2ND EDITION | ISSUE #165 Once upon a time deep in the Covid days, I became obsessed with an Instagram account of a girl who made the coolest woodland fairy terrarium tables. She would have these stumps of wood and then fill them with ferns or mushrooms that she would find in the woods and just build these magical little ecosystems and then cover them in enamel to create these really cool little side tables, and I swear I watched every single video on her account and told myself that one day I...
8 days ago • 10 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #164 If you are a millennial gal who has yet to marry, let me just go ahead and warn you that your mother is going to stress 5x more about what she is wearing to your wedding than you are. At least that has been my experience so far. So it was no real surprise when she sent me a dress on a Black Friday sale over the weekend and asked me what I thought of it. What was a little surprising however—was that I had to tell my mom that the dress… and the model for that matter...
2 months ago • 9 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #163 I have 12 unread emails I’m “saving” to catch up on in my inbox right now. And chances are, you are chuckling because, like me, you hoard your favorite newsletters to catch up on on a rainy day. Let’s be honest. The behind-the-brand newsletter can be meaty. But we both know it’s worth the read. Still, I want to honor your inbox, especially this week, when I, like so many others, will be running an end-of-year/Black Friday Promo and hitting your inbox a little more...
3 months ago • 3 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #161 I flopped around on the air mattress for the umpteenth time when I realized my plan had officially backfired. Recovering my cold toes under the blanket. Fluffing pillows that weren't mine. Adjusting my earplugs. Pure agony. I don't sleep great when I'm not home—and there was no way I was going to wake up as early as I'd planned for my CCO week blocks. My sleep? Garbage. My plan to use early morning wakeups for deep work on my website while staying at my sister's? Dead...
3 months ago • 9 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #161 I was barely able to lift the thing. So it was not a huge surprise when I had to fork over 100 euros to make up for my overweight suitcase instead of parting with the 4 bottles of wine and limoncello inside the giant Samsonite hardside spinner I had bought for the trip. I didn't know it then, but it was the end of my days as a chronic overpacker. I blame the trip I took to LA with my grandparents when I was 7, when my mom somehow forgot to pack shorts for the week. Or...
3 months ago • 10 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #160 The amount of stress I impose on myself with self-imposed deadlines is kinda over the top. What is it about making time for our own brand that's so damn hard? That makes us spiral out a little? It's a question I've been grappling with since I started my business four years ago—but really focusing on in the last year as I've taken myself through my own slow branding process. Is it that updating our brand is personal, and it challenges us to embody and up-level how we...
3 months ago • 8 min read
2ND EDITION | ISSUE #159 There i was, standing on a little circular pedestal, with both of my fists under my chin & swirling like a little girl back and forth. But ya know, as a 31-year-old adult. And just like that, I had officially checked “buy wedding dress” off my to-do list, and added it to the list of WINs inside my current 12 Week Year. Now, if you know of the 12 Week Year by ****Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington, you may have just tensed up a little thinking of all the trackers and...
3 months ago • 8 min read
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...
4 months 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...
4 months ago • 7 min read