We’ve been busy lately, and my body usually rejects being busy and going on trips by giving me a cold, and this is my second one this year. Very much a bummer.

You know how it starts: with a subtle sore throat and the low-grade headache you later realize is from the sinus pressure. You’re exhausted and want to sleep, and you have to go home from work early because you can’t imagine using a weed whacker with how you feel. You wake up the next morning congested and coughing, the cold hits you like a truck, and you have to call in sick.

It’s been 3 days of this nasty cold and I’m over it. Still sick, but annoyed with being sick and having to force myself to rest when I have chores stacking up.

The laundry is piled up and needs folding, the dogs need a bath, the garden needs harvesting, and there are various other mundane household tasks to get done, and all I want to do is crawl into bed and go to sleep. Which I have been, but it’s annoying me.

We’ve been busy since I’ve posted and have been enjoying a perfect New England summer.

For the Fourth of July we went to a family friend’s house at Lake George and enjoyed hanging out by the lake and catching up with family and friends. They have an awesome property and a fun boat, and we went swimming and kayaking. I also went tubing for the first time and really enjoyed being flung around from the boat. A highlight was floating around on inflatables at night while the fireworks went off above us. It was very magical. I had Hazelnut in the tube with me and she kept climbing on top of my shoulder like a parrot, but she did good about the fireworks.

A couple weeks later I had a solo weekend up north to get my motorcycle license! I have been dreaming of a motorcycle for years and have always had an infatuation with them. I had an e-bike in Brooklyn that went 25mph and it was very fun and zippy, and I want to be able to ride motorcycles. So when a mutual friend of mine got her license this summer, it encouraged me to get mine.

I already have a motorcycle helmet because I wore one for my e-bike in Brooklyn, and I have a donated motorcycle jacket from my god-father type person, so I was ready for the course. I had never ridden a motorcycle before the course so I was very green and new compared to some of the other participants, but I was able to pick it up pretty quickly. It’s a challenge to wield such heavy and large machines, and very different from my little e-bike I was used to zipping around on.

The course was good and taught me a lot about safety and defensive driving and how to be the most successful rider; though it was mostly drills and very technical safety maneuvers that you’d rarely get to use, and I only got to 25mph during the course. But it made me want to ride more! I officially passed and now have my license. I’m on the hunt for a motorcycle but honestly don’t have the budget for it right now.

While I was doing the course I decided to stay at another state park, which I get free camping for since I work at a state park. I haven’t solo camped in a long time so it was nice to tend to a fire and relax in nature without worrying about others. The state park I was staying at had a fire tower with beautiful views of all the Vermont mountains, and it was a stunning sight.

Unfortunately, the next day during the course and all night it rained, so I hunkered down in my sleeping bag and watched movies all night. I was worn out from sleeping outside for 2 nights, which, let’s be honest, sometimes isn’t great sleeping, and from the physical aspect of learning to ride a motorcycle.

The next weekend we drove to Northern Vermont where my husband is from for a long weekend on a lake with my in-laws. We were very close to where he grew up and it was nice to have him show me around all the spots he went as a child. St. Johnsbury is a beautiful town with a very cool museum and library, and it was wholesome to see his childhood homes. My mother-in-law hosted a party with all their friends, so I got to see a lot of people from Ethan’s childhood and life in St. Johnsbury.

We took the 3 dogs to the Dog Chapel, which is a nice property that Stephen Huneck built about 25 years ago. They have a whole chapel devoted to dogs that have gone to heaven, with the walls full of pictures people have taped up of their dogs. It’s very sweet and wholesome. They had a few hiking trails that we did and the dogs enjoyed it, including the lake full of tennis balls for dogs to swim in.

My brother-in-law rode his motorcycle up from Brooklyn and let me ride it, which was a ton of fun. I was able to take it out onto the highway and got up to 75mph, enjoying the wind in my hair and leaning into the curves of a good Vermont highway. Very much still looking for a bike now, since taking one out in the real world was so much fun.

The next weekend we headed up the coast of Maine for our annual week-long vacation and enjoyed camping next to the ocean for 5 nights. We enjoyed long hikes, hiked 35 miles in a week, and walked on the beach many times. We did a big kayak to a new spot and saw a vantage point of the open ocean I’ve never seen before. It was a blissful experience and we were active and walked all over

We have to take a boat over to the camping area, so we loaded our things into the boat and I threw my water bottle into my purse and thought nothing of it. Well, after picking up and putting our things down 4 times, it was finally time to unpack at the cabin and I found my purse was full of water. My water bottle had opened and drowned my laptop, which was inside, and it had become a paperweight as the screen booted to the error screen.

I put the laptop in a bin of rice for the entire trip and crossed my fingers it would revive itself. Well, by the time we came back a week later the laptop dried out enough and was able to boot to the login screen, which yay, but the keyboard and trackpad wouldn’t work and the screen has visible damage, which boo.

I took the laptop to the Geek Squad at Best Buy to get a quote to fix it, and the guy basically told me the laptop would cost more to fix than a new one and it was effectively totaled. Awesome /s/ Well, I was in New Hampshire (hurray to zero sales tax) and I need a working laptop for school (more on that later), so I bought one from Best Buy then and there. So my inaugural use of the new laptop is writing this post.

Back to our trip in Maine, we had some old friends come join us for a couple of days and we had a lobster feast next to the ocean, including a homemade blueberry pie, on what was the most perfect August Maine day we could’ve asked for. We loved having our friends come out to visit us. They haven’t been back to where we were staying in almost 10 years, and it was special to have late-night chats with them under the Milky Way with a campfire going.

A mutual friend of all ours was getting married not far from where we were camping, so we all stayed in an Airbnb together for a couple nights and enjoyed going to our friend’s wedding. It was fun to see everyone get dressed up, and we played our usual game of Phase 10 back at the house after the wedding. Those couple of days with everyone together were really sweet!

And after all those weekends away it has been going back to work at the state park and back to weed whacking, cleaning campsites, taking down trees, scrubbing picnic tables, cleaning bathrooms, mowing the leach fields, and whatever else needs to be done. After writing all that down, no wonder I’m sick, there’s been a lot going on!

This summer has been really nice since I get to truly enjoy Vermont, both from my job and from just being home a whole lot more. Last summer I was commuting back and forth from Vermont to Brooklyn bi-weekly and that really took a toll on me and my mental health, and it’s just nice to be home and get to enjoy the beauty of Vermont.

The wild goldenrod is flowering, the wild blackberries and raspberries are fruiting, and the Monkshood I planted last year is blooming. Our garden is in full swing and we may have planted things a bit too close together, but we have potatoes, cabbage, artichoke, carrots, tomatoes, bok choy, various lettuces, peas, green beans, corn, pattypan squash, peppers, and lots of cucumbers. Ethan said he was going to make some pickles today.

The homestead is good, and obviously the garden is abundant. We did have 2 tragedies this past month, as we lost 2 chickens to a red-tailed hawk, which honestly was very disturbing. Unlike the bear last year, which ran off with the birds and left just a bit of feathers behind, the hawk would dissect the bird in the run and leave us the carcass of our beloved birds that we hand fed. Of course they were 2 of the new ones and were very cute.

So long, Frankie and Butter :(

I’m 8 months sober and that’s a thing. Woohoo or something. It’s the first time I went to Maine or any other vacation sober in a very long time, and I appreciated that our friends didn’t really drink around us either, which was nice. I couldn’t tell if people just generally don’t drink that much compared to what I used to drink, or if they were restraining themselves because we weren’t drinking. Regardless, I was happy nobody was overly drinking or flaunting it in our faces. Still haven’t decided what my future relationship with alcohol is going to look like, but I did say I would be sober for a year and go from there.

I start school in 2 weeks, which I’m pretty nervous about to be honest. I am taking Anatomy and Physiology I, which is a prerequisite for the program I am applying for this fall. I took a couple of college science classes in 2024 so I’m not entirely out of the game, but those were online and A&P is notorious for being a tough class. Luckily I’m only taking the one class, and one of the two nights a week it meets is on Zoom, so I only have to drive in to school, which is an hour away, one night a week.

We have been house hunting near school and Ethan’s work, which are both an hour away in the same direction, so we are looking at moving, but unfortunately haven’t found anything worth putting an offer in on. Either the house looks great online and is a dump in person, or the house is genuinely a gem and it’s gone within 3 days of being posted on the market. It’s a tough market out there but we’re trying to be patient, though it gets discouraging sometimes.

Random, but worth noting: I’m selling my e-bike and pedal kayak! I’m trying to sell both so I can have some budget to buy a motorcycle, hopefully. If you’re interested in either, comment below or message me. They’re both in working order and are fun toys, but I just don’t use them enough and am looking at a different toy lol.

Thanks for reading and for hanging out along with me, as I sniffle my way through typing this. I think I’m going to go crawl back into bed.

If you made it this far, drop a comment and tell me what your summer looked like. And if you know anyone in the market for a lightly loved e-bike or pedal kayak, send them my way.

5/30

Walked outside to take my trash out as usual — recycling in my left hand, trash in my right, dogs running around me. I make the 100-yard walk to the garage where the trash can is kept, only to discover that the trash can is not there.

The giant “bear-proof” trash can has vanished.

Ethan and I walk around the property looking for it and it’s nowhere to be seen. Imagine a standard large trash can with clips that lock the lid down, full of our stinky trash, just… missing. I’m in disbelief. There’s no evidence of it either.

This leaves two options: someone decided to steal our trash can, which is a choice, or the bear walked off with it.

Here I am, imagining the bear rolling the can off into the woods like a person, off to rummage through it and pillage our trash.

Guess we’re off to Rutland to buy a new trash can and a chain to attach it to the garage.

That’s something I was not warned about when I left Brooklyn — the bear could steal your trash can right out of your garage.

I’m kind of laughing in a weird “this is insane” kind of way.

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May 4

Since the last update we got a new bear-proof trash can that our landlord had, and we’ve been using it normally. Well, we woke up this morning to trash strewn across the driveway and the trash can all mangled.

So now our new trash can is broken, and the bear got the prize of the stinky trash — meaning he’ll be back.

Apparently the bear has been super active around here, and we still have no idea where our original trash can went. Now this new one is busted too. Our bear-proof trash can had these straps you clip down, and now the straps are broken, so he can come back for more.

As my boss said at work, “bears are just big raccoons.” Which holds true — they just want food scraps and are scavengers, but they can be a nuisance.

We lost five chickens to the bear last year, and it left some pretty intense claw marks on our chicken coop.

Today

We’ve been hiding our trash in the basement while we waited for new steel cable straps to come that we can use to lock the lid down. We even got a bike lock to chain the can to the garage so it can’t be hauled off somewhere.

I still have no idea where the original trash can went. All I can picture is it somewhere deep in the woods, full of our rotting trash. Unless someone stole it — in which case, well, more power to them, because that would be brazen, stealing someone’s trash can right out of their garage. This is life living rurally, and something I was not prepared for.

Where is summer going! It’s been flying by, and I feel like I just posted a story last week when really it’s been a month. We’ve been enjoying summer to the fullest; I love how late the sun sets, and we sit out on the screen porch to watch it go down.

Things have been good. I’ve been settling into a routine at work and at home. I’m still exhausted by the time I get home, but I feel fulfilled and content with the amount of work I put in. I now have some wicked calluses from weedwhacking everyday.

I was “promoted” (without an actual pay raise) to Lead Attendant, which basically means I get to hold a master key and I’m third in command of the seven of us. I’ve never managed before, but this has been giving me a good taste of it and as one of the volunteers told me, “You have natural leadership qualities, it makes sense you were named the leader.”

My two managers start their day at noon, so I’m basically covering the mornings and helping delegate who does what. Luckily for me, the mornings are pretty self-explanatory with the same chores each day, and the afternoon is where we separate into different projects. I’m learning how to balance everyone’s workload, the fairness of the chores against people’s preferences for what they’d like to do.

With being Lead Attendant I obviously have more responsibility, including opening the office every day, doing the water testing, and being more hands-on with projects. I’ve gotten close with the assistant manager and we’re good friends at this point, which has been nice. Anyway, the pseudo-promotion has been good; a learning curve for me, but a good resume builder.

Watch what 6 cords of wood looks like when its being delivered.

Speaking of which, I’m trying to sort out what I want to do next career wise. While I’m still trying to take it easy and pace myself, I’m thinking of going back to school. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’m looking at an associate’s program and will potentially start the required pre-reqs this fall, hopefully starting the program itself in Fall of ‘27. It’s still hypothetical at this point, but it’s getting closer to becoming a reality. At some point I’ll share with you what I’m thinking… ;)

The Fugly chicken I didn’t like from my last post turned out to be a rooster. Last week we heard the most pathetic cock-a-doodle-doo, imagine a boy going through puberty. So not only is it a silkie, which we learned can’t fly and are effectively disabled chickens, it’s a rooster, which means I wouldn’t get any eggs from it. We already have a rooster, and with how small our flock is, six females, we couldn’t have two.

I emailed the breeder I’d bought the chickens from and mentioned that it was a silkie AND a rooster and was effectively useless to us. The breeder was very kind and said they’d take the bird back and give us another female in exchange, which works out well for us. So I drove the hour and a half each way to exchange Fugly for a new chicken named Frankie.

I just always knew something was off with Fugly. The breeder was astonished when I dropped it off and said she had no idea how I’d ended up with a silkie (she doesn’t even breed them) the only possibility is some rare recessive genes that popped up, which is probably also why it was misgendered.

Frankie has been getting beaten up a little as the hens reestablish a new, literal pecking order, pecking her to put her lower on the totem pole. I believe Fugly was at the bottom of the food chain, and I think that’s where Frankie is going to end up too. But now we have seven hens and one rooster, which was the plan all along.

The weather has been crazy and super rainy, which I don’t usually mind, I tend to like the cold and wet, but working outside in the rain is not fun. On Thursday, Vermont had a wild storm, and while I was at work we got a tornado watch warning, which is strange for such a mountainous state.

As the storm rolled in, I was hiding out in the barn/garage and it was pouring, and the water started flooding into the barn. The lights flickered and then the power went out. We got something like an inch of rain in an hour, the winds were whipping around, and then just like that it was over. The wind pushed the storm out and it was sunny blue skies an hour later, leaving a bunch of downed trees in its wake.

We found out later that only a 15-minute drive from where we’d been sheltering, there was a full tornado with 100mph winds that snapped grown trees in half like twigs. The tornado ran for about a mile, and I drove by it afterward; it looks insane to see a swath of forest just broken every which way. Very grateful that the tornado wasn’t at our house and that I was safe at work. I didn’t take the tornado warning very seriously since we were in the mountains, but it still hit pretty close to us, in Woodstock.

With all the rain, our pond is still high at its spring water line. This time last year the pond was already a foot lower and preemptively entering a drought, so it’s been nice to see it high, even though there are puddles everywhere, at home and at work. Since it rained an inch on Thursday and we’ve had a constant stream of fresh water, our little pond has been super clear, and Ethan and I decided to go swimming in it yesterday.

We had a bunch of fun jumping in and swimming with the late afternoon sun on us, and we even got Hazelnut to jump in and swim around with us. It felt like a true Vermont summer evening, swimming in our natural “pool” and here’s hoping we didn’t pick up any cooties from it.

It’s strawberry season here, and Ethan got a quart of fresh strawberries from the local farm stand. Since one of his favorite desserts is strawberry shortcake, I decided to make a chiffon cake from scratch. Imagine a cross between a pound cake and an angel food cake, it used eight eggs, which tasted even better with our fresh ones. I really enjoy baking and have been making some sourdough too; the last loaf turned out almost perfect.

We went to a local fundraising event for our town’s volunteer firefighters, and it was nice to see the whole small town out. They served up some yummy burgers and more fresh strawberry shortcake. It was at the neighboring state park, and it was fun to compare my state park to the one that’s busier overall than ours. It was just nice to spend some time at a local event and watch our one mail carrier socializing with everyone in town.

Today we went strawberry picking and got several pounds. The emergency check I’ve been holding in my wallet for the past five years finally fulfilled its purpose at the strawberry farm, since I had no cash.

A couple weeks ago I celebrated six months sober, which is hard for me to believe; six months since I admitted myself into residential treatment for my mental health. I’ve honestly been doing really well, and I still believe going in was the best choice for me at the time. I think being sober has been helping my mental health too. I don’t know about sober forever, but for now it seems to be working.

I’ve decided to remove the paywall I had set up, because I feel bad about not posting consistently enough, and it’s not okay to have people pay for something they’re not getting much out of. To the people who did subscribe; a huge THANK YOU, because I really appreciate your support, and it means a lot that people want to pay to read my writing.

I’m also removing it to take some of the pressure off myself to post consistently, and hopefully to let go of some of the guilt I have about not producing enough “content.”

Thanks to everyone for continuing to support me. These monthly updates may have to be the regular thing for now!

April 27

When we moved into the house we’re renting now, we noticed claw scratches on some of the doors in the basement from what must have been a very large dog. Our dogs picked up on another dog’s smell right away and were especially interested in the scratches. Among the things left behind by the previous owner was a framed photo of a giant dog; it looked like a Leonberger, a breed whose males can reach 170 pounds.

Last summer, Hazelnut, our 12-pound dachshund, kept disappearing around the corner of the house during porch time, and one day she came trotting back with a giant bone (like 8” long!) We blew it off as a one-off, but since then she’s unearthed at least a dozen of these massive bones - treats clearly meant for a much bigger dog. She must have found the old dog’s buried stash and has been slowly excavating it ever since.

Then, the other week, I was doing some yard work and turned up a dog tag in the soil, probably long since slipped from a collar. The name on it: Vidar. A fitting name for the giant ghost dog whose treasure Hazelnut has been cheerfully plundering. This past weekend we were out getting the garden beds ready for spring and clearing last fall’s yard waste when I found a tennis ball buried in one of the beds, clearly there for a while. It’s been fun uncovering all these little treasures from the ghost of dogs past and Hazelnut is still very much enjoying the giant bones she’s claimed as her own.

The new chickens have been doing well; they’re about six to eight weeks old now and we’re working on getting them used to us and being around people. They’re each a different breed and will lay a rainbow of eggs. I’ve named them accordingly: Butter, Pigeon, Bella, Miranda, and Oreo, AKA Fugly. Fugly is taking longer to molt into her adult feathers and is stuck in that terrible in-between stage, so we’re holding out hope she’ll be beautiful on the other side of it.

The two hens and rooster we already have are all grey, so it’s nice to be adding some color and different patterns to the flock. They’re all quite interested in the peeping sounds coming from the area where we’re keeping the babies - the rooster especially. He’s entering his protective-of-his-ladies era and has started trying to chase us off. However, I am a very chaotic person at heart and just squawk or scream back at him, which usually ends in a standoff. I’m not scared of him, but I do need to keep putting him in his place, which means I need to keep bringing the chaos.

In other news, someone reached out to me on LinkedIn with a real job offer to train AI on how to retouch; something Ethan had actually mentioned as a career path a handful of years ago, saying if you can’t beat them, might as well train them. There’s a real threat that retouching could be fully automated in a few years, or that they won’t need mid-level retouchers like me anymore, which is part of why I’m looking at other careers. The position was interesting and the pay was nice, but I’m not in a place to be working from home 40 hours a week again and getting sucked back into a computer alone. I agreed to the state park job and I think it’ll be good for me.

Speaking of which: I start tomorrow. My nerves are getting the better of me. It’s felt like the ultimate Sunday scaries, just not knowing what to expect and feeling pretty anxious about starting overall. I think it’s probably normal to be anxious when starting a new job, but this one just feels so unknown and very different for me.

Ethan and I went to Burlington for the weekend and it is such a cute little city. Good vibes and beautiful right on Lake Champlain. We had a really nice time exploring, eating, and escaping as just the two of us for the first time in a long time.

May 23

It’s been a while since I’ve checked in! I’ve been settling into a routine and working my new job.

Working at the Vermont State Parks has been fun. It’s been a lot of physical labor, but satisfying. My days could be anything from removing birds’ nests from shelters to cleaning toilets to weed whacking to selling firewood to pulling nails out of wood to setting mouse traps with peanut butter.

The job has been busy, but a good busy. It leaves me tired at the end of the day and wanting to go home. I feel worn out most days, but that’s probably due to getting the park ready to open; I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning the past few weeks. Apparently it’ll slow down once the park is in operation and the regular season takes effect. I work at a park with 65 campsites that were all booked over Memorial Day weekend, and it took a lot of work to get them ready. We raked, leaf-blowed, and weed whacked each site, removed nails from lean-tos that people had hammered in, and cleaned the ash out of every fire pit.

It’s been a lot of work but it’s been fun. I work with a good group of people and it’s been great getting to be outside all day, although not so much when it rains all day.

I’ve been so busy and so physically worn out that it hasn’t left me a lot of time to ruminate or be sad. It feels good to be tired, to be exhausted from lifting heavy picnic tables, it’s been giving my mind a break from the spinning it’s usually doing.

I also think the TMS did a lot to relieve the stress in my brain. They said it would take a few months for the brain zapping to settle and allow things to rewire, and since it’s been a few months since I finished the treatment, I think it’s helped. I feel less depressed. I’m able to get up and go and do things, and things seem to be quieter overall, which I’m grateful for.

All in all, I’ve been doing really well, I think. I still have stressors and worries, but it feels more manageable and I’m just feeling lighter overall. Now if that's due to the brain zapping, medication changes, endless hours of therapy, sunny weather, or just having a job to go to, I'm not sure what's been helping; but I'm thankful for the peace lately.

Ethan and I went camping a week ago and just had a really nice time. We’ve been spending more quality time together lately and just celebrated our third anniversary this weekend. We can’t believe it’s somehow only been three years since we got married on Lake Sebago. We’ve done a lot in that time and it somehow seems like it should be both longer and shorter. Time is weird.

But camping was great! With my job I get free camping, so we’re hoping to get out quite a bit this summer. We got a bunch of camping stuff from our registry when we got married that’s only been used a couple of times, so it’s time to put it to work. The dogs enjoyed it, but Hazelnut has never been camping and was really unsure of the whole thing; she was scared of the dark. Willie doesn’t like the fire and gets a bit nervous around it, so both dogs were on edge, but Ethan and I were chill and just enjoying it.

It’s been rainy on and off here in Vermont, and I’m writing this from the office at the park. It’s pouring today, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and I feel bad for the campers. They’re unable to enjoy the beautiful park when it’s cold and rainy.

Our new chickens are probably ten to eleven weeks old at this point and getting pretty big! Ethan built a cage with a sliding door to let the new birds go outside and start to intermix with the existing ones so they can become a single flock.

Fugly is actually a special type of chicken called a Silkie, and is not what we bought - she’s a pretty ornamental chicken. I’m not a fan of her, but Ethan’s been trying to rebrand her as Silky rather than Fugly. (She’s still Fugly to me) What we thought was awkward molting is actually just a whole other type of chicken than what we expected, so of course she looks strange. She’s definitely the runt and gets picked on quite a bit.

Pigeon does not look like the breed that we picked out and looks like a very generic bird - like a pigeon except white. More dove-like really.

Miranda likes to be picked up and Pigeon eats worms right out of your hand. Bella is my favorite, although she’s a bit skittish, and Butter is the most skittish of them all even though she’s supposedly a very friendly breed. It has not panned out as such.

I’m a bit irked that two of the chickens we got aren’t the breeds I had chosen, but I’m trying to let it go and just accept that I have this goofy-looking ornamental and another very generic chicken that will still make eggs.

Overall I’m doing well, in a routine and enjoying my new low-key job. I’m taking things one step at a time and not sure what’s going to happen next.

Maybe I’ll get better about updates; maybe I won’t. I’m winging it at the moment - bear with me :)

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I arrived home just as most of the snow had melted off, so I missed seeing the giant piles we got this winter. But luckily, on my second day back we had a mini snowstorm and got a couple of inches, which helped fulfill my need for snow. Ethan said I was probably the only person within a hundred-mile radius who still wanted it to snow. I love snow and I didn’t see much while in Chicago this winter.

I’ve missed driving in Vermont. The winding back roads are so nice, and my fun stick shift sporty car keeps me entertained and engaged. The weather has been warm the past few days, so I’ve been winding through the hills with the windows open and the music blasting. That’s one thing I really missed.

I’ve been adjusting to being back home. It’s been better to be here than alone in a studio apartment in Chicago, although I do really miss the connections I made there and the great people I met.

After four months of doing nothing but therapy and brain zapping and meetings, it’s been nice to slow things down. I’m a bit burned out on therapy, and I’ve joked that I’m the most self-aware I’ve ever been, but going from such a supported program and intensive therapy to being back home has been a pretty big adjustment. I’m getting back into the routine of things, though.

Something about Vermont makes everything feel very isolated. We live so far from town that I’m really pushing myself get out to see people and out of my comfort zone. I’ve been to a few meetings, but it’s nothing like the ones I went to in Chicago, and I miss the young people. Vermont is inherently an older state, and when I went to a “Young Person” meeting the other day, it seemed like 40 counted as young.

Granted, I’m a year away from 30 and although I still feel like I’m in my mid-twenties inside, I’m not quite a young person anymore. But I do miss the other twenty-somethings and early-thirties crowd I was hanging out with in Chicago.

Being unemployed has been… interesting. It’s been relaxing and nice, but with too much time on my hands, my brain has been entering its anxious spiral about anything it can get its hands on. I go from stressing about whether or not all my items will fit in my car for the drive home (everything fit fine), to stressing about what I’m doing with my life (not sure yet), to stressing about having too many things in our house and how I’ll organize everything (not a relevant problem right now, but my brain has made it a number-one concern).

The depression has been turned down significantly, which has been nice, but it’s been replaced with apathy and anxiety, which has not been nice. I’ve lost interest in a lot of things, and my anxiety is ill-placed on things that don’t matter versus things that actually do. I guess you could say that’s how anxiety works most of the time anyway.

Back to being unemployed — I enjoy it. This is the longest period I haven’t had a job since I started working at sixteen, and I’m starting to go stir crazy (I’ve been home for about two weeks), but I’m running out of projects. The anxiety has definitely latched onto the money stress and has made me worry about that constantly as well.

Luckily for me, I accepted a job this week.

I’d decided to work some low-key job this summer since I wanted something easy and low-stress, and I’m honestly not sure what I want to do with my career at this point. So I reached out to a few opportunities I’d found in the local paper and was presented with two options: working at a local historic site or at a nearby state park.

I’m not the most enthused by history, and when the interviewers mentioned that the historians who give tours are a bit “territorial,” I was not inclined to join.

The interview with the state park went great, although I was not excited to hear that a regular part of the job was cleaning the public restrooms. But the job should be simple enough - it’ll get me outdoors and meeting people. The park has lots of campsites, so people come up for a week or so at a time, and I get to help the happy campers enjoy their vacation by helping start fires, giving directions, or just being a friendly face.

I accepted the state park job and I’m excited to start in a couple of weeks!

Like I said, I’m not really sure what I want to do with my career at this point, but I’m trying to give myself grace by taking a fun seasonal position. Going from someone who worked a lot and was career-driven to someone who’s working a fun summer job is really unusual for me. But I’m trying to take it easy on myself and say this is all just for now.

I have some ideas about what I want to do next, but they’re a lot of hypotheticals at this point. I’m not sure I want to return to retouching, although I can say I’m good at it. I’m having a tough time with the career thing at this time, but they say it’ll all come in due time.

Spring here has been great. The pond has lots of newts and frogs, and in the evenings we can hear the sound of spring in New England: the peeper frogs. I’ve been preparing the garden beds and doing some cleanup to get ready for the growing season.

We bought some more chickens since we only have two hens and a rooster left. A flock of three is a little sad, so I’ll be picking up some six-week-old pullets (young hens) tomorrow. I’m excited because we don’t have to worry about getting young chicks through the worst part; at six weeks old, they should be stable enough to survive.

This also gives up a jump start on egg production, which hopefully we will start to see them laying in September!

Overall, it’s been really nice to be back home. I’ve been settling into a routine without the pressure of a job, which has been good for me. I’ve removed a lot of the responsibilities I was tending to last fall, and it’s been really important to strip things down to the basics and figure out what I want out of life without too many outside pressures.

I don’t really know what this blog is going to turn into yet. I do like writing and sharing my story, but I’m not sure about the cadence. I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things, and this has been on the back burner; although I’m sure I’ll have some good stories to share from working at the state park!

Thanks for sticking around. And a huge thank you to my paid subscribers for the continued support! I'll keep sharing updates as they come, but for now, I'm going to go pull up the burdock weeds and prep the little area for our new pullets before I pick them up tomorrow.

I got five birds, each a different fun breed, and I've been very excited about the chickens!

It’s been a minute since I’ve checked in, but figured now was as good a time as ever for an update; although I feel like I don’t have much to update on since my last one. It’s a lot of the same, and it’s been a lot of therapy. A lot of learning about myself. A lot of feeling antsy and anticipatory about going home.

I have two weeks left in Chicago, and then I drive home to Vermont to start the next chapter.

In these next two weeks I’m still doing intensive outpatient therapy three days a week, I only have one more session of my TMS (brain zappys), and I go to four or five meetings a week.

I’m now at a weird point of having too much time on my hands and have been learning to sit with my feelings. Learning to sit with boredom without substances and learning to accept the bland.

I have been talking a lot about my feelings lately and I’ve gotten in my head about having the next profound thing to say or having to say the most positive thing. But I’ll say I’ve been sitting a lot in the neutral lately. Not wicked depressed, which thank god, but mostly just stable. I am not cured by any means, and I’m still grappling with feelings of sadness occasionally, but I’m a lot better, even if that means bored.

I think a lot of it is being away from home; I haven’t been home in almost three and a half months now and I’ve been facing homesickness for some time now. I miss my dogs, I miss my husband, I miss the land, and I’ve missed all the snow that New England got this winter. (I am bitter about this. I love snow, haha.)

It’s been very challenging to face my demons while being effectively alone. I chat with Ethan and my mom and they’ve both visited me a couple of times. But the day to day has been facing hard truths all day at program, getting my brain zapped, and then going to a recovery meeting most nights before coming home alone to journal. Repeat.

I’ve met some incredible people on this journey; however, there is something to be said about slaying the demons on your own. Learning to rely on myself for strength. Learning to self-soothe without substances. Learning to live with the boredom.

Mom came out to visit in early February and we had a wonderful girls’ weekend full of high tea, an orchid show, shopping, and general mom-daughter time. I really cherish that weekend. I needed a nice, fun few days in the middle of all the tough things I’d been doing. My mom and I have always been close, so it was really nice for her to visit and to just celebrate both of our birthdays together; they’re about a month apart.

Ethan drove out to visit for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and brought Hazelnut, which was a great pick-me-up because I really needed some semblance of home. I had missed both of them so much and it was so great to have my dog here in Chicago. It was funny because Ethan and I used to live in Chicago, and we brought Hazelnut to where we used to bring our other dog Willie. It felt like a mix of a full-circle moment and déjà vu. Ethan and I went to a very cool Korean day spa and had pizza at our favorite place and just spent some quality time together.

I have missed him a whole lot through this process and I really appreciated having them visit. I also now have my car, which has been helpful for getting around Chicago for these final few weeks.

The people I’ve met at program and at meetings have been wonderful, and I’ll have some great friends going forward but I’m at a point of starting to do my usual preemptive withdrawing before a move, since I met these people for this particular chapter of my life. I’m doing my best to continue the friendships and connections I’ve made, but I’m anxious to be home. I’ve also moved a lot in my life and have come to terms with people coming and going, but I hope to keep in contact with some of them.

I only have two more weeks here in Chicago and I’m trying to make the most of it, but it’s been hard. All of this has been hard - who am I kidding but I’m still going even if I’m trapped on a broken train…

I’m getting ready for the big transition of taking everything I’ve learned in this process and applying it at home. I’m working on seeing what comes next, and it’s looking a bit daunting and exciting at the same time.

I want to be home so bad, but I’m worried about losing the structure and level of support I’ve had these past few months. But I’m ready. Ready to move on.

I’ll keep you posted on what happens!

Well hello world - I just want to do a pop in and let you know how I’ve been doing. I have been sober for 46 days at the time of writing this. I have been in a residential treatment center for the past 6 weeks for Substance Abuse, Eating Disorder, Trauma and Depression.

My life became very overwhelming in November and I experienced severe depression and severe maladaptive coping skills.

Going into treatment I’ve confronted a lot of parts of myself that I have been pushing down for years and while it feels terrifying, it feels freeing to make it speakable and to hide less.

I’ve learned I cope by hiding. Hiding with busy-ness, hiding behind a drink or weed, or hiding with omission - I have also learned that’s called escapism. I escape constantly, from looking to plan trips regularly (Costa Rica anyone?) to escaping into my knitting projects or hyper fixations.

I’ve learned so much but also feel very broken down and raw. I have stripped back almost everything I was doing before.

I’m not working currently, not doing trustee work, not on the homestead. I have moved into a Sober Living home in Chicago to continue my care program of a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and will stay here for a few months.

I like lists to enjoy a list of what 6 weeks of residential looked like:

• Eating 3 meals and 3 snacks a day

• Being in a locked facility (I could leave if I wanted to leave AMA)

• Asking someone to unlock the restroom every time

• Group therapy for 90 minutes every day

• Individual therapy for 3 hours a week

• Meeting with a Psych and Dietician once a week

• Art Therapy weekly and Trauma Yoga twice a week

• 24/7 care at 4:1 Patient to Staff ratio

• Asking for the quiet room so I could bawl my eyes out alone

• Asking for frozen oranges to calm myself down

• Learning to ask for help

• Journaling a full front and back of a page every day

• No electronics (for the most part)

• Sober karaoke or just Dance on Friday Nights

• Learning about the memes “the kids” these days are into

• Making friendship bracelets from string

• Making close friends I haven’t had in a long time

• Learning about the 12 steps

• Learning how addiction runs through different parts of myself

• Learning how to be vulnerable

• Learning about myself again

I am so Grateful for:

• The amazing staff that worked there

• The opportunity to do this

• The dozen or so cards I received

• The care packages

• All of the sweet messages from everyone

• The person who sent me so much yarn (thank you!)

• The people who reached out to my family to check in on me

• The support from all of you

My therapist asked me to write ‘Why are you doing treatment?’ and I looked at her blankly like what do you mean why? You people told me I should be doing this, but I was reminded that at the end of the day this is my choice and that I am willingly doing this program.

So why did I uproot my life, leave Vermont, leave my dogs and husband behind, leave my job and house and my 101 houseplants behind to move into Sober Living with a house full of girls and the 60sqft I can call my own in Chicago?

I don’t really know right now but there is a dream that things will be better. The deep sadness I’ve had for years apparently gets better if you keep confronting the hard shit.

They say that if I’m sober I can let the meds work properly and hopefully the little neurotransmitters can bounce around and be happier in there.

For context I was diagnosed with depression at 14 and did a treatment program when I was 15 for Eating Disorders - I wouldn’t say I was cured unfortunately. I have since acquired a whole handful of other mental health diagnoses but at the end of the day they are just symptoms of a bigger picture.

And during my time in residential I realized I have been exhibiting Eating Disorder behaviors for about 20 years, which made me feel sad and old. I’m 28 and my mom told me this story of not wanting to eat the family dinner because it had grease at 8 years old - that makes me sad.

But the Eating Disorder is mostly a side effect of the sad and loss of control I’ve experienced in my life, i.e. maladaptive coping skills. The drinking and weed were to feel better, to cover up the sad.

But the deep sad? I have no idea why or where it came from but it’s been there, in the back seat of my brain for a long time. I have hope that meds, sobriety, confronting the shit I need to, and community will make it feel better, but there are days when it still feels like shit.

I miss my family and my dogs and my life but I know at the end of the day, I need to keep putting work into this to feel better.

I still feel lost and some days are still hard and it’s hard to be sober but I have a glimmer of hope. I see the hope of the life I want somewhere out at the horizon.

If you are interested in following my mental health journey with less homesteading and chickens, stick around. I don’t really really know what’s next for this page but stick around to find out with me because I’m On The Edge of SomewhereThing.

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February 4th

It’s about two weeks later, and I am 58 days sober. I just realized, as I reread that post, how sad it came across but it’s true. If there’s anything I’ve learned throughout this process it’s that people would rather hear the truth 9 times out of 10 than the pretty bullshit.

So I hope you don’t mind hearing the truth, I won’t share all the gritty details but an overview of where I’m at in my journey.

Today is a good day. I have found that I have good days and bad days which I guess most humans do but mine seem to be pretty strong one way or the other lately. The good days usually correlate to something I did or confronted recently.

I left Sober Living on Sunday, I couldn’t handle the house manager who was very stressful to live with, I couldn’t live in a house with a handful of other girls deep in their eating disorders that would trigger mine while I’m early in recovery.

I couldn’t handle having no control and space and while I only lasted two weeks, I think they were really important two weeks as a transition down from around the clock care to living in a house with people was good.

I have since moved into a short term furnished (studio) rental through the end of April and am living on my own. Now that may raise a lot of red flags however I have been in constant contact with my treatment team about this decision and if I relapse, I will be back in sober living or out of the program.

I need to do this on my own - I have always been wildly independent and in this process of finding myself, I need to do this with some safe space to retreat to.

I have been wildly happier and more confident the past few days since I have moved out of sober living and I think it’s been a great decision for myself. I know the fear of relapse and the temptation to drink is still there however I am still being drug tested 3 times a week (which can test for alcohol as well) as a part of my program rather than breathalyzed every day, so there’s still accountability going on.

I also have been doing 90 in 90 which basically means 90 meetings in 90 days which is a big thing people in early sobriety do to stay on track. I have been to 14 meetings in 15 days which I am pretty proud of. The meetings are good - I am meeting so many people and being introduced to a huge sober community has been helpful.

It also gives me something to do to stay busy.

I have a sponsor now and she’s really sweet and we are just starting the process of looking at Step 1. I don’t really like The ‘God’ Thing in 12 step programs but I think there’s some good parts to it so I’m giving it a chance, and there’s a reason it’s still around since the 1930’s - it works.

I will be picking up my two month chip on Sunday from my “Home” group.

I also started doing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) which as Google puts it “A non-invasive medical treatment using magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in the brain, primarily for treatment-resistant depression.”

I just call it the Brain Zapping. It doesn’t hurt but I’ll say it’s uncomfortable.

It is 5 days a week for 30 minutes for at least 6 weeks. It’s a massive commitment but there have been amazing results from it. I have been doing it for a week and a half so far and already my depression rating scales are coming down.

Is this because of new meds are taking effect, my PHP program, working through my trauma, doing recovery meetings, moving to a studio by myself, or because I’m getting my brain zapped every day - who knows and I would rather not ask.

Something is working and for that I am immensely grateful.

Recovery and healing myself is my full-time job right now, most days I’m out of the house for around 12 hours a day which is good because if you’re that busy and subsequently exhausted there’s no time for maladaptive behaviors.

I am eating better lately and actually cooking rice pilaf right now, which as my husband knows is a big deal as I adamantly don’t cook, to go with the rotisserie chicken I bought.

I did take tonight off from a meeting to catch up on organizing, grocery shopping (actually I got groceries delivered, no judgment here) and to write this.

I’ve been thinking about my Substack a lot lately and think it’s time to come back. I again have no idea what this looks like or what I am doing but I am having a good day today and for that I am grateful.

Thank you to everyone for reading this and for supporting me through this!

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Since the beginning of November it has snowed quite a bit in the Vermont Mountains. We had a couple 3” snowstorms that melted off, and then the temperature dropped and we had a big snowstorm with 8” and maybe another 2 or 3” the day after. There’s a solid 7-8” with some melt on the ground around the Vermont home. I’ve taken pictures through the month: enjoy snow enjoyment.

I particularly like winter. I like the cold, I like the snow, I like the solemn tone and staying inside. I like the dark hours and the fireplace being on, and I like the feeling of being cozy. I’ve been knitting up a storm this past month.

A few highlights: I knitted Ethan a sweater in 2.5 weeks and then another half week to make a matching Hazelnut sweater. I’ve been doing this thing where I buy some extra yarn (not much - for small projects the leftovers are enough) so I can make Hazelnut matching items.

I find it really fun to design patterns that were made for humans for my little Hazelnut (mini dachshund). They’re usually ¼ of the size but still require some tailoring because human patterns don’t directly transfer to dog patterns.

Hence I made the Halibut sweater a few months ago for myself (I have since shrunk it in the dryer because you know, I’m testing the properties of wool - sad shrug) and it is now very tailored to me. It still fits but is not as cozy and relaxed as it was before. I am now working a different sweater that should fit me and be machine washable. Amazing.

So anyways, the matching Hazelnut sweater I made was a challenge to say the least. I restarted 3-4 times and discovered that a direct 1:4 ratio of pattern of human for Hazelnut does not work. Clearly dogs are shaped differently than humans, so I bought a blank pattern that you should be able to put any dog and yarn combination into that would yield a finished project.

My first time doing this was for the Halibut sweater after trying 3x to do it myself. So the 4th time I committed to re-writing the entire colorwork section to match her and then sorta followed the blank pattern, however I started winging it at the end. The colorwork matches and the increases match pretty well, however after working on the body I found out I ended up with too many stitches, so the body of the sweater balloons. And I somehow made it too short. So it’s a combination of the neck being too long and the body too wide and short. Eventually I want to remake this based on what I learned, but for now it works.

The sweater I made from Ethan’s sweater yarn and followed the blank pattern instructions fits perfectly so I gotta try it again.

I then made a ‘Sophie Hood’ which has been trending for a few years, though I’d never made one. I picked up some beautiful wool gradient yarn that I got from my favorite yarn shop over by my in-laws over Thanksgiving. I probably made it in 3 days and then I made Hazelnut’s matching version over 1 day.

Knitting has been helping a lot and helping keep me grounded and sane for the past few weeks. I have planned a few sweaters for myself (and extra yarn for Hazelnut versions) over the next few months. I really enjoy it - I like following a pattern and seeing how a garment is made and then taking the challenge of building a garment to fit my odd-shaped hot dog. It’s been a fun challenge for me and maybe I will make matching garments for dogs from popular knitting patterns. Who knows, we shall see.

We raised ultimately 2 turkeys and 4 chickens, and we were getting 3 eggs a day. However since it’s been so cold we’re now getting an egg every other day, which is understandable.

The eggs are so good - bright rich yolks and firm whites - and I have really enjoyed having chickens. They’re kind of funny, have different personalities, and I can see the hierarchy between the 4 of them. The rooster is definitely at the top and cockadoodle-doos whenever we’re doing chores and is very loud, but he’s a pretty boy so I don’t care; we’re in the country. He has a little white hen girlfriend and then the 2 grey hens are a team, however they’re both different breeds but they hang out together.

We set them up with a water heater, a heating element, and a daylight light on a timer inside their chicken coop. Ethan built them a beautiful nesting box system that we do find our eggs in most days. They’re funny little creatures but seem to be enjoying their life, although they’re a bit cold. I think Ethan is going to work on it.

I let them out in 7” of snow once and once the snow was waist-high on the rooster he retreated and the hens followed into their coop where it was warm, leaving their snack on the ground. I think they’re hibernating like we are right now.

The turkeys were raised until the weekend before the first snowfall that stuck. Ethan did most of the processing work for “Thanksgiving” and “Christmas” and they had a good life. I helped some but didn’t do as much - Ethan did a great job and made a good system to process them. We ended up with 2 turkeys: 12 and 14lbs. The 14lb one definitely had some resistance and some scars which we think is either from the bear we had issues with earlier this summer/fall that took our other 4 chickens or the rooster attacked it. They did not have a great relationship but they made it.

We ate our pretty 12lb turkey for Thanksgiving and I gotta say it was a great Thanksgiving turkey. The meat was so dark and rich; the gravy was homey and tasted good, and there wasn’t an overabundance of fat or anything like normal grocery store turkeys. It tasted really good and I knew I gave it a good life from being a chick to being on my dinner table. I am proud we grew our own turkeys. It was mildly traumatic but I think we would do it again. I do want to get some sheep in the future so we can have lamb and I could process the mothers wool for knitting. That would be really cool to make a garment from my wool and my processing, but that’s an ambitious goal.

I haven’t worked in three weeks and I feel terrible about it but it’s what I needed. The dogs have been on top of me and have been a great support system. Hazelnut is the ultimate lap dog and I really appreciated her presence

I’m writing this from a plane to Chicago. I’ve been going through a really difficult time with my mental health and I’m checking into residential treatment. I’m scared, but I know this is what I need. I’ll be offline for a while working on myself. I’ll see you all in the new year. Thank you for being here.

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I’m a photo retoucher, which means I work in Photoshop all day making people, products, or really anything look better. I stare at pixels in skin, fabric, and backgrounds with intense focus, aligning everything so it looks like nobody even touched the image.

That’s the whole job—make it clean enough that all you want to do is focus on whatever the product is, natural enough that you don’t even realize a retoucher was there in the first place.

And I have OCD. So I literally clean photos all day for a living.

The irony is not lost on me.

I get it—you’re busy, you’re commuting, you’re doing dishes, you don’t have time to sit and read 3,000 words. I’m the same way. So I’m starting to record audio versions of my longer posts. Hit play above if you want to listen instead, or scroll past if you’re here to read and view some of my retouching portfolio.

The Photography Burnout

I graduated college with a degree in photography in 2019 and landed a job right out of school at an Amazon subsidiary in Chicago, photographing products for e-commerce retailers. We mostly worked with mom-and-pop businesses, though sometimes I got to work with bigger brands that required NDAs. It was a decent first job - stable, straightforward, lots of learning, the kind of thing you’re supposed to want.

But pretty quickly, I started feeling burned out. Not because the work was bad, but because of what it meant for my life. I had to be in person every day. I had to be wherever the shoot was. Photography is inherently location-based—you can’t exactly photograph products from rural Vermont.

Ethan and I had been talking more seriously about our future back in 2019. We wanted to end up somewhere rural, probably back in New England. We wanted flexibility. My mom had always said that working remotely gives you freedom—you’re attached to a computer, not a location. That stuck with me. If I stayed in photography, I’d always be tied to wherever the work was happening.

I needed something I could take with me.

The COVID Pivot

In March 2020, I was furloughed for six weeks. Suddenly, I had time alone at home with nothing to do but figure out what came next.

Retouching had always interested me in college, but I’d gone harder into the photography route. Now, looking at it again, it made sense. Retouching was like a puzzle—challenging in a way photography wasn’t anymore. It was detail-oriented work that required focus and precision. There was little bias in it because it either looked clean or it didn’t. (There is still some inherent bias, but not the creative vagueness of photography which I was struggling with at the time.) And crucially, I could do it from anywhere.

So I spent those six weeks taking online courses and building a retouching portfolio. When I got rehired at the same product photography company, I was already pretty good. Good enough that my company promoted me to part-time photographer, part-time retoucher. I kept building my skills, and within a few months, I started applying for full-time retouching positions.

We were done with Chicago and wanted to move to New England to be closer to Ethan’s family. I started looking at jobs in NYC—there’s an entire creative industry there, and I knew I could find a retouching position. Ethan wasn’t entirely thrilled with moving to NYC, but it was closer to his family and the right move career-wise for me, so we worked it out together.

The Brooklyn Company came through with an offer in 2021 for a junior retouching position. I took it, and I’ve been retouching full-time ever since

The Brooklyn Bet

Moving to Brooklyn was strategic. The plan was always: work hard in New York, build a network, get really good at this, and then take the career with me wherever we wanted to go. In theory.

I spent four and a half years at The Brooklyn Company, working on the same brand day in and day out. That kind of consistency is rare, and it taught me a lot. I learned how to develop a cohesive style, how to make everything look seamless across hundreds of images, how to understand what a brand needs before they even ask for it.

While I was there, I started freelancing on the side. I worked with Bark Company, Frame Company, a handful of advertising agencies. Friends started recommending me, putting me in touch with people. That’s what building a network is about—showing up, doing good work, and letting it compound over time.

And it worked. The whole thing actually worked. Sort of.

I left Brooklyn because Ethan got a job in New England, and we were ready to leave. I was still commuting to NYC every other week to work for The Brooklyn Company, and crossing my fingers I’d find a new job that was either fully remote or based in Vermont. It’s not lost on me how competitive and how rare those jobs are, but I actually landed another full-time retouching position based in Vermont with The Vermont Company,.

Now I’m full-time at The Vermont Company, and still doing contract work for The Brooklyn Company I’m living rurally, working remotely, exactly like we planned.

What Retouching Actually Is

Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m retouching.

I’m staring at a screen, headphones in, usually with an audiobook playing in the background. I’m doing speech-to-text currently. This is what I do for 40+ hours a week. I make things look better in a way where you don’t even notice I was there. If you can tell a retoucher touched an image, they didn’t do their job right.

Retouching works for me because it blends technical precision—numbers, ratios, and specialized tools—with artistry: perfecting the golden tones of fall light or refining skin while preserving natural anatomy.

You’re supposed to work in the dark because it keeps your eyes sharper and you can see more subtle tonal and color differences without having overhead light or glares from the window on your screen. I do work in the dark, but it’s also a cave and sometimes I don’t see daylight.

I have a Wacom drawing tablet in my right hand—it’s a must-have for retouching so you aren’t cramping your hand with a mouse all day. In my left hand, I have a TourBox, which is basically a joystick/button controller that I’ve programmed with all my shortcuts instead of constantly reaching for my keyboard. I use these almost exclusively to retouch. I also have a fancy color correction monitor that needs to be recalibrated every week to make sure the colors I’m seeing are actually accurate. It’s a whole setup, and once you get used to it, going back to a regular mouse and keyboard feels like trying to retouch is 100x harder.

The Work

I work in Photoshop all day (I can go into a whole rant about the monopoly Adobe has on the creative industry) and work to make whatever the product or thing you’re trying to—usually—sell stand out. So removing distractions from the background, smoothing the fabric on a shirt, or making skin look healthy and blemish-free for most beauty products.

Retouching can be pretty basic or it can be an entire puzzle. There are times I’m comping several images together and have to blend them so it looks like it was a seamless image when it’s actually a composite of 5-6 images. Sometimes I have to solve the puzzle of balancing the background lighting and the product lighting so they don’t compete but it also looks natural. The actual cleaning of an image is an art form and also a puzzle, and I tend to enjoy puzzles. I really enjoy when an image is challenging because it makes me break out more tools from my toolbox and approach it in different ways.

Color correction lands on retouchers too, which is a whole can of worms. I won’t go into it here, but if you ever ask any Art Director, Merchandiser, or Photographer if they’ve had issues with color recently, I almost guarantee you they’ll say yes. It’s an industry problem that’s constantly evolving with competing ideas, and brands will have their own preferences. Color sucks and will always be a challenge in the industry.

The work itself is about balance. You’re looking at pixels in someone’s skin, smoothing wrinkles without making them look plastic, brightening eyes without making them look unnatural, whitening teeth but not too white. You’re cleaning up a product shot so all the dust and imperfections are gone, but it still looks real. The goal is always the same: clean enough to focus on what matters, natural enough that it doesn’t feel retouched.

At least that’s how I believe retouching should be.

But it’s not without its toll—some days my eyes burn and glaze over from the sheer focus it demands. I’ve had to start wearing glasses full-time this year, partly to strengthen eyes that have taken a downturn since I began retouching, and partly to preserve what I consider my greatest gift in this industry: my vision. One day I was retouching for eleven hours straight, and I hit a wall—I couldn’t see color anymore. Everything blurred, and I started second-guessing my corrections. That’s how I know it’s time to stop for the day.

The Process

I work in what we call “looks”—a series of about six images that all look about the same. Maybe it’s the same model in different poses, or the same product shot from different angles. Whatever it is, those images need to feel like they belong together.

Here’s the thing about retouching: everyone has their own style. You never want to split a look between different retouchers because each person will retouch it slightly differently, and then the whole series will feel inconsistent. So you always keep looks together—one retoucher, one look.

I do my retouching in three passes:

Pass one: Quick and dirty. I go through and clean up all the obvious stuff—dust, specs, stray hairs, anything that’s clearly a mistake. This is rough and fast.

Pass two: Detail work. This is where the real work happens. I’m smoothing skin, blending wrinkles, working with fabric and texture. Everything needs to look natural and seamless. This pass takes the longest.

Pass three: Color. I pull it all together with color correction, making sure everything feels cohesive and polished.

I do each pass for the entire look at once. So I’ll do all six images in pass one, then all six in pass two, then all six in pass three. That way, the retouching is consistent across the whole series and I remember to remove the same mole or piece of dust from each image. If I did one image all the way through and then moved to the next, they’d start looking different from each other.

The Marathons

Here’s how a typical work session goes: I sit down, put my headphones in, queue up an audiobook or podcast or TV show, and lock in. I need something going on in the background to keep me stimulated and engaged, otherwise I get too distracted to sit still. Once the entertainment is on, I can go into a sprint—I’ll knock out a whole look, five or six images, in one sitting, which takes about an hour or two.

I’ve gotten so good at this that retouching has become second nature. I can listen to audiobooks, I can think about stories for my Substack, I can even tell stories out loud while I’m working. My hands know what to do without me thinking about it anymore.

But I always go back later—a few hours from now, or the next day—and look at all the images laid out together to make sure they actually do look consistent. Because sometimes when you’re in the zone, you miss things.

The Balancing Act

The hard part of retouching is knowing where the line is. How wrinkly is too wrinkly? How smooth is too smooth? You want someone to look like themselves, but the best version of themselves. You want a product to look clean and appealing, but not so polished that it feels fake. You’re constantly balancing authenticity with aspiration.

You’re also balancing human anatomy with brand expectations. What does this person’s face actually look like? What’s a natural amount of texture for their age? How do you honor that while still making them look great? It’s technical work, but it’s also weirdly intimate.

Like the time I had to remove spit bubbles from someone’s smile, or remove their mole or tattoos because the client found them distracting.

The Craft and Community

There are probably a hundred different ways to brighten an image in Photoshop. The way I do it is different from how my old manager did it, which is different from how my current manager does it. Everyone learns Photoshop differently, and everyone has their own techniques and shortcuts and quirks.

That’s what makes it fascinating. It’s a craft where there’s no single right answer—just your answer, built up over thousands of hours of practice.

There’s a whole community around this. I’m a regular contributor on a retouching subreddit where people share their work and ask for feedback. A lot of people from overseas who are learning to retouch will post their before-and-afters asking for advice. Some of them come in really heavy-handed, and you’re trying to explain the finesse of it, the subtlety. But it’s also just interesting to see how other people approach the same problems.

People sell tutorials online—hundreds of them. You can buy someone’s color presets so your images have the same look as theirs. You can buy action sets that automate parts of your workflow. It’s a whole niche world.

Working in-house as a retoucher is actually pretty rare. Most retouching is freelance-based, which is scary when you don’t have guaranteed paychecks or employer-provided health insurance. I’ve been lucky enough to work in-house for three different companies now, and that stability has been huge. But I also freelance on the side, so I’ve seen both worlds.

The OCD Thing

So, yeah. Back to that OCD thing.

October is OCD Awareness Month (I meant to post this in October) which feels fitting because this is me officially outing myself as having OCD. If you know me, this probably isn’t surprising. But now that it finally feels manageable—medication, therapy, actually understanding what’s going on—I can talk about it without it feeling so heavy.

When people think of OCD, they usually think of the stereotype—the neat freak who washes their hands forty times a day or has to have everything perfectly organized. And sure, some people’s OCD manifests that way. But the disorder covers a much broader range than most people realize.

It’s about obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, and those can show up in all kinds of ways—safety worries, intrusive thoughts, checking and rechecking things, food-related anxieties, self-harm behaviors.

Mine has shown up in different ways over the years. But the detail-oriented, hyper-focused part? That’s definitely there.

A few weeks ago, my new manager and I were talking about why certain tasks get assigned to retouchers instead of other team members. She said, “Well, retouchers are just much more detail-oriented.” And I laughed because yeah, that’s literally the job. We’re paid to notice things no one else notices.

And as someone with OCD—if you want to lean into the stereotype—being detail-obsessed and spending all day cleaning files is pretty on-brand. I think it’s fucking hilarious, honestly.

Retouching soothes my OCD need to over-analyze and clean and worry about details, but it also makes it worse at the same time. I think part of the reason I’m good at it is because of the OCD, but also the OCD is always annoying because I have to constantly tell myself to be done with an image instead of pushing it further and further.

I’m on medication for it, which helps. And I’m doing my best. Some things you just lean into, you know? If I’m going to be obsessively focused on details anyway, I might as well get paid for it.

The Reality Check

Here’s the truth: this career pivot worked. I got exactly what I wanted. I built a skill, I built a network, I moved to New York to make it happen, and then I brought it all with me to Vermont. I work remotely (and in office). I have flexibility. I’m living the life Ethan and I talked about all those years ago.

But it’s also exhausting.

I stare at screens for 40+ hours a week. The marathons are mentally draining in a way photography never was. Some days my eyes hurt. Some days I dream about not retouching at all—just homesteading and baking and writing and telling stories.

But also? It pays the bills. It gives me the freedom to live where I want. The work is genuinely interesting most days—there’s still a puzzle-solving aspect that hooks me. And honestly, I’m pretty damn good at it.

I’m still figuring out the balance between “career that funds my life” and “life I actually want to live.” That’s the tension I’m sitting in right now. The retouching makes the homesteading possible. The freelance work makes the freedom possible. The exhaustion makes the quiet moments feel even better.

For now, this works. And that’s something.

If you’re thinking about a career pivot, here’s what I learned: It’s possible. It takes strategy. It takes time. It’s not always glamorous. But if you can find work that fits your lifestyle goals—even imperfectly—it’s worth it.

Liked this? Welcome to my corner of the internet.

I write about what it’s like being in your twenties trying to hold down a full-time job, freelance on the side, run a small homestead in Vermont, serve on a board for a community property in Maine, and keep my mental health together while doing all of it.

It’s chaotic, it’s honest, and I’m writing about all of it—the career pivots, the board meetings in Maine, the first brown eggs, the days when I’m too exhausted to do anything but stare at my screen.

Subscribe for free to get some weekly roundups and longer essays about work, life, and learning to build the kind of life I actually want to live.

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I’m starting to share some quieter thoughts and moments with my paid subscribers — little check-ins from real life as a thank-you for being here and supporting this space. Think of these as casual, unfiltered snippets from my days — like this morning, when I was letting the chickens out and thinking about my day and the frost and… well, anyth…

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I usually try to get these roundups out on Sundays, but with how crazy life has been lately, they might land on Mondays instead.

I feel like I have had no time lately—there are so many projects or chores I want to attend to, but by the time I am done with work or committees or freelance or whatever pressing thing needs my attention that day, I am wiped out from doing anything else.

The Work Grind

I worked two days in the office and three from home — long days split between The Vermont Company and The Brooklyn Company. Most nights I’d finish around 7, running about 10 hour days, wiped out from trying to keep all the plates spinning.

I don’t know if it’s just me or my habits, but I feel like I have been so busy just trying to keep my head above water. I am constantly moving, constantly working, constantly going 100mph and when I’m not, I am resting because I am exhausted from going going going all the time.

A great example of this is I have a great Substack story that I started a rough draft on, however to make a solid post requires a couple hours of editing, tweaking and focus that I haven’t had time to dedicate 100% of my attention to in the past week because I have had so many other things pop up. Just from meetings with The Brooklyn Company to the Board and Committees I am on for the place in Maine, to trying to take care of my chickens and dogs.

I am just having a hard time trying to juggle everything because it feels like everything is demanding my attention and I feel like I am having an extremely hard time finding time for myself to reflect and do what I want that isn’t a chore or pressing or whatever.

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Ethan and I spent a long weekend in Maine, and I’m only now catching my breath to write this week’s Roundup.We drove up to Maine on Thursday from Vermont, spent the weekend, and came back Sunday.

We were in DownEast Maine, past Bar Harbor, at a place I’ve been going to since I was a kid. This place works sort of like a big extended family timeshare—you can rent different houses over the summer, there’s a beach and hiking trails and a homestead farm. You get to eat everything that’s raised on the farm and it’s all very farm to table. You can bring guests and spend quality family time together. My family has been going there for a very long time, and we all work to maintain it as a community.

Earlier this year, in May, I was voted onto the Board of Trustees. I was a trustee observer when I was in college, and I’ve been involved in several committees including Farm and Cabin Rental. Since joining the board in May, I’ve also joined the Budget and Operations committees. Between all the committees and Zoom calls, I’m spending about five hours a week stewarding this place—it’s a time commitment on top of work, and sometimes there are fun moments like this weekend.

Trustee Weekend

This weekend was the Trustees Weekend, where all the trustees go up once a year in October to make decisions for the property for the next year. It’s a really fun time. You get to bring together people who have all been doing Zoom calls and doing the work for the past six months, and bring it full circle to make decisions on the things you’ve been working on. It’s really nice to be in person and to work on the issues together while being in the place we all love and want to take care of.

Ethan, my aunt and uncle, my cousin, and I were all there, so we got to see each other and catch up. I was also able to catch up with people I don’t normally see or work with. So it was a really great time of bonding, getting to know each other as a board, and planning for the place I’ve loved my whole life.

It’s my first year on the board, so I’m learning to navigate the harder conversations that come with collective decision-making. But I’m happy with the work I did and what I contributed. It feels nice to be doing the right thing for this place and to be helping it and be involved. It’s just been an adjustment period on top of everything else and all the other changes.

The Food

One of the best parts of the trip was the cooking. The property has a staff cook who feeds the caretakers—it takes a fulltime crew to keep the day-to-day running. Normally he cooks for them, but this weekend he cooked for the guests, which was really cool because he’s been making some incredible things.

The property has a good-sized farm with dairy cows, beef cows, laying chickens, meat birds, pigs, lambs, horses, and a big, beautiful garden, along with apple trees and all kinds of other things. The cook has been harvesting everything all summer, and nearly everything he made this weekend was from the property and homemade: brats, lambshank, cider, beer, smoked herring caught in the bay, blueberry pie, big salads, potato au gratin—just all kinds of amazing, yummy food.

It was really cool to see the work I’ve been doing on the farm committee come to fruition in this amazing, wholesome food that was grown on the property and cooked beautifully for us. It kind of makes it all worth it—that was definitely one of our favorite parts.

My aunt is on the board, so we’re in the meetings together most of the day, while my uncle and Ethan hung out and had a good time together. The board would be done with meetings around 5:30, and I would always meet Ethan after and try to catch the sunset at 6 and just have a quiet moment with him. Around 6:30, the whole group would reconvene to have cocktail hour. There were 18 guests for this weekend, and it was great to catch up with everyone. And an amazing dinner follows! The last night of cocktails, the caretakers were invited to join, and it was great to hear their perspective on everything.

It was a great weekend. Just a long drive and a whirlwind of a weekend, and I was definitely worn out from the heavy board decisions and the socializing because that wears me out. I slept most of the ride home on Sunday and have been trying to recoup since then.

Since we moved out of Brooklyn in the middle of March and I was voted onto the board in early May, I’ve just been really involved. Some weeks I’d be taking calls in New York after work, and some weeks in Vermont, and people were always asking—since we met on a regular cadence—where are you this week?

I was joking with people that I had slept in my bed for the three weeks in a row in Vermont, and it’s the longest I’ve been in one place in the past six months. It’s been really nice not having to travel for a while.

Back Home

Yesterday and today I’ve been busy at work. The Brooklyn Company has this new project that needs to be done, and I’m trying to do The Vermont Company work during the day and the Brooklyn company in the evening.

My mom was dog-sitting for us while Ethan and I were gone, and she took our massive tomato harvest and made a bunch of tomato sauces, pickled peppers, and other goodies. Just a big shout-out to my mom for getting our freezer ready for winter—she made different soups and chilies and everything, which is going to be really helpful for us when Ethan and I are doing long days this winter. It’ll be nice to have some easy meals to pull out.

And my mom was here when we got our first brown egg! I think all three hens are laying now. So we have one tiny speckled cream egg, one big brown egg, and then the green egg layer. It’s really fun to see these chickens I’ve grown from little chicks making eggs. They have bright yellow yolks and are delicious!

It’s very fulfilling raising our own chickens to produce our own eggs and eating our own products. The place we were in Maine does homesteading on a much larger scale with all kinds of different meats and dairy. Ethan and I want to have some similar variation of that one day, just on a much smaller scale, so it’s nice to start getting there. Starting with our own eggs.

For now I’m happy to be staying put, eating fresh eggs, and catching up on a few projects. It’s still just been a bit crazy lately, and we’re trying to get back to the routine. We don’t have anything planned for the next few months—our next event is Thanksgiving.

Thanks to those of you already subscribing — you’re the reason I get to keep writing about all this. I’m leaving this week’s post open so new readers can get a feel for what this space is about. If you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into my world and want to stick around (or just help keep it going), you can upgrade to paid here. I really appreciate it!

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Settling In

I’m getting more settled into the routine with The Vermont Company and The Brooklyn Company. I’m definitely busier, but I got the pressing projects out of the way for The Brooklyn Company, so I’ve had a couple days of not having to freelance on top of my main job.

The new job is good—everyone is very friendly and nice. I’m just getting used to the routine of working mostly by myself with 3 days at home and little interaction when I go to the office 2 days a week. I should put myself out there and talk to some of the people, but I guess I get shy and just want to stay in my own lane.

I’m feeling a little less stressed. This week was filled with comparing Ethan’s and my insurance and the different plans I have open to me. I finally settled on a plan for both of us that I feel good about, and I feel more on top of everything.

The Season Shifts

It’s been really nice with the leaves changing. I’ve really enjoyed watching them come and go on my drive to work. The hour drive to and from the office is nice since it’s over 2 good-sized mountains and requires some attention and constant shifting with my manual car, but it’s fun and engaging. It’s a beautiful drive and there are few people on it, so I’ve been enjoying it.

I’ve really enjoyed feeling the season change and having the colder weather breeze through. It has that quintessential smell of fall, and it’s noticeably getting darker earlier. I find myself hanging out inside more this week since it’s getting chilly, but I’m happy with the change and slowing down a bit after the insane summer and past few months we’ve had. It’s nice to veg out and work on knitting and baking projects again.

I love winter and I’m partial to it, so I’m excited for the first flakes of snow. We had our first hard frost the other day and I had to put the defrosters on in my car. It’s my favorite time of year—I love the October through December stretch. Even though it’s busy with family and events, it’s nice to spend time with others and feel the cozy winter vibes. I’m ready for the hibernation season after the insane year we’ve had and I’m excited for its arrival.

Making Things

This week I harvested my large feminized marijuana plants since it was going to be a hard frost, and I should have a good crop! I’ve been working on my various knitting projects but have mostly been working through a cozy pair of wool socks that I’m excited to use going into winter.

My favorite part of being a knitter is making the items I want and wearing them. I was wearing my hand-knit socks and hand-knit slippers today and it’s a nice sense of pride and craftiness.

I wanted a nice pair of house slippers and I probably spent as much money as I would have if I’d bought them from Amazon on nice wool and nice soles, but I made them and they are wonderful. I’m very proud.

Same thing with the cardigan and socks I’m making right now—it’s nice to wear the things I’ve made and know that they’ll last since I used nice wool yarn, but also being able to tailor the items to what I want and my sizing.

Anyways! I want to make some mittens in the future, and I bought some nice wool I’ve had my eye on for a while that’s in the mail to make Ethan a sweater.

Apple Picking & Pies

Yesterday, Ethan and I went to an apple orchard and picked about 30 lbs of apples including Cortland and Empire varieties. We also did the corn maze there and got close to finding all the checkpoints. We tried some of the orchard’s homemade hard cider and had some cider donuts and it was the perfect fall activity and a nice date day for us. It was really nice to spend some quality time together.

With all the apples, I have a few plans including making dehydrated apple chips but mostly just lots of pies. I made one pie from start to finish today with homemade crust and filling, but if this recipe works well I’m going to make a bunch of pre-portioned apple fillings and separate doughs and freeze them so I can quickly thaw the filling and dough and put together a pie over the holidays or into winter. Hoping to make at least 6 different pie sets.

I have about 30 minutes left on my pie in the oven but it already smells so good, and I’m getting hungry!

I feel like I’m really leaning into the homemade and the sense of pride from growing my own marijuana, wearing my handmade slippers, or making a pie from scratch. I guess that’s “homesteading,” but it’s really nice to have something you’ve made and to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

What’s something you enjoy making and feel prideful of the result?

Just a few days ago on Thursday morning, I woke up to frost on the grass and removed the makeshift frost coverings I’d put on my plants the night before (a linen sheet, very professional).

I guess welcome to fall in Vermont - unpredictable, beautiful, and currently mocking me through the window as I sit inside staring at my computer screen.

The Return from Arizona

Two weeks ago, I was in Arizona doing some much-needed soul searching and internal healing. It was a fabulous trip, filled with personal work and reflection. But the transition back has been... intense. After 26 hours of travel (planes, trains, buses, and automobiles-yes, all of them), I landed home last Saturday completely exhausted; mentally, emotionally, and from the work I had done in Arizona.

I arrived just in time for Ethan’s birthday on Sunday, which was wonderful, but I didn’t get the decompression time I desperately needed before diving headfirst into a new chapter.

I am very grateful I went, as it was a much-needed and therapeutic trip. However, it left me not quite as rejuvenated as I had hoped and not ready to jump back into routine.

Week One at The Vermont Company

Monday morning, I started my new job at The Vermont Company. Everyone has been incredibly sweet and welcoming—my team is great, and there’s a wholesome energy here that’s refreshingly different from my previous workplace. I work with 2 other female retouchers, which is really refreshing in a male-dominated industry. I’m still adjusting to the new environment, but so far, it’s been positive.

Here’s what I didn’t expect: I thought the first week would be a gentle onboarding process. Maybe some HR paperwork, computer setup, getting to know the team. Instead, by Tuesday morning—my second day—I was already fully immersed in retouching work. I had negotiated a higher salary, and they clearly wanted to put me to work right away. Fair enough. I know (and they know I know) how to do the job, so into the thick of it I went.

The week included a lovely lunch with my new boss and director on Monday, and I worked from home a couple of days. There was a company BBQ lunch picnic which was nice to see more of the company. Everything at The Vermont Company is going well, I’m just busy and absorbing a lot of internal processes already.

The Brooklyn Company Plot Twist

But here’s where things get complicated.

The Brooklyn Company—my former employer—wants me to continue doing essentially my full job as a freelance contractor. So on top of my 40-hour-per-week position at The Vermont Company, I’ve been spending 2-3 hours every evening working for The Brooklyn Company. This week alone, I’ve worked probably another 20 hours for them. I’ve tried to be off the computer by 7:30 each night.

I knew I was going to be doing some freelancing for them, but I underestimated three things: how busy I’d be right out of the gate at the new job, that I would essentially be doing my old job as well, and just how exhausting 10-11 hours a day on a computer would be.

The Reality of Two Full-Time Jobs

So here I am on a beautiful fall Sunday, working through my Brooklyn Company queue. I knew what I was signing up for, but that doesn’t make the 60-hour weeks any less intense.

The dynamic at home has shifted too. I used to handle most of the household chore (cleaning, laundry, etc) but I’m learning what can slide for now and what can’t. Thankfully, Ethan has been taking over some of “my” chores since I’ve been working so much, and we’re figuring out our new rhythm together.

I might be underselling how busy I have been. I literally haven’t had time to write this week, so I am actually dictating this post while I retouch. I know how to retouch for The Brooklyn Company on autopilot, so while my hands are doing the work, I can speak freely about what I want to say. It’s the best solution I’ve found with my limited time right now. (I had to do quite a bit of cleanup later, but it worked well to get the points down!)

The Bright Spots

Despite the chaos, there have been some wonderful moments.

Yesterday, Ethan and I made sure to have a proper fall day together since I knew I’d be working today. We had a nice breakfast, visited The Vermont Company’s retail store (hello, employee discount!), and I tried my first maple creemee. It lived up to the hype, though I want to try other places.

We drove around enjoying the fall foliage and tourists, picked up bread from a wonderful bakery, and attended Ethan’s company’s harvest party at the owner’s property. It was the first day all week I wasn’t staring at a screen for hours on end, and I’m so grateful we carved out that time.

Our First Eggs!

The biggest highlight this week: WE GOT OUR FIRST CHICKEN EGG!

While I was in Arizona, Ethan built and installed nesting boxes for our chickens. We’ve been raising these birds since Memorial Day weekend, waiting patiently for this moment. Two days after installing the boxes, I went to put the chickens away in the evening and found our first beautiful little green egg. This morning, I found a second one!

Each of us got to eat one of these precious eggs from chickens we raised ourselves. They’re small right now, but I’m sure they’ll get bigger. We’re heading into winter, so I’m not sure how long they’ll keep laying, but with three hens and one rooster, we could theoretically get up to three eggs a day. That feels like just the right amount for us—enough without being overwhelming.

I’m already thinking about getting more chickens in the spring, though we should also figure out our longer-term living situation first.

Looking Ahead

I know I work hard, but I won’t lie—it’s a bummer to be working on a Sunday. I’d rather be hiking with my family, doing fall activities, enjoying this ridiculous 80-degree gorgeous day.

The reality is that I’ve committed to both companies, and I need to deliver. The money will be good, which I definitely look forward to. But I also need to figure out a more sustainable balance. I’ve told myself I need at least one day a week away from the computer, and I’m going to try to protect that.

Maybe things will calm down naturally. Maybe I’ll have to set firmer boundaries with The Brooklyn Company. Who knows.

For now, I’m juggling it all—two jobs, homestead projects on hold, regular life continuing in the background. The past two weeks have been chaotic as I settle into a new routine while also grieving the Brooklyn life I left and the memories my Arizona trip stirred up. It’s a lot.

But I’m here, doing it, in beautiful Vermont with fresh eggs from our chickens and a maple creemee and gorgeous fall all around us.

Thanks for sticking with me through the chaos, friends.

Let’s get back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

We just had our team Huddle—that's where the whole company comes together to talk about business and updates. At least a hundred people, more like 130.

About two years ago, The Company stopped announcing departures publicly. Instead, they had the departing person tell whoever they worked with directly. No company-wide announcement.

Well, I guess there's been a lot of people leaving lately, so they actually just had a whole presentation on attrition and why people are leaving.

They then named three people who were leaving this Friday. I'm one of them. And they said my name:

"Heather Monks, 4 years 5 months. Senior Associate of Post Production, or in layman's terms, a retoucher. She makes all the photos beautiful."

It's the first time my name has been said in a huddle, really ever. And I've been here a while.

As they said that, my director and VP were looking at me sadly. A few people around me looked over—we were all standing together—and I teared up. I shed a tear or two, and I think that's when it hit me that it's really happening.

I knew it was happening, but this is the first time they've publicly announced departures in two years. I just happened to be in the first batch the announced. Hearing my name really hit me. I am actually leaving this company.

Later in the huddle, we (the retouchers) got a shoutout for all the work we've been doing on assets lately. It felt nice.

When I was in New York two weeks ago, I had just put my notice in and nobody knew. Everyone was told last week while I was home, so now that I'm back in the office, quite a few people have come up to me saying they can't believe I'm leaving and that they'll miss me. It's a weird feeling.

I still like The Company. I still like the people. I feel like I do good work there and I'm important, but I'm leaving and it sort of feels against my choice. But oh well. It feels nice to have been recognized for my good work and to have had my departure announced in the big huddle today.

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When I moved to Brooklyn in August 2021, I was 23 and had just started at The Company that April, working remotely for the last few months. I had been living with Ethan for two years already, and moving to New York City felt like the start of a grand adventure for both of us.

Ethan had lived in NYC in his twenties, and being a bit older than me, he was honestly done with the city thing. But gratefully, he did it for me. Willie came with us too.

I was a driven entry-level worker diving headfirst into corporate life—working with a team, sitting in meetings, picking my benefits, packing myself onto the train with the rest of NYC's commuters. I wanted to grow and explore and take the city by the horns. I was wide-eyed and hungry to succeed, work hard, and make a career out of my knowingly short time in the city.

Looking back now, it's hard to believe it's been almost four years since that move. It feels like both forever and not nearly long enough.

Getting Our Footing

Those early days were strange. Ethan worked at a terrible job building doors while I was the only one of a dozen people actually in the office; the rest of The Company hadn't been called back to work in person yet. Just a few months after moving there, we got engaged on Christmas Eve of 2021.

We watched NYC still grapple with the aftermath of COVID, a city that had taken such a brutal hit from the virus and was still feeling its effects well into 2022.

Ethan eventually started a new job at Ready Set, a company that builds sets for film and TV. I got a promotion and title change around this time too. Things were starting to click into place, but not without their moments of frustration. I'll never forget biking down Flatbush Avenue once and just screaming "FUCK NEW YORK" because I was so fed up with it all.

Finding Our Rhythm

We got baby Hazelnut, the perfect mischievous puppy we could've asked for. We found a kickass apartment and moved next door to our old place; literally just took the fence down to move our stuff over.

I saw my favorite band, Arcade Fire, front row at a charity concert after waiting in line for eight hours and doing a scavenger hunt for free tickets. It was the coolest New York moment I could have imagined. I picked out my wedding dress at Kleinfeld's. I met two incredible people through work who became not just teammates but are some of my best friends.

I got my e-bike and stopped taking the train to work, biking to the office nearly year-round for two years straight. I had a wonderful bridal shower in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden at the height of cherry blossom season - so magical, surrounded by all the women in my life who love me. It felt very maternal and loving.

The Good Years

Ethan and I got married on Memorial Day 2023 with a beautiful wedding on Lake Sebago in Maine. We honeymooned in Switzerland, Italy, and around the Mediterranean.

I got a tiny art studio near my work for my photography; it couldn't have been bigger than 100 square feet, but it was mine. I went there to create art, and I hope to recreate that setup again someday. My art career started to take off with several group shows around NYC, art fairs, and even a pop-up coffee shop exhibition. I showed at the prestigious C+C Gallery and made it onto a top 30 Under 30 Women Photographers list globally for 2025.

Ethan got promoted to the digital fabrication department, working with CNCs, plasma cutters, and AutoCAD.

I discovered a love for hot yoga, going through phases of once a month to weekly to 3-4 days a week. It was a great physical and mental outlet—there's something about being physically exhausted after a good workout that makes the mind go quiet.

Hazelnut grew up visiting my photo studio and naturally became a model herself. She was so good that she kept getting booked for shoots—I can think of at least six different ones she modeled for.

Living the Dream (Sort Of)

Our last year there, we had a big garden with tomatoes, carrots, peppers, eggplant, ginger, herbs, and even a loofah gourd. I even grew a few marijuana plants in the backyard. We took a great Alaskan cruise with both sets of parents and Ethan's brother; it was wonderful getting the whole family together.

I got really into knitting and even went to a knitting conference in Times Square. I still knit now as a way to stay off my phone.

But by mid 2024, we started talking about moving to New Hampshire. Ethan was getting frustrated with his job, feeling like he was just treading water. I don't blame him; he never really wanted to be in New York like I did. I wanted to stay and settle there. I was okay with NYC and truthfully did like it, though it took me a while to get there.

My job at The Company had stagnated too, though. I hadn't been growing and had been doing the same thing for the past few years. I was getting frustrated but also enjoyed the predictability and the cushy lifestyle. Deep down, I knew Ethan was ready to go, and with my career feeling stale, maybe it was time to leave.

I went to Iceland with my mom on a wonderful trip with a tour group called Adventure Women - definitely a life highlight. During our time in NYC we traveled throughout the states: Florida (Disney!), Maine, New Hampshire, Chicago, Arizona, Michigan, Virginia, and took several Caribbean cruises. All that travel was what I needed to survive being in New York.

The Beginning of the End

Ethan got a job offer from a home-building company in New Hampshire, drafting house plans. He was excited about it as a real career opportunity, not just manual labor, and using the skills he learned at Ready Set. He accepted.

We moved out of our apartment in mid-April, but I stayed alone in Brooklyn for two weeks with Hazelnut while Ethan started his new job. None of our furniture or belongings - just us in an empty apartment. It was lonely.

At the end of April, we fully moved out and had a big going-away party.

Then began the commute: one week in NYC, the next 10 days in New Hampshire (and later Vermont), back and forth, over and over.

I've been doing this for five months now, and I'm tired. It sounds insane, but somehow I managed it. I probably could have kept going longer, but it's time to move on.

Today is morning one of my last three days in the office this week.

The end of an era.

Family Visit

My mom left on Tuesday, and simultaneously my dad and step-mom Nena arrived for a few days. It was wonderful sharing our Vermont homestead with them and showing off all the projects we've been working on since the move. Dad got a kick out of wrangling the chickens, and Nena was enchanted by my houseplants. They even got to see my small cannabis grow—I harvested two plants this week that are now drying. While I worked from home, they took day trips around the area, exploring Vermont at their own pace.

Work Transition

This was my first week of a two-week notice period. I spent most of it wrapping up projects I'd been leading. Next week brings the less exciting task of writing process documents and how-to guides for my replacement—something I've been procrastinating on but need to tackle while I'm in the office.

Thursday brought a highlight: I snuck away from work for a few hours to join Dad and Nena on a road trip south. We drove by the original Vermont Country Store (the retail face of my new company) and continued to the corporate office in Manchester to see my future workplace. Dad got to experience the commute I'll be making—an hour drive over two substantial mountains. It's fun in my manual transmission car, but I suspect the novelty might wear off given the focus it requires.

Simple Pleasures

Our evenings were spent on the porch, watching sunsets and stars emerge while I knitted and we talked. Dad discovered that Hazelnut is obsessed with fetch and became completely enamored with him. These wholesome moments of sharing our space felt really special.

They left early Friday morning, and Ethan and I savored having our quiet house back to ourselves. While it's been wonderful sharing our home with family these past few weeks, returning to our routine felt good too.

Weekend Reflections

Yesterday was pure contentment—puttering around the house, setting up a little picnic on the lawn, and watching the sunset together. We're feeling very much at peace with the life we're building here.

Signs of Change

The leaves are starting to turn, and it feels early this year. Vermont and New England are in a drought after months with virtually no rain—strange after such a wet spring. The lawn is browning, plants are drying up, and leaves are shifting to autumn colors while evening brings that crisp chill that signals fall's arrival.

I've always loved fall, and it truly feels like a season of change. It's funny—when I was commuting back and forth from Vermont to NYC, I'd often drive from the barely leafed north down to the fully green south in the city. There's something fitting about leaving NYC just as the leaves are turning up here. It feels like the cycle of life, time to move on, and the natural rhythm of seasonal change.

Weekend Reflections

Yesterday was pure contentment—puttering around the house, setting up a little picnic on the lawn, and watching the sunset together. We're feeling very much at peace with the life we're building here.

This week has involved a lot of processing and adjusting to my new reality. I'm still a bit sad about leaving my NYC job, but excited about being in Vermont full-time and discovering what kind of life Ethan and I will create here.

Tomorrow I head to the city for my final work trip—wrapping up loose ends and attending my going away party. As someone who's deeply nostalgic, I know it'll be bittersweet. But I think I'm as ready as I can be, despite the natural apprehension about what comes next.

Let's see how this next week unfolds. 🌿

I'm somewhere on the edge of Augusta, Maine, cruising on I-95 going 80mph listening to Smashing Pumpkins.

Ethan is driving and I'm sitting next to him, and we're both getting beaten by the sun. I'm wearing a knit wool sweater and hat even though it's 67 degrees out because I'm tired and it makes me feel cozy.

I look a bit ridiculous. A local guy in Downeast Maine asked me where my skis are because I look like a ski bunny.

What can I say? I like the cold and I'm very excited for it to be cold.

I sort of played hooky today. I added an extra day onto our vacation because we couldn't get off the island yesterday, and well, frankly, I wanted another day.

I'm ready to go home though. We're both smelly and itchy. We haven't showered in 7 days and the dunk in the ocean wasn't enough for my flaky scalp.

I have some crazy work stuff going on. I got a job offer a week ago from a Vermont bedding and homegoods store, The Other Company, doing very similar things to what I do for my job in Brooklyn. The pay isn't quite where it should be, and I needed the week to think about what to do.

I'm notorious for sitting on an offer and hemming and hawing and not deciding. But honestly, I really needed this vacation. I was happy to be with family to talk it through, and I've decided to counter, but nothing crazy, only like $2,500. It's still like a 35k pay cut. Ouch.

This will be my third job offer since I've worked for The Company, and I feel like third time's the charm and maybe I should just accept it. The first two still sting that I turned them down, 1 and 2 years ago.

The two jobs I turned down to stay at The Company were better jobs and jobs I wanted, but they weren't a good fit for our family at the time. But it stings.

My career is important to me and it's a major motivator, and I'm having a hard time with having a career in the middle of nowhere, or I guess the edge of somewhere. There just isn't opportunity in my industry for what I want to do out here.

So I decided to do a Hail Mary to just see what happens. I offered The Company the option of moving me into a contract position so I could still do my current position without needing to follow full-time employee rules that I am actively not adhering to and could eventually get me fired. This is a long-term solution and keeps my high salary while giving me the ability to work remotely.

I shot my shot and sent an email to my director to suggest this position and mentioned the pending offer from The Other Company.

The Company just posted a job that I'm highly interested in and honestly is a goal of where I want my career to go, Photo Art Direction and not just as a Retoucher. Well, they posted the AD position after months of my coworkers and I mentioning we need a person to creatively lead photo and there just aren't enough people to focus on the imagery.

I've joked about taking this position before it was even an option and said, "Hey, I can make decisions and I have a good creative eye!"

So I mentioned my interest in this role to my director and sent a separate email about the AD role to the Creative Director (the hiring manager) at The Company, and I just really pitched myself.

I want this role, but honestly I probably don't have the experience needed for the role based on the job description, and I would have to move back to NYC full-time. Which I guess is a later problem, and honestly I just want to know if I ever had a shot at becoming anything of value for The Company or even have the skills to become an AD in NYC.

Part of me is hoping to just be turned down and blown off so I feel more comfortable taking the Vermont job, knowing I'm done with the company and knowing they don't care about me as a human being or employee. I'll be disappointed, but it will help me move on. I don't know why, but I've just been holding onto hope for so long and I just need it squashed.

And yeah, there's a small and unrealistic part of me that hopes that the creative director goes, "Sure Heather, the AD position is all yours! Why didn't we think of you!"

But that's not going to happen. I don't know what I want to happen. I sent the ominous emails 4 hours ago and I'm on PTO today, so no response yet. I guess we shall see.

I hope by the end of the week I'll know where I'll be working.

Read more

I’ve got a bigger post coming soon about my job situation, and that one’s going behind a paywall. Some stories are too juicy to just toss into the open internet forever. Weekly roundups and other “spicier” posts are going to start living there too.

Adding a paywall is also a step toward helping me build my life full-time here in Vermont. Some big work changes are on the horizon (I’ll explain soon in that upcoming post), and this is one way to support me across the internet while I share more of my Vermont adventures, homesteading chaos, and the usual Heather-brand storytelling.

If you’ve got questions, or want to make sure you don’t miss out, this is your nudge to hop on the paid side. Think of it as buying me a coffee—except instead of caffeine, you’re fueling unhinged breakfast showdowns, rural dispatches, and the next chapter of this Vermont life.

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September 1 – Labor Day Breakfast Showdown

Mom, Ethan, and I decided to go out for breakfast at this restaurant Mom and Jon had tried the day before. It was about 45 minutes away—basically a local trip in Vermont terms.

We roll up around 10:30, and the parking lot is packed. Line out the door, small-town chaos. As we pull in, three or four other cars do too, so I hop out to secure our spot. The place is tiny—maybe a dozen tables and a few counter seats. Very cute, very “locals only.”

We wait about half an hour, no big deal, and eventually we’re next in line. That’s when he appears: Tall, mid-50s, New York accent, strolling in like he owns the joint. He cuts past me, scopes out the dining room, and struts back outside. Whatever, I brush it off.

Except he comes back with two friends, corners me, and says: “You’re three? We’re three. Do you want the counter? Because if not, we’ll take it.”

Excuse me? Sir, this is not a ski lodge cafeteria. You don’t just hover over seats and pounce. The server seats you. That’s how society works.

So it basically turns into a 3-on-3 standoff. Him and his crew behind the counter seats, my family and me holding our rightful place in line. He’s clearly banking on intimidation. I get a little snippy, my mom calmly says we’ll wait for the server, and meanwhile he’s standing right next to me like we’re about to duel for these stools.

The server finally comes over and says: “You’re next—table in 5–10, or the counter right now.”
I look the guy dead in the eye and go, “We’ll take the counter.”

Vindictive smirk included.

And let me tell you, it was glorious. They ended up waiting another 45 minutes and were just getting their food as we walked out, full and smug. Moral of the story: being an asshole New Yorker in rural Vermont will not get you fed faster.

Screw you, counter-seat cowboy.

This week was a lot—I spent four days in New York and started at my new office space. I’ve got a whole story about that (yep, going under the paywall), but the highlight of the week was a detour to the Ben & Jerry’s factory. Super fun, super cute, and yes—there are photos.

Enjoy some sweet snaps of Ethan and me living our best ice cream lives

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I have so enjoyed a deserved break from commuting to NYC but I have to return to NYC tomorrow, and I am NOT excited about it.

My parents have been here this past week, and it's been wonderful planning family dinners together. I made homemade hibachi on my Blackstone, Mom made delicious homemade pizza from scratch and fresh halibut the next night, and Jon (my step-dad) cooked Greek chicken (a staple from my childhood). It was the first time I've hosted Mom and Jon in my house, and it felt really special spending that quality time together.

The Long-Awaited Kayak Adventure

Back in early July, I finally ordered a kayak online—something I'd been wanting for several years, especially since we live within 15 minutes of a couple of gorgeous lakes. The Company gives us a $1000 "wellness" benefit that you can use on pretty much whatever you want as long as it benefits you some how, so I chose to invest in a kayak.

The whole process was quite the journey: the kayak was backordered, then shipped in early August, followed by three weeks of shipping time before it finally arrived. I mean, shipping a 10-foot kayak is pretty crazy logistically, but it felt like forever!

When it finally arrived this week, I was thrilled to get out on the lake and start pedaling around. I specifically wanted a pedal kayak since I don't bike as much anymore, and with my knee issues, I need the pedaling motion for physical therapy. Plus, I genuinely enjoy pedaling—it's a great workout.

These pedal kayaks aren't typically available locally unless you want to spend $3000+ (which I definitely didn't), so ordering online was my best option. I only paid $250 out of pocket for shipping, making it an almost free kayak!

The pedaling workout is intense—there's serious resistance from the water, but it's perfect PT for strengthening my knees. Win-win! I was pedaling all over the lake while Ethan happily watched and fished from the shore.

Now I'm working on figuring out how to load the kayak on top of my Mazda3 hatchback so I can take solo trips. My goal is to do some peaceful early morning paddles for exercise while enjoying the lake's beauty. I need to make it happen soon since the weather is definitely cooling off!

Lake George Adventure

On Saturday, we drove about an hour and a half to Lake George, NY, to visit family friends at their beautiful lake house. My mom is close with Karen, my family friend aunt type person, and they hadn't seen each other in several years, so they were eager to catch up. I brought Hazelnut along since Karen adores her and Hazelnut loves to soak up any attention.

I got to see her son Paul, who's in the Air Force and is usually deployed or stationed elsewhere. Paul and I were born just a month apart—our moms were pregnant together and were good friends when we were younger. We're like cousin-family-friends who grew up seeing each other once a year or so, though it's been at least 6-7 years since our last visit.

Paul had a friend over, so the four of us "kids" (though we're all adults now) hung out together. We went swimming in the lake and I got Hazelnut to swim a bit even though it is not her favorite.

Paul took us out on his parents' nice Cobalt boat for a ride around the lake. Unfortunately, strong winds created some serious chop, but it was still enjoyable. We actually boated over to the little lakeside village, docked at the public marina, and walked over to a local brewery for drinks.

I spent time asking Paul about his Air Force experience—something I have no personal knowledge of but find fascinating. Mostly, we just caught up on life while Hazelnut enjoyed the boat ride with her ears flapping in the wind.

Meanwhile, Mom stayed back with Karen for some quality mom-friend time, which was perfect.

On the return trip, the wind had calmed down considerably. Emily (Paul's friend) opened up the throttle, and we were flying across the water. It was honestly terrifying for me since I still have some lingering boat anxiety, but I tried to let go and enjoy the moment. Hazelnut was absolutely living her best life!

We ended the day with local takeout—pizza and grinders—sharing a lovely dinner with all seven of us. It was such a perfect day: relaxing on the lake and reconnecting with a childhood friend.

Productive Sunday

Yesterday, Ethan and I had an incredibly productive day. Mom came home to house and said, "You Martha'd!" (referencing cleaning enthusiast Martha Stewart). Ethan spent the entire day working on getting our electric fence up and running back and forth from the farm area and the house while I tackled various projects around the house.

By the time we both finally sat down, showered, and had drinks in hand, it was 6 PM, and I didn't have the energy to write—hence why I'm a day behind on this entry.

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Labor Day and What's Next

Today is Labor Day, and we're heading to a new breakfast place that's "close" to us (meaning 45 minutes away, but it's a gorgeous day for a car ride). I'm currently sitting in the back of Mom's Lexus—thanks for driving, Mom! 😉

Tomorrow I return to NYC and the new office, which I'm sure will provide plenty of material for my next entry….