Welcome to Edit 34, a space where you can chuck the checklists for a perfect life and embrace the one you’re already living.

We live in a culture that equates worthiness with wealth, appearance, and mega success, but that’s not how most of us live on a daily basis. We wake up in ordinary beds, go to work at ordinary jobs, and come home to ordinary families.

But that does not mean our ordinary lives are meaningless. In fact, our ordinary lives can be extraordinary once we begin focusing on what really matters to us and not what we think should matter.

So what does that look like?

It looks like asking the big questions during our Sunday Sessions (“What do you do to serve others?”) and the not so big questions during a style post (“What are your favorite spring nail polish colors?”).

It means recognizing you are living the good ol’ days with your family right this minute, but also admitting that this whole mom thing is hard and you really just want to be able to pee with the bathroom door closed again.

It’s living within your budget and saving your vacation time so you can go on trips to locales both near and far.

It’s reading a good book and sharing it with your friends, spending your free time in creative pursuits just for the fun of it, and capping off Sunday night cleaning baby poop off your kid’s onesie.

It’s all the little moments that add up to one big, meaningful life.

On Edit 34, you will find practical tips, genuine recommendations, thoughtful advice, and open-ended questions to help guide us on this extraordinary journey of our ordinary lives. Stick around, sign up for my newsletter, and enjoy the adventure.

A Washington State native, I lived on the island of Maui with my husband for seven years before returning to my hometown two months prior to the birth of our daughter. I teach elementary school by day and play ringmaster for the toddler circus by night.

My current pursuits include re-learning how to dress for winter weather, enjoying the outdoors with my family, reading everything from fashion magazines to high brow literature, saying yes to any glass of wine, and keeping the Amazon tab open on my computer.