28/09/2026
Good evening, Blossoms ❤️ It’s time for Sweet Tea & Caramel, pull up a chair, grab a glass, and let’s fill our cups together 🥰
This week is going to look just a little bit different.
Wednesday was my husband’s birthday, and today we got to have a little birthday do over for him at Bear Dance, one of his very favorite places to golf. We spent the day together, I got to watch him do something he absolutely loves, and it just had me thinking all day about this incredible man I get to do life with and how deeply grateful I am for him.
If you know me, you know I call my husband by his full name. 😂 He is rarely just John. He is John Deen. ❤️
And John Deen is one of the kindest, most loving, gentle men I know. He is a giant teddy bear of a man who is also fiercely protective of the people he loves, and I really don’t know if I will ever be able to fully explain what his love and support have given me.
My husband is a Yes man. And I mean that in the very best way. I can come to him with an idea that has probably been rolling around in my head for approximately fourteen seconds and say, “John Deen, what if we…” and he is never the husband who sighs and says, “Really?” He is the husband who says, “Yep. Let’s do it!” And there is something so incredibly freeing about being loved by someone like that. Someone who doesn’t make your dreams feel like too much. Someone who doesn’t diminish what you’re creating or make you feel like you need to make yourself smaller, or your ideas smaller, or your excitement smaller. He cheers me on. He lifts me up. He lets me be exactly who I am, and I think that is one of the greatest gifts one person can give another.
But the truth is, that is just who John is in every part of his life.
The way he loves me is one of the greatest blessings of my life. He loves me in a way that makes me feel safe, supported and completely known. He is patient with me, protective of me, proud of me and always in my corner. And the way he loves the people I love means just as much to me.
He loves my family as his own. He shows up for them. He worries about them. He helps them. He celebrates them. And watching him be the father and grandfather he is is just one more reason I am so incredibly proud of the man I married. He loves deeply, and when you are one of his people, you know it.
And I think that is why he shows up for Cotton Blossom the way he does too. It is not because caramel is his great passion 😂. It is because I am. 🥹Because this matters to me, it matters to him.
I don’t know that I fully understood until Cotton Blossom just how powerful it is to be loved by someone who truly believes in you. Because he doesn’t just love me, he believes in me. He believes in what I’m building. He believes in what Cotton Blossom is becoming. He understands that this is far more than caramel to me, and he has never once treated it like it was silly or too much or something I needed to explain. He just sees it. He sees me. And I cannot even begin to tell you what that has meant to me.
I am so incredibly grateful for Cotton Blossom. I am grateful for this business and for the life it has given me. I am grateful for every person who walks through the cabin door, every hug, every conversation, every family that comes to see us, every person who chooses to spend a little piece of their day with us. I am grateful that I get to wake up and do something that feels so completely like me. But when I really sit with all of that gratitude, so much of it comes right back to John, because I could not do this without him by my side.
You know those black and white scallops along the roofline of the cabin that have become such a part of Cotton Blossom? That’s John. That beautiful cash wrap you check out at? That’s John. If you have ever seen my big ol’ booth at Vintage Market Days and wondered who helps make all of that happen, yep, that’s John too. The trips to Denver to pick up jars, Restaurant Depot, Costco Business, whatever random thing I have decided I absolutely need that week 😂, last-minute printing, loading, building, fixing, carrying, all of it. He is my guy.
And then there are all the things nobody really sees. Coming home after a full day at his own business and sitting down to help us label or package because there is still work to be done. Walking in through the sunroom at the end of the day and being greeted with “Hello, John! Hello, John! Hello, John!” from all the girls, which makes me smile every single time. Showing up over and over and over again without needing the attention or the credit.
That is just who he is.
And I think that is what I am feeling so deeply this week. Gratitude. Gratitude for a husband who puts the people he loves before himself. Gratitude for a man who loves my family with his whole heart. Gratitude for the father and grandfather he is. Gratitude for someone who makes me feel safe enough to dream big and supported enough to actually go do it. Gratitude for someone who never competes with my joy and never makes me feel guilty for being passionate about something. He makes room for all of it, and because of that, I get to live a life that feels so authentically mine.
When you look around Cotton Blossom, you are seeing pieces of John Deen everywhere. And when you see me living this life that I love so much, building this business that means the world to me and getting to be completely and unapologetically myself while I do it, there is a man standing beside me who has helped make that possible.
And I just don’t take that for granted.
I am grateful for Cotton Blossom. I am grateful for this life. I am grateful for the people who have loved and supported this dream. But more than anything this week, I am grateful for my husband. For his kindness, his strength, his patience, the way he loves me, the way he loves my family, the way he believes in me, the way he makes room for me to dream as big as I want to dream, the way he says yes, the way he shows up and the way he loves his people.
I am so incredibly blessed to be his wife.
So tonight, after a really special day celebrating him, I just want to say this.
Happy birthday, John Deen.
Thank you for loving me exactly as I am. Thank you for loving the people I love. Thank you for believing in every crazy idea. Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for standing beside me in all of it.
And thank you for being the kind of man who makes the people around you feel loved, protected and supported just by being you.
Blossoms, I hope this week gives you something to be grateful for ❤️
Until next time..
Xoxo
Liz ❤️
