A simple exercise for successful personal goal setting and getting clear on your life legacy. Slumped over on the floor in a pile of loose lead paper. That’s where I found myself at 11 a.m. on New Year’s morning. It’s not what you think – I didn’t need any help from alcohol to arrive at […]

Weekly planning: How it works and how to master it The clock strikes midnight. You hit send on one final e-mail for the day. Bleary-eyed you set your alarm for 5:00 a.m., already anxious about tomorrow’s deadline. There must be a better way to plan the work day. Most office working Americans describe the workday […]

Imagine this happening… You get out of the shower, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror while wrapping a fluffy towel around your waist. Eyes sparkling. Fully alive. Ready to conquer the day. I’ve shared my struggles with unattainable beauty standards on the blog before. But never before have I shared how I discovered […]

I don’t want tips for creating new habits, I’d rather have everything snap perfectly into place. Everything organized. Everything works like clock work. My desk is clean. Work is wrapped-up exactly on-time. My body becomes accustomed to working out on schedule – even looking forward to a good sweat session. The trouble is, a consistent routine crumbles […]

Finish the phrase ‘spring’ and you just might be thinking about chickens or flowers (or snow if you live in Chicago!). But earlier today when I called my grandmother, we realized we were both thinking about the same thing: spring cleaning. Either way, there’s something soothing about the quiet, repetitive handiwork of cleaning. The smooth, […]

Six more weeks in quarantine. I’m not going to get through this. The first weekend of Shelter-in-Place felt like a deep, two-day sigh of relief. The normal rhythm of urgency died down to a quiet pulse, and it hit me: I finally have the bandwidth to finish sewing curtains for the living room. I started […]

When my mind starts toggling between dozens of demands, it’s easy to run out of steam – like when too many tabs open on an internet browser cause your whole computer to shut down. That kind of chaos sets my heart racing. Then I know it’s time for a reset. Over the past few months […]

Gleaming bathroom tile, spotless kitchen counter, shining wood floors, and no stray socks to be found… This was the fruit of working remotely. Frustratingly little work work, as in the work that actually paid for groceries. Keeping track of the day in my head, I had thought that my hours logging into my home office […]

A lamp outside of the towering iron window casts an eerie glow on the white and black checkered marble floor. The balls of my feet tread slowly across the slick tile, that even the slightest hint of a muffled echo wouldn’t disturb the outstretched shadows. Gradually my pupils adjust to the dim half-light. Blocks of […]

Three naked women. Four stories high. The advertisement loomed over me on my walk around Columbus Circle to pick-up groceries for a Thursday night dinner. The image instantly seared in my brain the moment I caught a glimpse of the models’ wide-eyed faces. Four years later I can still picture the ad as clear as […]