Imagine my surprise when my new friend told me that she felt intimidated by coming to my home. “My house was always so clean,” she told me. “I have two little kids. I could never find the time to keep my house this clean.”

Not only was I floored — I was confused. I wasn’t obsessively cleaning…hell, most of the time I was barely cleaning at all! And when it came to cooking? Well, I loved to experiment in the kitchen but I never really bothered to do anything fancy. Much of the time I didn’t have the energy to even do anything at all, since I’ve dealt with clinical depression most of my life and my energy level always seemed to feel like a car running on fumes.

Over the years, though, I’ve learned what my friend saw in my home. I used to call it being ‘lazy’ or a ‘couch potato’. What is was, in reality, was creativity. If I could find a way to get from Point A to Point Z and skip points B-Y without sacrificing quality, I took that way. Every time. Whether it was finding ways to make my house “feel clean” or finding ways cook quickly and easily without sacrificing flavor, I was finding and using hacks long before Pinterest and other social media platforms existed to post those hacks to. That love of household ‘hacking’, over time, has even extended to what most people would call “smart home” technology — when it made sense to use it.

And now I want to take those lessons that I’ve learned over the years and pass them along to you guys. Welcome home! Feel free to grab a drink and kick your feet up on the sofa.

Ask me anything you’d like. How can I help?