If you had asked 19-year-old me what my life was going to look like, I can pretty much guarantee she would not have predicted any of this.
I was born in Kazakhstan, moved to East Germany when I was 2, moved to West Germany when I was 16, and then came to the United States at 19 as an au pair.
I was supposed to be here for an adventure.
More than 30 years later, I'm still here.
Apparently, it was a very long-term adventure.
I've spent a lot of my life starting over. New countries. New schools. New people. New careers. New versions of myself.
I don't think I realized until much later how much that shaped me.
When I came to the United States, I went to college and studied fashion. I earned a degree in Fashion Management, worked in retail for a few years, and probably thought my career would somehow stay connected to that world.
Instead, I ended up in plastics.
Because obviously that's the natural next step after fashion.
I stayed with the same plastics distribution company for 16 years. I started in regulatory, moved into purchasing and planning, became a team lead, and eventually managed a team of 16 people.
I grew up professionally there.
I learned how businesses actually work. I learned how to lead people, hire people, train people, solve problems, survive several ERP implementations, deal with supply chain chaos, and somehow keep everything moving when nothing was going according to plan.
During all of that, I was also raising my son.
Being his mom is the most important thing I've ever done.
I raised him mostly as a single mom, and for a very long time, so much of my life revolved around both my career and being his mom. Work. School. Activities. Dinner. Laundry. All the ordinary pieces of building a life together.
And I wanted home to be the place where he didn't always have to struggle.
Life is hard. The world will give our kids plenty of opportunities to learn that. I never understood why we needed to make things unnecessarily hard for them at home just to prepare them for it.
If that means I spoiled him a little, I'm completely okay with that.
Then, about six years ago, my life changed again.
I had reached a point where I couldn't keep living at the pace I had been living. I left the corporate world and started my own online business.
I was convinced I was going to make it work.
It didn't work out the way I imagined.
That's still hard for me to admit sometimes.
I put a lot of myself into that business. I had ideas. I worked hard. I learned everything I could. And ultimately, it didn't become the financial success I needed it to become.
But I don't think that makes it meaningless.
It taught me things I probably couldn't have learned any other way.
And somehow, another career found me.
Recruiting.
A friend gave me an opportunity to work with her, and it turned out that this completely unexpected job used almost everything I had learned in my previous life.
I understood plastics.
I had hired people myself.
I understood what managers were looking for.
But more than anything, I liked talking to people.
I still do.
I like talking to people and listening to their stories.
They tell me why they hate their jobs. Why they're scared to leave. Why they need more money. Why their boss is making them miserable. Why they're worried about their family. Why they stayed somewhere too long. Why they left somewhere too quickly. What they wish they had done differently.
Sometimes I'm technically talking to someone about a Production Manager position, and somehow we're talking about their entire life 20 minutes later.
I love that part.
I think I'm genuinely curious about people because I know how much there can be behind a resume.
A resume is just the neat version.
Life isn't nearly that neat.
Mine certainly hasn't been.
And now I'm in another strange in-between chapter.
My son is grown.
That one is weird.
You spend years being needed every single day, and then you do the job you were supposed to do. You raise this human being to become independent.
And then they do.
Which is wonderful.
And also a little heartbreaking.
It leaves you asking, "Okay...who am I now?"
I'm still figuring that out.
For a long time, I measured a good day by how much I accomplished.
I'm trying not to do that anymore.
Some days, a good day is walking my dog, Chip.
Or spending time with my cats Luna and Tuxedo.
Or sitting by the water.
Or dancing.
Or doing absolutely nothing productive and not feeling guilty about it.
I'm still working on that last one.
I've already lived several versions of myself.
The little girl from Kazakhstan.
The teenager in Germany.
The 19-year-old who got on a plane and came to America.
The fashion student.
The retail girl.
The corporate employee.
The manager.
The single mom.
The business owner.
The recruiter.
And now I'm ready to see what else I can create.
One thing I've realized is that some of the things I've always loved have been there all along.
One of those things is giving gifts.
Gift giving is definitely my main love language.
I genuinely love spending time finding thoughtful gifts for my friends and family. I love finding that one thing that makes me think, "Oh, this is SO them."
And I want to share that love with you.
I don't believe a thoughtful gift has to be expensive.
It can be new or preloved. It can come from a small business, which I especially love supporting. But there's also absolutely nothing wrong with ordering something from Amazon when it makes your life easier.
Because I think life could use a little more easy and a little more fun.
Gift giving shouldn't become another thing on our list that stresses us out.
It should be about the person.
It should be about saying, "I saw this and thought of you."
Or, "I know you."
Or simply, "You matter to me."
And with the holiday season just around the corner - can you believe it? - this feels like a pretty good time to start.
I'm going to be sharing thoughtful gift ideas here regularly. Some will be inexpensive. Some will be preloved. Some will come from small businesses. Some might be things you can order in 2 minutes because you suddenly remembered you need a gift tomorrow.
No judgment here.
Hopefully, I can help make gift giving a little easier, a little less stressful, and a lot more fun.
Maybe you'll find the perfect gift for someone you love.
Maybe you'll find something you want for yourself. I fully support that too.
And I'm sure I'll share some other pieces of my life along the way.
I don't know exactly where all of this will lead, and for once, I don't think I need to.
When I look backward, almost none of the biggest things in my life happened according to some carefully constructed plan.
And somehow, I made a life anyway.
A pretty interesting one.
I've lived in different countries. I've raised a son I'm incredibly proud of. I've built careers. I've walked away from things that no longer worked. I've failed at things. I've succeeded at things I never expected to be good at. I've loved people and animals and places. I've changed my mind. I've started over.
More than once.
So this is the beginning of another chapter.
Not necessarily another reinvention.
Maybe it's just me taking everything I've learned so far, paying more attention to the things I genuinely enjoy, and seeing what I can create from there.
I'm glad you're here.
Let's make life a little easier and a lot more fun.
Wishing you health, wealth & most of all... happiness!
Love,
