My background …

For those who are curious, this isn’t my first rodeo with championing a cause, building a community, or making myself, and parts of my life most would keep private, available for public consumption.

In 2013, I formed a nonprofit to help small business owners with every aspect of operations, from planning and legal to financial and employee matters, during the crucial first three years of business and worked to raise awareness and support for them with the county and city governments in my region.

When “The Man” wouldn’t listen, I shifted gears. In 2016, I launched a blog, magazine, and online community that educated those who lived in my region about the benefits of choosing local businesses, makers, and farms over national options for not only them, but those that they are purchasing from and their communities as a whole.

It was so successful, that by the end of 2019, I was expanding it to include not just my region, but all of the PNW (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho). I was living the travel writer and photographer dream in small towns across my region, while serving and supporting others at the same time. And, honestly, it was the first time in my life where I felt true personal happiness and fulfillment.

Then … Covid happened and not only took everything I worked so hard to build away, but took away so many of those whose businesses I had helped get off the ground and whose stories I had told along the way. It was heartbreaking, soul crushing, and was nearly the end of me.

I embraced the solitude and lazy flow of the lockdown, choosing to become semi-retired, and moving myself away from the busy Seattle area to the middle of nowhere along the coast in 2021.

Little did I know, that move, and the peace and contemplation it brought me would change everything, would bring me back to ME and bring me to this new journey that we are embarking on together.

Looking forward to sharing that journey with all of you, and to helping you along yours.