About

Me, in a nutshell

I’m a dreamy creative type, who struggles to find focus and actually make something of myself. I feel talented, until I start doing something “for real.” Then it all unravels in my head and I freeze up. As I get older though I think that’s fading. I’m realizing how internal it all is. No one cares about any of that but me. True self sabotage at its finest. And when my mom passed away in the spring of 2026 it really hit me how short life is, and how sad it is to spend so much time waffling around and second-guessing our way out of what we want to do. It reminds me of this quote:

 

“Somewhere, someone with half your talent is doing what you want to do, simply because they decided to start.”

 

So I’m gonna start. As of right now I’ve got two Etsy shops, my mom’s art and my digital designs, plus I’ve started working on a fantasy novel. All of these will be getting attention from me, along with a greater push in the direction of my own personal drawing and artwork. I’ll be getting my Instagram going, very casually but deliberately, as a creative inspiration and reminder to myself not to get lost in the weeds.

About me, personally

I’m married to wonderful guy named Chris and we have two children together as well as a few kitties and a dog. We live in a unique 100 yr old house that used to be a church in a small town in rural Minnesota.

As for hobbies I’m currently in the thick of teen and tween mom life so I don’t have a lot of time for myself, but when I do get the occasional leisure minute I like to garden, play video games (I’m a bit of a world of warcraft junkie), be generally artsy (I like drawing, painting, photography, graphic design, animation, crafts, etc), and dream up big plans for new creative pursuits I know I don’t have time for.

About my career experience

I started out as a nurse, originally. An LPN. I only did that for a few years though as it was difficult for me to keep all the sad aspects boxed up and away from my home life. I brought it all home and it hung with me. So I gave that up and had a little wobbling around as a waitress for several years, then worked successfully for several years as a manager at a rehabilitation facility, when I had an opportunity in 2006 to start writing professionally. My very first gig was in 2006 writing blog posts for a small celebrity gossip website. I moved quickly from there to AOL, where they had a large network of websites all connected but each specializing in very specific niches. I began writing full time on health and fitness topics for a site called That’s Fit, then added heart health topics on The Cardio Blog, eco topics on Green Daily, and finally all things luxury on a large site called Luxist. I’m not a particularly glitzy girl but somehow I fit in well there — it was fun blogging about diamond-encrusted luggage tags and overly extravagant bottled waters gathered from faraway mountain tops. And it was there that I took over their daily “Handbag of the Day” feature, which was one of my favorites to write and marked the beginning of my expertise in fashion and luxury topics.

 

Luxist was a giant in its niche for awhile, but alas it would not last — AOL merged with The Huffington Post in 2011 and Luxist was a quick casualty (along with all of the other AOL websites). After that I went on to write for a wild mix of websites, covering everything from fashion and gossip to home decor and general lifestyle topics. Some of my most regular work was contributing to the American Express luxury online magazine Centurion, eventually expanding to their Departures and AmexEssentials properties as well. I also did a good deal of ghostwriting for a small online PR firm. I was writing full time until February 2017 when, just a few months before my daughter was born, I decided I was tired of writing for other people and wanted to do my own thing. I’ve started a few blogs, which didn’t become much, and have been running Etsy since then.