Happy New Year! Five days into the year and, possibly like you, I am thinking about how I'd like 2025 to take shape. There were parts of 2024 that were exceptional and there were parts that were stressful. Ironically, some of what made the year exceptional were also the aspects that added stress, but such is life.

Today is my 13th wedding anniversary. Over the last 13 years, I believe that I've evolved into a better version of myself. I can attribute some of this growth to getting wiser with age and having children, but a lot of it can also be attributed to every day negotiating and compromising with my spouse who happens to also be my business partner.

The kids are out of school for the next two weeks. We kicked the holidays off with a gingerbread house assembly and decorating activity that Nick led for them and some of their friends from our neighborhood. We're kicking off a new last-week-of-the-year campaign at the stores that I had Ila and Nico help with on Saturday.

My 12-year-old says I always have to be right. She doesn't believe I can admit defeat or failure. This, of course, is untrue.

Being a parent is forever. Most of us know this theoretically, but in reality, many of us are counting down to the moment when our children are out on their own, tending to their basic needs — food, water, shelter, and clothing — so that we can finally slow down.

I always say that my mom was not particularly maternal when she was raising me. Her career aspirations overshadowed her desire to notice the trivial and banal details of my little life. I was her surprise baby, conceived around Valentine's Day following her summer wedding. When she married my dad, he already had two young daughters. She was pleased with this arrangement and hadn't expected to have a biological child of her own—until she did.

This weekend, I rediscovered an InstaPot recipe book that someone gave us. I haven't cooked from it ever, but as I leafed through it yesterday, I found an Italian Wedding Soup recipe that I planned to make today for dinner.

Nick and I spent the last week in Savannah, GA at our annual ice cream conference. It's called ConeCon. And yes, there's lots of ice cream involved. This was our second year attending and it was so nice connecting with ice cream makers and operators that we know and who know us through the internet.

I always wonder what my kids will remember from their childhoods. I know their memories and mine won’t be the same. My hope is that I will have contributed to their lives in ways that they’ll be able to savor several decades from now.

Each year on their birthday, I recount the story of each of my children's births. I start by saying, "At this time X number of years ago…" and then I follow with what my body was experiencing however many years ago as they pushed their way closer to being earthside. Each year, I take great pride in recounting how they entered this world because I know if I don't repeat the story, it will be lost.

This past Thursday, I headed to DC on a 4am train to be with my mother. She had just come out of brain surgery 18 hours earlier. The need for this surgery began in 2019 while sitting in a service at my church. Attempting to read the scripture projected on the televisions screens, she realized something was up with the vision in her left eye. 

I've been thinking a lot about the connection between my artistic practice and my entrepreneurial practice lately.

If you're new here, you may not know that I have completed art school twice — once for photography and imaging and once for curatorial practice aka exhibition making. In both cases, I was trained to think about the world critically and represent my ideas through my creative practice.

I’ve been up since 4:45am. We were invited to participate in Infatuation’s EEEEEATSCON, a two-day food festival, and EatOkra’s first Creative Culinary Conference. Both took place this weekend.

I'm tired. I've been running from one activity to the next for the last few months. From work to the children to my extended family, the need for my body to be in what feels like multiple places at once has taken a toll.

This past week, Kathleen, a SHMOM Alumna and our SHMOM facilitator, and I were hosting the last session of the July/Aug/Sept SHMOM group. We were talking about achievement in the context of our professions and for whatever reason my mind wandered to the thought, "Our children aren't achievements."

Yesterday, Ila and I ran a 5K. We didn’t exactly run together because at this point, that child is much faster than I am. Her coach suggested she register so she could get in her weekend workout and become familiar with road races, as this was her first.

Earlier this year, Szilvia's book The Nursery, which so honestly and poetically depicts the realness of postpartum depression, was published. In her New York Times book review, writer Claire Dederer said, “Our narrator seems to approach motherhood as a fight, a fight for which she is as ill-prepared for as any young soldier who finds himself at the front.”

We just got back from Oregon this week. Now I'm in Houston for the James Beard Foundation's Women Entrepreneurial Leadership Summit. The summer hecticness is over. And so begins the fall back-to-school rush combined with the final quarter of the year busyness.

We’ve spent the last week in Oregon with Nick’s family. We make a point to get together for a week each summer to get some out of the city together. On the plane ride headed out west, I was finally able to see Couples Therapy. It’s a show I’ve been meaning to watch.

Today, watching Zadie in her fourth wrestling class reminded me of consistency's power, even when you're unsure. Showing up, taking action, receiving feedback, and applying the learning moves the needle.