May 2025
May In Review
May was as fast as it was fun. My mom’s birthday, Mother’s Day, a trip to Banff for President’s Club, a trip to Chicago for my company’s biggest customer conference of the year, and a trip to New Buffalo for Memorial Day Weekend would have been enough in and of itself, but we decided to put in an offer on a house and sell ours too. You can call us crazy, it’s earned at this point. Assuming all goes well, we’ll be closing on the new place on the very last day of June, so a lot to look forward to AND a lot to do both in work and in life as we wrap up Q2 and make moves.
In June, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of our wonderful pool, having some new friends (Charlie’s friends!) over for pool days, celebrating Ronnie and my dad for Father’s Day, a birthday brunch for Helena, a long weekend with Tasha, hosting an intimate gathering in celebration of Baby Girl #2 coming in September, getting our house on the market, and closing on the new house. If you call, text, email me, or send a carrier pigeon, but don’t hear back this month… you know why! Between wrapping up Q2 at work and the hours in between, I think life is pretty well cut out for us… And at the same time, there’s always gotta be just a little bit of room leftover for magic. I can’t wait to see what magical moments are in store for us in June. And for you too.
What are you looking forward to in June?
Alright, onto the good stuff.
Favs From the Month
Fav Book: As I was lucky enough to have a 8-hour round trip flight during the month of May, I plowed through the majority of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, a fantastic read for those looking to level up in their career, but may not have the time right now to do something like, let’s say, get an MBA. It’s split into three parts: People, Sales, and Running a Business. As a sales leader, I was all too excited to see that an entire section of this book was dedicated to the topic. I think sales is an absolutely necessary skill for any strong business person, and it’s perhaps the most looked down on by other professions. But here’s the deal, sales is the tip of the spear when it comes to businesses making money, and businesses exist for one reason: to make money. So there ya go, sales is a pretty essential skill. I hope if you decide to pick it up, you enjoy it as much as I have!
Fav Podcast Episodes: Okay, very, very exciting news this month, Emma Grede (Co-Founder of Good American, Skims, and Safely, and mother of four) has launched her very own podcast, Aspire with Emma Grede. First thing I need you to know, is her press tour has been unreal, from appearances on TSC, DOAC, and Goop, to more mainstream appearances on TV, Emma and her Aspire team understood the assignment. I’ve been an Emma Grede stan since October 2016 when Good American launched promising incredible jeans for curvy women, and I have followed her every move since. I love the way she talks about entrepreneurship (hint: she is also an advocate for sales and negotiation skills!), has been open about her dyslexia (I also have slight dyslexia which was uncovered back when I was studying for my ACT in high school), and most importantly how she speaks about her role as a mom and how she relates to her children and how she relates to her children about her work. She’s an inspiration!!! There’s nothing I love more than being able to tune in to a leader who’s career I so admire every week, to hear her ask questions of and to the people she admires! It’s exciting stuff. If you read my content, I get the sense you’ll enjoy hers.
Fav Show: I have been obsessed with Your Friends and Neighbors (Jon Hamm) this month, and watch it religiously when new episodes drop, unfortunately for Ronnie, he was out of town when I discovered this gem, so he’s not in the game with me. I fear we are getting close to the end of the season though, and I don’t know if the show will take me much further than the end of June, so I’ve been thinking about adding Righteous Gemstones to the rotation in June (Walton Goggins is apparently in it, and I’ve been missing him since the White Lotus season finale), we’ll see if there’s any time for that… If you agree Righteous Gemstones is a must, please advise ;)
What I made: This month was light yet again on the cooking front, as we’ve been on the road quite a bit, but a few notable meals included my trusty sheet-pan Salmon, my incredible thai mango salad, and a few recipes from Caro Chambers cookbook What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking.
Where I went: Banff for President’s Club which was an insanely amazing trip, Chicago for a work conference, and New Buffalo for Memorial Day Weekend boating fun and such.
Finds
Khloud Protein Popcorn I am blown away by how clean the ingredient list is, and how freaking delicious each of the three flavors are, but I would say my go-to this month has been the Sweet and Salty Kettle Corn, even though I’ve never been a Kettle Corn-girly… something about this Kettle Corn is de-freaking-lish.
Haute Margarita De Soi I got to try this at Expo West back in March and I’ve been waiting on pins and needles to get my hands on it. You can order online now and they should be in stores soon. Hands down the best RTD Non-Alc bev I’ve ever had. The flavor profile is bananas, it’s sooooo good.
Hormbles Chormbles from the Co-Founder of RX Bar comes a delish, better-for-you chocolate bar that is 100 calories, 10g of protein and 0g of sugar. How they do it? As my little brother would say, PFM (ahem, pure f***ing magic). I tried the sampler pack, but my favorites were the Peanut Butter and Salted Fudge bars. You can buy them online, or for those in Chicago-area, you can pick them up at Foxtrot.
From my iPhone
Here’s what my camera reel looked like this month. I think my favorite is Charlie enjoying the Acai bowl with Daddy on Mother’s Day. I was behind the camera thinking, since it’s Mother’s Day I don’t have to clean up this mess ;)
