Funny enough, as I write this email, I'm listing to Billie Eilish's Bad Guy. hehe Overall, it was a pretty decent holiday 'break'. Two of my kids went to the amusement park with my mother in law and I'm so thankful she was able to take them. Buuuut... It started out with the kids spending the night with grandma which is normally just fine. They hung out in her swim spa, then my daughter hopped out to help with dinner and play card games. My son finally jumped out once dinner was ready to be...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Did you miss me this last Tuesday? This was one of those weeks where I don't think I sat down once. My husband's birthday was Friday, Father's Day was Sunday, and somehow in the middle of all that I blinked and now one of my kids turns twelve on Thursday. Twelve. I don't really know how that happened. I have approximately zero slow mornings to report. And in the middle of all that and client work, my phone was buzzing with Facebook notifications. I had a small flood of new member requests to...
4 months ago • 2 min read
I have been head-deep in client work and this new eFiling thing the CPSC has for importers, so to say this summer has been busy is... well... not the busy we usually think of! But I've been having fun regardless because in my quick lunch breaks, I'm seeing one of my kiddos really take to creating (we now have a completed wood shield and sword with a ramp for our 16 year old pup in the works). This summer seems to be all about new and creating for many of us, actually... I've had multiple...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Did you know I play World of Warcraft in my down time? It’s got nothing to do with product safety compliance, but it’s part of my world and I wanted to share it with you today. I hope that’s okay. In fact, just last week, it was community night in the guild I’m in and we went through an old raid for an achievement run. It was a blast doing a 10/25 person raid with barely 8 people (one of the achievements requires at least 8)! Speaking of things you didn’t know…I was thinking about all the...
5 months ago • 1 min read
For many, the long weekend was a moment of taking a time-out and remembering our service members who have gained an untimely one-way ticket, or have retired, to the Great Beyond. A weekend of extra thanks as well as a celebration of the people we knew and loved in life. For those who have served and have experienced the loss of your brothers- and sisters-in-arms, my heart goes out to you with thanks and empathy. For those who have served behind the scenes as family to those who have been...
5 months ago • 2 min read
I've been doing well with this email thing lately and, while I want to give myself a small pat on my back, I realized that you might not know that I've *also* been creating a Substack post that matches up with it. (You can check that out here.) Apparently I'm not so great at the talking about that kind of thing! haha I've also been posting that Substack to IG and FB because I want to still be available but like... I only have so much energy and time in my day, you know?! In my opinion, email...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Last week I sent out my weekly email and received a response that I felt in my core. The ‘long story short’ was that we felt frustration and disappointment in the things we were trying to do. Then I said (and yes, it’s totally cliche): “Sometimes when we let go, a door finally opens. Sometimes it's the door we've been looking at, but the door's lock was out of sight. Sometimes it's a door we saw, but gave no credence to. And sometimes, in my case, it's a door that we never saw.” And it put me...
5 months ago • 2 min read
It's been an... 'eh' week. We had a death in the family. It's not been a sad emotion for my immediate family, but it has been a whirlwind of emotions for my in-laws/step-in-laws and those emotions are, of course, reverberating in my soul. I want to share something with you that I don't talk about much. When I first started charging for my time -- after seven years of running the free Facebook group, answering questions literally around the clock, pouring everything I had into helping other...
6 months ago • 1 min read
This was my mom's second time to Disney. Last year, she did what any smart, slightly-overwhelmed planner would do, she called in help. Me, with my hands in the air, suggested a little expert help. IYKYK This year, the trip was for my brother's birthday and,yup, she went to that same Disney travel agent. The expert who could help us do everything my brother wanted to do, and a few surprises my mom wanted for him! The only thing he missed out on? Swimming. Because he decided he wanted to go to...
6 months ago • 1 min read