Edit 29: Ten Things
A gratitude list for a full, fast, beautiful season.
Life lately has been a lot. The beautiful, overwhelming, blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of a lot. So before March gets away from me entirely, I'm doing what any reasonable person does when the calendar is full and the heart is fuller: I'm making a list.
01
Morning light that has absolutely no business being that pretty.
Our house is full of windows, and the early sun knows exactly what to do with every single one of them. I've started pausing on purpose—moving from room to room with my coffee, just following the light. Five minutes, no agenda. Some mornings, that's everything.
02
Time with the people we made.
The season we're in as a family is one I want to hold carefully—grown and growing children, one charting bold new territory, one absolutely owning hers, and two parents somewhere in the beautiful middle of it all, equal parts proud and present. Whether we're all together at home or stealing one-on-one time wherever we can find it, these moments feel like something to cup in both hands. Loving them has always been the best thing. Watching them become themselves is a close second.
03
A camera and a reason to use it.
I have been chasing light again. Through windows, on rainy streets, across new cities and familiar ones. But also through the lens of work I genuinely love—shooting for businesses and people, finding the image that tells their story in a single frame. Every session stretches me in a different direction: a new creative challenge, a new skill to sharpen, a new perspective to earn. The camera gives me permission to slow down and really look—and lately, both the work and the world have given me so much worth looking at.
04
Travel that actually leaves something behind.
The best trips don't just give you experiences—they give you questions to carry home. Somewhere between the jet lag and the jet-set, I keep finding versions of myself I didn't know needed to come along for the ride.
05
A really good book that made an hour feel like five minutes.
You know the kind. The one where you look up and an hour has evaporated and you feel absolutely zero regret about it. Right now that book is All the Little Houses by May Cobb—and oh, is it a ride. Mean moms, big hair, small-town Texas secrets, and enough soap opera energy to power a whole season of television. It's set in the 1980s and every page feels like it's dripping in summer heat and bad decisions. If you're looking for a sign to pick it up, consider this it. Some books are a particular kind of mercy—and some are just wickedly, deliciously fun. And if you need one more reason to pick up May Cobb, her other novel The Hunting Wives is currently being filmed right here in Charlotte—Season 2 is underway in our own backyard. Feels like a sign, Queen City.
06
Small rituals that hold the day together.
The coffee made just so. The same playlist on the commute. The two-minute tidy before bed that somehow signals to my brain that we made it through another one. And then—the nightly bubble bath, which is non-negotiable and entirely sacred. But first, padding from room to room to check on my husband and son, just to see their faces before the day closes, and a quick text to my daughter—just because. It's a small thing. It's everything. Rituals are the quiet architecture of a good life, and I am not taking mine for granted.
07
Growth that finally feels like growth.
Not the kind that's sharp and uncomfortable, though that's been here too. I mean the quiet kind—noticing that something that used to rattle me no longer does. That I handled a hard thing with a little more grace. That I am, really, someone I like spending time with.
08
Food that was made with love and eaten with gusto.
There are two kinds of food magic happening right now and I am here for both of them. The first is a home cooked meal with family—a recipe followed exactly once before it was promptly improved, the particular joy of a meal that was never really about the food. The second is going out with friends—good restaurants, better conversation, and the kind of laughter that lingers longer than dessert. This month I've also given myself a little personal mission—I'm calling it Michelin March—a deliberate effort to explore and appreciate the culinary culture right here in the Queen City. Charlotte's food scene deserves that kind of attention, and honestly, so do I.
09
Nature, doing its reliable best.
The birds coming back. The first stubborn crocus. The way trees just go ahead and bud whether or not you're paying attention. And this week, the cherry blossoms have begun to bloom—the sweetest little callback to our time in Japan, right here in our own backyard. The natural world has a patience I aspire to, and a sense of timing that feels, lately, like a gift.
10
This journal, and the people who read it.
Every time I sit down to write one of these, I am reminded that paying attention is its own reward. That naming what you're grateful for changes the texture of a day. If you've been reading along—thank you. Truly. You are, without question, on this list.
Ten things. Ten small, enormous reasons the busy is worth it. The list could go on—and honestly, that might be the whole point.
