On remembering the people you loved while letting go of what they left behind — First, begin by remembering the house in its heyday. Skip-Bo games prompting shouts of victory or loss, the front door clapping with entries and exits, onions and green peppers sizzling in cast-iron frying pans, and the comforting smells of buttermilk pie drifting from the still-warm oven.

A final family day trip before our daughter starts school — we sit the four of us on a bench in Port Colborne facing the Welland Canal eight feet off a four-legged bench watching a ship come near the bridge has already lifted the road on its pulleys a cyclist waits behind red and white striped gates, his concrete path well above his head…

Don’t the years  go fast go fast

Every year before my birthday I get inexplicably anxious. It’s not that I don’t like getting older, or that I fear aging; I am genuinely excited for my forties and each year I feel I become a little more myself. But birthdays do give me that deer-in-the-headlights feeling. I fret…

How designers can be better managers right out of the gate. — Being a designer and being a manager are more similar than different, so when new design managers (or designers considering management) ask me for advice, I believe they already have most of the skills they need to be a great manager. Do you know how to listen, how to get…

A tale of turning four and the parents who managed a party. — The day is done. Our just-turned-four-year-old is asleep upstairs clutching an overstuffed, poorly-sewn orange woolen cat, a gift chosen by her sister from Etsy’s “handmade” and “under $20” filters. I stuff my Poison Ivy wig and my green velvet leotard, along with my husband’s plated abs (he was the Dark…

How managers can help in truly difficult times — At an early morning call for a Slack group I help admin, my friend Avery suggested we prompt the community for ways to help parents through their stress and isolation during this never-ending pandemic. I bat my eyes exactly two beats before they welled with tears and a lump lodged…

A few straightforward ways to improve hiring practices for a better applicant experience — I’ve recently re-entered the jobseeker’s market after six years on the lam and though I’m older and wiser and slightly less hire-able, I’ve managed to secure an amazing new position (more on that soon!). Before I forget the pain of the hiring process I wanted to capture a few obvious…

As we find ourselves in dark times, it’s up to us to shine a light on the next phase of the internet — I embraced social media early and indiscriminately. With ardent curiosity beginning with Twitter in 2007, I collected profile pages like trophies, staking my user name and avatar into every new social territory I could find. I did this like it was my job. In a way it was: I figured…