For a fuller view of my writing beyond my recent posts, dive in below and peruse as much or as little as you’d like. I write about a wide range of topics from WordPress to Surrogacy to Photography to Mental Health. Don’t follow me if you want to only hear about a certain topic as I write based on what comes up for me in that moment of time. As always, thanks for reading.
-
San Diego Zoo
I was lucky enough to get a free ticket to go here but, after going, I would definitely pay to go back. Here are a select few images (believe it or not I took probably 100+ pictures and didn’t even get through the whole zoo):
-
Balboa Park
I thought San Diego was beautiful before I set foot in Balboa Park so you can imagine my surprise at how lovely everything was there. If you have a chance, go! I didn’t get to explore as much as I wanted to but am headed back there today to go to the Museum of Man which […]
-
San Diego
I’ve been in San Diego for the past couple of days and have loved it. It reminds me of the perfect blend of FL and NC. I was fortunate enough to explore Ramona to hang with some sheep and some adorable dogs. More recently, I’ve been staying at an unbelievable hotel right in downtown. I […]
-
Are you sure you want to delete this for forever?
About 6 months ago I deactivated my Facebook and deleted Instagram from my phone. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself around to deleting Instagram. One day I had the courage to finally do it but when I started going through the process I found out that deleting my instagram meant 1) I would lose my […]
-
Altruism
Helping people is something that’s just a part of who I am. I guess it works well seeing as I’m a happiness engineer by day. In large part, I’ve learned to love to help because I personally have been helped by so many in my life to get where I am today. Whether it’s the […]
-
Loyal to myself
“Just because I liked something at one point in time doesn’t mean I’ll always like it, or that I have to go on liking it at all points in time as an unthinking act of loyalty to who I am as a person, based solely on who I was as a person. To be loyal […]
-
A love letter to Lyft
This time last year almost to the date, I had my first interview with Lyft: I remember how nervous I was when I first jumped on the call and how calm I felt the second I heard the friendly voice on the other end of the phone. What first drew me to Lyft as an […]
-
The Importance of Listening
I’ve noticed an odd trend amongst people. If someone is talking about something they don’t know about or that feels “over their head”, they disengage almost immediately. “mhm”. Nod and smile. Their phone screens suddenly become more interesting than listening to something they don’t know anything about. The past 2 years I’ve worked on developer heavy teams […]
-
Navigating & Championing Remote Work
The above picture is of me working while sitting with my dog, Hamlet, back home in Winter Park, FL on week two of my three week stay over the holidays. The fact that I can even write that sentence is entirely due to the fact that I work remotely. With that said, remote work requires […]
-
Thoughts on perfect hedges, laws, and dirt roads.
I was pulling into Walgreens yesterday when it hit me how perfectly aligned everything was and how many pre-destined turns I made to get there. From the invention of the turn signal to the perfectly spaced lines signaling a parking spot, I realized we’re living in a perfectionist world in many ways. I took a lot of sociology […]
-
Why I’m tracking my vacation time
I’ve found that one of my biggest assets as a person and as an employee is that I know myself really well.. my weaknesses, my strengths, things I have a hard time remembering, how long it takes me to do something, capitalizing on days when I have more energy than others, etc. I’m guessing it’s my […]
-
2015: the year of learning
My senior year of college I walked into a library to try to find a book on the early history of the mental health movement. I was writing a paper for an amazing course I took on social movements and was absolutely stuck trying to figure out how I could write something novel for this final […]
-
Call of a potential meaning.
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” ― Viktor E. Frankl I’m such a sucker for […]
-
Breaking exercise out of its box
I’ve always been an athlete but there’s a part of me that hates failing even though repeatedly failing is what ultimately made me successful. I’ve never done a handstand before and yesterday I learned how! Something clicked when this happened and I was able to do it with ease. Afterward, I felt more in tune […]
-
How my job shapes my lifestyle: a reflection
“We buy stuff to cheer ourselves up, to keep up with the Joneses, to fulfill our childhood vision of what our adulthood would be like, to broadcast our status to the world, and for a lot of other psychological reasons that have very little to do with how useful the product really is. How much […]
-
Sunday adventure
On Sunday, I decided it was time to discover the bison in Golden Gate park. What started as a quest to find bison, turned into a beautiful adventure filled (literally) with puppies and awesome coffee.
-
Why I write letters
It takes me all of a minute to shoot a text to someone. I timed myself and found it actually takes me less than a minute unless I’m in a very intense conversation which is known to happen from time to time. It takes me 30 minutes or so to write a letter. Operating under […]
-
My dog > your dog
Kidding… He really is so cute though.
-
If I were born ___ years ago
Have you ever been asked “What era do you wish you had lived in”? Sometimes I like to play this game where I imagine what it would have been like if I had grown up in another day and age. My mind jumps to Roman times thanks to my 6 years of studying Latin and my […]
-
I’m 16 again
Coming home is a strange jump back into time for me. My room looks the same along with the entirety of Winter Park ( + or – some new roads or a new house). I don’t buy new clothes very often so most of what I wear is the same. This trip home has been an […]
-
Life without a phone
My phone is broken. It won’t charge at all and I have given up trying to make it charge since Saturday. Yes, I’ve tried multiple outlets and multiple chargers. Nothing works. All is not lost though 🙂 I spend most my day on my computer so not having my phone is a blessing because it […]
-
I broke up with my phone and my social media persona
We’re done. I can’t take it anymore. Kidding aside, I have deleted every app on my phone that could possibly distract me or keep me using it for longer than an hour or two/day. I still have Slack, WordPress, and Inbox on there but mostly because I need that for communicating for my job. With […]
-
M1 Summit
I was lucky enough to be able to attend the San Francisco M1 Summit (Mobile First). One of my coworkers gave me the tickets and I jumped at the opportunity to go after seeing the lineup of people there. I was even more curious to go after reading a couple of books that digs into […]
-
Reflections on San Francisco
I’ve been living in San Francisco for just over five months now. In that time, a ton and a half has happened. I’ve moved from NC to CA. I graduated college. I left a job, started a new job at a startup, left the job at the startup, and started my new job at a8c. […]
-
A Love Song to all my friends
It’s that John Mayer song In Your Atmosphere… “Wherever you go. Wherever you are. I’ll watch your life play out in pictures from afar.” This is a love songpost to all my friends because I feel like I’m doing that with everyone I love. I’m watching so many wonderful lives play out in pictures from […]
-
Presentism
I can barely contain my excitement and the speed with which my mind is churning. Months ago I snagged a book out of impulse and curiosity called “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now” by Douglas Rushkoff. Recently, I disengaged from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in a desperate attempt to regain control of my time spent […]
-
Oh the sites you’ll see
Working for Automattic allows you to get to check out some incredible sites made by those in the WordPress community. I never realized that this would become a part of my job that I would love when I started. Being on the VaultPress team means I am looking at WordPress.org sites most of the day. Whether […]
-
How Minipans Create Happiness
I have an obsession with mini things and small spaces. This works to my advantage living in San Francisco with rent being so high. I used to collect mini sharpies and even once convinced my mom to make a bed in my closet. By bed, I mean I put pillows down on a shelf in […]
-
A Day in the Life of a Happiness Engineer: Thursday
This post is a day late but only because I was traveling to Denver yesterday afternoon and almost missed my flight. 7:30AM I woke up and immediately was craving bagels and coffee. Barely awake, I drove and got both all while wearing what could be described nicely as pajamas. Back home, I opened my computer and […]
-
A Day in the Life of a Happiness Engineer: Wednesday
Today was one of the days where I was particularly thankful I worked remotely and with a company that trusts me to manage my time. 6AM – 8AM I woke up at a hotel where I stayed the night with a friend of mine who was in town. No, this is not The Hangover Part 3. […]
agm 