Happy Friday, beautiful friend! Before you slide into your leggings and tackle your to-do list (or Netflix lineup 😉), let’s take a moment. How do you want to feel this weekend? Relaxed? Energized? Balanced? Bold? Here’s a mini checklist to help you get there: ✅ A moment of movement (even a walk around the block counts) ✅ One thing that fills your cup (read, laugh, nap — you choose) ✅ A dose of nature’s medicine (because, yes, it works) Speaking of... if you’ve never tried an herbal remedy — this is your sign. The weekend is a beautiful time to introduce small things that make a big difference. A calming tea. A focus-boosting tincture. A wellness ritual that actually works. It’s about feeling good, inside and out. Here’s to a weekend of deep breaths, tiny wins, and little luxuries that lift your spirit. You deserve it all.

I've been a reader since I was about 4 years old. By 9, I was writing poetry. By 11, my first book. By my teens, I was seeing my name in print in actual magazines. I'm not telling you that to brag. I'm telling you because people ask me — a lot lately — how I stay grounded when everything around us feels so loud. And honestly? I've been practicing ignoring noise my entire life. Moving every few years as a kid will do that to you. You learn fast how to figure out what's real and what's just the chaos of a new place. You get good at tuning things out. It's not a gift. It's a survival skill I picked up before I even knew that's what it was. But here's the thing I've been sitting with a lot lately... The noise is different now. It's not the kind you can just tune out. It's not a noisy neighborhood or a chaotic new school. It's relentless. It's engineered. It is designed — with real intention and real money behind it — to keep you anxious, scrolling, reacting. And it follows you. Into your bedroom. Into your kitchen. Into the bathroom at 2am. Right there in your pocket, buzzing. That's not noise. That's an occupation. I think it's time we talked about what we actually do about it. Because I have some thoughts — and one of them involves something you can hold in your hands, something with pages. More on that very soon. 👀

I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day!

Ever look around and think, “How did I get here?” Good news: wherever “here” is... you’re not stuck. You’re the author of your story — pen in hand, ready for the next chapter. I was reminded of this when I read that quote from Stephen Richards: “𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈.” It hit home like a 💣truth bomb💣 wrapped in lavender-scented calm. We do get to decide. Each morning is a fresh chance to choose differently. Today, maybe it’s deciding to slow down. To breathe deeper. To sip something nourishing. To call someone who listens with love. Start small. The plot twist is in your hands.

We were homeless for seven months in 1996. Not because of anything we did. A contractor laid new sewer lines ... backwards ... in our neighborhood. Our home — and a few others — flooded with raw sewage from our septic systems. The drywall and insulation sucked it all up to the ceilings. Full remodel including tearing everything out to the frame. Unlivable. I was in school full-time. Working part-time initially and then full-time while my husband was fighting the contractor and an attorney simultaneously. I tell you this not for sympathy. I tell you because that year confirmed what I had learned many years before - the difference between a problem and a fact. A problem has a solution you can work toward. A fact is what's true right now, whether you like it or not. That year I had a lot of facts. Cold, inconvenient, expensive facts. What I found was that the moment I stopped arguing with the facts and started working with them, I got my footing back. Still use that distinction today. Almost every week.