Still on maternity leave with my son, I woke up one night in terrible pain and ended up at the hospital with kidney stones. Dazed by pain medication, I opened a link in an email from my mom that took me to an article about a curriculum designer working for herself.  Soon after, I left my teaching job. 

I blogged, designed, and learned what I could about sharing ideas online. Not many people really noticed. Understandable. 

After my daughter was born,  I started The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast (still going strong!) and created the Facebook group, Creative High School English (the first two members were me and a fake profile I invented so I could start a group - so... also me). I began to meet more creative educators around the world.

What fun! During this time I met so many teachers, writers, and designers, and did a lot of sharing around one-pagers, hexagonal thinking, literary food trucks, performance poetry, and choice reading. 

When the pandemic hit, I wanted to help my community on a deeper level. Everyone was being pushed beyond their capacity and I wanted to provide a more comprehensive solution to help. The Lighthouse, my teacher membership, launched in September with about 250 teachers who helped me shape it to help them the most. 

In 2021, we moved overseas to Bratislava, Slovakia for a new job for my husband at an innovative international school here. I continue to work inside The Lighthouse, blog, podcast, and share across the web. On breaks we take our children to explore this beautiful region.