never done it before, hopefully, you’ll take part, comment, and share your own experiences.

Let’s work together to help our children turn their little thumbs green!