Okay. Wow. Here we go. This website and blog have been a long time coming. Like, decades long. I’ve been writing creatively as an outlet since I was in middle school, maybe earlier. I always had an innate sense for how to put sentences and paragraphs together, even before I knew what adjectives or gerund clauses were, and writing and editing are as natural to me as breathing. I used to get so full of thoughts and feelings I’d think I would explode, so I’d grab the closest notebook (this was before everybody had a smart phone or a laptop) and let everything spill out onto the paper through a black, number 2, Ticonderoga pencil. Sometimes I wish I’d had the organizational skills to put all of those early thoughts into one notebook instead of about 70, but oh well. Hindsight.

As I got older and essays became a staple in my & my classmates’ education, I started putting my word-related instincts to good use. I’d crank out my own essay for our latest assignment then help my friends with theirs. Often this required more than a standard edit, but I didn’t mind. I was starving for any kind of medium to channel that energy into.

When I got to college, I realized these skills didn’t just have to be for fun, so I started charging classmates about $20 per paper to edit just about any kind of subject matter imaginable. I’ve read about prehistoric anthropological discoveries, dissected marine science and organic chemistry lab reports, been transported to new worlds in creative writing assignments, and so much more. It’s always felt odd accepting payment for something that brings me so much joy and purpose, but such is capitalism. That little college side gig continued into my early adult years, and soon I found myself helping my friends with their medical dissertations and cover letters and resumés more than five paragraph essays. I started to realize this was more than just a fun side gig to me, and in 2015 the universe dropped a freelance position right into my lap.

Until late 2022 I wrote marketing blogs for a local healthcare clinic, which was the perfect combination of my 10 year long pharmacy/medical background and my love for words. It also gave me an opportunity to fall in love with the marketing aspect of writing and I dug into learning as much as I could about WIX, buzzwords, and tracking marketing trends.

Then, in 2018, I got married and moved across the country with my new spouse. We lived in the Pacific Northwest for the last four years and I spent that time doing a lot of self-reflection and rearranging of my priorities. In the midst of all of the personal growth, I got more opportunities to write and edit, including editing a poetry book for one of my best friends, a thesis for another, and a self-help style book for a new friend. I also got another blog writing job for a hypnotherapy clinic and, in the meantime, I got to use my Spanish degree teaching elementary kids with a local non-profit. Those four years were the hardest, most beautiful, transformative years of my life and I’m forever thankful for them.

Fast-forward to now: we moved. Again. For me it’s the 5th move in as many years. Spouse’s job requires regular relocation and it suits me well. While we were in the PNW I used the opportunity to do several cross-country road trips and I fell in love with car camping and loosely followed travel itineraries. I got to see every state except Alaska (on my list for 2024), meet incredible people who are wildly different from me, see some of the most beautiful places on the planet, and expand my worldview tenfold.

These days, I love travel as much as I love writing, and the ocean is a very close second to those. Spouse & I are currently living in Southern Italy (eek!) for the next few years and we’ve got big plans for adventures all around Italy and Europe, maybe even further. I can’t wait to document what our experiences here are like, and to share with you the stories I collect along the way.

Thank you for being here. I hope you enjoy the journey.