A few weeks ago, a leak showed up in our laundry room ceiling. It was small and honestly, I assumed it was the outdoor spigot that's leaked for years finally making its way inside. So we called a remediation company. They did exploratory work, which in practice meant removing about half of our laundry room ceiling, and then half the bathroom ceiling next to it, chasing the water. Controlled, careful, professional. Their conclusion: it was the connection where the washing machine line meets...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Let's travel back (cough, cough) 26 years ago... Picture little McKenzie, sitting in her first official college class, front row cause that is who I am, and pumped about the major I picked: public communication. Then, to her utter shock, little McKenzie realized that about half the people in class with her were there because it had a reputation as the easiest major on campus. What?! throwback of me during my first year of college when we still had the "Party Pic Girl" come snap pics then...
21 days ago • 3 min read
A few weeks ago I wrote about the quiet shame a lot of us carry around using AI. How everyone seems to be using it and nobody wants to admit it. That one clearly struck a nerve, because I heard from a lot of you (like a lot of you!). So I'm doubling down on the subject and sharing how we are integrating AI into daily workflows. First, the one rule to rule them all: Could I describe our exact process to a client's face and stand behind every step? I think it is clutch to set an ethical line...
28 days ago • 5 min read
Someone stole our tent this weekend. I am honestly still in shock...and have a lot of 4-letter words running on repeat in my head. A bit of context to understand my angst: We camp pretty much every single weekend. We have a big camper, not fancy, just big, and it's not the kind of rig you joyride down dirt roads without a plan. So we scout first. A few days ahead, we find a spot, drop a tent to hold it, and go home to get the camper. Usually it's less than 24 hours between the tent going down...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
It's peak influencer season and my inbox is unhinged (as is my annoyance level). Right now I'm averaging somewhere between 18 and 20 inquiries a week from content creators and influencers wanting to partner with my tourism clients. Some of them are genuinely lovely. Some of them are so entitled it makes my eye twitch. And all of them want something for free. I have an actual (growing) database of all these folks to try and keep track My honest take after years of navigating this on behalf of...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
There's an email sitting in my drafts that I wrote almost three months ago (okay, maybe six?). It's to a financial planner. Someone I know, a good friend who I know would do a great job, which honestly makes it worse, because there's no anonymous form to hide behind. Just me, asking a person I'll run into at the next social event for help with something I feel like I should already understand. I wrote the whole shebang: what I do already, roughly what I'm trying to figure out, whether there's...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I am terrible at marketing myself. Sounds ridiculous when I actually say that out loud, but it is true. Not strategically terrible. Like, psychologically, deeply, possibly generationally terrible. I grew up in the day and age (and I'd guess a lot of you did too) where talking about yourself was considered bragging. Where you kept your head down, did the work, and let the results speak for themselves. You didn't walk around announcing your wins. That was for people who were full of themselves....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Every June I get cranky. I'll just own that upfront. My husband is a high school teacher. My oldest is in elementary school. Which means every summer, 50% of my household gets to exhale while I'm still very much inhaling. The routine evaporates. Kids are staying up later. Nobody knows what day it is. There's a general sense that all structure has left the building and taken my sanity with it. And yes, okay, there's FOMO. I'm big enough to admit that too. They get the hikes and the lake days...
2 months ago • 2 min read
This week's Chirp started as a boiling hot rant. I had a situation happen last week - the kind that makes me pace around my kitchen with flailing arms talking to myself and my voice notes while Jax the dog looks at me like I'm crazy. I recorded the whole rant, dropped it into Claude to help clean it up (and cut a few f-bombs), and my own AI agent told me it was too much. What?! And then I got pissed at Claude. So I walked away for a few days and begrudgingly decided that maybe the robot was...
2 months ago • 3 min read