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  • Want to hear something top-notch selfish?⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I blog for myself. It’s not a sales funnel, or a secret mission, or one small sliver of my thirty-year-plan. It’s just that I do it every morning because I’ve always done it every morning, and it changes me for the better.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I write daily, in a chilly room with big windows a scratchy wool blanket, space heater at my feet. It is quiet. There is coffee.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And that’s it. I open a new post and I write whatever is on my mind, whatever I want to – or rather, whatever I need to. I write about bruised knees and bruised egos, and I write what I want to remember most about this very season of raising children and raising myself.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I publish perhaps 1% of this, because the lines get blurry when my story edges into someone else’s, and because relevance is less important to me than reverence.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And it’s a gift to publish it, truly. It’s a gift to send it all out into ether and have it returned to me a hundredfold. It’s a gift to read your sweet comments, your kind and encouraging words. It’s a gift, it’s a gift, it’s a gift.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ --⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I know this is a time of year in which announcements are often made, changes often outlined. I know it’s proper to shake things up right about now, to start capitalizing on rich SEO terms – keto meal plans and coatigans. I know I should be rounding up the top wallpaper trends to look forward to, or 20 parenting books to add to your arsenal.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I should be using this space for more, it is taught.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And yet: this feels like just enough. You and me and stories, the backbone of our everydays unfettered by fluff. It feels right to assume you need no help from me in determining your daily outfits, or how to care for your fiddleleaf. It feels right to think you’re here for the same reasons I’m here – to shove the rest to the side and return to the basics, or at least to make a crack at it.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And so, here, I suppose the state of this space is the same as it has always been: both mine and yours. I promise to write when I can, to publish what I can, to attempt to learn from the both of it.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ More in “State⁠ of the Blog, Sort Of” --> www.designformankind.com⁠⠀
  • I'm not much of a #wordoftheyear gal. In truth, I'm simply far too wordy to narrow it down. 😉⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ But I do have a few marks to aim for these days, and one of them is this.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I'd like to sit down to have the harder convo instead of running away from discomfort. To sit still and watercolor with the kids instead of peeking over their shoulder on my way to the laundry room. To sit in the waiting room with a crossword, not a phone.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I'd like to sit with my bad mood for a second.⁠⠀ I'd like to sit with my kids' bad moods for a second. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I'd like to sit with what I stand for. ⁠⠀ To sit below the salt, not in the catbird seat. ⁠⠀ To sit in for someone who needs it.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I want to sit and enjoy lunch, not stand-and-shovel-leftovers.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I want to sit down and pipe down.⁠⠀ I want to sit up and listen up.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Mostly this: ⁠⠀ I want to sit next to, not across from.⁠⠀ By not above.⁠⠀ Close up, not closed off.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀
  • #thegoodlist | flour on the floor, wool on the feet. when your dentist helps with your crossword.
  • Want to write with me in 2020?⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ You might’ve noticed I fell way, way silent last year. After the incredibly kind response of Chasing Slow, I wanted to see what it would mean to write for me again. Not for another book (yet), or a blog post, or an Insta caption. For my eyes only. No filtering, fluffing, or fixing allowed.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ And so began A Year of Reflection, where I sat down weekly with 1 simple passage to read (Keats! Sagan! Woolf!) and just 2 journaling prompts to reflect on. Achingly simple, astoundingly profound.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ What I hoped would happen: I'd learn to hear myself.⁠ I'd break patterns. I'd finally learn what I wanted, not⁠⠀ what I wanted to want.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ What actually happened: That - and everything⁠⠀ else.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I didn't expect a byproduct of confidence, this complete and unwavering clarity. I didn't expect improved writing, or braver conversations around the dinner table. Heck, I didn't expect to quietly untether myself from social media - but alas, wild things happen when you put pen to paper.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ So, round two. I'm doing it again, my simple 20 min practice each week. But this time, I want you to join me.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Details are in my Stories, or you can head here: --> www.designformankind.com/journal/
  • My best #topnine moments never made it to this grid, and I know yours didn’t either. A toddler’s lisp, backyard strawberries, the timeworn sweater draped on his hook. Let it always be this: a commitment to the sacred in front of us, uncropped, uncaged - tonight, tomorrow, beyond. ⁣ ⁣ In Colombia, it’s customary to walk around the block carrying an empty suitcase at midnight. In Greece, you might whack your kid with an onion. Here, we dance with guinea pigs and fall asleep by eleven.⁣ ⁣ However you’re celebrating tonight, may it be ever yours, for yours alone. Happy 2020 to you.💫
  • #thegoodlist | dessert before breakfast, a 12-hour snooze. watercoloring the astronaut.
  • #thegoodlist | canceling plans for cold meds and slippers. tetley in the kettle, toast on the way.
  • #thegoodlist | polar bear dens, tinsel in the vacuum. saying yes to the juggling lessons.😉
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Author of Chasing Slow and founder of Other Goose, Erin Loechner has been blogging and speaking for more than a decade, garnering over one million fans worldwide. Her heartfelt writing and design work has been recognized in renowned international events for clients such as Walt Disney World, IKEA, Martha Stewart and Home Depot. Now nestled in a Midwestern town, Erin, her husband, and two kids strive for less in most areas except three: joy, grace, and goat cheese.

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