Originally Posted at SheLoves Magazine. I learned to sew when I was 12. My mom taught me how to follow the pattern and cut on the bias, how to add elastic and sew on buttons. The result was a complete set of pale yellow pajamas printed with a pattern of little cupcakes. I loved those pajamas. Sadly, the pants were too short and I never wore the shirt, because I couldn’t be bothered with buttons before bed. But I still loved them. In the beginning, sewing comes with a whole lot of … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. The past six months have been crammed full of chaos. I hurt someone I care about deeply, because I couldn’t be what he needed me to be. My parked car was shot at and now the wind whistles through the hole in my windshield. I was fired from my job at the café where I loved so many people. And this week I dropped a ladder on my house and broke a window. I ought to be having a meltdown right about now. My sister will attest that there have been … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. There is nothing dangerous about me. I am small. I smile big. My favorite thing to do in the whole world is make people laugh. And yet … I am a Dangerous Woman. I am a threat to the status quo. I am unboxable. Yes, I know, unboxable is not a word, but I am making up words. I’m dangerous like that. I am dangerous. I am dangerous because I am a woman and I am single. And that makes me happy. I am building my own house. I am not … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. There is a little bitty town nestled in the shadow of a dormant volcano in Western Washington. It fills with fog every fall and winter and sometimes in the spring. I didn’t grow up in that foggy, sleepy town, but for years it is where my mind went when I said the word home. I spent a good chunk of my twentieth year there and I spent a whole lot of that time crying. I blew into town broken after some adventures abroad. My arms overflowed with … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. I’m fiery and loud and opinionated. I am obsessed with finding the answers to questions. I think Google is a brilliant invention. I look for answers everywhere. I talk in circles about my childhood—in search of new truths. I try to find the reason for what makes a person tick. I research solutions in the middle of tricky construction projects and when I forget how to cast off my knitting.  I like when problems have solutions and questions have … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. “To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.” William Arthur Ward   Any girl who has been on the business end of a camera knows that she’s got two choices: smile and hope she doesn’t look weird or look weird on purpose so everyone can tell it was on purpose. “Look weird on purpose” is my signature move. I’m not sure when I learned it, but for as long as I can remember I’ve … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. “If you come at four in the afternoon, I’ll begin to be happy by three.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince I’m a recovering Type-A personality. I haven’t made a long-term plan for the better part of five years. Instead, I’ve filled my life with short-term goals, retail jobs, freelance projects and adventures. I want to taste and see the WHOLE WORLD, so I pick and graze and move on when I’m done. It’s my drifting balloon-like … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. I live in a crunchy-granola-chickenfarm-commune with two of my sisters, my niece and my nephew. In my house we don’t believe in bad words. Words are neither good nor bad. Words are just words. The only distinction in our house is that words are not bad, but they are often offensive. Most of the four-letter words are fair game—those ones aren’t so terribly offensive on the Joslyn Farm. If the saying is true, then we swear like … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. We picked the coldest day of the summer to go to the beach. But I was going to wear a swimsuit anyway. Because hello? the beach. But also because I love my swimsuit. I texted this to a friend followed by, “I think girls aren’t allowed to love a swimsuit. There’s a rule about that somewhere … there’s a rule that girls should hate their bodies.” But I’m a rule breaker. My body is lumpy and squishy and short and doesn’t look good in red and … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. I’m not a “kid person.” I love children. I love treating them like the tiny humans that they are. I love asking them what’s going on in their wild, unfettered imaginations. Heck, I even agreed to skateboard with Idelette’s 6-year-old last month (turns out, a decade later, I’ve still got some skills). But… I’m not the person who walks into a room and looks for a baby to pick up. I’m not the woman who considered teaching elementary school as … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. Have you ever met a new person and been alarmed by how kindred they feel even though they are complete strangers? This is the way of so many friendships in SheLoves, so I know somewhere someone is nodding. It’s the way of so many friendships in my world. I might just fall in love with every person I ever meet ever (yes, two evers). I am so quick to share deeply and make connections. Unfortunately, I am also just a wee bit over-enthusiastic and … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. Last month I attended a simulcast of the Justice Conference with some incredible Canadian SheLovelys you might know. Justice is a big word and I’d love to tell you that I left the conference with BIG PLANS to reform education in America or to END human trafficking or even to move to where Saskia is and work to change the lives of those who have been trafficked. (P.S. I would love to live close to you, Sas.) But I didn’t. I’m sorry to tell … [Read more...]

Originally posted at SheLoves Magazine. I have a habit of collecting all things mint or aqua-colored. I line them along my shelves and my desk, even my windowsill—jars and mugs, a hand-made teapot, an antique pan, a couple bowls. I know I don’t need one more mismatched mint treasure, but vintage stores and clearance shelves have a way of turning up lonely artifacts just begging to come home with me. I think I collect people the same way. I make friends on street corners, in … [Read more...]