Rhumb Line Vineyard and Lavender Farm is located in Wilcox, shaped by rows of grapevines, olive trees, and lavender fields across 60 acres, with a calm kind of confidence. Equal parts working farm and gathering place, Rumb Line offers both a reprieve from city life and a closer look at what it actually takes to cultivate beauty in the high desert.

Owned by Todd and Michelle Myers, Rhumb Line began with a simple but ambitious question: how could they support Arizona’s growing wine industry in a meaningful, long-lasting way? The answer came years ago at a midday luncheon at FnB in Scottsdale when they asked their winemaker friends how they could help. And the answer was simple... grow more grapes.

So they did.

They purchased acreage on the Willcox Bench, one of Arizona’s most important grape-growing regions, and committed themselves to learning the land. Today, Rhumb Line produces Tempranillo, Tannat, Graciano, and other varietals, supplying some of Arizona’s most respected producers. What may have started as a passion project soon deepened into a real working farm with real stakes, real labor, and a real relationship to the land.

But Rhumb Line is not only about wine.

Gathered in long, various rows at the base of the Dos Cabezas Horizon lie three varieties of lavender, each chosen for its ability to thrive in Southern Arizona’s demanding climate. From that lavender, Michelle created ALL LUV, an all-natural skincare line handcrafted from ingredients grown and harvested on the farm with her own two hands. After finding herself allergic to nearly everything on the market, she began crafting the line out of her own necessity, creating products she could trust on her own skin first to give back to the community.

This same sense of intentionality carries over into Olive’s Café, where the shelves are lined with homemade ceramics, pantry staples, wine, and locally crafted wares from the hands of not just Arizona makers, but in particular, those who live in Cochise County. Nothing feels overly polished or performative. It feels lived-in, personal, and deeply connected to the region around it.

And that may be what makes the Rhumb Line so special. It’s the beautiful marriage of labor and love, not trying to become a fantasy version of rural life.

I was lucky enough to share glasses of local white wine on the terrace at sunset with Michelle and Todd on their terrace at sunset, and the truth became more everclear in conversation: this land isn’t just pretty stop dressed up for wine country tourism, but a place fostered as much by human hope as by the hard truth of what the land will give.

This fierce spirit is perhaps most visible during Rhumb Line’s annual Lavender Harvest Festival each June, when the farm opens itself to visitors during one of its most fragrant and joyful seasons. It draws friends, nature lovers, and the simply curious to witness the land in motion and to experience what it means to tend something carefully, then share its beauty with a wider community in a region of Arizona that too often goes overlooked.

In a region that still feels, in many ways, like one of Arizona’s best-kept secrets, Rhumb Line stands as a reminder that some of the state’s most meaningful destinations are the ones still quietly becoming.

And for those willing to make the drive, it’s more than worth it.

Yes. The heaviest, most important question of all.

Film photography is, for all intents and purposes, a beautiful, remarkable, uniquely inconvenient pain in the ass. It’s expensive to buy, risky to shoot, and somehow even more nerve-racking to develop. Then comes the scanning, the waiting, the squinting at contact sheets or download links, quietly seething over the slim possibility that somewhere in a single roll is one portfolio-worthy frame.

Film photography is both nostalgic and timeless. Beautifully rendered, often imperfect, occasionally miraculous, and usually full of happy accidents you could never quite recreate if you tried. It’s the medium I loved almost exclusively for more than five years of my professional career, abandoned after a long, tenured love-hate relationship, and have only recently found myself reaching for again.

The art of film photography is a dance with too many steps… stocks, lenses, exposure, scanning, color, black-and-white, cameras, chemistry, labs, light, yada yada yada. It’s a strange little concoction. When everything is perfectly blended, it can make the best work there is — or the worst.

For those who are new to The Sunporch, I’m Natalie. I’m a professional photographer working in the editorial and commercial spaces, with experience in productions and shoots across the globe. I also serve as Head Editor and consultant for The Moment Journal and The Long Weekend Zine, a publication fully dedicated to film photography. I’ve also professionally shot film on sets for big brands like Subaru, Moment, and Travel + Leisure to name a few.

And yet, with all those supposed credentials, analog photography still feels like a problem worth solving.

Every camera behaves differently. Film labs lose their luster after years of trusting them with a consistent scanning process; one roll can feel like treasure while the next can feel like a dud. The possibilities are overwhelming, mostly because a single shot can turn out a hundred different ways depending on the camera, the film, the light, the lab, the scan, and whatever minor spiritual weather system you happened to be operating under that day.

I love it. I hate it. But mostly, I yearn to master it.

Gatekeeping Is Unproductive

I’m a massive Reddit fan, for the record. Human forums are still better than ChatGPT’s algorithmic soup for advice. But I tend to steer clear of a lot of film community pages because they can get weirdly pompous, fast. There’s always some guy shooting underexposed Velvia 50 who has made it his life’s work to snark on anyone with a larger following, a newer Leica, or a slightly different opinion about exposure latitude.

But to their credit, on the other hand, I’ve also worked with plenty of big-follower film photographers in LA who swear they would never post a selfie with their camera because they don’t want their audience to know what they shoot with.

Tit for tat. Respectfully, all of you need to get over yourselves.

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a film guru. I’m no technical oracle. By no means do I descend from the darkroom holding two tablets etched with exposure values and the sacred laws of zone focusing. I do, however, have years of practice, a pile of opinions, and enough hard-earned mistakes to share something (hopefully) useful.

And I think gatekeeping gear and knowledge is, frankly, lame. Especially now, when so much of our world feels increasingly frictionless and automated. I believe every human should get to know the tactile, dexterous ritual of loading a roll of 120.

So, lo and behold… my very own Natalie-coded, beginner-friendly guide to film photography.

This is for anyone who has never picked up a film camera or anyone who simply wants to get better. Think of the comment section as a loose little sunporch forum for fellow photographers to share tips, gear, questions, other opinions, and even portfolios.

I’m sure I missed a number of things! :)

1. 35mm vs 120 Formats

Before we get too far into the weeds, let’s talk about the two film formats you’ll run into most often: 35mm and 120, also known as medium format.

There are plenty of other formats and processes out there, such as 110, large-format, instant film, and E-6 slide film processing. But for most people getting into analog photography, 35mm and 120 are the two big ones. They’re easier to find, easier to develop, and more commonly supported by film labs. Most camera stores, film shooters, and mail-in labs are built around these two industry standards.

Why Shoot 35mm Film?

35mm is usually where people start, mostly because it’s everywhere. You can find 35mm film at camera shops, CVS drugstores, tourist traps, and even at industry storefronts that also sell batteries, postcards, and overpriced sunscreen.

This is because it’s accessible, familiar, and forgiving. 35mm cameras are typically smaller and more affordable than medium format. A standard roll gives you 24 or 36 exposures, which means you can easily experiment without treating every frame so preciously.

And that’s the blessed beauty of 35mm format — it’s loose. It wants to be thrown in a bag or pulled out at a sidewalk. Historically speaking, 35mm formats were specifically crafted for photojournalists and sports photographers. This summer, I’m headed to both a bachelorette party and a backpacking trip, and I’ll absolutely bring 35mm rolls to both.

But because 35mm negatives are smaller than 120 negatives, you’ll usually see more grain, especially in low light or with higher-ISO film stocks like Kodak Portra 800. Though some argue that’s part of the charm.

35mm has that classic, handheld, lived-in film look.

Why Shoot 120 Film?

120 film, also known as medium format, is where film starts to feel a little more serious.

Not necessarily better or holier… but bigger, slower, and usually more expensive to mess up.

The main difference is the negative size. A standard 35mm frame is 24x36mm, while 120 film can be shot in several larger frame sizes, depending on the camera, including 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, and panoramic formats such as 6x12 or 6x17. This typically results in smoother tones and finer grain due to the real estate size of its negative.

And this larger negative is why medium format is so loved for high-fashion, weddings, editorial, and even commercial work. It holds up magnificently when scanned or handprinted, and it can paint the picture with a deeper, more dimensional feeling. With the right lens and aperture, 120 also makes it easier to create that dreamy subject separation where the background falls away, and the person in front of you feels carved right out of the scene.

Historically, 120 actually began as a consumer format before 35mm became the smaller, faster everyday camera of choice. Over time, medium format became more associated with professional work because many of the cameras and lenses were built like little clunky mechanical workhorses.

The tradeoff is that 120 gives you fewer frames per roll, usually somewhere between 10 and 16, depending on the camera. It arduous costs makes every frame feel a little precious.

But when you get it right, 120 is ridiculous. Almost too pretty for its own good.

Is 120 Film Better than 35mm?

Technically, yes.

120 gives you a larger negative, which means more detail, smoother tones, and finer grain. But it’s also much pricier and less practical to carry everywhere.

If you’re a psycho like me and want to bring medium format on a boat, a camping trip, or a cross-country road trip, please do. I support the behavior. But 35mm exists for a reason. It’s a lot more portable and affordable-ish, while still capable of making beautiful images.

While 120 is “better” on paper, the more useful format is usually the one you’ll actually want to use.

2. Film Cameras

What is the best beginner film photography camera?

This is the most-asked question I’ve ever received. And annoyingly, there isn’t one perfect answer. The “best” beginner film camera depends on how you want to shoot, how much control you want, and whether you’re looking for a fun point-and-shoot or something you can actually grow with.

So instead of pretending there’s one holy grail sitting on eBay for $87, here’s a mini breakdown of what to look for and the top cameras worth knowing.

Best Beginner-Friendly 35mm Cameras

If you just want something cheap, easy, and fun, start with a reusable point-and-shoot party trick. These are a step above disposable cameras and perfect for trips, dinners, and general low-stakes chaos.

• Long Weekend 35mm Film Camera: Real easy, featherweight, and made for casual shooting. It’s perfect if you want the film look without having to learn every camera setting on earth.

• ILFORD Sprite 35-II Reusable 35mm Camera: A fun camera with a built-in flash. It’s honestly just a step above disposable-camera energy, but reusable.

• Kodak EKTAR H35 Half Frame Camera: A tiny half-frame camera that gives you up to 72 shots on a 36-exposure roll. So if you want to stretch your film budget and get a more playful, scrapbook-style look, this is a fun one.

These really aren’t “serious” cameras, though but that’s the point. They’re cheap-ish and good for getting over the fear of wasting film.

But if you’re itching to take it a step further with more manual controls and that classic filmic look, you’re going to want to put in the effort of finding something more robust.

Classic 35mm Cameras Worth Looking At

While I haven’t personally shot every single one of these, they’re popular for good reason. Most are well-known, fairly reliable by old-camera standards, and beginner-friendly enough if you’re willing to learn the basics of manual exposure.

• Canon AE-1: The household-name SLR. It gives you interchangeable lenses, manual control, and that classic film camera experience without feeling too intimidating. Prices have gone up, but it’s still a great place to learn. This is THE camera everyone likes to get as their very first.

• Pentax K1000: Fully manual, sturdy, yet beautifully simple. Pentax is a legacy name, so you’re in for good quality. This is the camera people recommend when they want you to actually learn exposure rather than let the camera do all the thinking.

• Canon Sure Shot Series: A nice step up from basic reusable cameras if you want sharper party photos, better optics, and an easy built-in flash. These don’t have interchangeable lenses, so it’s bare skin minimal.

• Olympus OM-10: Small, handsome, and lighter than a lot of the clunkier SLRs. It has aperture-priority auto-exposure, which makes it awesome for any beginner who wants some control over the “depth” in their photos without committing to fully manual.

• Canon Rebel 2000: A very underrated beginner pick. It feels more like a modern camera, has autofocus and auto exposure, and works with Canon EF lenses, including the beloved nifty fifty. This was my very first SLR, and I cherish all the snapshots we’ve taken deeply. :,)

• Minolta X-700: A great manual-focus SLR with program mode, aperture priority, and full manual control. It’s approachable and a little less hyped than some Canon and Nikon options, so you’re likely able to find it at a reasonable price.

Pro-Level 35mm Film Cameras

Okay, let’s say you want to take it further and have more money to spend. These are the cameras people get serious about, argue about, and occasionally write love letters to on the internet.

• Canon EOS-1V or EOS 3: These are my personal favorites. Fast autofocus, excellent metering, and access to Canon EF lenses make them ridiculously capable 35mm SLRs. I’ve shot some of my best film work on these cameras, and I will defend them at dinner! Read my full review on the Long Weekend Zine.

• Nikon F3 or F6: You can’t make a serious 35mm camera list without Nikon. The F3 is a legendary manual-focus pro body beloved by photojournalists, while the F6 is one of the most advanced 35mm SLRs ever made.

• Contax G2: A beautiful autofocus rangefinder-style camera with excellent Zeiss lenses. It’s sharp, compact, and deeply charming, but also expensive and electronically complicated, so buy carefully.

• Leica M6: The iconic manual rangefinder. Not necessary for beginners, but if you love slow, deliberate shooting and have the budget, it’s a lifetime camera.

A little tip before buying any film camera… look up sample images first. Search Instagram, TikTok, Flickr, Lomography, Reddit, and old forum threads to see if you actually like the look. Then search the camera name plus “common problems” before handing over your money.

There’s a ton of fluffy, positive reviews for all the big names, but PLEASE remember to look at the common problems for each camera to avoid massive disappointment.

Best Medium Format Cameras

If you’re like me and prefer resolution over portability, a 120 medium format camera might do the trick. It’s been nearly 8 years, and I still prefer my Mamiya 645 to anything in 35mm, even when I’m traveling, and something smaller would make more sense.

• Mamiya 645 AFD: My tried-and-true, my one true love.

• Mamiya RB/RZ67: Higher scan resolution thanks to its larger negative, available in two models: one built for manual control, the other for more automatic.

• Mamiya 7 II: For the ultra pros. Very expensive.

• Pentax 67: A fan favorite.

• Pentax 645: Portable and high quality, very much on par with the Mamiya lineup.

• Fujifilm GA645: The point-and-shoot medium format, but offers a ton of electronic problems (has to return 2 from eBay, but man does it work well when it works).

• Hasselblad 500CM: Crispy clean.

• Rolleiflex TLR or Yashica-A: If you want a fully manual, waist-level viewfinder experience, either of these will put you in that headspace immediately.

3. Film Stocks

This is where film truly begins: the stock itself!

What good is the camera if the film stock doesn’t give you the exposure latitude or color character you’re looking for? There are a myriad of film stocks out there, many of which are experimental or some concoction derived from existing popular emulsions. They range from industry giants like Kodak to newer, greener brands like Harman.

Which film stock you choose entirely depends on what you want to shoot and how far you’re willing to go. If you’re a pro Kodak-snob like me, you’re likely never buying anything outside of the Kodak Portra series or CineStill 800T for heavily stylized shots in low light. But if you’re truly just getting the hang of film and learning its quirks, Portra can add up quickly.

Safe to say, even my favorite stocks have failed me from time to time (likely user error). Don’t get too caught up in the semantics of exposure or saturation. Just bring whatever roll you have on hand. Some pictures are better than no pictures.

Below, I’ve categorized stocks into various lists and linked some stellar reviews with sample images, so you can really study the work and form your own opinions.

These are the only film stocks I buy. Some say I’m a Kodak Purist…

• Kodak Portra 160: Sun-hungry.

• Kodak Portra 400: Nature’s Goldilocks.

• Kodak Portra 800: Delicious grain, even more delicious color.

• Kodak Gold 200: Warm and punchy.

Other stocks worth a go:

• Kodak Ektar 100: Vibrant blues and saturated hues.

• CineStill 800T: Film noir, but make it color.

• CineStill 50D / 400D — The daylight siblings. 50D is buttery smooth in bright sun; 400D gives you more room to roam without sacrificing that signature CineStill glow.

• Kodak EktaChrome 100: The editorial slide film.

• Kodak Ultramax 400: The workhorse you reach for when you don’t want to think too hard. Punchy, affordable, and rarely lets you down.

Really good black-and-white options:

• Kodak T-Max 400: Clinical sharpness with gorgeous tonal range. It rewards good technique and punishes laziness, in the best way.

• Ilford HP5+: Delicious for environmental portraiture, and pushes to 1600 ISO really nicely.

• Kentmere 400 — Has some really punchy contrast.

• Kodak Tri-X 400 — The granddaddy. Gritty, timeless, and shot by basically every photographer you’ve ever admired.

Cheaper stocks that other people love and do the trick, I just don’t shoot with them:

• Fujifilm Provia 100

• Fujifilm Velvia 50

• Fujicolor 200

• Harman PHX II

But in the words of Bashō…

“Avoid adjectives of scale; you will love the world more and desire it less.”

4. Exposure Rules

There’s nothing wrong with riding along on automatic exposure. Oftentimes that’s what I do, too. But if you’re keen on capturing a perfectly exposed frame, I suggest honing in on the basics of exposure to maximize your investment. Film is expensive, so let’s do our best to maintain dignity for every dollar we spend.

The Sunny 16 Rule

The good ole’ Sunny 16 Rule is the oldest trick in the book, and one of the most reliable! In direct sunlight, set your aperture to f/16 and match your shutter speed to your film’s ISO. So, if you’re shooting Portra 400, set your shutter to 1/400 and your aperture to f/16.

When in doubt, err slightly toward more exposure rather than less. Film handles overexposure more gracefully than it handles underexposure, especially in Lightroom. We’ll get to that later.

Rules of thumb for shooting outside:

• Sunny: f/16

• Light overcast: f/11

• Overcast: f/8

• Heavy overcast: f/5.6

• Open shade: f/4

Using a Light Meter

If you want a more precise tone, definitely look into getting a light meter. If you’re not looking to drop $250 for a nice one, there are some pretty decent mobile apps that do the trick. Be sure to point the meter or phone to the exact location you plan to keep in focus in the shot for the most accurate results.

Pushing and Pulling

Rarely do I push or pull my film. The goal is to nail the exposure right then and there whenever I click the shutter. But let’s say all you have on hand is an ISO 100 or 200 stock and you’re shooting getting-ready photos in a dimly lit hotel room. That’s when pushing comes in very handy.

Pushing means telling your camera to treat the film as if it has a higher ISO than it actually does, then compensating for that during development in the darkroom. Pulling does the opposite, where you rate the film lower than box speed to get a cleaner, less contrasty result in bright conditions.

Black and white is the most forgiving format to push, and stocks like Ilford HP5+ and Kentmere 400 are great starting points because they’re naturally lower-contrast. But color film is a different story – you’ll see more grain, colors will shift, and contrast will rise quickly, making it difficult to correct in post-production.

If you’re rating 400 ISO film at 800, meter for 800 and lean toward the shadows when in doubt. Underexposing pushed film is where it all falls apart; you’ll get murky shadows, flat midtones, and, with color stocks, skin tones that look just a little bit off in ways that are hard to correct later.

Pushing works best when the light is soft and even. If you’re already dealing with a high-contrast scene, pushing will only exaggerate it and blow out your highlights faster than you’d expect. When the light is decent enough, always default to box speed.

…and if this made no sense at all, check out the YouTube video below because it does a lovely explanation.

5. Date Your Film Lab

Film labs matter more than you think. God, I stand by this.

The final look and quality of your scan is almost equally as important as how you shot the image to begin with. If the image means more than a camera roll memory, especially if you’re shooting professionally — commercial, wedding, high-end print work, or personal projects that are genuinely dear to you — it’s worth taking the time to date various labs. Get to know their team, understand what details they take pride in, and figure out if their aesthetic sensibility aligns with yours. I used to send my film haphazardly to whichever lab was closest, and I fully believe it dulled the quality of my work. Labs are a lot like a personal stylist, a nanny, or a hairdresser. You have to find the one that works for you, because it really is a symbiotic relationship.

Transparently, I don’t love the Arizona labs near me. Not because their work isn’t good, but because they don’t deliver the level of warmth and contrast I prefer in my scans. Some labs I’ve used for years have changed who does the final scan, so I date around. I ask friends whose work I admire where they’re sending their film, and I’ll gladly ship it out via FedEx or USPS if that’s what it takes.

Some labs I love right now:

• Negative Lab — Their warm, punchy 35mm scans always hit.

• State Film Lab — Incredibly clean and reliable. Forrest Makin introduced me to them, and their colors are tried-and-true for certain projects.

• Picturehouse + The Small Darkroom — A personal shoutout to both. I found them recently through Eunice, who was also shopping around for a better lab for her wedding work. I reached out about their scans of some of my favorite artists’ work and got on a phone call with them to talk through their methods and how they achieve various looks. Their openness was something else, and that’s exactly the kind of relationship you want with a new lab.

Editing Film Scans

Yes, most people edit their film scans. I always request XL TIFF files so I have more data to work with in Lightroom compared to standard JPEGs, though the cost goes up significantly. JPEGs are fine for simple retouches, but they won’t give you the same control over RGB channels or contrast latitude.

At the high end, editing film scans is a serious craft. High-end editorial shoots will commission retouching services on top of darkroom processing and hand printing, and it adds up fast. Film developing and scanning are still processes I’m genuinely learning to understand myself, but the rule I live by is simple: what you can’t do well, pass off to someone you trust.

6. Gear Is Never Really the Point

I wrote a more in-depth piece on this a while back, and I still believe every word of it.

Film offers an almost foolproof look, that baked-in character drenched in nostalgic warmth. Every wedding photographer offers film now. High-end commercial and editorial work leans on the handprinted signatures of 120 format on the Mamiya RB67 like a crutch. So much so that there was a period where all I would spend money on was Kodak Portra 400, trusting the medium to do the heavy lifting. But that sense of ease is exactly what distracts you from making truly good work in the first place.

Stagnation is born from the fantasy that we can coast on what’s working. Rarely does it ask for more. It makes the work too precious.

If I’m being honest, a lot of film photography looks the same right now. I suspect more than a few labs have quietly converged on a similar scanning aesthetic with that neutral, low contrast, and safe tone. Safe is boring!

Like any artist working in any medium, you have to genuinely want to be a sponge. Look at your tools like you’re reimagining their purpose for the first time. Always want to take it one step further.

Artists and friends who continue to push the envelope of film work that is stunning, ever-evolving, and lucid with color. They inspire me every single day to get better:

• Pia Riverola

• Silvana Trevale

• Brian Chorski

• Thalia Gochez

• Ethan Gulley

• Jared Chambers

• Pat Martin

• Lucy Laucht

• Justin Chung

Go Make Art

After this long-winded manuscript of tips and gear recommendations, the only thing left to say is: go out and make the mistakes yourself.

Have fun with it. Don’t take it too seriously.

I can’t wait to see what you create.

I wish I had the time to pluck every individual strand of Bermuda grass blades growing between our fruit trees near the foothills of our stucco walls.

I wish I could retain Spanish better.

I wish I had the gear to film more video projects.

I wish.

I wish.

I wish.

God, it’s exhausting to be wishing all the time. To spend that much energy ruminating on potential what-if’s before the first scene of the metaphorical chapter has even begun. And for what? To predict the outcome so I can rehearse my preparation? To pre-approve my reaction before anything has even had the decency to happen?

So I stopped treating imagination like movement, and learned that there was nothing left to do but begin, even badly if necessary.

Why Planning Might Be a Myth

With summer coming on quick, I find myself doing what I always do this time of year: curating that gallery-worthy Pinterest board of what the perfect season ought to look like. Pistachio gelato. Aimless puttering down cobblestone streets. Lusty makeouts on some idyllic beach. Pepper plants and watermelon beds I swear I’ll get into the garden one of these days. But somehow, even after the little rush of arranging what might be my most picturesque summer yet, no international plane tickets have been bought, and the seeds are still sitting in their paper packets.

Humans have an innate desire to plan ahead, and apparently, that impulse can trigger dopamine levels not unlike the ones sparked by actually doing the thing itself. That likely explains why New Year’s resolutions arrive with such gusto in January, only to wilt into a far slower follow-through by February.

I’ve found that waiting for inspiration is the fastest way to let the bath go cold. Just like I tell my toddler at bath time, you cannot spend forever hovering at the edge, bargaining for two more minutes of Bluey or one last lap around the yard, and then act shocked when the water has gone flat and gray. And yet, even with twenty-eight more years of life than she has, I do the very same thing. I, too, mourn the bubbles I never got to play with.

Because the truth is, the same is true of almost everything worth doing.

No amount of Pinterest saves will make July sweeter. No archive of online inspiration will make the work itself any stronger. At some point, you have to stop illustrating the possibility and get on with living it. The garden only grows once your hands are in the dirt, and the photograph only happens when you take the camera into the field.

Listen, I’m Type A, so I love a list and a proper plan. That much is obvious. But if I’m honest with myself, my most productive days are rarely the most regimented ones. They’re the days spent a little off the cuff, when the flow state takes over, and the list becomes more of an occasional reference.

The same is true of my best photography. It usually happens when I stop overthinking the investment, get the camera in my hands, and start pedaling while the hill is already beneath me. I don’t wait for the Pinterest mood board to be finished anymore. I just go out and tinker with the craft. Sometimes I totally miss the mark, but more often than not, I find myself making something that earns its place in the portfolio.

If You Want to Learn How to Simply Do… Become an Artist.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

— Pablo Picasso

Since leaving the 9-to-5 and returning to full-time freelance photo and directorial work, my days have become entirely dependent on how hard I work to find more work. If I were out on the back porch drinking iced tea all day while my daughter and husband spent the better part of the weekday at school, I’d be, for one, over-caffeinated, and for two, completely useless.

When you run your own business, you do not sit patiently and wait for work to come find you. You chase it, court it, build for it, and often lose sleep over it. It is relentless, round-the-clock work. Completely exhausting. Entirely unsexy. And, truthfully, one of the only paths to a kind of freedom that actually belongs to you.

You just have to really, really want it.

Luckily for me, returning to work that is primarily my own has been one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made, especially at a time when my old work could no longer support me in the ways I needed. I have never felt more spiritually, mentally, or financially aligned. But that alignment comes with a price. You never really clock out.

This is especially true in creative work, where inspiration and skill are expected to show up hand in hand, every time, and preferably at a perfect ten. The work in the field, camera in hand, is only one part of it. The other ninety percent happens at the drawing board: writing proposals, sending cold pitches, shaping marketing plans, and doing the often invisible work of putting yourself in front of the agents, clients, brands, and tastemakers who might one day say yes.

And when the yes finally comes, especially if it pays well, there is no guarantee another one is waiting behind it. So you learn to live on that uneasy little seesaw between charging what you believe your work is worth and taking the filler jobs that help keep the lights on. Then come the other decisions, the ones every business owner has to make: when to invest in better tools, in travel, in spec projects, in ideas that may very well lead nowhere, except for the faint but seductive possibility that this one thing might move the whole thing forward.

Running your own world is hard, honest, humbling work. But if you are fortunate enough to be any good at it, and stubborn enough to keep going with the same tactility and earnest desire to get better, you eventually learn the only advice that really matters:

There are as many crucibles as there are accidental fortunes in the act of making, no matter the medium. Design, pottery, writing, photography, welding, tiling, cooking.

And while I’m no Anthony Bourdain, I do know that a family needing dinner every night, paired with an appetite as bossy as my own, will teach you far more about cooking than any darling notebook padded with vintage recipes ever could.

There is something about returning to the stove again and again, under ordinary pressure, that makes a real cook out of you, or at the very least, a more honest one.

Sometimes the rice turns gummy because I forgot to rinse it. Butter chicken tastes entirely different with tomato paste than it does with tomato purée. But I never would have learned any of that, much less gotten better through it, if I had chosen the easier path and slipped a Stouffer’s lasagna into the oven or ordered Chinese instead.

But Make It Count

“At a certain point, success breeds success. That’s insidious, too. If your success breeds an automatic acceptance and accolades, it’s tempting to get away with the mediocre work we’re all capable of. I think success can undercut your creative efforts.”
— Sally Mann, Art Work: On the Creative Life

I think real success has far less to do with mastery than we like to admit, and far more to do with the blunt fact that most of us are simply doing our best and, every so often, getting very, very lucky.

You are not going to be the best at anything forever, no matter what our culture of obsession, praise, and personal mythology would like us to believe. Good work does not stay alive on reputation alone.

Sally Mann gets at this beautifully in Art Work: On the Creative Life, where much of her thinking seems rooted in the idea that we are, in the end, just a few passionate creatures with a deep and slightly ridiculous urge to make things. We are built to tinker and to get our hands dirty. But many of us are motivated by the fantasy that if we become good at something, we will remain there indefinitely, suspended at our peak.

But that is almost never the case.

If anything, success can make a person lazy. Or worse, too precious. It does to me, anyway.

Once that lusty praise rolls in, a palatable acceptance becomes easier, and before long, there is a temptation to coast on what once worked, to offer up the watered-down version of your own gifts and trust that people will applaud anyway.

A finished piece of work has its own kind of deafness. Because once it’s done, it can no longer argue back or be refined. It simply sits there, asking to be seen for what it is. The finality of any end has always unsettled me, which is likely why I like to keep working on something (for better or worse).

So, as of now, I’m taking a ton of pictures, shadowing my husband in the garden, tinking on one house project at time, and reading learning as much as possible through audiobooks, podcasts, Masterclasses, and… you’ve guessed it, just doing the damn thing, even if it sucks.

I recently finished Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck.

It’s one of his shorter books, but no less impactful, set in Monterey, California, in the aftermath of World War I. The story follows Danny and his rowdy circle of pals in a shabby, once-industrial hillside neighborhood of paisanos, sunbaked beneath pine trees and a constant blue sky. Early on, Danny inherits two houses, which should read like a doorway out of poverty, but instead becomes slippery in his hands. Ownership brings expectations and obligations that Danny doesn’t know how to live with. He starts to wrestle with that familiar tension most of us carry: what do we want, and what do we actually need?

In the novel, as in so many of Steinbeck’s metaphors, possessions are more pressure than prize. They become corruptive, burdensome, and quietly joyless. Because what is true ambition, success, or comfort if they aren’t chosen by our free will?

And after the book’s end, after Danny’s manic death and descent into madness, I’ve been thinking again about the fabric of longing, and the insidious underbelly of too closely attaching it to something physical.

Shopping feels boring to me now.

The older I get, the less I’m tempted by the chase of something new.

And strangely, the more money I have, the more careful I become with it. Discipline didn’t arrive as a personality trait, but moreso as a lesson. I’ve watched people I love pay dearly for living without it, and I’m determined to give my kids a steadier footing than luck.

Ownership is supposed to feel like security, and oftentimes it does when properly handled. But it also comes with upkeep, paperwork, and the quiet pressure of staying on top of what you’ve taken on. “Mine” stops being a simple feeling and becomes something signed, sealed, regulated, and enforced. It’s a cacophony of reassurance and tethered obligations.

And all the while, the background noise stays the same. The constant, slow hum of wanting. I know I’ve circled this theme before on Substack, but it’s hard not to, because the stakes feel higher lately. It feels more important than ever to look out for each other, and for ourselves too, so we don’t get swallowed by petty expenses and easy distractions.

So, like the paisanos in Tortilla Flat, I’d rather harvest the fruits of freedom than confuse “more” for a life. Well... that, and the gallons of red wine they slurp in the hot sun in nearly every chapter (hehe).

“Budgeting” is a funny word.

We tend to say it like a consequence, not a choice, something we mumble when we need to cut spending or rebuild after a big change. But budgeting is offense. It’s deciding, on purpose, what gets to stay with you each month. It’s building a pool you can save and invest, one of the few practical ways to keep pace with the compounding mess we’re all navigating in this country.

And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Rob’s win on The Traitors and my recent readthrough of The 48 Laws of Power — it’s to move quietly and go unsuspected. Let the people think they’re ahead of you. In many ways, budgeting (and its access to freedom) is a just a fun game of chess in slow motion.

I once read that budgeting only lasts when you allow some personal flexibility. Like most whole, beautiful things, it’s a balance. I’m no financial guru, and I’m not some no-frills buyer either, because that wouldn’t be true. But I’ve gotten damn good at putting my money where my mouth is these last few years, and I’d love to share a few insights into how I do it.

Things I Don’t Mind Spending the Extra Dollar On:

1.) Good, Natural Wine

I’ve come to the depressing realization that hangovers do, in fact, exist. Shocker. After turning 30, my body keeps count of the cheap Barefoot sips. Unless I’m buying in bulk for a holiday work party, I stick to natural, low-intervention wines that are relatively sulfite-free for a clean, headache-free bliss.

I could talk about natty wine all day long.

2.) Good Candles (or Santa Fe Incense)

Cheap candles emit harmful carcinogens, but inexpensive incense just smells like a hippie’s sweaty ass crack. Once I started paying the extra dollar for “fancier” soy candles or this wood incense from a Southwestern brand, my god, does my mood change. The house instantly feels more alive and lived in.

3.) Coffee Beans

No morning is complete without 1 or 2 (or 4) cups of my espresso. Not having it just isn’t an option, so I opt for the good stuff.

4.) Special, Tastemaker Home Items

I prefer to collect pieces over time. Items that hold a sentimental pull at first glance, with patina and character, and unique silhouettes. A home isn’t a true statement of the heart if it’s bought through Amazon or Walmart.

When you purchase beloved items over a prolonged period, a slow burn develops that envelops the space with true warmth.

I’m able to take my time and afford what I really love and want for the space, like a hand-cast kitchen island, a curved front door from Turkey, a super large rug, or statement furniture pieces.

5.) Comfortable Travel (Specifically Vacation, Less Work Trips)

I’m not a White Lotus traveler, trust me. But since I don’t travel as often as I used to, and now that I’m a full-fledged adult with real money, I go a hair extra on the budget so I can make any vacation feel like a true resting period.

Simple things — like a couple of hundred extra dollars on a good Airbnb for the group, having a drink for every dinner (duh), or doing at least 1 or 2 scheduled activities to make the time off genuinely worthwhile.

6.) Capsule Wardrobe Pieces

I like to thrift the one-offs because they’re more fun and get worn less. But if you’re someone like me who prefers a uniform built for a run-and-gun lifestyle, think safari-chic shorts and a classic cotton Americana tank, then I want the pieces I wear every day to be in damn good shape. I prefer to skip Amazon basics and either invest in a few quality pieces new, or scrounge eBay and Depop for the pricier brands like vintage designer, Sézane, Dôen, etc.

Things I Don’t Ever (or Rarely) Spend Money On:

1.) DoorDash / Uber Eats / Postmates

Unless I’m late for work, nothing’s nearby, I don’t have a car, or I’m postpartum, I almost never order DoorDash. During the Covid pandemic, I justified it as supporting my favorite restaurants, ordering a few times each week, and sometimes spending $500 a month just to save the hour it would take to cook. I’m still amazed how often delivery apps are people’s lunch default, and how common it is to spend $1,000 a month for convenience.

We avoid eating out Monday through Thursday, except for special events. If a friend visits, we’ll spluge on something locally yummy. Eating in helps us stay healthier and avoid forming bad fast-food habits, even when we’re tired.

Besides saving money, this habit makes weekend dining out feel special. I don’t mind covering appetizers, drinks, or meals with friends because it feels like a treat, not a loss.

Cooking at home is so sexy, guys! If you’re over 25 and don’t cook, make 2026 the year you learn. :)

Try Here’s Your Bite for cozy dishes, or my girl Justine, who has great pasta recipes.

2.) Water Bottles

I know a lot of people swear by their spring-colored Owala bottles, so I’ll keep this short.

Stop buying a new water bottle every season. I’m not usually one to hate on people romanticizing basic everyday items, but what is with this weird water bottle fetish? I’m a hater, I don’t know. Sue me!!!

I have a stainless steel Klean Kanteen I bought when I was pregnant three years ago, and I have zero plans of replacing it anytime soon.

3.) Sunglasses Over $25

I’ve lost or broken every pair of sunglasses I’ve owned. After losing my $150 pair at the creek during my Ranchlands stay in Wyoming, I now forbid myself from buying expensive sunglasses.

I replaced them with a $25 Goodr pair from REI, which I love. Let’s see how long I keep these.

4.) Bring Your Own Snacks

Back on the cooking-at-home train, we as a society have got to get better about bringing our own snacks on outings. This habit came to me more recently after realizing my busy schedule had me eating nothing until 2PM, not super proud of this. School pickup would hit with shaky limbs and no real time to make myself something to eat.

5.) Bring Your Own Coffee

For fear of sounding like a Dave Ramsey boomer, I don’t want to discourage the $7 latte, but the mom in me really wants to stress the absurdity of it. And listen, even if you bought two a day, you still wouldn’t save enough for a down payment like the old folks love to suggest, but you would save yourself a solid stack of cash over time.

My only exception is when I’m in a new city or out on the town with friends, and the whole point is to get a great cup on vacation.

And while I don’t want to encourage anyone to buy an expensive espresso machine — but since I got mine, I can legitimately count the number of times I’ve bought coffee while out and about, because I truly prefer my own homemade breve and espresso at home. The slow act of perfecting your cup is so much more satisfying and rewarding. My husband didn’t care for the drip machine we used to have, but now with our Breville, he’s stopped buying energy drinks and coffees entirely on his way to work. I make him a double shot espresso with a splash of milk, and he downs that thing in a better mood than ever at 6AM.

It’s been an oddly significant lifestyle change for us.

6.) Supplements, Protein Powders, or Over-the-Counter Health Food Trends

I’m not anti-supplement, but I am pro get-your-nutrients-from-food-not-pills, where possible.

Since I started meal-planning and cooking mostly at home, with a natural pull toward whole foods, I haven’t needed to buy supplements in years, even as someone with diagnosed anemia. Once I added more beans, arugula, salmon, sardines, and lean meats into my diet, my vitals have been great.

I also don’t need to budget hundreds of dollars every month to fill some “health void” with powders and electrolytes. I’ve even stopped buying collagen powder and just make my own bone broth, which is more delicious, more cost-effective, and more useful for weekly meal prep.

That said… don’t read this and immediately follow suit. If you’re on anything prescribed or managing a condition, talk to your doctor before changing your routine (I feel like I have to legally say this).

7.) Fix It First

I was in the middle of making my immunity-boost juice when my $350 juicer’s motor got stuck on a carrot. After a thorough cleanout, it still wasn’t working, and I thought it was done for. I immediately started browsing Consumer Reports for a replacement, until my husband clocked my ridiculousness.

He grabbed a screwdriver, popped off the back, and after about 60 seconds of research, figured out that a small part just needed to be replaced because it had jammed. The first YouTube video for this exact model came right up since other users had the same issue after years of use. He ordered the part from the manufacturer’s website and fixed it for me in under three minutes.

So you choose: $7 dollars and 15 minutes with YouTube, or $350 for a whole new machine to replace something that wasn’t actually broken?

8.) Wood Furniture (Mostly)

I can’t believe people buy from Wayfair when Facebook Marketplace exists.

Solid wood furniture, the stuff you actually should be buying, gets recycled on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp every day, and often with great style. There are hoards of heavy oak armoires and antiques begging for a second life.

9.) Polyester Anything

This isn’t even a low-buy; this is a no-buy. Enough said.

10.) Seasonal Decor

I’m still on the fence about whether I consider myself a festive person. By the standard of my Jehovah’s Witness extended family, I’m super festive. By the standard of other “suburban moms”, maybe not so much.

I’m a huge yes-woman to parties and celebrations. But the idea of buying mass-produced embroidered pillows and polyester Easter bunnies, or wildly priced Spirit yard signs, feels yucky. On the other hand, I do love thrifting or collecting a few staple pieces I can reuse again and again.

I love people who go all out, though. I can’t explain it. I genuinely adore the way some people make holidays their Super Bowl. But that just wasn’t how I was raised (literally), so I never built the muscle to do it on my own.

Around the house, I’ll hand-make a few decorations here and there and rely on good food and music to set the vibe. Otherwise, I save a ton of money and put that toward holiday-themed experiences, or something thoughtful to bring to another family member’s home.

That’s it for now, folks! Happy Spring, get outside and enjoy that sunshine! :)

A mini (and vulnerable) life update ahead.

I’ve been privately moving through this strange mix of fierce pressure and almost-sick excitement these last couple of months; two emotions I think coexist almost always.

In early November, I got a call that the company I’ve been with for the last eight years was making major shifts to its business model, and that my full-time role as Editor-in-Chief no longer fit (or could be afforded). Because there had been red herrings of this possibly coming for a while, the news landed with a weird blend of shock and relief.

On that call, I was basically given two paths: either get a new job or…

1. Take the publication and turn it into my own business, find my own writers, and look for investors or brand sponsorships to get it off the ground.

2. Completely rebrand the publication for lesser output and simply manage it on my own time, as a retainer client.

The first option felt exhausting... but the second option felt like an open door leading exactly where I’d quietly wanted to go.

After a two-hour dry-heaving cry period, I did what any panicked millennial editor would do: opened LinkedIn and started searching for anything adjacent to “Head Editor,” just to tickle my brain with potential possibilities for a new role entirely.

Within mere seconds – and I mean seconds – I knew I didn’t want another full-time editor gig; it just wasn’t what I ultimately wanted to pursue. Every role description was packed with buzzwords like “passionate about AI-driven platforms” and “highly motivated self-starters eager to build commercial startups.” As someone who both disdains the AI slop we’re all subconsciously forced into and hates the manufactured romance of “building something” as a job description, it all felt like a muck of dishonesty and dead ends.

The writing, publishing, and editorial world is in a deeply weird, scary, shape-shifting era that frankly doesn’t have the money to keep itself afloat unless it’s a solo-run passion project or a giant news outlet like The New York Times. Neither sounded especially appealing for where I wanted to go next. And contributor roles are sadly plagued with low pay and vague expectations disguised as exposure opportunities.

I sat in my desk chair feeling hollow. Scared not only of a future without a consistent paycheck, but of the diluted, faceless, limp world that editing for independent publications is rapidly turning into. We’re either a community no one can outwardly afford or a glorified prompt machine for AI bots trying to fight for the top spot in Google’s search box. It selfishly felt like a fight I didn’t want to fight anymore.

Then I thought about what my days would look like if I did, in fact, go back to full-time freelance photography, a career path I’d taken years before diving headfirst into my long-term 9–5. I felt… exhilarated? Ready for change? Ready for something new, something that was mine again?

I don’t really believe in God, and I don’t really believe that everything happens for a reason. But in moments like this, I do believe humans have the power to rebuild when the tower falls, and that success only really lands if you’re ready when the luck shows up (thanks for the inspiration, Ina).

So while I find most astrology and tarot stuff a little bogus as a lifelong realist, I couldn’t help but notice that The Tower card found me days before I got the news. It showed up in a random YouTube reading and then again on TikTok during a doom-scroll.

“The Tower is a symbol for the ambition that is constructed on faulty premises. The destruction of the tower must happen in order to clear out the old ways and welcome something new. Its revelations can come in a flash of truth or inspiration.”

Touché, universe. Touché.

The Creator vs. The Manager

The question ultimately boils down to this: do you want to be the manager or the creator?

Does sifting through schedules, briefs, and emails all day light you up? Does it feel good to build assignments that ultimately get handed off to someone else, who then gets to be the one creating? Do lists and threads give you a sense of purpose? Does success feel satisfying when it’s mostly happening on someone else’s dollar and under someone else’s name?

There was a time when some of that was true for me. Eight years of my life have been spent as a lead and editor in an industry that offered creative opportunities, flexible hours, community, and a real sense of individuality. I fought hard to build a little editorial world that pushed against the commercial status quo, in an era where AI-made content is basically indistinguishable from the real thing. Nearly a decade of dedicating my livelihood to learning, growing, and working as a team with people I adored.

And as the creator-type person I genuinely believe myself to be, I stayed in that manager role because it was a wonderful place. It offered a deep sense of comfort and security, plus the flexibility to still have time and energy for my own work when the laptop closed.

My most-read Substack piece, in fact, is basically a love letter to the 9–5. And I truly hope the readers who resonated with that post, or found me because of it, still recognize the same person in whatever I write next. The love of stability and the love of self-directed work can coexist. Both have lived in me for a long time.

Still, this transition — though not my idea — is one I’m honestly glad found me.

Like all good things in life, that chapter was finite. And while I’d felt “the call” coming for months after watching the financial forecasts roll in, I also started to sense that I’d learned what I needed to learn and hit a ceiling in that role. Quietly, I’d been hoping the universe would give me a nudge I didn’t quite have the guts to make myself.

The nudge finally came.

I still think everyone should, at some point, work some sort of 9–5 that quantifies your day; that could be in a white-collar office or on a blue-collar construction site. A tangled web of human social fabric flattened into a number on a timesheet. You clock in, you clock out. The little green light appears or disappears on Slack. You learn what it means to answer to someone, to rely on a team, to feel the camaraderie of a big win and the gut punch of watching a friend get laid off.

I’m a better woman because I’ve done that. I don’t think I’d be as diligent, whole-oriented, or as disciplined a go-getting, passionate yes-woman if I hadn’t been roughed up by the consequences of my own mistakes, especially when they directly impacted someone else. I wouldn’t have the stamina to stick out the hard stuff, or the problem-solving muscles I lean on now. I can confidently say I’m at least a year ahead of where I’d be if I hadn’t gone through all of it.

Being siloed as a freelancer only grants you true freedom if you’ve earned it.

And I’m very aware of how privileged I am to even talk about this “newfound position,” and how often others aren’t in that spot after a layoff or job switch. Especially now, when so many people quietly know what it feels like to suddenly not be “essential” to a workplace, no matter how talented or good you are at the job. It’s a startling, awful blow to the ego and a gut punch to the years you spent building something you fully maintained.

The 10,000-Hour Rule

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers picks apart and rebuilds our idea of “success”; a random pickup I read just days after the role switch. He argues that, while motivation matters, the environment you grow up in ultimately shapes your fate. A whole mess of factors have to line up for you to hit that upper tier in quality of life, such as timing, geography, family circumstances, culture, or even the year you’re born.

So if you’re someone like me, who grew up in a lower-to-middle-class family in the heart of Southwestern suburbia (no trust fund, no inherited list of clients), the path to my idea of success might feel different.

And in a more nerdy Gladwell sense, I also wasn’t born in that magical January–March window that gave certain Canadian hockey players extra months of development and ice time. (You should read the first chapter; it’s pretty fascinating.)

The point is: I don’t have those built-in financial and social advantages that quietly stack the deck. Gladwell’s big takeaway is that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of focused practice to get truly great at something, and that the people who get there quicker usually have circumstances that make putting in those hours almost automatic.

But I don’t… not really.

Which means I have to be a little more intentional. I have to carve out those hours myself by getting up early and actively choosing the thing I care about over the easier option. Piece by piece. Hour by hour.

Say what you want about Gladwell, but I loved this book, and it landed in my life at a time when I needed this level of pragmatic validation.

The Math

If Gladwell says it takes about 10,000 hours to get really good at something, I wanted to see where I actually land on that spectrum. So I sat down and did the math.

Since age 18, I’ve been stacking those hours. Back when I was freelancing full-time, I averaged 2–3 shoots a week. Each one came with 4–20 hours of editing, depending on the project. Then add all the invisible labor: client emails and threads, scouting locations, gear testing, invoicing, chasing payments, client retention, SEO, website updates. All the busy work that starts after the camera turns off.

Conservatively, that’s about 40 hours a week for 5 full years before I ever stepped into my editing role at Moment. That’s already around 10,400 hours.

Then there’s the last 8 years. I managed to keep my photography career alive at a slower burn (maybe 10–15 hours a week) while working full-time in marketing/editorial. Different but related muscles: writing briefs, directing campaigns and shoots, sending cold pitches, learning to take and implement feedback, building a team, getting them paid, juggling creative and business needs.

Forty hours a week for 8 years is another ~16,000+ hours, plus the ongoing photo work. Altogether, that’s easily over 30,000 hours of related practice across photography, directing, editing, and storytelling.

Over thirty thousand hours.

So… what exactly am I so afraid of?

I think a lot about whether what I do is ever enough.

Am I good enough at what I do to sustain my family and our legacy’s future on art alone?

Is art even relevant at a time when social unrest and oligarchy overrule our country?

Is it overbearingly selfish to indulge my own creative fantasies while my husband spends his days protecting families in need in his direct line of work and communities?

Is the self-prescribed “me time” even a concern anymore, now that my kid is in school and my hours with a boss have been shaved down?

The truth is, I don’t really know the answers to those questions. But I don’t think I’m supposed to either. There is no guarantee of consistency, safety, reliability, or aid — except, maybe, in the promises we keep to each other as neighbors and in the follow-through of our word.

Oddly, I feel more at ease in this economy, building upon my own self-reliance, than I do in a 9-to-5, where specific roles feel far less secure than ever before. And I do believe that art is radical in a time of upheaval; the world cannot move forward in any justifiable, human way if we’re not also allowed to timestamp it through expression.

So, what am I doing now?

All that to say, I took the second option.

To build a community of writers for The Long Weekend Zine and The Moment Journal for a work-family I love, this time as a consultant and on a retainer basis, not as a full-time employee.

And, more importantly, to stand tall as an editorial photographer and director on my own terms. To be the creator again, with a real say in the final output.

If you’d like to contribute photo essays or gear reviews, hit me up at natalie@shopmoment.com.

And if you’re a brand, publication, agency, or individual who needs an experienced photographer and creative director for your next project, commercial, or campaign (even weddings!), I’m right here:

• Website

• Instagram

• Email: hello@nataliecarrasco.com

I honestly feel more aligned than ever before. Here’s to putting in the next 10,000 hours toward what I’m meant to do, at a master’s level.

Outside of work, I’ll be gathering more with my loved ones, reading and learning as much as I can, raising a little girl who’s fierce and safe and loved, and getting my hands dirty in the garden again.

Love you all. Thank you for reading and for letting this place be a safe space. :)

P.S. If you’re local to Arizona, consider joining me in making either one-time or monthly donations to Puente, a responsible, reputable, and wonderful local organization doing honest, actionable human rights work for the migrant community in the Phoenix Valley. Let’s work to keep our neighbors safe.

For me, 2025 was the year I finally looked generational trauma in the eye and decided the story ends here, with as much grace, grit, and stubborn hope as I can manage. I spent my days raising my almost-two-year-old into toddlerhood and working overtime to afford her spot at a private Montessori.

In early November, I got a brutal phone call about a needed career shift that first felt like loss and failure, then slowly, quietly, like permission for a new kind of openness I’d secretly wanted for a long time. There were multiple deaths in the family, and more than a few arguments. There were also loud, boisterous girl trips and generous moments of community in friends where family fell short.

I put myself out there more than I ever have and learned that the universe really will meet you halfway if you show up with a soft heart and some real enthusiasm. And somehow, in the middle of all that chaos and recalibration, it became the best year of my marriage. I’ve never felt more in love with my husband than I do right now, and I am wildly, tenderly excited about the legacy we’re trying to build together.

With 2026 as the year of the Fire Horse, I can’t think of a more fitting, electric excuse to just… go for it. Unresolved lessons have landed and ruminating fears came true… so what do I really have left to lose? Nothing that isn’t already gone. From here on out, it feels like there’s only room to gain.

I keep joking with a friend that 2026 is the year I slip off the saddle and just run, full speed, like a wild foal in the hay fields. :,)

2026 Goals

Thus, with another blank metaphorical notebook now open, I’m hitting the ground running on my list of goals, ins, outs, and quiet hopes for the year ahead.

Below is my personal bulletin board of sorts, here to help spark your own if you haven’t started one yet.

Dream big, friends.

*Certain specifics or numbers are hidden for privacy.

Motherhood

• Host a beautiful 2nd birthday party for Reyna.

• Potty training (oh boy...).

• Raise a bilingual child.

• Take Reyna tent camping!

• 1 just-girl’s trip <3

Marriage

• Celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary with something special.

• Monthly date nights.

• Leave evenings for him.

• More validation and speaking his love language.

Money

• Earn $X amount in freelance photo & directorial work.

• Raise $X amount for Savings (house renovations, land, travel, etc.)

• Invest in Roth IRA - $X

• Invest to Individual Investment Account - $X

• Set Up a Family Trust!!!

House

• Paint / finalize decor for primary bedroom.

• Finalize plans for a casita or add-on to the house.

• Spruce up our library / office.

• More trees in the backyard, more landscaping, more gardening.

• Work with more interior brands.

Travel

• Travel to the Florida Keys

• Wisconsin Family Fall Adventure

• New Mexico Fiesta Trip

• Ascend Humphrey’s Peak

• ***Leave room for more travel (I find that in years past, I get overwhelmed when I try to plan trips way in advance and ultimately feel sad when they never happen, so this year I’m allowing more time for what’s to come gradually).

Career

• Go ALL In

• MORE BRAND WORK

• 2-3 Monthly Self-Assignments

• Get to X Subscribers for The Sunporch

• Book More Weddings

• Land a Photo Agent???

• More Bylines w/ 3-4 Publications

• Build Long Weekend’s Zine as Editorial Director

• Build The Moment Journal as Editorial Director

  • I’m moving from full-time at Moment to part-time as a Managing Editor-at-Large and editorial consultant. I’m excited for the chance to chase my personal career goals as a freelance photographer and director, while staying rooted in what brought me here in the first place: writing and storytelling. More on this in another Substack. :)

Personal

• Log more monthly hikes or 5+ mile walks

• Slug the face every night.

• Remember the big picture.

• Read 35 books.

• Take 5 online courses in career fields of interest.

My 2026 Ins + Outs

If you’re into less rigid goals or just like to remind yourself of the smaller, more hyper-specific to-dos throughout the year, the Ins and Outs lists are a perfect middle ground.

Here are some of mine:

Ins

• Physical sudoku & crossword books

• Audiobooks

• At-home espresso

• Garden clogs

• Going in 100% on something

• Online courses

• Or, just ask!

• Yearning for learning.

• DIY backyard projects.

• Super long walks or hikes.

• Steam rooms.

• Sharpened talent.

Outs

• Fear of looking too “into” something

• Polyester, anything

• Imposter syndrome

• Excuses for...anything. Always be honest with yourself.

• AI

• Road rage.

• Assumptions.

As a woman, it feels celebratory. I’m 30! Flirty! Thriving! I feel more at home in my own life than I ever have, which is a quiet relief. I’ve seen what a lack of self-worth can do to a woman as the years stack up, how it hollows out a room.

I keep telling myself that aging is beautiful. It’s a tiny act of resistance against the women in my family who still shave years off on medical forms. We’re taught that women fade as the numbers rise, and the beauty industry stands in the corner nodding, offering another serum, another procedure, another way to “fix” what time has supposedly ruined.

I know thirty isn’t old, but it isn’t nineteen either. The distance between 20 and 30 feels wider to me than whatever waits between 30 and 40. College party outfits belong to another lifetime; your thirties ask for something sturdier, a little more grounded, a little more timeless. I’ve tried on plenty of styles and “eras,” but I keep circling back to a version of myself that finally feels refined, honest, and mine. And I really love her.

This post is exactly that — a fun, slightly chaotic Pinterest board in essay form. Part holiday outfit inspo, part self-confidence manifesto, and part breadcrumb trail for my future self, marking the moment I started blossoming into the person I’ve always been becoming.

*Disclaimer, I’m not an expert. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just having fun. :)

1.) Fashion

How does one even begin to define oneself “effortlessly” on a visual level?

If I were a Sim, or a fragment in someone’s memory of me, what would be wearing? What’s my “uniform”?

I used to think people who loved fashion were vain. How silly. That was just a projection from someone who didn’t know how to dress herself in her early twenties. I assumed fashion was reserved for people who could rattle off designers and trends, neither of which I’ve ever been fluent in.

Growing up, I didn’t care about how I looked nearly as much as my peers did. I’m only now figuring out something as simple as the right blush tone for my cheeks. Somewhere along the way, though, I became a firm believer that the little details of how you present yourself eventually add up to a version of your whole self. Every small choice is a sentence in the bigger story you’re telling.

Picking Three “Words”

When it comes to describing or refining your style, I love the “three-word rule.” Instead of pinning yourself to one hyper-specific aesthetic like “boho Parisian chic,” “gorpcore,” or “Western,” you distill your wardrobe down into three simple words that feel like you.

For me, those three are probably:

1. Organic - Natural fabrics, textured patterns, and silhouettes that don’t scream for attention but still feel intentional. I’m not wildly inventive with outfit combos, so I try to make every piece a staple or an essential. If it’s in my closet, it has a job.

2. Sunny - I live in Arizona, so most of my outfits need to survive anything from the 60s to the 100s. Light layers, breathable materials, clothes that make sense in a sun-soaked life.

3. Americana - I lean hard into classic Western-adjacent pieces: vintage Wranglers, Ralph Lauren plaid, collared silk button-ups. I don’t always want to look like a full-on costume (though sometimes it happens), so “Americana” feels truer than just “Western.” Blue jeans, cotton tanks, bandanas, suede chore jackets, leather belts, and solid sweaters. I grew up in a blue-collar family and spent time around Colorado ranchers, so this isn’t just an aesthetic I picked off Pinterest. It’s baked into my childhood and the way I move through the world.

My Current Favorite Brands

For context, about 90% of my favorite clothes are secondhand, usually from Depop. (Also, did you see their latest commercial? Chef’s kiss.) I rarely buy brand-new unless it’s an investment piece: shoes, a really good jacket, or everyday jewelry. Stuff I plan on keeping for years that feels very “me.”

Secondhand is perfect for the rest. It’s sustainable, it’s fun, and it’s especially worth it when you’re hunting down luxury or well-made brands that are designed to hold up for decades:

• Dôen

• Sézane

• Reformation

• Babaa

• Ozma of California

• Sir the Label

• Girlfriend Collective

• Everlane

• Tecovas

Rewearing Your Clothes Is Cool

I will give early-college Natalie some credit here. Maybe it was being a broke 20-something, maybe it was my quiet obsession with quality over quantity, but I’ve always believed in rewearing good clothes. Solid, well-loved pieces, worn over and over with different tops, bottoms, and accessories, are undeniably chic.

When something keeps working year after year, it’s proof you chose well. That dress or jacket or pair of boots has survived multiple micro-trends and still finds its way into your regular rotation. That’s style.

I also want to encourage you to just… wear your favorite things. Do you know how many times I’ve worn my after-party wedding dress to boat hangs and cocktail hours? I even used it as the silky base for my daughter’s and my homemade Halloween costumes where we went as Mushrooms.

Your favorite pieces, especially the “special” or most expensive ones, don’t deserve to be exiled to the dark corners of your closet. Wear them to dinner. Wear them to the grocery store. Let them live a full life.

So before you panic-order an entirely new wardrobe to achieve the perfect capsule (please don’t), ask how you can restyle what you already own. In my experience, my best outfits aren’t the brand-new ones. They’re the familiar, preloved pieces recombined in a way that makes them feel new again.

2.) Skincare & Makeup

Skincare and makeup are deeply, deeply personal. I’m not a dermatologist, and nothing here is medical advice, just one woman reporting back from the field. So what works for me might not work for you, and that’s more than okay!

That said, if I’m honest, a lot of skincare “musts” feel like noise. Part of that is because the industry is meticulously engineered for people who love beautiful bottles and dreamy branding (guilty!). But as someone who works in marketing, PR, and creative direction — I can promise you that these brands care more about how they’re selling it, more about what they’re selling.

How can we skew the tagline just enough to skirt the truth? I’ve worked in copywriting for over 8 years; I know how it works.

Anyways. I digress.

I have extremely dry, fair skin, and my biggest obstacle is my water intake. I use three high-quality products with fewer than ten ingredients as my core, and that minimal setup does wonders for me. Maybe it’s because I never had the time (or patience) for red light therapy, tongue scraping, or chia seed puddings before coffee, so I never stuck with them long enough to see results. But honestly, I don’t think I need to for the foreseeable future.

What genuinely fixes my dryness, irritation, or dullness is a boring, unsexy answer: simply eating real food with vitamins (not just supplements) and drinking enough water. When I do that, everything else seems to fall into place. In this case, the products just support the basics, not replace them.

Some Brands I Swear By:

• Ilia

• Wonder Valley

• Supergoop

• This Everyday Oil for my face

• Bag Balm or Aquaphor

• Vacation oils and sunscreens

Some Things I Never Leave the House Without…

We get it: I’m annoyingly minimal. But there is one thing I’ll take to the grave and be insufferable about:

I need my lipstick.

My friends are probably cackling reading this, because to them it’s a fixed law of nature, like gravity or the sky being blue. If Natalie is leaving the house, there is a tube of lipstick within arm’s reach.

Find your one product and commit. Maybe it’s brows, maybe it’s an eyelash curler, maybe it’s blush. For me, it’s lips. I gravitate toward deep mauve and burgundy reds, which is contrary to my typical tomato-red obsession, but closer to burnt merlot or wine-stained berry. Those purple-leaning tones play really nicely with my olive skin and darker grown-in hair, and they make me feel instantly more put-together, even if the rest of me is in yesterday’s jeans.

3.) Home & Interiors

Personal style spills into the home whether we mean it to or not. You’re likely to guess what someone’s living room looks like from their daily wear. And, in my case, the “three-word rule” shows up at home almost exactly the way it does in my closet: warm interiors, old Spanish and Western influences, minimal but practical furniture, collected eclectic objects, and lots of texture.

It all circles back to my three words — organic, sunny, Americana — with plenty of Spanish and Mexican influences layered in.

I’m a proud woman of the Southwest, and I like my rooms to feel like it.

Other than antique shops or thrift stores, here are some home brands / local shops that sell online:

• Local Nomad

• Olive Ateliers

• General Store

• Schoolhouse

• Woven

• Article

• Revival Rugs

• MA Studio

• Lulu and Georgia

• The Citenzry

• Tribe & True Studio

• Slow Roads

Time, Time, Time

I know a man who bought a brand-new motorcycle and immediately ordered a $25 sticker pack to plaster all over the hubcap. Quite possibly the tackiest thing you could do.

Are we really that afraid of empty space? So uncomfortable with a blank surface that we can’t let it breathe for a while, let it slowly fill with things that actually mean something? Is humanity this impatient that we won’t even let the bike, dare I say, travel to earn its own stickers along the way?

Let the right pieces find you. Wait for the painting you stumble upon at a flea market, the chair that somehow feels like it’s always belonged in your corner. If you rush to “finish” a space, it’ll look and feel exactly like that... rushed.

Textures and Shape and Color

“If an outfit isn’t interesting by color, then it has to be interesting through shape. If it isn’t interesting by shape, then it has to be interesting by texture. And if it’s not interesting by texture… then it has to be interesting by color.”

- A random TikTok soundbite that stuck with me.

I’d argue the same is true for your home, especially when you’re marrying foundational pieces and statements. I’m always tinkering with how shapes, textures, and colors talk to each other in this one space.

Think about combinations like:

• Leather magazine holders, simple wood frames, and an iron candlestick.

• Textiles on the wall paired with metal sculptures.

• Little pops of color in unexpected corners, or a room fully drenched in one hue.

I like to physically hold objects side by side and observe, or create ‘stickers’ from the website’s product pages and place them into the Freeform app. You’d be surprised how two items from the same style category can feel half-baked when placed next to each other, like they cancel each other out. Meanwhile, two “mismatched” pieces with different textures or tones can suddenly click or even feel intentional.

Let your eyes make the call. Let theory stay on the page.

Play with..

• Blues and browns

• Yellows and purples

• Greens and reds

• Oranges and teals

Patina

I recently read an architectural manifesto that argued that patina is essential to a well-designed space; those little signs of use are proof of presence rather than a hotel showroom.

Look around at your hardware and fixtures: are they worn in? Is there a sense of a life already lived there? Does the wood table darken around its edges from years of sweating coffee mugs? Does the copper tea kettle carry faint fingerprints from your nightly tea routine?

Those little signs of use are proof of presence. They make a room feel human.

If you’re in a new space that still feels a little too shiny and untouched, patina is one of the easiest things to invite in through thrift stores, estate sales, and Facebook Marketplace. Look for pre-loved goods that already have patina oils, heft, or soft edges.

One of my most treasured pieces is a 1960s maple butcher block we found on Craigslist a couple of weekends ago, built by a union in Illinois. The seller sanded and oiled her before they delivered it porchside, but you can still see the deepened tones and knife marks etched into the surface from decades of homemade meals. It’s the beating heart of our kitchen now. :)

Thanks for the design & fashion talk. Again, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having a lot of fun learning along the way. :)

Who’s ready for 2026?!

There’s something off about naming the world’s unraveling while still tending the algorithm with our most careful attention. And this surge of internet-celibacy manifestos — buoyed by lively comment sections and published on the very network they critique — feels wildly ironic. But it’s by design. We’re nudged to talk on the internet instead of to each other.

You’ll call a rideshare instead of texting a friend for a lift, renting a stranger’s time so you don’t risk seeming needy.

You’ll own almost nothing: no house, no car, not even a winter coat or couch, because apps like Affirm will float the bill and Nuuly will lend the season.

You’ll live above a chain restaurant on a sun-baked slab of concrete in a downtown metropolis, nibbling protein bowls while reality TV shows off the lives of your neighbors — their mansions, their gated drives, their lives you’ve been trained to treat as out of reach. Because once you’ve been told long enough not to cross that line, you’ll start mistaking the fence for nature itself.

Your days will narrow into critiques of petty laws and broken systems. And with every subscription replacing a tool, every delivery replacing a favor, you’ll be less entangled with people. Nicely tuned, wonderfully efficient, and perfectly optimized — yet so god awfully, unmistakably miserable.

Sound familiar? They’ve got you right where they want you.

But friendship interrupts this drift. It reintroduces the act of asking and offering through a web of reciprocal obligations; the slow, unscalable stuff algorithms can’t monetize.

When Money Replaced People

I came across a YouTube lecture by Professor Jiang Xueqin on the uncomfortable origins of consumerism, a classic buzzword that we often name but rarely study.

Money doesn’t create value; it prices and accumulates it. People create value.

For much of the postwar era, workers stood closer to the center of society than they do now. Through workers’ unions and a lively series of grassroots movements, the mid-century decades became a high-water mark for many working families. Bargaining power grew. Public investment widened access to steady jobs, safer workplaces, and higher wages. Neighborhood schools improved, and college felt within reach for more people, opening paths to better salaries with a measure of security.

But by the late 1970s and into the 1980s, this center of gravity shifted. Stagflation set the stage for deregulation, top-heavy tax cuts, and a corporate creed that emphasized shareholder value above all else. The social contract shifted from worker-centered to money-centered — because life had felt too egalitarian, allowing wealth to rewrite the rules and maintain its concentration.

Thus, the revolt of the 1980s hardens into cheap hairspray and the hot-pink Reagan era as we know it; a turn that allowed the elite to reconsolidate power. It’s easy to look richer and cooler when the person next to you has almost nothing. Comparison sells!

• In 1965, a typical U.S. CEO earned approximately 20x the average worker. Today, that gap is roughly 290x the average worker. (Economic Policy Institute)

  • In other words, CEO pay has soared 1,085% since 1978. :)

We’ve successfully shifted from “worker” to “consumer” under the false façade of ever-cheaper goods and endless options. That slow drift pulls us away from owning and practicing political consciousness — the one habit the system teaches you to skip — and leaves us in a world where healthcare and other public programs slip to the margins.

The interests of the government want to build a routine cozy enough that you and your neighbors don’t bother to change it. Compliance feels comfortable, and the work of reform sounds too tiring when you’re already clocking 50 hours for $15 on the dot. The perfect, cyclic blueprint to shape our desires that serve the system.

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Loneliness as Infrastructure Failure

The same system that turned us into consumers continues to pry us loose from one another. Because, hey, it’s easier to control the mind of 1 than it is 10, let alone thousands.

The last five years of post-pandemic anxieties, whiplash politics, mass atrocities, and a low-grade hostility between neighbors have been — to put it bluntly — really f*cking depressing. We can ping grandma in seconds and stalk old crushes with a tap. Yet even with more social channels than any generation before us, loneliness and social isolation have risen enough to be called a public health crisis. Kids are struggling, too, through thinner emotional coping skills and depleting academic performance. But with bare-bones budgets and too few hands, teachers simply aren’t equipped to have the time or support to pull kids back on track.

• The U.S. Surgeon General calls loneliness and isolation a public-health crisis, linking it to higher mortality (on par with smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day).

• About 1 in 6 U.S. adults say they feel lonely “all or most of the time,” and many more report feeling lonely sometimes, according to the Pew Research Center.

• 40% of high-school students reported “persistent” sadness or hopelessness; 20% seriously considered suicide; nearly 10% attempted. CDC.

Some of this traces to long months of distancing; some to the way we’re conditioned to feel near-radioactive hatred across the picket line.

...maybe having everything at our fingertips feels suspiciously like having nothing.

So... how the hell is society expected to address such compounding emotional debt? This nasty, brute capitalist force of overconsumption, thinned education standards, and an epidemic of loneliness, all alongside the rising price of milk?

If isolation is scientifically viewed as a public-health issue, then showing up is social medicine.

Awe Wants a Witness

I love a good debrief — one of the simplest, most human connectors there is. Those hidden sentences traded after a trip or a party: “Did you see that?” “Was I crazy, or…?” Small, shared observations you can laugh about later. You coin a thought, your friend sharpens it, and you ride the same conversation until the wine is gone at midnight. Then you pick a time, a few weeks out, to do it all over again.

Post-college, I took a solo trip to Zambia with Photographers Without Borders, one of those supposedly transformative trips a twenty-something swears she needs. Part work, part pleasure, paid for with months of saved tips to buy the plane ticket. Once, I witnessed a leopard dragging an antelope into the crook of a tree while a pack of hyenas orbited below, their snouts bloody, waiting like patient undertakers. It was one of the most arresting, ugly-beautiful sights I’ve ever seen — with no one to share it with. The British birders, each shouldering a $10,000 Leica, wanted their quiet, and the honeymooners only wanted each other. No one wanted to talk to the ASU post-grad in a stained button-up, alone with a telephoto and a notebook.

So the memories wash up here, on Substack, looking for witnesses.

I think a lot about how much richer that trip would’ve been with a friend, someone to talk it through with years later. Even if I just made the effort to grab a number from someone else my age at the lodge.

In my twenties, I kept chasing the myth that solo trips were the key to “finding yourself” (whatever that means). Truth is, hotel beds blur together, and the whole performance of taking yourself on dates to city art museums to feel cinematic is, in reality, just you and your own echo.

Wherever you go, the blues will follow.

Try another city, baby, another town.
Wherever I have gone, wherever I’ve been and gone,
the blues come followin’ down.
—Jackson C. Frank

Joy is radical, and friendship is protest.

Fostering true community means being inconvenienced.

I’ve discussed this in other essays, and others have echoed the sentiment. This isn’t new. Being willing to give your time and effort, even when it doesn’t directly serve you, is the human habit that keeps our social fabric intact. And it’s a skill we’ve somehow been trained to overcorrect.

Belonging is often sought in grand places, but it tends to grow quietly in gestures so small they only become noticeable when multiplied. In fact, “being there for someone” takes less energy than you think.

• A “community toolshed” spreadsheet with contacts.

• A rotation of recipe cards to swap with your friends.

• Offer childcare for new parents, even for just 2 hours.

• Say yes to picking up someone from the airport. Bonus points if you don’t complain about it.

• Follow up on texts!!!

I hold a small dream of abundantly sporadic third-place common spaces, like barber’s couches or corner neighborhood gardens. I want to live close enough that a new recipe can be walked over while it’s still warm, instead of cooling in the back seat during a thirty-minute drive. I want land to be affordable — or, better yet, a birthright — so citizens can plant trees and teach their kids the taste of Florida Prince peaches in July. I want packets of strawberry-clover seed handed out like library cards. I want housing that doesn’t force my sixty-year-old mother, newly alone, to do math with food stamps at the register. I want classrooms where my babies and my friends’ children feel safe enough to learn, not just survive an imminent threat.

And in a weird way, I hope Meta’s AI slop becomes so indistinguishable from real life that we all get nauseous at the same time — willing not just to put down the phone, but to turn it off entirely, like a TV or radio, and knock on our neighbors’ doors.

I want us together, able to argue and joke and weep without the hard mask we keep for the world.

The point was never to be invulnerable.

It was to be known.

Resources:

https://cepr.harvard.edu/news/scary-truth-about-how-far-behind-american-kids-have-fallen

https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-kids-struggling-four-years-after-the-pandemic/#:~:text=The%20reports%20paint%20a%20grim%20picture%20of,months%20of%20additional%20school%20to%20catch%20up.

https://www.uchealth.com/en/media-room/articles/the-loneliness-epidemic-escaping-post-pandemic-social-isolation

https://www.epi.org/press/ceo-pay-declined-in-2023-but-they-still-made-290-times-as-much-as-the-typical-worker-ceo-pay-has-soared-1085-since-1978

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

If you’re looking for a way to make friends because you don’t know where to start, this essay by The Shadowed Archive is exquisite.

I joined my dad for his last day of work.

I often talk about my dad. He shows up in essays, in bar stories, in the shorthand my friends and I use when we’re trying to describe someone who’s both kind and wild, who refuses to be anything less than iconic. David is the kind of man who keeps his word like gospel, tough as nails, but soft enough around the edges for his only daughter. He speaks in absolutes, lives for small joys. He sees beauty in old dogs, babies, and broken homes.

Growing up, I hardly saw him. He was my best friend, the man I put on a pedestal, and yet most of my memories blur together between bookmarked summer vacations at Lake Powell and a handful of late-night kitchen table sessions for math homework tutoring. It wasn’t until high school, after my parents got divorced, that I started to really get to know him. That’s when the picture sharpened, when we finally had time together.

The truth is, during the earlier years, he worked himself raw. Some of it was a necessity to afford my Montessori tuition from preschool through junior high. Some of it was just that he was damn good at the work and loved doing it. What he and my mom couldn’t figure out together, he managed to learn with a truck, a desert road, and the ritual of a delivery route.

He knew how to read the desert highways like a poem, how to measure time by the rotation of tires and pit stops. He cultivated friendships with his customers, knowing what the folks on Wildflower Street were waiting for before they even placed their order. He became fluent in routine — the muscle memory of leaping in and out of that brown truck, the rhythm of packages, doorsteps, signatures.

Day in. Day out.

For 38 years.

He never complained. His brute knees would give out every now and then; skin leathered by harsh sun if the long-sleeve shirt were left at home. But it wasn’t suffering, not the kind that asks for help. It was just the body clock ringing, a reminder that all he needed was a good night’s slumber. “I earned my rest tonight,” he’d say. “It’s easy to sleep when you’ve lived a lifetime in twelve hours.”

His route was legendary. Northern Carefree, near the Mirabel resort. A stretch of desert luxury and fine silt, where the worst threats were a pack of wild javelinas or the roadrunner that hopped through the local Basha’s parking lot. For years, he sent me sunset photos, grainy iPhone shots followed by texts: peak outside … look at those clouds !! His intentionally lowercase, Neanderthal-style typing still makes me cackle.

For him, a day wasn’t finished until the sun slipped away.

Only then did the work count.

Only then could he call it done.

In many ways, UPS raised my father as much as it employed him. It was his home away from home, a place he gave himself to without hesitation. He’s not the kind of man who half-asses anything. This deep level of loyalty — to one job, one place — feels near extinct these days. Having earned some stripes in the marketing and tech world myself, as a 30-year-old, I often see colleagues pride themselves on jumping from ship to ship every two years in chase of those bigger paychecks or fancy titles. All of it seems so fragile by design, never promised.

I’ve seen what real commitment looks like. I’ve seen through both time and grit how blue-collar unions show up for their workers. It’s not often that punching a clock hour by hour buys you both a pension and the promise of rest, but UPS did that for him. The Teamsters fought for that. And he’s rightfully earned every inch of comfort in his final days.

On his last day, I met beside him for his final stops on the route. He showed me his favorite gas stations, the rest stops he trusted, and the way the sun kisses the horizon just before a monsoon hits in late summer. I stepped into the truck, felt how the metal sears after sitting too long, yet how the blast of hot air through the cab feels almost like relief when you’re taking sharp turns at five o’clock, hustling to finish those last deliveries. It’s hot, tedious, and a time chase — but it’s good, honest work.

“Time is something you learn in a restaurant business or any physical job, where you work with your hands, standing on your feet for hours every day. You understand that time, time to think, time to reflect, time to ponder the big issues, time to write, that’s a privilege. Time spent sitting down, for that matter is a privilege in this world, where most of us, most people are trying to scrape out a living. I consider it a luxury and a privilege to be able to write and to make a living at it. It’s something that 30 years in the restaurant business made me very aware of how lucky I am.”
–Anthony Bourdain

Staying still won’t come easily for him, I can already tell. I inherited his restlessness, the tirelesss need to keep things moving in organic order. But he’s got an acre lot that will keep his hands busy, like organizing tools or fixing up old cars at sunrise. He’ll meet us for breakfast every Saturday. He’ll watch his granddaughter grow up down the street. And he’s already scheming excuses to volunteer, or to drop in on old customers, as if he can’t quite quit the road.

There’s no clean stop after forty years at full speed. You take a breath, change shoes, and ease the pace. But you keep going. Motion is the marrow.

“I’ll do this and I’ll do that. But in all honesty, I’m just looking forward to eating homegrown apples with the dogs.” - David.

Happy retirement, Dad.

Editor's Note....

It's been about four weeks since I got some news I wouldn't wish on anyone, and the aftermath hasn't been neat or linear. I'm stuck somewhere between sadness, anger, confusion, and guilt, begging for a finger to point me toward how I'm supposed to feel — if I'm supposed to feel anything at all. It's not the kind of news anyone likes to talk about: someone close to you, still alive, but buried so deep in personal matters and systemic oppression that you don't know if they'll ever claw their way out. And as if that wasn't enough, I also got word of two family deaths, one right after the other.

All of this while I was traveling for work, raising a toast to my dad's retirement, and watching my daughter grow up in the middle of the chaos (chaos she'll never have to carry). I'll spare you the details, and I apologize for the blur of vagueness. It's just been a strange, heavy couple of weeks.

I initially began writing this essay for fun — for cutesy, trendy enjoyment. I admittedly love the interpersonal self-help think pieces on Substack just as much as the rest of you. And like all essays I write, they're completed over a span of a prolonged time to fit in between daily responsibilities, edited to filth until I love it enough to hit publish. But this one's been a slow burn, given I haven't felt like myself in weeks. It's like the rug got yanked out from under me, and I was left flat on the porch in the cold, staring at the moon. And it doesn't feel right to dish out advice I can't even take myself.

So I paused. I realized I'm behind on my goal of two essays a month, but ahead on my subscriber count goal (bless every single one of you. Thank you, I love you). So… I kept writing anyway. Because maybe this was the piece I needed most. What follows is a patchwork of microtips — scraps of advice I scribbled down in the first draft, then put to the test after life had its way with me. Some of them worked. Some fell flat, so I rewrote.

Either way, you're getting the rawest version of it, the advice that survived the gut check.

1.) Nothing Else Matters If You Don't Get Good Sleep

It's the boring answer, but it's the truest one, so it comes first.

Forget the fluffy self-help hacks about skincare routines or solo coffee shop dates (though, in fairness, some of those do help). I spent a small fortune on therapy in the early 2020s just for my concoction of psychic analysis to repeatedly tell me that "no medication or long walk, no matter how effective either is, will matter if you don't get enough sleep."

Six hours minimum. Eight hours maximum. Six is what it takes for the human brain to scrape itself back to balance, while eight enforces the discipline of stopping — of keeping the promise that tomorrow matters.

When I don't sleep well, my body tells on me. My muscles go slack and sluggish, my shoulders inch toward my ears, and my neck won't crack the way it should. A fog settles behind my eyes until the tension headache sets in and concentration fades. Once that fight-or-flight switch flips, the anxiety storms in, and the feeling of deep-seated inadequacy takes over. I'm done for.

Not getting enough sleep is one of the deepest conditions of self-disrespect. Some seasons will steal it from you no matter how hard you try, and that's life. But if you're otherwise healthy and still up at midnight, scrolling TikTok like it's some noble act of rebellion... stop. Go to bed. Scroll on your lunch break instead. Drink your water early enough that it won't wake you at 3 a.m. Intentional sleep is like a personal protest in refusing to self-sabotage.

In yoga, savasana is the most critical pose: lying still, palms open, eyes closed, honoring the work you’ve already done just by showing up. Sleep is no different.

Nightly Rituals That Help Me Sleep

• Stretch before bed. Yogic principles remind us that even a five-minute downward dog before crawling under the covers can lead to a more restful slumber. I usually run through a series of floor stretches, my favorites being puppy pose, butterflies, pigeon hip-openers — and my god, does it help. If you need guidance, Yoga with Adriene has plenty of solid bedtime flows.

• No screen time at least 30 minutes beforehand (and if you’re disciplined, aim for an hour). I’m guilty of the late-night meme scroll too, don’t worry. But every time I swap the phone for a book or set a timer on ASMR, I wake up feeling infinitely more refreshed and motivated to take on the day’s to-do list.

• Hot water with a lemon slice. I rarely do tea bags anymore.

• Give yourself permission to stop. Sometimes it’s as straightforward as telling yourself, out loud, that the day’s work is done.

2.) Find Your "Spot"

I’m stealing this idea from Nancy’s June Guide and re-sharing the love. You should subscribe too, she’s fantastic.

Set yourself a goal this week to find that local coffee shop, wine bar, bookstore, or whatever corner of the neighborhood feels like a reset button. Romanticize the alleys of your own street. Order something off the menu like you’re on vacation. Post up once a week for a half-hour read, and go at the same time so the staff starts to know your face. Inject a sense of newness into the everyday grind.

For me, it’s a coffee shop ten minutes east, tucked in a little farm community called Agritopia. Or sometimes it’s the library beside a 110-acre riparian preserve, where pelicans drift past old, blooming cottonwoods. Both spots have walking trails, perfect for a quick reset between emails with a cup of coffee in hand. And when I’m feeling extra bold, I’ll drive 30 minutes into Phoenix for Valentine’s.

A long-winded workday without the baby calls for a chilled glass of red natty as an afternoon pick-me-up; plum-tinted lipstick printed on the sweating glass.

Exercise your free will, dammit! Get out of the house!

3.) Sit in the Sun

There’s nothing complicated about it; the sun feels good. There’s a strange comfort in letting it scorch your face, open your pores, and make you sweat a little — my own stripped-down, primitive form of therapy.

Some days, I drag myself onto the back porch lounge chair and sit there for 5 or 10 long, silent minutes just staring at trees, counting leaves until I lose track. No phone, no soundtrack, no enlightenment epiphany. Just the heat, stillness, and knowing that fundamental grounding can't be bought or taught. It’s right outside the damn door if you’re willing to sit still long enough to feel it.

(My Substack is called The Sunporch after all…)

4.) An Anti-Rot Seasonal Curriculum

Those rare, warm evenings when the house is finally quiet — my daughter asleep and the kitchen wiped clean — are when I have just enough left to give back to myself. My brain is dulled from the day, while my body is settling into its rhythm again. I turn up the sound machine and open Notion for a quiet wind-down.

I started what I call a seasonal curriculum, borrowed from Michelle Duffloc in her acclaimed Substack post. I shifted her “monthly” into “seasonal” because the months blur together for me, thus quarters make more tangible sense in my brain.

For this Fall, particularly, I've begun pulling threads where I can form real-life events that are naturally happening around me. Next week I’ll fly to Montreal for a girls’ trip, so I’ve gathered articles on the city’s history, bookmarked old blogs, and lined up a documentary or two on the Notre Dame Basilica to prepare myself like I would any other school field trip. And after a celebratory last ride with my father after his 38 years as a UPS driver, I've started tracing the history and impact of the Teamsters Union, aiming to give thanks for the employment and financial freedom it's now granting him.

Wielding the mind's resolve has been, and will always be, the cleanest distraction from heartache.

5.) Making Run-On Lists (or Moodboards)

I’m a standard Type-A, while my husband is hilariously Type-B (the best kind of marriage, really). Opposites in how we think and tackle life’s big stuff, yet united in one obsession: lists, spreadsheets, moodboards, scraps of paper, it doesn’t matter. If it can be cataloged, we’ll do it.

Reyce drafts detailed logs of garden harvests under the lofty title Orchard Field Guide. In another sheet, he maps the intricacies of timepieces by cataloguing various watches ranging from affordable eBay finds to luxury field watches that cost more than our car. He even keeps a rating system of our favorite local businesses and the owners' backstories.

I’ve got my own silly archives:

• Goodreads lists, Pinterest boards, naturally.

• A mini spiral notebook stuffed with everything from “authors to read more of” to “lunch ideas for the week” before my next Sprouts run.

• I keep a Notion board full of half-baked content ideas and budgeting priorities.

• And lately, I’ve been eyeing a leather-bound Filofax because they scream allure.

Lists are the purest form of brain-to-paper communication I’ve found that satisfies my insatiable appetite for result-driven work. My head spins with dense ideas I’ll forget if I don’t pin them down.

And during those times where my head or heart feels extra heavy, I like to make lists that remind me of who I am and what I'm good at — because those are often the easiest to forget:

6.) Re-Invent Your Personal Canon

Piggybacking off those obsessive Notion boards and endless lists — another cathartic way to find your way back home is to retrace how you got here. Or better yet, give a cause for such a shift. How did you end up doing the work you do now? What hobbies did you pick up last year, and what pulled you into them? What values still hold, and which ones have quietly shifted under your feet?

Ask yourself three big how questions, and actually sit with them. Hard. Take an hour if that’s all you’ve got; while some answers may sting like salt in an old wound, those are the most vital to tear into.

For example, my love language has completely shifted over the last few years through a series of small but culminating realizations. I wrote about this in my 30th birthday post and again in my Show Me, Don’t Tell Me essay. Words of affirmation, once my Bible, have thinned to bone. Upon reexamination, it was the communal and incremental acts of love like weekly dinners, the way people show up without prompt, the quiet repetition of physical proof — that showed me how tradition permanently outweighs promise.

To get more granular, I wrote down the canon events in my life that fostered this epiphany:

• My then-boyfriend, now husband, drove over 3 hours in the middle of the night to chauffeur my grandfather, who was suffering from early on-set dementia, after he lost his car during an episode near the Arizona–New Mexico border.

• My best friends threw me a surprise college graduation party in the backyard because I had quietly graduated a semester early, told almost nobody, and somehow missed the deadline to “walk” with my class.

• Another best friend from Alaska flew a red-eye to make both my bridal shower and baby shower on two separate occasions, squeezing both into 36 hours around her work schedule, simply because she refused to miss either.

• My dad overworked himself for years to afford my Montessori education and college tuition, never once asking for thanks or using it against me.

• None of my friends asked, “How can we help?” Instead, they simply showed up, dropping off plates of food during the postpartum period, and offered to help watch my daughter on the days when I needed it most.

7. Finding Your Core Values

A comfort creator I return to often is Kenzie Elizabeth. She’s a kind of Martha Stewart crossed with Dolly Parton, who's equal parts sharp in the kitchen, effortless as a host, and adorable with her friends around the table. Her podcast holds the same light-hearted yet carefree dance around serious and fun topics that are great to listen to during a commute or school drop-off. On a recent episode, she circled on the topic of "core values", taking a hard look beyond the typical pillars of family, success, or work ethic. More like a quieter glimpse at our inner truths, prompting us to consider what we'd do in a situation where no one was watching.

If you could accept the consequences without fear, would you... travel endlessly, have six children, live alone, own a bakery, tell off your boss, or right the wrongs?

I recently took the Values Bridge quiz, which gave me words I hadn’t found on my own. It solidified a truth I've always known my whole life; that loyalty is something I passionately cling to: a partner… my work, or simple objects I’ve held for decades because they carry their own history. It also, somewhat embarrassingly, confirmed that aesthetics and beholderment rule my life over rational decision-making; the instinctive need for having things look beautiful and perfectly organized. But the quiz isn't wrong. And instead of leaning away from the hidden truth, I can hone in with my own sense of power and control. It's taught me to better correct my gaps through varied energy channels.

If you don’t yet know your core values, this is as good a moment as any to begin questioning.

I spent my 30th birthday at home in Arizona, waking to my husband’s gentle embrace and a plate of hot breakfast that tasted like quiet gratitude. The day unfurled slow and bright in pure desert heat with nothing urgent on the calendar — a reminder that unhurried hours often blaze louder than the milestone itself. We closed the evening in the yard, our sixteen-month-old daughter chasing the sprinkler spray, mud stippling her tiny toes while we lingered over dinner under a wash of peach-colored sky.

Before dawn the next morning, at 4 a.m., the moon still sharp, I laced up a pair of fresh-leather Tecovas and shouldered my overstuffed Mountain Smith: cameras, film rolls, and light meters. I was Wyoming-bound: headed for five nights on a working horse ranch where the sky promised to be as wide as any question I hadn’t yet dared to ask.

Day 1: Arrival

I didn’t know much about what waited for me, only this: long hours in the saddle under a hard blue sky, and no cell service. I was headed north to Ranchlands, a working cattle outfit that also offers hospitality, pack rides, fishing, a leather shop, ecotourism, and even strategic advisory services spread across several properties in the American West. My assignment was simple enough, to make fresh photographs for their mercantile at the Paintrock Canyon camp, in exchange for a week’s stay and the run of their wild acreage.

It was just me this time. Alone. I haven’t traveled solo like this since college, when the only decision after waking was which mug to pour the coffee into. The prospect felt like striking a clean, bright vein — not because I needed to escape my life, but because I wanted to see it from a new angle. I would have loved for my family to join in the experience, but some routes require a single set of footprints.

On arrival, the air smelled like pine, snowmelt, and wet grass. The quiet had teeth. Cell service dropped to satellite test pings, which made the silence feel both eerie and delicious, forcing the “Do Not Disturb” to a whole new level. Canvas tents peppered a hill above a quick, cold trout creek. A fire was already working, and someone pressed a glass of white wine into my hand while the wranglers offered the kind of hello that makes you believe them when they say you’re welcome.

There’s no beauty quite like the American West.

Day 2: Red Hills

I swung into the saddle on a cinnamon-colored pony named Chavez, following my wrangler, Grace — a do-it-all force of nature. She’s Duke Phillips III’s youngest, recently home from half a decade guiding fly-fishers through Alaskan rain and Argentine creeks. Now she rides fence lines and wrangles guests, pouring that wander-blood back into the family ground she loves. We traded stories: her near-midnight salmon runs, my desert-heat photo shoots; first-dates gone sideways, the alchemy of good stock and cast-iron when you’re cooking for people you care about.

Reins in my left hand, Canon 1V in my right, I let Chavez blaze the trail through knee-high sage while I framed shots of rust-red hills stacked against a sky so clean it hurt. We stopped often, once for a band of pronghorn silhouetted on a ridge, again for the way light spilled through cottonwoods along the creek.

Dinner tasted like redemption after a sun-bleached climb: skillet-seared steak under a pepper-mustard glaze, rosemary fries crisped in cast iron, and greens slick with lemon and creek-cold water. We ate it fireside, wine bottles sweating, the flames painting everyone gold.

Day 3: Red Wall

This day felt like the real heartbeat of the land — a broad, wind-polished sagebrush prairie curling around Paintrock’s flank before spilling out beneath the Red Wall; a sheer ribbon of sandstone shining ruby in the noon light.

Chavez finally trusted me; his ears flicked back to my voice and didn't need much correction on the trails. We rode in a tidy line — Lois up front on good ole Sea Breeze, me next, then Deidra, a fellow guest who’d already graduated from stranger to camp-sister. The horses knew the drill, filing single-track up the slope as if they could read the dirt.

Off the right shoulder: prairie dogs popping like whack-a-moles, horny toads quick as dropped pebbles. Off to the left: a tan cloud where a band of wild horses thundered, the distant dust hanging in the air like a secret.

Back at camp, dinner was its own frontier feast, another nightcap in the glow of lanterns and creek-chilled wine. A fresh crew of ranch hands joined the long table, and we peppered them with basic city-slicker questions: How heavy is a pack saddle? What’s it like pushing cattle up a two-thousand-foot pass? They answered in stories I listened to like a child.

Day 4: Mercantile Photos & Cold Dips

Another morning, another canyon wall. Chavez under me and Grace out front, the two of us threading switchbacks up a nearby hill. The heat came early — high sun, no breeze — so we peeled off the trail sooner than planned and headed for the barn to pick up extra product shots.

Under the loft’s slatted light, we pressed RB Sellers' work shirts until the cotton lay sharp. We draped them over railings, hung them on old tack hooks, and chased the pockets of sun. I shot tons of leather saddle bags, hand-stitched belts, a scatter of brass snaps — every piece got its own moment for the camera.

Work done, I stripped off my sweat-salted silk riding shirt and dove head-first into the creek. Water so cold it felt electric.

Days 5 & 6: Final Ride & Heading Home

Everyone should take a solo trip. Not the postcard-collecting kind where you stay mute and close to the hotel, but the boots-on-ground kind where you must braid your day with strangers, fellow guests. It’s healthy. It’s liberating. Also very intimidating. But it reminds you that connection is a muscle worth flexing.

This project felt lodged somewhere between art and prayer. Since becoming a mom, I don’t take out the map like I used to; a lot of my free time is spent on diaper runs, preschool drop-offs, and my husband’s heavy workweeks. I’ve grown fond of the routine. But every now and then, I need the feeling of my insides turned out. One wild week a year won’t break you; it’ll show you how many of your “busy” excuses just make you more boring.

We spent our final full day riding up Lumen Canyon. It’s the same trail the crew drives two thousand head of cattle each spring. Our guide, Taylor, rode like her bones were welded to the saddle — no surprise once she told us about finishing a 1,000-kilometer Mongolian horse triathlon and being stranded in Argentina’s backcountry during the COVID lockdown... you’ll have to visit and talk with her yourself to get the rest of that saga.

That night, the entire ranch team gathered for a farewell feast crafted by the camp chef, Natalie: fire-kissed chicken, stuffed jalapeños, homemade salsas, desserts that tasted like somebody loved you, and red wine poured as though the bottle had no bottom. Laughter. Stories. A sky rinsed clean of anything but stars.

God, it was perfect.

This month, I turned 30 years old.

The entrance of a new decade. A cathartic slap in the face. A sharp reminder that life isn’t always as heavy as it feels — and the calm certainty that I’m becoming the person I always sensed was waiting.

Lately, I’ve been seeing 333 everywhere — a little too often to feel random. Alarm clocks. Receipts. Bills. Billboards. Even the price of a bag of cucumbers. Three is the number of spiritual growth, self-expression, and creativity. Which is fitting since those happen to be the exact traits I’ve sharpened most over the last ten years.

When I look back at my 20-year-old self, it feels like comparing two entirely different lives. In 2015, I was reactive to drama, constantly craving more more more of worldly pursuits. I was a freshman at ASU, still living with my dad so that I could save up for the next reckless trip abroad. Kids weren’t even a thought. I didn’t know how to cook, and I certainly didn’t know that you’re supposed to turn your pants inside out before tossing them in the dryer; a detail I still forget when I’m rushing out the door.

20-year-old Natalie was ambitious, travel-hungry, a hothead, a dreamer, depressive, fun as hell, and wildly naive. Always kind, but secretly selfish.

30-year-old Natalie is slower now, not in ambition, but in reaction. She’s softer in the right places, sharper in others. She’s more curious, grounded, and less performative. Still stubborn, still passionate. But she’s healing. She’s tending to the wounds that sat open too long. And she’s finally beginning to shape the parts of herself she once left untouched.

Lesson #1

"Words of affirmation" is a fallacy with little weight. And the ego is to blame.

My love languages have shifted enormously over the past decade. I used to swear that words were the only way to reach my heart; that if someone could articulate love beautifully enough, it had to be real. I spoke in wistful, poetic tones — charming and full of promise, but rarely grounded in follow-through. It’s easy to speak charm if you know how to talk, and even easier to fall for it. But, to no surprise, words without action are just empty poetry.

It took a reckoning to learn that.

The year 2018 cracked me open into a quiet undoing. I say this gently, with love for the version of me still learning how to carry her own weight. Twenty-three is a strange, in-between age. What was once crystal clear smears to fog, and you start to see just how little you understand. The consequences of your choices begin to show. The thrill fades. The dust settles. And suddenly, you’re standing in unfamiliar terrain — quieter, colder, and a little more honest, with no idea how to fix it.

That fog gave me distance. And in that distance, I started to see how words, once my currency, were never the whole truth.

Words of affirmation, I came to realize, are the baseline of being human and not a language of devotion. In my early twenties, I was consumed by a deep-seated need for validation from partners, bosses, friends, or family. I wanted praise for simply being myself — because that’s totally enough, right? I’m enough? I craved people raving about how perfect I was, even when I’d done nothing to deserve it. My ego was starving, and I’d eat up whatever scraps someone was willing to toss my way.

These days, I hold my compliments closer. I don’t give them out to win favor, and I don’t speak ill of anyone unless I know the whole truth. Talk only matters when there’s weight behind it; when the unspoken can be trusted to follow.

That’s not to say I’ve let go of faith. I still believe in manifestation, in the power of energetic yearning. But even that only works when it’s absolute — when it’s spoken with conviction, not desperation. You can’t fake luck. You can’t posture your way into alignment. The ego can't will what the heart doesn’t honestly want.

Tell me you miss me — then call to make sure I got home safe after driving alone at night.

Tell me I’m beautiful — but only if you noticed the freckles beneath my concealer.

Tell me I’m doing a good job — but only if I am. Truly. Deeply. Actually.

Otherwise, I don't care to hear the fluff.

Lesson #2

Confidence is built on the promises you keep to yourself.

This one builds on the first. Following through with what you set your mind to might be the hardest type of discipline there is.

Skincare routines, workout plans, new habits... they all sound great in theory, easy enough to pencil into your schedule. But life tends to show up sideways, especially when there’s no room for it, when your brain’s foggy, your calendar’s packed, and your to-do list starts stretching into something unrecognizable. You forget what you set out to do in the first place. And after a while, it doesn’t just feel like a missed workout or a skipped chapter. It starts to feel like a quiet betrayal; a slow erosion of trust between you and yourself. You start to think maybe you’re just not the kind of person who finishes things. Maybe you’re not capable. Maybe it’s not even worth trying.

When I found out I was pregnant, I realized I didn’t know how to cook. And it hit me — I wanted to show up for my family in ways I’d never really been taught. So I made a deal with myself: three dinners a week. Nothing fancy, just something warm and familiar. The first few months were rough — burnt chicken, mushy rice, frantic Googling at dinnertime — but I stuck with it. And little by little, it clicked. Now I’ve got a rotation of ten or fifteen meals I can cook from memory. Not because I had to, but because I kept a quiet promise to myself, and followed through.

Same thing with reading. When I feel stuck in a rut, I reach for the Kindle; even if it’s just one page, even if I’m half-asleep. It’s not about being productive. It’s about presence. One page, one small effort, a little nod to that original promise. And somehow, step by step, I finished an 800-page novel last week. I’m already 20% into the next one.

They say it takes two weeks to build a habit and only two days to break it. So whatever the goal is, big or small, finish it.

Don’t stress if it’s perfect. Just start.

Lesson #3

It’s good to be inconvenienced.

We, as a society, have overcorrected our boundaries.

“Community is everything!” — it sounds nice, but it’s a barren statement if you’ve never actually felt it. I could sit here and tell you that karaoke nights at your local dive bar with friends, hosting a last-minute dinner party, or volunteering at your church might help clear some of the fog you’re stuck in. But you won’t fully believe that until you're at the door, awkward and unsure, and doing the damn thing yourself.

As someone who grew up as an only child, with weeknights spent eating cereal in silence while cartoons hummed in the background, I never had to worry about whether a little sibling had taken their bath or if the trash had been taken out in our college house. I assumed someone else would do it — until trash day came around and, surprise, no one had.

Human altruism is in our bones: the desire to increase another’s well-being without expecting anything in return. Some argue altruism is tangled up with reciprocity: we help because we’re hoping, on some level, it’ll come back around. Maybe. But I also know helping others isn’t something you can define in a textbook. It’s something you learn by watching or through early kinship. I studied it formally, and attended lectures on it at ASU through the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. And still, I had to live it to really get it.

Loneliness runs deeper than we talk about. It stems from a more existential kind of disconnection, not just being physically alone, but feeling separate from others and from the world. Research says 57% of Americans don’t feel safe sharing their true selves with anyone. And while the pandemic threw that into a more apparent reality, the loneliness existed long before. It cuts across income, age, race, and gender. The data is pretty straightforward: we’re all just really f*cking lonely.

So in the silence between you and your neighbor — the kind you could slice like a block of cheddar — bring over a loaf of homemade bread. Or some salsa. Or, god forbid, introduce yourself and give them your number. Offer to mow their lawn if it’s getting long. Ask how their kids are doing. We can’t keep preaching “community” if we’re not willing to step into the role of an actual friend.

Be the one who petsits so your mom can finally take that vacation. Drop off a meal for someone who just had a baby. Help your friend reorganize their closet if they’re spiraling. Do I love waking up early to drive my husband to the airport? Or being the friend with the truck who always gets asked to haul some lumpy couch from Facebook Marketplace? Not particularly. But then again, I don’t love grocery shopping either — and I still do it. Because I should, and because I need to.

We show up for the people we love because, when it’s our turn, they’ll show up too. Or even more plainly: because it’s the right thing to do.

Turning 30 feels beautiful.

I genuinely feel hotter, calmer, wiser, more refined, less reactive. Stronger. Healthier. Aging is a privilege, and I'll take this newness into each rising sun.

My grandma lives in a house on top of the hill. Her windows are webbed with dust and old memories, painted by the early sunrise over the sycamore trees. She lives on an acre that backs up to BLM land outside Vernal Utah, a quaint town where everyone knows everybody's business. The doves sing their morning song while the neighboring cow farms are sprinkled with fresh manure and irrigation to feed them. It's a place that smells fresh, feels quiet, and is the ideal place to live slowly and intentionally with family. The perfect escape from childhood chaos.

Every summer growing up, I spent a whole month with her in that house, not missing my parents once. We'd curl up and eat buttered toast, watching Blazing Saddles as she brought her handheld mirror and skincare routine to the coffee table each morning. Our days were spent band-aiding bruises from the water park, collecting library books, and loading up on Cherry Coke at the matinee together. I'd run into that nearby BLM land and get lost at sunset — no phone, no Facebook. Neither was a thing in middle school; I had grasshoppers to chase. Some days, my cousins, just 2 hours east, would visit for a few nights, and we'd hunt the 4th of July fireworks down the hill and stay up until midnight. This house, in many ways, holds more memories than my own childhood home.

It's the kind of place that people write books about.

When I got old enough to drink coffee, there'd always be a cup waiting for me before I awoke. She'd always tell me that her coffee was the best. "My coffee tastes better than anyone's. You want to know why? I go for the gusto and go with heavy cream instead of milk". Then, if she felt super frisky, she'd dollop a dash of cinnamon at the top. She'd offer me a hot pour in one of her amber-glazed glass mugs because everything tastes better in pretty dishware. Something as simple as her mug choice, the cream alternative, and her confidence gave me the bravery to face another day. Grandmothers are always right and always reassuring.

Before the swath of wholesome Substack articles or TikTok complications told me so, I've always known that the little things matter most. I didn't need self-help articles to remind me; I had her. My grandma was the starting inspiration for this notion since before I could remember, she'd dress me in a sparkling pink dress on a Tuesday, make steak on a Monday, and always answer, "Why not? You're on vacation, babe". She's a woman who's grown into herself as she's gotten older and has the exact emotional security everyone dreams of one day obtaining. She's fun, spunky, and relies on the moments of joy to aid her life's various degrees of grief and loss.

My grandma, like all the classic grandmothers, grew up on friendly neighbors and blue-collar work. She was 1 of 6 children, daughter of her mother, who was 1 of 16. All were raised on cowboy boots, landlines, black-and-white TVs, and farms with outhouses. The American Dream. It's in my blood to love the outdoors and ride a horse, although admittedly, I'm a solid beginner at best.

As I've gotten older — owning a home and having a child — responsibility prohibits me from visiting as often. And if I long to think about it, I get choked up. Tears involuntarily swell with nowhere to go. I long for the time I'll never get back.

It's beautiful to love her this deeply and to miss her tenderly even though she's just a state away.

The desperate attempt to over-romanticize life isn't a habit of the wilfully ignorant; it's a survival skill — a must — a connection and re-grounding.

And, listen. She's right. Coffee genuinely tastes better with heavy cream over milk.

Not half and half.

Not oak milk.

Heavy cream.

Our backyard has, hands down, been our biggest labor of love.

If you haven't read the first part of our home renovation series, do yourself a favor and start there. It'll give you a sense of just how wrecked this place was when we bought it. We scored a killer location: walking distance to the farmers market, downtown spots for good food and better drinks, right next to a lovely school with even lovelier neighbors. Safe, quiet, and full of potential, but the house was a disaster.

Rusted walls, mystery stains, and busted appliances. Not a single square inch was worth saving. So we ripped everything out to gut her to the studs and started from scratch. After a year of elbow grease (only made bearable through several cathartic breakdowns), we made her livable and finally moved in with nothing but a blank canvas ahead.

Next Up Interior: The Kitchen

Two years later, there's still a long list. We're planning to finish the kitchen with a fresh backsplash, new countertops, a custom range hood, and open shelving for our curated collection of handmade ceramics and glassware. After that, we'll swap out the carport door and give the office a facelift with features like front doors, built-ins, and the whole deal. But all that will come when life slows down a bit.

Exterior Stucco, Paint, New Walls, and Gates

Our backyard is a whole different beast. It's taken us twice as long to make something meaningful out there. Before we could even daydream about landscaping, we had to knock out the big-ticket stuff like new gates, a new wall, fresh stucco, and a clean coat of white paint across the entire property line. Not cheap.

So, throughout my pregnancy and first year of parenthood, we funneled every extra dollar outside of bills and savings into getting that exterior looking halfway decent.

Getting the Soil Ready

Reviving dead land isn't a quick weekend project. It's an arduous, full-bodied workout season after season. My husband, bless him, spent the better part of a year breaking through layers of compacted, sickly earth, turning what was essentially dried-out concrete into soil that could actually support our dream of a mini orchard. It took patience, sweat, and a lot of digging, but it's the type of grunt work we'd rather do ourselves than hire out.

When we first bought the property, the southwest corner of the sideyard was particularly overrun with invasive cheese mallow. We had to smother it with cardboard for an entire summer's length to choke it out. We then shoveled in a truckbed of wood chips from a local farm to blanket the surface where we planned to plant. This was to feed the top layer, let the ground breathe again, and give the roots something to grab onto for future harvests.

Regeneration takes time. Truthfully, our yard has lived in that awkward, unfinished middle for the better part of three years. Starting from scratch is ideal when you have a vision, especially if you’re excited about designing something that feels intentional and yours. Though, it's process is more messy than linear and requires more patience than I'm naturally willing to give.

Now that the soil’s finally come back to life with its rich, dark, nutritious bed for newfound ladybugs, we’re focusing on what comes next. We still need a garden shed big enough to hold the tools, the junk, and the overflow currently scattered across our back patio (a whole other beast).

Backyard Shed

We keep bouncing between building our own adobe shed (but honestly, just typing that out loud confirms how wildly overambitious we are), buying a prefab one from a local maker, or even just grabbing this one we found at Lowe’s. And before we purchase, it's a matter of precisely configuring where it'll live. It needs to make sense spatially but also blend in with the overall design we’ve been shaping for the rest of the yard. The dance has formed into a constant tug-of-war between practicality and aesthetics.

Back Patio

The patio will likely be the final piece of the most expensive backyard renovation, so we want to be sure about every detail before fully committing. We’re preparing to replace the awning entirely, but we’ve also realized we’ll probably need to jackhammer the existing concrete slab and install pavers ourselves. We don’t want to rush into something mediocre and regret it, so our plans remain pending.

Entertaining, Hosting, & Furniture

As soon as Arizona's sunshine and good weather spoil me, my mind immediately lusts over hosting karaoke sing-alongs and backyard dinner soirées. As our landscaping slowly took shape, I wanted a place for people to sit and mingle, even if the yard was still in progress. This past year, our friend group has become a regular crew for watch parties and shared meals almost weekly. But until recently, I didn’t have a proper outdoor space where guests could hang out and enjoy a glass of wine by the Mulberry trees.

Fortunately, I partnered with Article and brought beautiful outdoor furniture for our future fire pit area. One day, we’ll finish the space with pea gravel and maybe a gazebo, but for now, it’s already my favorite vignette in the yard. I had some photography projects in the works and was able to exchange a few images for the stunning Rosa collection, which now anchors the space when friends come over.

New Harden Beds + In-Ground Row

I always joke that my husband never buys me flowers; instead, he builds me a thriving garden that feeds our family. And, honestly, that's way sexier. This season, he replaced our old batten wood garden beds with beautiful new ones from Vego Garden and installed a custom in-ground irrigation system by hand.

Now, we’re starting the early stages of what we’re calling our “monsoon garden,” with rows of pumpkins, watermelons, and native beans. I’ve been learning everything from him about which plants grow best together. We’ll see how it goes; check back in the Fall to see if it all comes to life.

Patience, Patience, Patience

Give me a stretch of good soil and a double row of desert marigolds, and you can keep the Italian leather sofas. We live in a plain-spoken 1970s ranch home built for slow mornings, screen-door gossip, and front-yard neighborly chats. Vaulted ceilings and “statement” cabinets weren’t ever on the wish list.

What mattered were tomato vines climbing skyward, room in the backyard to belt Dolly Parton come October, and a dining nook that fits a rowdy board-game crowd with big eight-foot sliders open so chuckles can drift out to the patio. The equity says we chose well, but it’s no multi-million-dollar Frank Lloyd Wright dream. I'm sure that someday we’ll will build that personalized showpiece, but for now, I’m making the most out of our Juniper abode.

Ongoing home projects are the kind of work that keeps the property alive.

A house isn’t finished when it’s flawless; it’s finished when it’s yours.

Butter moms.

BRAT summer.

Cowboy copper.

Coastal grandma.

How many hyper-specific, oddly poetic vibe checks can the internet churn out? Too many to count. And while most of them lack any real meaning, I can't help but find them endearing. One of Gen Z's more redeeming traits — their uncanny ability to pin a universal mood to the most mundane objects and make it feel like a shared language.

Some folks call it brain rot.

I call it writing material.

Tomato girl summer — an interesting fruit to compare to as a lifestyle, but the inner gardener and lifelong lover of the tomato sees the vision perfectly: stained lips, wet hair in a sundress, mornings in the backyard, patio at sunset, gallivanting cobblestone streets, early mornings at the market. You get the point.

I don't care to write about erotic pop culture or trends; other authors on Substack do a much better job. I only find this silly little topic interesting because, for whatever reason, it speaks to something in me that feels real. However stupid that may sound.

I laugh saying this out loud, but I've got to give myself credit for loving tomatoes before they became aesthetic or TikTok told me to dress like one. My best friend once gave me a perfectly red Babaa sweater for Christmas, which is tomato red, unmistakably. Another friend gifted me a ceramic tomato plate that I now eat off of like it's fine china. Not because I'm trying to be a walking fruit-themed Pinterest board, but because tomatoes have always been there as small totems; they always meant something to me.

They're almost an emblem. My origin story.

I talk about my dad's San Marzanos like royalty. I wrote an entire piece on how to grow tomatoes in the desert, and the smell of a tomato plant — just the stem, crushed between your fingers — brings me straight back to my grandma's kitchen, where the patio sunroom was always warm, the air always thick, and the sauce always simmering.

The tomato is sexy, tart, and untamed. She goes with everything: dressed in vinegar, stewed into sauce, dried, salted, mashed. The ultimate shapeshifter. She's the "it" girl of the produce aisle because we love her quick shapeshifts. She shows up differently for all of us. Let her have her summer! She earned it!

Tomato Summer Hot House

At the base of South Mountain in Phoenix sits the Arizona Worm Farm's Tomato Hot House, a gardener's dream: hanging tomato vines of every kind, banana trees, thick humid air, and a permaculture system that turns garbage into gold. Literally. Compost fuels the soil, and the earth pays it back in fruit.

The greenhouse runs on ground heat and rooftop solar. Perforated pipes six feet deep pull air from above, cool it underground, then release it into the space. By night, the warmth stored in the soil radiates back up, keeping the place 15 degrees warmer than outside, crucial during Arizona's surprisingly cold winters.

Tomatoes grow upright here. Vertical roots mean healthier plants, and more vigorous plants make better fruit.

Sometimes, I stop by for no reason other than quiet. I'll slip in, close the screen door behind me, and sit for a few minutes in the heat and green. It's a good pause before the subsequent screen on a weekday.

Dressing the Part

I’ve talked about red before. She’s one of my favorite colors, though I give her credit by saying that out loud. These days, she’s been hijacked by you-know-who politics and inconsistent design. But when it hits, it really hits.

Don’t come to me for trends, I don’t chase them fast enough (and they don’t wait for me). But I’ll ride the tomato wave ‘til I’m leathery and sun-baked from my home state's warmth. Arizona’s already clocking triple digits, which means I live in linen, stripes, and crimson lipstick.

If you're like me and love a food listicle, here are some ideas to get the juices flowing:

Outfits

• Tight tube tops and mid-length skirts

• Wrap linen dresses

• Spaghetti strap sundresses (best post-shower)

• This sexy Miaou number for cocktail hour

• Halter tops

• A silk bandana twisted into a hair tie

• Nisolo huaraches! I've worn mine for six years, and it's still as good as new.

Products

• Naps In the Garden candle by a local Tucson maker, Art Over Order. We're also huge fans of the Subterranean Library candle.

• Seedlings from Native Seed Search (your garden will thank you!)

• Anything from Wonder Valley, especially the Hinoki body oil, smells like a luxury swim-up bar in Greece.

• Mineral sunscreen: your moisturizer, your armor!

• This tinned fish lemon squeezer might be my favorite thing to own.

Recipes

• Guacamole isn't as good without a cherry tomato, okay? Douse it with fresh garlic, lime juice, and cracked sea salt!

• I follow this recipe for a delicious Italian red sauce. San Marzanos for that one.

• Impress your dinner party guests with a potbellied heirloom tomato and burrata salad.

• This 10-minute marinated tomato recipe is perfect as a summer side dish.

• I've GOT to try this tomato basil butter beans! Dips nicely with some local Noble bread, I bet.

• Pairing your lunch with this Tuscan Giardino garden cocktail is a must.

Garden

• Because I owe so much of my love for simple foods to gardening, I wanted to tell all my subscribers how much I adore Carmen in the Garden. She's been a joy to follow these last couple of years and is rich in the cozy, fulfilled, talented sort of way. Plus, she makes her family-owned natural wine, My Fruit Trees, which I need to order ASAP!!! Follow her, she's just wonderful.

Back then, I was already taking plenty of pictures of my own life, though my subjects were different; I didn’t drink or smoke the way he did in his heyday. But something kept nagging at me: why didn’t my photos look like his? His prints were gritty yet clear, dreamy yet real. Meanwhile, my shots never quite sparked that same raw feeling I was chasing. I was young and hungry, wondering if my kids would ever flip through my albums with the same wide-eyed novelty I felt looking at his.

At the start of my photography career, I had a Canon 5D Mark IV. It was the emblem of my hard work paid for with tip money from second-shooting weddings and waitressing at Postino. Paired with a 35mm f/1.4 lens, it was the digital setup of the time. I took that rig everywhere, from Japan and India to the deserts of Africa and the beaches of France.

But there was something about my dad’s offhand snaps that felt more alive than the images I was making in the here and now. The reason was obvious: film. He shot with a simple Nikon point-and-shoot on classic Kodak stock; settings were never his focus, just the moment itself. How it felt. Suddenly, it clicked for me: analog photography — with its intentionality, process, and effortless design — was the missing piece.

Within a month of finding that shoebox, I ditched my digital camera and committed to analog. When I decide to do something, I’m all in. I stuck with the Canon ecosystem and bought a Rebel 2000 off eBay to still use my EOS lenses. I even wrote an essay about the whole experience for FieldMag, which gained popularity in 2018. I traded high specs for imperfection: soft edges, creamy tones, and that difficult-to-replicate feel.

Since making that switch, my photography transformed.

Fast-forward to about a year ago, I had a baby. Naturally, my camera took a backseat with the emotional and physical demands of growing a family. Then, somewhere between milk feeds and bathroom-floor existential moments, I felt this pull to start creating again.

So, I picked the film camera back up.

Thanks to time, experience, and some forced reflection, I took a brutally honest look at my portfolio and asked myself a few hard questions. Something had felt off for a while. It wasn’t that my photos weren’t good or technically on point, I was still landing cool brand gigs and doing fulfilling work at Moment. But on a personal level, something was missing. After ten years of playing behind the lens, I knew I needed honest, critical feedback on my work if I wanted to truly level up.

To figure out what was lacking, I started searching for patterns in my approach to photography. I realized I’d stopped giving myself self-assigned projects, the kind of playful experimentation that used to come so naturally. In the early days of Instagram, when photographers would meet up at the river or roam the neighborhood for Free People-style shoots, that sense of community and creativity was so energizing — organic. But that muscle atrophies quickly if you don’t use it.

I wasn’t shooting just for the fun of it anymore. I was waiting for the universe to hand me a prompt. And I wasn’t telling the stories that mattered most to me. Yes, having a kid changes your priorities, but it dawned on me that I couldn’t keep using “being busy” or “running a business” as an excuse.

The truth is, my work wasn’t getting boring because I didn’t have time to take a good photo. It was getting boring because I stopped caring enough to make an interesting one in the first place.

Film Got Too Easy

Ever since I dug up that old shoebox and rode Kodak’s comeback, I’ve been a film-only shooter for nearly seven years. Portra 400 became my skin-tone cheat code, and the Mamiya 645 and Contax T3 masked any technical slips with their dreamy, foolproof look.

The gear started to define me, and I stopped pushing for stronger images or deeper stories because effects like grain, soft focus, and sloppy framing all felt “artsy,” so I let craft slide.

Now everybody’s shooting film, and I love that. Slowing down, composing carefully, rationing 36 frames. Analog teaches you so much about careful composition and volition. But if you’re a seasoned photographer choosing film mainly because it’s the easiest way to “nail the look” or hide weak shots — take it from me, it’s holding your work back.

Quick point-and-shoot shots make nice keepsakes, but they’re no longer the look I'm chasing as a creator. As my skills grow, so do my standards, yet too often this past year, I grabbed an easy 35mm compact instead of hauling a more serious kit. I lost out on great frames by choosing convenience over creativity. If I’d taken the time to set up a shot with the Fujifilm GFX or even dusted off my 100-year-old Rolleiflex instead of defaulting to the Contax T3, I might’ve walked away with something truly portfolio-worthy.

Then again, maybe not. Who knows. Gear doesn’t matter... until it suddenly does.

This Year, I’m Shooting More Digital

A couple years back, I splurged on a Fujifilm GFX 50S II (couldn’t pass up the sweet Moment employee discount) but I was so deep in my film-only phase that the thing just sat in a drawer gathering dust.

Fast-forward to this year: I felt the itch for “bigger and better,” parked most of my film cameras and dove head-first into medium-format digital. Everything, once again, changed.

Medium format has always been my sweet spot; I was once obsessed with my Mamiya 645 AFD until it died, so returning to those roots only felt right. The GFX’s oversized sensor gives you that dreamy depth with modern sharpness. Settings react differently, focal lengths feel longer, and editing those fat RAW files is pure joy. It’s a pricey buy, but its slow, deliberate feel of the body forces me to shoot with an intention similar to analog.

For months now, it’s been all-digital, all-GFX. I don’t miss my film bodies or Canon DSLRs; I think the extra-large high-resolution sensor spoiled me. My images feel alive again: Americana vibes, rich color, editorial-like. Swapping means was the hit of inspiration I needed — even if film could’ve done it — the gear switch flipped the spark.

My Honest Take on Film Right Now...

Does seeing those trendy #35mm quick shots flooding Gen Z’s Insta feeds bug me, even just a little? Kind of. Save your cash! You don’t need that much film! That stuff doesn't grow on trees!

Then I remember we’re living in an age of AI quick-mixes, where recycled art gets microwaved into half-baked mock-ups and lobbed onto Facebook in under thirty seconds. Attention spans have shrunk, essay writing feels archaic, and critical thinking is on life support. In that context, the simple act of making something tangible, of slowing down and creating, becomes an act of resistance. Art is the revolution.

So, actually… I take it back. Please keep shooting your point-and-shoot 35mm. Better yet, forget the gear debate entirely and just make stuff. Use your hands! Experiment, mess up, try again tomorrow. Keep going. Just do.

Is this my goodbye letter to film photography?

Absolutely not.

Film is in my blood at this point. I’ll shoot Kodak as long as I can lift a camera; I’m already hunting for a sweet deal on another medium-format Mamiya or Pentax before summer travels.

But honest reflection and a little self-critique are how I’ll grow in my 30s. I don’t want gear to carry my vision; I want skill, effort, storytelling, and heart to do the heavy lifting.

After 12 years of shooting for fun and for hire, I used to fear criticism, telling myself the work was just good enough. Truth is, if you want to level up in something you love, you’ve got to call your own bluff and fill the gaps you know are there.

"The truth is, I'm really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don't usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I'm inspired by the greats." - My boy, Timothee.

Women don't want flowers; we want to be described.

Andrew Garfield once said Emma Stone was like drinking a hot espresso shot in the sun. I can feel her jolt of vitality with just a single sentence.

Don’t call my hair blonde; show me how it flares under noon light or how the baby hairs slip free by 3:00. Compare my smile lines to canyon roads carved out on childhood camping trips. Listen for the moment my voice lowers when I call your name.

Last year, at a paint-and-sip party, couples were assigned to draw each other. I tried capturing the curl of my husband’s hair and his tasteful mustache. The final piece was awful — no sense of scale, definitely not anatomically correct — but cute in its own way.

He took it further: painted a sunflower with bright little petals against a perfect blue sky, the kind of art a third-grader might pin on the fridge. “When I think of you,” he said later when it was just us two, “I think of something wild and bright.” My knees buckled. A year later, I still see that sunflower, a reminder of our 13 years together. Steady, constant, and in full bloom.

The Symbiotic Marriage of Photography & Writing

Photography and writing go hand in hand. Good writing is detailed yet articulate, laced with a tempo that tells a story. A good photograph is a pulse in time that captures how a moment truly felt. Both rely on the visual power of interpretation—showing, not telling.

Take Lisa Sorgini’s work, for instance. She’s one of my favorite photographers right now. Focus on a baby’s hand holding spilled milk, and you get a glimpse into parenthood, right down to the sticky floors that follow. Zoom in, and the setting disappears: it could be a restaurant, the dining room, or the kids’ table at a party. That open door of interpretation makes it an intriguing photo, while the simple subject of a baby’s hand on a half-empty glass stays refreshingly uncomplicated.

This level of mystery is why I prefer to shoot with a telephoto lens: it reveals only part of the story, a tease that sparks an appetite. Nothing baits like a good tease, luring you to the brink before the moment slips away.

Prose works in parallel. Strong writing takes the reader on a journey of rhythmic phrasing, each vowel and consonant a bump or dip in the sentence’s path. It’s about how the words settle in your ear while painting a clear picture. The reader’s grasp should be universal, even as each writer’s style remains distinct. Ultimately, it’s the harmony of meaning and sound that brings it all together.

Deep Observation

Joy Sullivan is the master of poetry and offbeat one-liners, the blueprint of modern ballads. She hosts online writers’ workshops and non-pompous masterclasses for digging deep into everyone’s psyche; check out her Substack here. In her poem (pictured below), she boldly spins two nuanced topics — fertility and motherhood — around something as ordinary as an almond snack.

“Tension gives your work energy and muscle. Refuse to let your poems be placid. Don’t be afraid to make waves.” - Joy Sullivan

My own creativity hinges on the same kind of keen observation. As both a photographer and editorial narrator, I can’t write anything but non-fiction (hats off to those who do) because I thrive on replaying real moments until I’ve wrung them out. My lust for nostalgia makes it easy to recount the details of years past.

• The cabinet handle isn’t just copper, it’s patinaed by a thousand sweaty palms.

• Your skin isn’t dry, it’s cracked like desert canyons and salted with age.

• The old dog isn’t tired, he’s winded from collecting used socks.

This energy fuels storytelling. Try describing the same object in three to five different ways, each with its own theme or style — comedic once, dramatic another, and brazen the next. Push past the obvious.

Go deep, then deeper.

Starting Is the Hardest Part

I put my heart on the line every day by posting to the internet. Long-form essays on Substack feel spine-breaking to some (or downright cringeworthy), and sharing a new photo on Instagram from a week-old project still makes my stomach churn. Offering a piece of yourself only to be met with indifference can be one of the bleakest parts of creating. Do it anyway.

The most overused sayings are often the truest. It’s obvious, no duh, but repeat this until it sticks: share now, edit later.

Celin’s essay on How to Begin is a near-perfect digest of writing more gripping prose. It covers the basics, like how opening with stark contrasts hooks attention, yet insists you just f*cking start no matter the subject. As John Steinbeck also aid, “abandon the idea that you’re ever going to finish.” Forget the 400 pages you planned; write one page a day and see where it leads. You can’t refine what doesn’t exist yet.

Much of my own essay writing is 80 percent brain vomit; editing for clarity and grammar comes last. Get your ideas down; the messier, the better, and let the typos simmer. Give yourself permission to think with enthusiasm instead of perfection. Write the disturbing and the weird because no one sees your first draft. That chaotic, unguarded moment is liberating. Be specific. Let your first attempt sprawl into chaos.

Sense-making comes later.

We named her Reyna (a family name meaning “queen” in Spanish), Marigold (the bright yellow bloom, known as the best companion plant in the garden), Carrasco (our last name, also a rare oak tree in Spain, where we plan to visit next year to see it for ourselves).

She’s perfect, she’s magic. Precisely what everyone claims a baby is: the purest love you’ll ever feel.

A Love Letter to My Girl

Is there a single word that captures the transformation into motherhood? Metamorphosis, expansion, rewiring, transition? The truth, boring as it sounds, it's all of them. 1,000 tiny moments married into an ever-defining continuum.

But if I were forced to narrow it down, I'd say it's been an expansion of self and a reminder that an incredible version of me was always waiting just beneath the surface, even back in my early twenties when I was lost in manic depression.

When I look at my daughter, my eyes swell. It’s a gift to love something as radiant as my Reyna. She’s curious, fearless about voicing what she wants, and happily greets strangers at the coffee shop. She adores grass, sunshine, and the ladybugs in our yard. She moves about the space with purpose. And when she’s tired, she rests her head on your shoulder, eyes drifting shut, always the best sport for whatever new adventure Mom and Dad take her on.

I wrote an essay on why being a girl’s mom is everything, and a year later, I stand by every word. Raising a confident, strong, courageous daughter has quickly become one of my life’s most meaningful purposes.

She’s proof that manifestation is real. Long before she arrived, I pictured a fearless, spunky, nature-loving child who’d trot around in overalls and gnaw on whole apples — maybe not down to the last detail, but close. Son or daughter, I wanted a mini Carrasco who carries their mother’s tenacity and their father’s wisdom, someone who meets their community with kindness and openness instead of seeing life as a transaction. Someone who gives more than they take and loves wholeheartedly and unconditionally.

I’ve Earned My Sleep

The exhaustion of motherhood isn’t about surviving a single, grueling day. It’s about knowing that when you’ve pushed yourself to the edge, you’ll still have to get up tomorrow and do it all over again — no breaks, no days off. It’s thankless, relentless, all-encompassing work that demands every ounce of your heart and mind. You can’t pick and choose when to show up, and there’s no schedule specifying lunch breaks or set hours. If your child has a bad day, you have a bad day. Their thoughts, fears, hunger, and pain are your own, stacked on top of the emotions you already carry as a normal adult.

A typical weekday looks like this: I rise with the sun at 5:30 a.m. It’s the only time I have to deep-clean our home before the day’s chaos begins — scrubbing counters and dishes, fluffing the couch, disinfecting bathrooms, vacuuming, maybe mopping, plus tackling the first of many laundry loads. Then I light a candle, make coffee, prep breakfast, and brace for the juggle: computer work, keeping my daughter occupied on the mat, swapping my attention between her and my job. I catch myself staring at the clock, waiting for a moment of calm that rarely comes.

Between diaper changes, toy cleanup, meal prep, sanitizing, feeding, wiping down her face, and heating the bath, I estimate I spend around 3 hours a day on dedicated feeding and cleaning alone. Multiply that by 7 days, and then again by 52 weeks, and you’re staring at a jaw-dropping figure — one that doesn’t even include the time spent caring for her while also working the typical 40-hour week. So, if you calculate the whole 11-hour wake window on the days, I have her full-time, suddenly, childcare hours soar into the thousands each year, not even counting weekends or casual playtime.

Yet somehow, we’re conditioned not to talk about this invisible labor. Our society slaps zero value on care work, even though tending to a child is not just essential; it’s an act of affection. I do it willingly — and I'd do more without complaint — because I love my daughter and want her to thrive in a healthy, safe environment. Still, I share these numbers because when a parent says they’re tired, they need you to believe them.

I was talking to a friend the other week about this very thing. Around a crackling backyard fire, she asked, “What’s your biggest lesson learned from being a mom?” and I answered, “I’ve earned my sleep.” I don’t count hours because I have something to prove; I count them because sometimes it feels like the only tangible evidence of the work I pour into my child’s life.

Being tired from doing something you've set out to do is a privilege I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I Used To Be Spontaneous & Fun & Cool & Sexy

But guess what? I STILL AM!

Honestly, being nearly 30 as her mom is the hottest and most fabulous I’ve ever felt.

“Do you actually feel like yourself, though? Like, isn’t your life over?” — an actual question I got from a random acquaintance when my daughter was just four months old, among others. How, as a society, have we allowed each other to convince young women to be so sterile toward new moms? Especially at a time when we crave community and understanding the most.

Learning to be a mother in the age of the internet — where people disparage women who love their families and enjoy cooking (as if these things somehow belong exclusively to the conservative right, neither of which I subscribe to) is bewitching. It’s always the non-moms dumping on the moms, the men dumping on the women, and both sides of the pendulum pointing fingers without accountability.

I grew up an only child with a relatively distant relationship with my mother until recently. She’s a wonderful grandma, and we’ve begun mending our once-shared generational trauma into lessons learned (a continual work in progress). Thus, my inherent relationship with motherhood could easily have been poisoned by these nihilistic tendencies surface-level white feminists peddle online. But, guess what? The human experience is multifaceted, internet feeds aren’t reality, and people will throw weird comments at you no matter who you are or where you go.

Truth is: the support and love from our family and friends this last year have been immeasurable. I get teary-eyed just thinking about how tight-knit our group has become. We’re out in the parks for long walks together, spending evenings cooking dinner and showing up at each other’s volunteer events. I’ve never felt more supported, loved, and heard in my life — and not a day passes where I’m not keenly aware of how good I have it.

If you’re one of those besties reading this, know I couldn’t have navigated this past year without you, and I don’t say that enough.

My Favorite Part About Mothering

It’s no longer about me, and my god, that’s liberating. I’m no longer the main event in my own story, which means I can redirect my energy toward loving her, my husband, and our home. To something bigger than myself.

Also, let’s talk about my arms for a second: mom-strength is real. Women carry societies — physically, emotionally, and socially — on our backs. Literally. There’s a YouTube compilation I bookmarked recently that shows exactly how:

But honestly, the best part is knowing she’s half of the most remarkable man I’ve ever known. Her dad is her hero. He’s my hero! I’ve never been more head-over-heels for Reyce than I have this past year, watching him be so fiercely protective and loving toward both of us. That’s a whole separate essay in itself.

Love you, Reyna! Happy birthday, silly girl!

I'll be 30 this year.

It feels like I'm stepping into a new definition of a life well lived—something a little more sophisticated and high-brow, yet somehow more free. Less performance, more indulgence. As I approach a new decade, I've been reflecting on my recent social outings with friends and feeling incredibly lucky to have people who not only say ‘yes’ but also show up ready to do something new beyond the usual bar hop (which I love, don't get me wrong!).

There's a lot of life to live, and in this busy season, I'm often juggling caring for my kid, working full-time, and squeezing in a little self-care hour. But I've realized it's equally, if not more, important to prioritize my village — no matter how tired I feel. Activities and ‘fun’ have never felt more paramount now that I'm older (ish!) and facing bigger responsibilities, bills, and serious adult decisions.

As a result of recent escapades with pals — here's a curated list to inspire your next hang.

Love y'all!

Pick a Hike 2+ Hours Away

Local hikes are great, but the real adventure comes from setting an early alarm, grabbing a solid cup of coffee, and hitting the road. Explore corners of your home state you haven't seen yet, and reward yourself afterward with a nearby winery. Last weekend, we drove to Sonoita and ended the day with a glass of Pinot Noir to wash away the dust. Perfect.

Library Cultural Passes

THIS!!! Make use of your local library! Mine offers a variety of ‘cultural passes’ that grant free general admission for at least two people at participating attractions. Here in Arizona, that includes:

• Art museums

• Local zoos

• Botanical gardens

• Historical sites

• Farm tours

• …and so much more!

Try a New Restaurant

I mean, duh—who doesn't love discovering new food spots? My favorite local Substack for Phoenix-area dining is from my friend Lauren at Fête PHX; she's an incredible resource. My old high school tennis partner, Emilia (@emiliametidieri), is rocking the IG foodie game, constantly inspiring the next date-night destination.

Here are a few PHX favorites you need to try (if you haven't already):

• Valentine: A+ coffee and a perfect place to work remotely. (I'll slip away on Thursdays while my mom watches Reyna. I can easily stay here six hours in full laptop mode.)

• Pa'La: My ultimate date-night pick! Think wood-fired dishes, oysters, a jazz bar, quality cocktails…basically heaven.

• Liberty Market & Gilbert Farmers Market: Our family's Saturday ritual. Best breakfast in town!

Picnic at a Local Park

We need more ‘Third Places,’ and parks are perfect for that—great for gatherings or hosting a casual party. Pack up your favorite canned drinks and snacks, and soak in that winter sun (or bookmark the idea for warmer weather if you're somewhere chilly). Arizona's crisp 65-degree days with a hint of sunshine feel just right.

Puzzling

I don't puzzle enough, personally, but I love the idea of friends swapping puzzles, hanging out at home, binging a fun TV show, and sipping on a good drink. It's a cozy way to spend time together without breaking the bank.

Activity Spots

Local activity joints are always a crowd-pleaser. You can't go wrong with:

• Escape rooms

• Go-karting

• Petting zoos

• Arcades

• Mini-golf

• Movie theaters

• Bowling

• Laser tag

• Axe or rage rooms (I've been dying to try one!)

Watch Parties

For the past couple of months, my friends and I have been picking a TV series and getting together weekly to watch the latest episode. We started with From, moved on to Silo, and once we're caught up, we're watching the final episodes of Severance together. We usually make dinner, play a board game beforehand, and settle for some collective couch time.

Spa Days

I hear facials are way more hydrating when you bring a friend! Okay, maybe not scientifically, but it feels more fun—so book that massage, facial, or mani-pedi with your besties. You've earned it.

Rent a Stage

I'm considering hosting a friend's talent show for my birthday this year. Everyone would have to devise an act—monologues, singing, hacky sack tricks, you name it. That got me thinking about other possibilities, like:

• Recycled Fashion Show

• Spelling Bees

• Musical Theater Performances

• Slam Poetry

Pool Days, Lake Days, River Days

Find a body of water, toss on your shorts, and soak up the sunshine with a sparkling beverage in hand. I'm lucky to do this year-round in Arizona, but I swear all your worries fade when that sun hits your face.

PowerPoint Nights

You can save these for a birthday or host one randomly. Themes can range from heartfelt (‘Reasons why I love you,’ ‘Best memories we've shared") to totally rogue (‘7 reasons why birds are terrifying,’ ‘My friends' scandals if they were famous’).

Group Classes

You're never too old to learn something new! Bonus: bringing a friend keeps you motivated and makes it way more fun. Ideas include:

• Ceramic classes (Pip + Clay in PHX looks excellent; it's still on my to-do list!)

• Belly dancing (I tried it in college with friends — very humbling)

• Cooking classes

• Spin, yoga, meditation, Pilates, sound baths

• Paint + Wine events

• Archery

• Jewelry making

Field Day

We did this for a friend’s birthday, SO FUN! Gather at a local park, bring fun drinks, and recreate your favorite childhood activities: dodgeball, egg tosses, hackeysack, and kickball.

House Renovations or Gardening

If you need help around the house, bribe friends with cold beer and hot pizza. It's a great weekend plan — everyone hangs out, you get stuff done, and it's a win-win.

Karaoke Nights

Need I say more? Bonus points if it's outdoors by a fire with a projector screen.

Dinner Parties

Set up a long table outside, have everyone bring a dish, and serve your favorite drinks in cute glassware or decanters. It's the perfect way to combine good food and great friends.

Themed Dinners or Parties

Everything is more fun with a theme, even if it's simple. Some ideas I'm dying to try:

• '80s Prom Night Dance Party

• Tapas + Wine Backyard Soirée

• DIY Pizza Making

• Sleepover Brunch

• Trashy Jersey Shore Bar Hopping

• BBQ Potluck

• Mamma Mia!

• Bread Bowls and Movies

Murder Mysteries

Get your most organized friend to plan and host (it does take work and pre-planning). Once you do one, you'll be hooked. Our group has been doing them for over six years—perfect for October or really any time you need a little drama.

Cook Together

I recently saw a sweet IG reel where, instead of a traditional baby shower, friends gathered in the kitchen to prep freezer meals for those first six postpartum weeks. Genius! But you can extend the same idea to any occasion:

• Pasta making

• Sourdough bread

• At-home wine tasting on the patio

• BYOT (Bring Your Own Tapas)

• Ice cream sundae bar (we did a banana split bar while watching Severance—incredible)

• Pierogies

• Tamales

Craft Nights

Our friend group loves getting together for drinks, snacks, and crafts. Lately, we've been junk journaling, scrapbooking recent trips, or pooling supplies for homemade party décor.

10K / Half-Marathon / Marathon

Train with someone for that extra push! I'm not a big fan of running, but there's something about the energy of a race—especially with a friend by your side. Many 10Ks are walk-friendly, so there's no pressure to sprint if you're not feeling it!

Book / Movie / TV Show Club

Pick something you love and find people who want to nerd out over it. Bonus points if you match your snacks or meals to the theme!

Volunteer

Admittedly, I don't do this enough, but bringing a friend makes the accountability easier and more fun. In Arizona, the State Parks and trails often need volunteers; since I use them all the time, it feels good to give back.

WFH Party

Not everything has to be about drinks and games. If you have work to do, the odds are that your friends do, too. Host a casual co-working session at home or meet at a coffee shop. Pop on headphones, power through emails, and enjoy each other's company without sacrificing productivity!

Any more ideas?! I'm all ears!

All three can feel combative yet somehow align.

This restlessness seeps into my writing, too: What the hell kind of writer am I?

That question looms larger now that I'm on Substack — a platform where introverted poets and finance bros coexist. Both are harmless enough and, in their own way, intriguing. When I've had my fill of cutesy chicken soup recipes or local thrift-store guides, I turn to a New Yorker essay on seed cataloging or a photo story by some trailblazer on Wild Sam. And if all that fails to spark joy or ideas, I'll lace up my sneakers, tune in to NPR, or scroll through the latest climate piece to remind myself there's still work to do before I get too comfortable.

Here's the thing: I crave it all. I need a little brain-rot entertainment, but I also want to stay informed. The paths to both may diverge, yet I rely on a weekly mix to keep me sane.

Balance is everyone's favorite buzzword in wellness circles, and it's hardly a revolutionary idea. But the deeper I get into my writerly headspace, the more I'm convinced that maintaining that balance isn't just a passing goal; it's a daily practice I'm still trying to get right.

... both in consumption and creation.

As a Creator

When I sat down to rebrand my website, I made a list of 2025 goals for both my work with Moment and my personal creative ambitions. I began with the pillars of my "identity capital," then split everything into two lists: who I am and where I want to be. Unsurprisingly, those lists echoed each other yet still covered an all-encompassing spectrum.

Right now, I'm the Head Editor for the Moment Journal. Like any online publication, we're inevitably forced to play the game no matter how fresh or edgy we think we are. We're always sticking to our core principles, but we also need to be discoverable: SEO keywords, backlinks, alt-text, ad spend — the whole nine yards. Because, on the surface, published words only count if people see them.

The Moment Journal is a wealth of inspiration and education. Still, on the web, there's always that uncomfortable dance between giving readers something uplifting and nudging them toward the next click. It's a delicate symmetry between what the heart wants to create and what the algorithm demands.

For example, I work directly with creators who get hands-on time with camera gear and then write about their experiences. Sure, we list the tech specs, but we also include personal anecdotes, real photo or video samples, and casual language — like you’re talking to a friend. Our publication is tied to an online marketplace that sells the same gear, which means we’re for-profit. But that URL connection also keeps our Editorial tab 100% ad-free, letting writers exercise full creative agency and dig into more intimate topics like photo essays or project interviews.

I’m proud of how far we’ve come and believe in what we’re building. At its core, our brand is really just 25 people who think doing rad projects with like-minded folks is the best way to live. Of course, we’d love a healthy profit — money keeps the lights on — but our true North Star is closing the gap in the creator middle class by nurturing a creative space that's accessible to every level of artist. We do this through curated camera gear, digital goods, gear education, excellent customer service, and top-notch articles that readers actually want.

Sometimes, I feel like Andie Anderson — the rom-com blonde who’d rather cover local Oak Flat protests than list the seven best Kodak film stocks. But who’s to say what’s not important? I’ve written my fair share of serious narratives before. Does one kind of writing tarnish the other if both have a chair at the table? Does the number of clicks truly signify importance?

These gear review articles matter, too. If you’re a photographer looking to upgrade your camera setup, I want to foster a journal of honest work that fellow creators can trust. My roster of authors and I love sharing this stuff because spreading knowledge is a form of collaborative love — and we like to keep that love flowing.

But again, can we really be everything at once?

Alan Watts Was Right

I discovered Alan Watts in college, convinced he had the secret to existential thought. These days, I’m back to reading his work each night — my new bedtime habit. Watts's main idea is that “duality” is really just an unspoken unity. Polarity, he says, is a myth: light and darkness share the same continuum. Nobody else explains that illusion quite like he does.

At its core, we don’t have to force balance; it’s already there. That insight changed how I see social media and our online sharing. Yes, it’s chaotic, but I’m not fully quitting — extremes don’t work for me. My existential bent reminds me that mega-corporations keep us in a perpetual dance, just as humanity has been tethered to oppressive systems since ancient times, intensified by the Industrial Revolution and now supercharged by technology and consumerism. There’s no silver-bullet fix on a macro scale, but I genuinely believe we can combat these micro-level challenges within our neighborhoods, starting with how we raise our kids.

Like any human construct, money only holds the value we agree on, yet it’s still the currency we use daily. Knowing that contradiction helps me sift real meaning from the noise.

I’m not saying we bail on the fight or pull the plug entirely; quite the contrary. The job is to navigate it with honest discernment, responsibility, and a deep level of humanity. Keep your “why” in focus — tape it to your mirror if you must — and check in with it whenever you finally get a moment to think. Touch the grass, feel the sun on your skin, and remember that your ancestors wrestled with similar doubts for generations before you. Oddly, this comforts me: our stories are only chapters in a longer epic, and I’m still learning to write mine.

Maybe that’s the kind of balance we’re really after.

3 Ways I'm Combatting This Issue

^ Note the clever copywriting on that headline. That's the SEO-driven side of me wanting your attention yet providing genuine, helpful, and personal information to keep you invested. ;)

Science-backed, results-driven data fuels me, and, to be honest, I lust for validation. If I don’t see immediate progress, I’m quick to switch gears (for better or worse). After a decade in this industry — both personally and professionally — I’ve found a few tried-and-true approaches that help me stay on course:

1) Be You

I’m most confident when I’m myself, even if it sounds overstated or egotistical. It’s a foundational piece we rarely talk about. I write about Kodak because I love film photography and cover local lavender farms because I’m obsessed with desert gardening. They may not seem connected on paper, but I make them coexist simply because I enjoy both and want to share that passion in the same vein of interest alone.

2.) Be As Niche As You Want

I’ve become fascinated by how niche my friends’ interests can be — like building cement pavers for DIY backyard projects (something my husband is destined to try) — and realized that entire communities love the same things. If a hobby (or obsession) lights you up, lean into it. Chances are, you’re far from the only one who finds it interesting.

3.) …But Don't Pigeonhole Yourself

That said, avoid locking yourself into a single label. Titles can provide structure and confidence, but they can also become a tight band that stifles creativity over time. As the saying goes, “Specialization is for insects.” Give yourself room to explore and evolve.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

Who I Think Does This Well

Here’s a short list of people, brands, and publishers I love following for their clear, confident identities — yet multi-hyphenated interests:

• The New Yorker: Yes, they’re a high-profile publication, but I adore everything they share. Alongside the front-page doomsday news you’d expect, you’ll also find fictional poetry, beautifully designed cartoons, and plenty of quirk.

• Field Mag: I love Grahm, the editor of FieldMag. He balances the perfect blend of quirky gear roundups with creative photo essays on 35mm film.

• Magdalena Wosinska: A personal icon of mine: she’s an incredible photographer who also designed her own oasis in Joshua Tree. She skateboards, hangs out with rock stars, and documents her aging parents in the most moving way.

• Pia Baroncinci: Pia lives in a multi-generational household with her sweet family, runs LPA and an olive oil company, travels to the Italian countryside for peaceful escapes with her husband, and shares genuine glimpses of motherhood I can relate to.

• Service95: Dua Lipa’s publication proves you can be insatiably hot and intellectually stimulating.

• SERR: A wildly talented photographer and filmmaker who tells stories like no one else. His art stays true to his experiences — more showing, less telling.

• Anthony Bourdain: RIP. A true icon on every front. Sure, he was a chef, but he was also a brilliant writer and wanderer with insider knowledge of hidden bistros and wine. He never labeled himself — he just was, caring only about good company, a solid beer, and a mortadella sandwich. I love him. I miss him.

• Lucy Laught: My top photography-world inspiration. She’s a master visual storyteller who portrays travel in a humble, intimate way that I adore. Her style is everything; I want to be her.

• Doen: Their success isn’t just from creating stunning, heirloom-worthy clothes (though that’s obvious). It’s also about their community of mothers and the bright spotlight they shine on all forms of femininity.

• Nuria Val: She has a sweet family, runs a sustainable skincare brand, tends a small-batch olive orchard, and basks in the Spanish sunshine with her film camera — my exact kind of woman.