Survivor. Speaker. Author-Illustrator. 2023 Remarkable Woman.

My guess is, you’re here because life just knocked you down.

We all go through hard times in our lives, but some are harder than others — especially when we have kids we need to protect.

Whether it’s a divorce, a health crisis, or a world-wide pandemic, life’s disasters can knock our world off its axis. Our kids are our main worry: How do we talk about it? How do we protect them? What if this scars them for life?

I’ve been there, and I know how to help.

I was 29 when I got a divorce and 34 when I was diagnosed with cancer. From custody issues to chemo, my daughter has been there for it all, and my desire to help her through it led to the birth of my company, Mighty + Bright.

Mighty + Bright started with a visual custody calendar so that kids could easily see when they’d be with each divorced parent. Now, it’s a line visual schedules for both kids and adults, to take the abstract, hard things in our day-to-day and make them concrete, visible, and easy-to-execute.

But my real passion is helping families thrive after something terrible has happened. I do this by writing and illustrating books (and donating them to hospitals and nonprofits through Mighty + Bright’s charitable program), and through public speaking.

One thing is certain — no one’s life is a cake walk. No matter how much we want to protect our children, we know they will encounter hard stuff throughout their lives.

The best way we can help them is to prepare them; to teach them about every human’s ability to get through that hard stuff and create a life that’s worth living.

A life of balance, joy, generosity, and resilience.

Sometimes life doesn't just hand you lemons — it pummels you in the head with them.

As a writer, illustrator, and speaker . . .

I spend my life creating visual structure at Mighty + Bright , writing and illustrating children‘s books, and talking about things that make many people want to crawl into a deep, dark hole.

Whether it’s divorce, cancer, death, or uncertainty, I’ve worked hard to be comfortable with the profoundly uncomfortable. My work has been featured in POPSUGAR, Romper, Reader’s Digest, the Mighty, and Good Housekeeping, to name a few, and I’ve spoken in front of audiences large and small about my experience making major life changes after divorce and cancer.

I was chosen as Oregon and Southwest Washington’s 2023 Remarkable Woman by Nexstar Media.