2ND EDITION | ISSUE #158 The moment I dozed off into a lucid dream, the buzzing started again and I jerked awake—pausing to consider hitting snooze for a third time this morning. But before I could convince myself otherwise, I rolled myself out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen, and proceeded to spill coffee grounds everywhere in an effort to brew myself an entire French press of ambition. Yet the morning still had an upbeat undertone, like the clickity-clack of Dolly's nails in the opening...
11 days ago • 10 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #157 Framed in rosy fading hydrangeas, overlooking the valley below, with fall-hued hills rolling around it, sat a graveyard with roughly 30 matching headstones inside. A small pilgrimage of sweater-clad travelers wound their way up the path, me being just one of them. But this wasn't any old graveyard. It was a graveyard of failures. But failures that were being celebrated. Failures that had become part of the attraction. At this point, you are probably wondering just...
19 days ago • 7 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #156 Something funky happened when I pushed send on this newsletter earlier - and it didn't send to everyone - so if you are getting this twice sorry! Can I tell you a secret? I'm running away tomorrow. But only for like five days. Depending on how long you've been reading this newsletter, you won't be all that surprised. Roadtrips are something I do pretty often, and my craziest travel stories have been documented in many a newsletter in the past - it's where some of my...
25 days ago • 12 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #156 Can I tell you a secret? I'm running away tomorrow. But only for like five days. Depending on how long you've been reading this newsletter, you won't be all that surprised. Roadtrips are something I do pretty often, and my craziest travel stories have been documented in many a newsletter in the past - it's where some of my best content comes from. I wrote this newsletter (issue #143) en route to a place that changed it all The crap grap moment (issue #114) & how to...
26 days ago • 12 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #155 My head jerks up, and my eyes open to the open MacBook on my lap. My heavy eyelids find the time in the right corner. 9:47 PM. I take that a sign and close up the website framework i’ve been chipping away at. And I'm not having fun. Like, at all. Zero inspiration. Just this growing feeling of... blankness? Blah-ness? That thing where you're doing "the work" but it feels like climbing a mountain with no top in sight. And then it hit me. I don't have a reference. Which...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #154 Depending on how long you’ve been following me, you may or may not know the lore surrounding our almost 100-year-old house and the renovation that's been one of the main characters in our lives since January of 2022. If not, here’s the cliff notes version: We spent the first year and a half completely gutting the place, commuting back and forth from our apartment to work on it. Then we spent the next six months living in a camper in the driveway until we could get the...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #153 "If you were my business coach? What advice would you give me about this offer?" I asked — while staring into my Zoom screen and connecting with Jayne — my most recent Brand Brushstrokes client who was giving me some beta feedback from halfway around the world. And as someone who doesn't really follow other designers — preferring to stay in my lane and not get distracted by comparison — I was so surprised at her feedback. "I didn't want to change my logo. And I had...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #152 These days, friends call me “Catie Pinterest” -specifically, by my one best friend, Jason “Mary with a C” - a play on the fact that my name is, in fact, not Catie but MaryAnd “Marty” - a play on Mary with a C/inside joke that has morphed into a nickname all its ownBack in 2009, I had a nickname that was not *so* different. A nickname that at the time I hated. Martha. Inspired by the one and only, Martha Stewart.Now, my friends were not trying to be mean -and I knew...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #151 I can smell it like it was yesterday. The pine pulp and paper mill outside the city, while we sat in the rocking chairs outside. The faint smell of cigarettes and haze from the smoking section. I searched the walls around me for little treasures. Nostalgic things I thought were cool. My dad and I had spent the last 20 minutes playing peg solitaire, and like a mirage the server came out with my favorite meal steaming from a tray - Chicken and dumplings. I can taste the...
2 months ago • 6 min read