I watched this short video from Erin at Floret at the beginning of the month and instantly was inspired to play with flowers from my garden and our yard. I cut thousands of blooms last year but my “arranging” consisted of grouping like with like. It was fun and my windowsill looked amazing but I decided in 2025 I am going to push myself a bit more and try to build interesting arrangements. I am seven bouquets in (per usual, I am too excited to just do this weekly) and I am loving it. You can see them all here if you're interested. (April was ranunculus season, clearly.)

We finished renovating the girls' bathroom this month and it feels so nice to be done. This is the fourth flower tile floor I have had installed in our house and I can tell you that the longer I live with pattern the more I love it. We used Fireclay Tusk and Rosemary hex tile on the floor and Manzanita for the 3x6 subway. 

Our first few years here I scattered California Poppy seeds everywhere. They now self-seed and continue to absolutely thrill me every April.

My garden is 75% in at this point and after great success last year, I am using wheat straw as mulch again. It's super easy to spread, suppresses weeds, retains moisture and then breaks down into the soil when you turn it in at the end of the season. Would totally recommend if you've got a garden and no mulch plan yet! Also – sneak peak of some of the 100s of single-stem sunflowers and strawflowers I am growing this year. (Yes, I pack my seedlings in. Spacing? I don't know her.)

Paul and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary(!!) last week. As per tradition, we opened a numbered card, this one was signed by everyone who sat at table 15 at our wedding. Also per tradition, the notes were so sweet. If you know someone getting married, send them a link to this blog post. The concept is simple: your table number markers double as cards. Everyone at the table writes a message to the couple knowing it will eventually be opened on the corresponding anniversary. My favorite note this year was “Michael and I are celebrating 10 years. We hope at 15 you are just as content as we are.” The older I get, the more I see “contentment" for the treasure it is.

My non-fiction read this month was Chris Hayes' The Sirens' Call. I heard Chris make the podcast rounds when this book came out and was excited to find it at the library. The thesis is perhaps obvious – attention (both individual and collective) is a limited resource. Throughout human history this has always been true, but it's only in the past two decades that we began to carry around a device filled with apps designed to capture and then cling to our attention spans. The most “a-ha!” chapter for me was on social attention which is related to online content creating culture. I spent 18 years sharing all of my work and much of my life online and then, in a day, I stopped. I didn't know what would happen to my ego and creative drive when the likes and the follows and the “engagement” went away. It was startling to find I didn't miss it. This, according to the book, may be because “Social attention from strangers is the psychological equivalent of empty calories" (pg. 113) and that what we as humans are really searching for is not attention but recognition which can only come from people we truly know and can recognize back (pg. 111). Wow.

And related – It was truly great to hear back from so many of you when I sent my newsletter last month; thank you for saying hi! A few of you asked how “offline life” is going. TLDR – I am doing well! But if you'd like a longer version, in January I chatted about my first social media free year with Elsie and Emma for the A Beautiful Mess podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or linked here on Apple Podcasts.

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