All the big life stuff that happened when I wasn’t posting on social media…
During my 6 month sojourn from posting on socials some major life things happened. Here’s the short version of all the things that have consumed my time and energy since ~March 2025.
My Dog Died.
We said goodbye to our old man Charlie on April 1. It was really hard, and it’s still really hard. He was an old dog, and a big dog, but he got cancer and the end came fast and I wasn’t prepared. He was my best bud for almost 13 years — the dog I got at 22 when I had no business caring for another creature, but I was alone in a new city and the fates aligned that faithful 4th of July to throw us together and it was the best completely ill-planned decision of my life. Charlie was a challenging guy, but he was my guy, and he was perfect to me. He was with me through all of my major life changes: buying my first home, getting married, having a kid, buying another home, having another kid, building a career, and all of the craziness in between. Losing him was incredibly painful and we still feel the void his absence has left in our family.
We Got a Puppy.
In the infinite sadness that followed losing Charlie, fate aligned again to bring a new sweet boy to our home. While scrolling socials in despair, I saw the sweetest puppy on OK Humane’s story and reached out to my friends there to learn more — lo and behold he had been one of their fosters for 3 months! We started the foster to adopt track for a trial run with our family and the rest is history. Bingley (as in Charles Bingley, a nod to both Pride & Prejudice and our Charlie dog), is basically Charlie’s opposite in every way — he’s super hairy, totally independent, loves everyone, and has infinite chill. He’s also got major tummy problems which has been it’s own journey, but I do feel like I could perform competitively in a professional crate and dog cleaning race at this point with the level of practice and efficiency I’ve achieved in caring for this puppy.
Toast has grown. A lot.
While we’re technically in our 11th year of business, our business has evolved enough over the last three years, that it kind of feels like we’re brand new again. In 2022, we set some ambitious goals for ourselves; for the first time ever, we got really specific about the type of clients we wanted to work with and set specific financial goals. It totally worked, transformed our business, and started us on an unexpected trajectory of growth for the next two years. While that growth continued, we finally hit growing pains this year and had to make really big decisions to ensure our success and momentum. In the last year, we hired two employees, are contracting with another, started outsourcing our bookkeeping, got more specific about the types of services we want to offer, and finally got our own office space!! 🎉 It’s been wild and stressful, but also amazing, and Tiff and I are so proud of the team we’ve created and the choices we’ve made to get us here.
Everything else.
This is just the highlights reel, because a lot of the time has been spent just doing the work, but here’s the main stuff that’s happened: My kids are amazing!!!! I love being in the toddler phase with both of them, and we have so much fun as a family. I’ve been reading for pleasure only this year, which has meant that I’ve exclusively read fiction, mostly fantasy romance, and it’s been great. Tiffany and I went to Seattle for the first time for a design conference and it was so fun!!!! I joined the board of All Those Creative and will be inviting you to events all year. I’m still teaching at OU (I just can’t quit, I love it). I was accepted for LOYAL Class XX and I’m already having a blast with it!
