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I’m Still Learning to Take My Own Advice About Self-Care
Sometimes the reminders we give others are the ones we need to hear ourselves. There’s something strangely vulnerable about being the person who reminds everyone else to rest… while secretly forgetting how to rest yourself. And if I’m being completely real, I do this more often than I’d like to admit. I spend so much time writing about self-care, mental health, healing, boundaries, and learning to be kinder to ourselves. I create comforting reminders, write reflections, and make little pieces of art that I hope help someone feel less alone. But here’s the funny thing. Sometimes I’m the one who needs those reminders the most. I’ll write about slowing down…
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We Learned the Pythagorean Theorem, But Nobody Taught Us How to Adult
The 90s Kid Guide to Things School Never Prepared Us For Somewhere in my brain, taking up valuable storage space, is this: a² + b² = c². The Pythagorean theorem. I learned it in school, memorized it for a test, and somehow still remember it all these years later. Have I used it since graduating? Not that I can remember. But you know what I have needed? How to understand health insurance. How to build credit. How to file taxes without questioning my entire existence. How to budget when everything seems to cost approximately a million dollars. And how to be a functioning adult when I’m basically a permanently exhausted…
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The 90s Kid’s Guide to Rebuilding Your Life at Any Age
Because apparently adulthood comes with a reset button nobody told us about. Remember when we were kids in the 90s and the worst thing that could happen was losing all our progress in a video game because we forgot to save? Game over. You’d get frustrated, maybe throw the controller onto the couch, and eventually pick it back up and try again. Funny how starting over was perfectly normal back then. But now that we’re adults? Starting over somehow feels like failing. I’m 30, and I’m realizing that the life I imagined for myself growing up looks nothing like the life I’m actually living. I thought I’d have everything figured…
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A Millennial Trying Her Best-ish While Running an Online Business
Because apparently surviving adulthood wasn’t challenging enough, I decided to become my own boss… while still having a regular job. Remember when we were kids in the ‘90s and thought being an adult meant having everything figured out? A steady job. A house. Financial stability. Maybe a little extra money for fun things. Yeah. That was adorable. Fast-forward to my 30s, and here I am running an online business, working a regular job, managing multiple websites, creating digital products, designing artwork, building apps, and trying to remember whether I’ve actually eaten lunch. And somehow, I’m still wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Welcome to being a…
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Meet My Cozy Critters: Two Little Apps for Reflection, Creativity & Self-Care 🐾
Because sometimes we need to write our feelings out, and sometimes we just need to scribble them away. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about taking care of my mental health, it’s that self-care doesn’t always look the same. Some days, I need to journal. Other days, I need to pick up a pencil, draw something completely random, and let my creativity take over. And sometimes? I just need a cute little animal reminding me that I’m doing my best-ish. That’s part of why I created Cozy Critter Studio, my growing collection of cozy self-care and creative wellness apps. I’m an artist, a mental health advocate, and someone who believes…
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The Art of Changing With the Times: What It’s Like Being a Modern Artist in a Digital World
From traditional art and Polaroid cameras to digital creativity, artificial intelligence, and the internet — being an artist means learning to evolve without losing yourself. I’ve been thinking about how much the art world has changed. There was a time when creating art meant picking up a pencil, a paintbrush, or a camera and physically creating something with your hands. Photography meant film, Polaroids, darkrooms, and waiting to see how your pictures turned out. Graphic design meant working with physical materials, cutting, pasting, and carefully putting everything together. And if you wanted someone to see your artwork? You needed a gallery, a local exhibition, or someone willing to give your…
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Maybe Softness Runs in Families
Some things quietly run in families without anyone ever officially passing them down. Not recipes.Not heirlooms.Not old photographs. But softness. The way we care for animals.The way we notice tiny paws and quiet companionship.The way certain pets leave permanent little paw prints on our hearts long after they’re gone. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my gram. She was a huge cat lady — the real kind. Not in the cliché way people joke about online, but in the sweetest, softest way. The kind of person who treated her cats like family because to her, they truly were family. One of them was a tuxedo cat named Fifi, and somehow that…
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Maybe This Is My Season of Undoing, Not Doing More
Because apparently, even resting feels like something I need to accomplish. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to keep up. Keep up with work.Keep up with responsibilities.Keep up with my creative projects.Keep up with everyone else’s expectations. And somewhere along the way, I think I forgot how to just… exist. Without feeling guilty about it. I recently came across the idea of a season of undoing, inspired by something Allison Lyons shared, and it really stuck with me. Because what if this chapter of my life isn’t about doing more? What if it’s about unlearning everything that convinced me I wasn’t doing enough in the first place? The World…
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Welp, It’s Official. #ByeInstagram 👋
It’s not you, Instagram. It’s me. Okay, maybe it’s a little you. Welp. It’s official. After years of posting, rebranding, trying again, questioning myself, and wondering if the algorithm secretly has a personal vendetta against me… I’m finally giving up on Instagram. And honestly? It’s a little bittersweet. Instagram and I practically grew up together. I created my first account back in 2014, during my senior year of high school. You know, back when Instagram was actually about sharing photos? When you could post a random picture of your dog, your coffee, a sunset, or literally whatever you wanted, and the people who followed you would actually SEE it? Remember…
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I Didn’t Choose Art. Art Chose Me
How creativity found me in my darkest moments and became the way I learned to express what I couldn’t say out loud. I’ve always said that I didn’t choose art. Art chose me. And I don’t mean that in some magical, everything-fell-into-place kind of way. I mean that art found me when I was in a really dark place. When I didn’t have the words to explain what was happening inside my head. When I was desperately trying to hide parts of myself that were slowly finding their way to the surface. Before I started creating self-care resources, writing mental health reflections, designing things, or building my own little creative…
Everyone solves their life issues at 3AM right?!