Make Your Work Hours Count!

The years 2011 - 2014 are a bit of a blur. I don't remember everything, but I remember the way I felt after coming home from work each day. I remember crawling in bed night after night thinking to myself, "I just worked my tail off, but did I actually accomplish anything? I worked hard, really hard for 12 hours today, but did I even make any money? Why am I working so hard and have nothing to show for it?" During those years, I could have won an academy award for my act. "How's business?" they would ask ...

Tough Love

I need to speak to those of you who are working from home. Those of you who have little ones running around while you are simultaneously trying to build your own business. Those of you who are preparing lunch for your kids while you answer client calls.

Why I Quit

Every single day I quit the same thing - I quit my work.

Have you ever been home with your family and that little “ding” sound goes off notifying you of a new email? You immediately check it and feel the urgency to respond right away. While you are simply trying to get your thoughts from your head through your fingertips and onto the screen so you can press send, and your child walks over to you and says, “Mommy, look at…” only to be abruptly cut off by you with a response that resembles something like, “Honey, I need you to give mommy just a second - I’m just trying to finish this one thing then I can listen to you.”

I'm Tired. Like, Really Tired

Confession time: I'm tired. Like, really tired.

I normally quit working at 3pm and go pick up my kids from school and don't look at work again until the following day. Today, I had back to back appointments all day and left work at 3pm, picked up my kids, but had to bring work home with me. It is incredibly rare that I work at home with my kids around, but this is one of those rare weeks where there are major deadlines and extra hours are necessary.

The Nouveau Wedding Guest Blog: The Lonely Side of Entrepreneurship

I am honored to be featured on this guest blog by The Nouveau Wedding! The lonely side of entrepreneurship is a topic that is close to my heart.

"How did you know you were ready?"

My Great-Uncle Buck was a successful, self-made businessman. He grew up on a farm in Arkansas and later moved to Seattle with his wife, Lou. He started out dirt poor working in construction. Later, he began investing in storage units, then office rental properties, and eventually became a self-made millionaire. You would never know it. He wore the same pair of Levi’s jeans and denim shirt every single day of his life. He knew what was important in life, and it wasn’t flashy, material things.

I put on the Swimsuit

I am a travel junkie at heart. I am one of those people who would totally take my kids out of school for a year and travel the world. Maybe one day I will! A lot of our traveling the past couple of years, especially with three little ones, has felt more like trips than vacations. Seaside, Florida is that one place where we go every year that actually feels like a vacation. We rent a beach house for a week and we have zero problem unplugging. We go about the day with no real schedule. We go for bike rides, swim in the pool, and play by the beach. Everything is in walking distance. We eat good food and each day the kids pick a treat, either a snow cone, ice cream, or something from the local candy shop.

The most important thing I do for my kids every day

Brian and I were married eight years before we had kids. During those years I would go through Ina Garten’s cookbooks, page by page, and cook a new recipe each night for dinner. I love to cook. There is something about taking ingredients and making them into a delicious meal that just makes me happy. Brian and I always ate our dinner at the table together. This is where we would really talk about our day or dream about our next vacation. Fast forward to today and life's a little more full! Driving three ...

Making the Most of 18 Summers

This past weekend, we went bowling with some friends. One of them said to me, “you know my daughter’s four and we only have 14 summers left with her and it really hit me the other day that we need to make time to create some memories. We need to plan a little vacation. I mean, 14, that’s not many.” I couldn’t agree more! Brian says out loud almost every week “the days are long, but the years are short” mainly to remind us that even though we are exhausted and ready to put the kids to bed and ...

How to become someone your daughter trusts

Last year, I was in a meeting with a client; she and her mother had a wonderful relationship with one another. They listened to each other. They respected one another. I could tell they had great admiration for each other as well. I’ve seen lots of different mother daughter dynamics through my years of working in the wedding industry, but this one was different. While the daughter completely respected her mom they also genuinely enjoyed being around each other. They were friends too. In one of our last ...

Inside My Planner

Appointments on your phone are great, and I used to do that; but I found having EVERYTHING in one place helps my everyday productivity tremendously. I decided to buy myself an annual planner. I use Emily Ley’s simplified planner. I bought it keeping in mind it is going to get messy, but it’s a way to organize my life around the things that matter most! I learned a wonderful tip from Emily Ley: there needs to be plenty of white space in your planner.

8 Tips to Eliminate Email Stress + Take Back Control of Your Inbox

Remember when the smartphone came out? Remember how life changing it felt to be able to check your email anywhere? Talk about freedom! Fast forward to today - do you still feel that same freedom? Can I be honest for a second? Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade. I remember when I was a kid how the phone would ring and someone would yell, “I’ll get it!” I miss those days.