Between Grief and Growth: Everything We’re Building Right Now

There’s a very particular kind of chaos that happens when your life is built out of creativity, community, deadlines, emotions, and approximately seventeen simultaneous projects held together with caffeine and stubbornness. The calendar fills up faster than your brain can process it. One moment you’re planning a photoshoot concept involving antique teacups and tarot cards, and the next you’re ordering memorial items while outlining a crochet curriculum and trying to remember whether you already answered that email. Human existence. Very inefficient system design.

Lately, life has felt a little like that.

In the middle of grief, growth, celebration, business planning, creativity, and community support, one thing has become incredibly clear to me: people are showing up. And honestly? That means more than I can properly explain.

First, Tarot and Tea: The Veil Between officially booked full.

Every model spot. Every photographer spot. Gone.

Watching this event fill up has been surreal in the best possible way. What started as a concept built around atmosphere, storytelling, intuition, and connection turned into something people immediately understood and wanted to be part of. That means a lot when you spend most of your time building ideas inside your own head first, wondering if anyone else will see the vision the same way you do.

This event is one of those experiences that feels deeply “me.” Antique-inspired aesthetics, tarot imagery, tea room energy, layered symbolism, creativity, collaboration, femininity, storytelling. It’s less about simply taking photographs and more about creating a feeling people can step into for a few hours. A tiny pocket outside normal life.

And somehow, enough people trusted that vision to help make it real.

That support is not lost on me.

At the same time one project filled, another opened its doors.

The Things We Never Outgrew is now officially open for booking.

This shoot has a completely different emotional texture to it, and I think that’s part of why I’m so excited about it. It’s playful in a way adults rarely allow themselves to be anymore. Nostalgia mixed with softness. Childhood comfort mixed with grown-up artistry. Books, imagination, whimsy, comfort objects, things we carry with us long after we pretend we’ve “outgrown” them.

Truthfully, I don’t think we really outgrow the important things.

We just learn to hide them better.

The things that comforted us as children often become the things that still quietly heal us as adults. Stories. Creativity. Texture. Ritual. Collecting little beautiful things. Favorite colors. Plushies hidden on shelves. Music that still feels like home. The need to feel seen. The need to play.

This shoot is for the people who remember that.

We currently have eight model spots and four photographer spots available, and I’m incredibly excited to see who this project attracts. I already know the energy surrounding it is going to be something special.

Meanwhile, Scratch the Veil has taken on a life of its own.

We’ve officially sold seven tickets already.

I genuinely did not expect people to jump into this concept as quickly as they did, but apparently humans enjoy mystery and tiny dopamine gambles. Shocking development. Next you’ll tell me people enjoy snacks and avoiding phone calls.

For those unfamiliar, Scratch the Veil is part game, part community event, part chaos goblin invention from my brain. Each ticket gives participants a chance at different prize tiers, gift returns, and larger rewards, while also helping support the stream and future projects.

The response has honestly been incredible.

What I love most about these interactive events is that they create community in a way traditional advertising never can. People aren’t just watching something happen. They’re participating in it. They become part of the atmosphere. Part of the story. Part of the excitement.

And after the last few months especially, creating spaces where people can feel connected matters to me more than ever.

Because alongside all the creative momentum, there’s also grief.

Maddie’s memorial is in five days.

I still don’t think my brain fully understands that sentence.

Grief is strange because the world doesn’t stop moving while you’re trying to process something impossible. You still answer messages. You still schedule shoots. You still make graphics and order supplies and grocery shop and fold laundry and laugh at stupid memes. The normal parts of life continue existing right beside the unbearable parts.

There’s no dramatic movie pause where everything freezes while you catch your breath.

Life just keeps happening.

And in some ways, continuing to create through grief has helped me survive it.

Working on memorial pieces, creating keepsakes, designing labels, planning details, writing words that somehow never feel big enough… all of it has felt deeply important. Painful, but important.

I think creativity becomes sacred during loss.

It gives us something tangible to hold onto when reality feels impossible to hold at all.

The view from Maddie’s floor

At the same time, life keeps insisting on moving forward into milestones and celebrations too.

Lorelai’s graduation is coming up.

Her Bat Mitzvah is coming up.

Her birthday is coming up.

Three enormous life moments stacked almost on top of one another, because apparently the universe looked at my scheduling stress levels and decided they were still a little too manageable.

But honestly? I’m incredibly proud of her.

People hear “Bat Mitzvah” and sometimes reduce it to just a party or event, but what many don’t see is the years of work behind it. The studying. The preparation. The commitment. The growth. This has been something she has worked toward for years, and seeing it finally approach feels emotional in ways I wasn’t fully prepared for.

And graduation on top of that? Turning eighteen?

There’s something deeply surreal about watching your child stand at the edge between childhood and adulthood while you simultaneously remember every version of them that came before.

It’s beautiful.

It’s terrifying.

It’s somehow both heartbreak and pride at the exact same time.

Which, honestly, seems to be parenthood in general.

My daughter, Lorelai

In between all of this, I’ve also been building something entirely new: Foundations of Crochet.

Creating this course has been such a different kind of creative challenge from photography or skincare. Photography captures moments. Crochet teaching requires slowing down enough to explain moments.

That’s a completely different skill set.

I’ve been working on beginner-friendly episodes covering things like yarn labels, hooks, gauge, reading patterns, and understanding materials in ways that hopefully feel approachable instead of intimidating. Because let’s be honest, a lot of crafting communities accidentally explain things like everyone was born already knowing what “16 stitches by 20 rows equals 4 inches” means.

Meanwhile beginners are sitting there wondering if they accidentally enrolled in applied mathematics.

I want this course to feel welcoming.

I want people to feel like they’re learning from a real person instead of being lectured by a craft encyclopedia wearing khakis.

And honestly? I’m proud of it.

There’s something deeply satisfying about taking years of accumulated knowledge and turning it into something accessible for someone just beginning.

Outside of all that, The Alchemy of Her continues growing too.

This project has become so much larger than just a calendar.

Every session connected to it carries pieces of vulnerability, confidence, transformation, storytelling, reclamation, and trust. Watching women step into these shoots nervous and leave standing taller is still one of the most rewarding parts of what I do.

We’re continuing to build toward the 2027 release, sponsor support continues growing, and the vision keeps becoming more real with every shoot completed.

And underneath all of it, I keep coming back to the same realization:

This community matters.

Whether you’ve booked a session, supported a project, joined a livestream, shared a post, bought a ticket, sponsored an event, encouraged me privately, or simply continued following along while my life resembles an over-complicated corkboard conspiracy map… thank you.

Seriously.

Small businesses are rarely built in giant cinematic moments. They’re built in tiny repeated acts of support. One booking. One share. One comment. One recommendation. One person deciding your art deserves space in their life.

That adds up.

More than people realize.

Right now, life feels full in every possible sense of the word. Full of projects. Full of emotion. Full of deadlines. Full of grief. Full of celebration. Full of uncertainty. Full of hope.

And somehow, despite all of it, I’m still deeply excited about what comes next.

Even if I do desperately need approximately fourteen extra hours in every day and maybe a clone. A competent clone. Not one of those sci-fi clones that immediately develops emotional instability and tries to overthrow the original. I do not have time for that subplot.