Hot Mess, High hope: Rock Bottom to the Top.

  🏈 It Started With Football and Fried Rice It was the Packers vs. Bears, always a heavy-hitter here in the Northwoods. I was with my then boyfriend, his mom and aunt at a local tavern—surrounded by beer, wings, laughter, and the usual rivalry chaos. I was still a “sprinkled” Bears fan back then, raised that way by my mama. Spoiler alert: I’m now a reformed Packers fan. (That game may have had something to do with it—last time the Bears beat the Packers, and yeah, Urlacher was still their quarterback. Whoa... look at me reminiscing like I own a jersey collection.) Ask me about today’s football, though, and I’m just a schoolgirl crushing on a second-string red-headed quarterback. Maybe one day word will get out he made it into my blog. 😉 👣 Something Was Off—But I Didn’t Know What After the game, we loaded up the four-wheelers and headed to the farm to wind down for the night. I noticed baby girl—Ellie—was unusually quiet. A few wiggles here and there, but not the usual excit...

A true story from me to you. If you're reading this, welcome to a page out of my story—not the highlight reel, not the Pinterest board, but the messy, beautiful, painful beginnings that shaped the colorful chaos I live in today. It all started on October 2nd, 2009—the day I met my daughter, Ellie Rose. She was born still. And in that moment, so was I. Still. Frozen. Stuck in a silence that didn’t match the world rushing around me. Losing Ellie cracked something open inside me. A grief I couldn’t name. One I couldn’t outrun. Less than a month later, I found out I was pregnant again—with her little sister, Danika. And just like that, there was no time to heal. No time to breathe. I had to keep going, keep mothering, keep surviving... even though I hadn’t had a single second to fall apart. And let me tell you—I fell apart . Quietly, privately, and often with a drink in my hand. Alcohol wasn’t my party—it was my pause button. My grief had no exit, so I gave it shortcuts. And those shor...

For most of my life, I couldn’t quite figure out where “home” was supposed to be. Sure, I had a roof and family and love. I created a home with my husband and kids that fills me with warmth and gratitude daily. But deep inside, I felt like something was still missing—some anchor, some center, some quiet place that whispered, you belong here . And for years, I didn’t feel settled enough— safe enough—to let myself find it. Then one morning, while doing my usual makeup routine for the job I’ve bounced back to more times than I can count, something just clicked. Like one of those moments in recovery, when suddenly everything makes sense—not because life got easier, but because you got stronger . Your heart starts connecting the dots you didn’t even know you were drawing. New China is my home. It hit me like a ton of bricks—but soft ones, the kind you feel in your chest instead of your head. This restaurant has been the one reliable constant through nearly every chapter of my adult li...

  This past year has carved its way through me in ways I didn’t see coming. As our children have grown—especially the older two, who are mine from before—something shifted in him. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but it started with irritation. Little things. A tone. Then it hardened into something colder: anger, blame, disconnection. He gave up. He won’t even try with them anymore. There’s no warmth left in his voice when he speaks to them—if he speaks at all. Just frustration. Just absence. But it isn’t only them now. Even with the babies we share, I see it: the snapping, the yelling, the message that crying is weakness and emotions need punishment. “One parent has to be stern,” he says. And somehow, that now means him—loud, sharp, and always on edge. So I’ve become the calm one. The soft place. The keeper of peace. But inside? I’m unraveling I guess the part that really stings is that I didn’t find this out in a blow-up or a confession or even a text message. I found it t...