Anniversaries, Cicada Parade-a, cardinal eggs, sound baths, Let's Move the Needle book & more
It's going to be a busy May and I'm here for it
Happy May, everyone. I’m delighted you’re here, friends. I hope the first four months of 2024 were kind to you and you have a wonderful month ahead.
17 Years in Business
May is usually a busy month for me and this year it’s proving to be even busier than normal. This month is my company’s anniversary — 17 years ago I left my corporate marketing job to start my agency and while some years were better than others, never once did I regret my decision. It’s as much an anniversary of some of my best relationships with friends, fellow writers, editors, colleagues, partners, and clients. Without them and their support, encouragement, and collaboration, my business wouldn’t be where it is today. Thank you for being part of it! A coffee cheers to that.
Cicada Parade-a
By now you’ve likely heard cicadas will be making an appearance soon! I’m honored to be one of the hundreds of adoptees of two cicadas as part of Cicada Parade-a, a large-scale collaborative art project organized by The Insect Asylum and Formstone Castle Collective. Our cicadas will be on display in and around Chicago starting this month through the end of summer 2024 as a celebration of this once-in-221-year re-emergence of Broods XIII and XIX, Illinois’ 17-year and 13-year cicada broods. I picked up my naked cicadas a week ago and they’re drying in my garage. Once they’re nice and dry, my daughter and I will paint them and put them on display. Got any design ideas for us? Send them my way, please! I’m thinking of doing something fun and sparkly for the wings. Stay tuned and next month I hope to share updates!
Cardinal Eggs
While I may be working alone some days in the garden, I know I’m never really alone. Recently, a cardinal family has decided to make its home in my arbor! A mama cardinal has been patiently sitting on her three eggs in her nest pretty much 24/7. I’ve tried to get close enough to get pictures but it’s not easy when she’s always there and I don’t want to disturb her. I was able to get in quickly to shoot this one. I can’t wait to welcome three baby cardinals soon!
Let’s Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers
My dear friend Shannon Downey, also known as Badass Cross Stitch, wrote a book and you can pre-order it today! We all know how important pre-orders are for any book and especially for a debut book author so if you’re interested in this kind of book, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering it and supporting my badass friend. And if this isn’t your kind of book, I hope you still order it and gift it to someone in your life. Birthing a book is so hard and we want people to read them, share them, talk about them, get involved, you name it!
Here’s the link: Let's Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers; Build Community and Make Change!
Updates for 50 Ways to More Calm, Less Stress
Finally, speaking of books, my marketing and outreach efforts for 50 Ways to More Calm, Less Stress: Scientifically Proven Ways to Relieve Anxiety and Boost Your Mental Health Using Your Five Senses have felt non-stop in a great way! I’d presented to two different groups in April (a session at a Chicago Public Library branch which was awesome and a major Chicago corporation’s Business Resource Group event).
This month I have another two presentations scheduled and one is as a keynote, which is very exciting. Several independent booksellers are reaching out to me to ask me to stop by to sign more books (yes, please!) and Barbara’s Bookstore at Northwestern Hospital in downtown Chicago has asked me to stop by again this week to sign more copies because according to the manager, “We've actually been selling them fairly regularly since we last communicated.” I love hearing these updates!
May is also Mental Health Awareness Month and my book has 50 ways to help you calm your body and mind. If you’ve tried anything new recently, I’d love to hear about it!
Tonight I’m heading to an evening sound bath experience. As I wrote in my book about sound baths (number 37 in 50 Ways to More Calm, Less Stress: Scientifically Proven Ways to Relieve Anxiety and Boost Your Mental Health Using Your Five Senses): “There are very few things we can do to help calm our minds and bodies where we do not have to do anything but receive the experience. A sound bath, also known as sound therapy, is one of those things.”
I hope you have a wonderful May, friends. Please stay in touch. All we have is each other.