….And other bits of wisdom discovered in Saturday’s Killer Tribes conference! Download a full set of the notes here. ***We will return to our regularly scheduled random river of thoughts later this week…but for today, I want to share a new experiment in visual note-taking.  I saw a lot of great visual notes from the SXSW conference last month, and thought I’d try my hand at it, even though I suck at drawing.  So I have “drawn” a few of the key points from my notes from several of the sessions.  Let me know what you think!*** The Big Idea […]

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Wait!! Before you run and cover your children’s eyes and report me to the Internet Police for indecency and general depravity (which, if you didn’t do from the Piecaken post last week, I just don’t see why you would try it now), hear me out! Earlier this week, I joined Frank Fontana on his podcast: The Down and Dirty with Frank Fontana. You might remember Frank from HGTV’s Design on a Dime; now Frank hosts a weekly podcast where he shares design secrets and generally has a lot of fun with a wide variety of guests…like me!  So click on the […]

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Today, I am hitting the road with my old friend Lisa Thompson (simplifiedsaving.com & nickelsndimes.com). Wait, that came out wrong. Lisa isn’t old.  But she is my friend.  And has been for a while. We spent five weeks together in Ukraine.  That will either make you friends for life or it will…well…it made us friends for life!  And that trip taught both of us about blogging for the first time. Tomorrow is the inaugural Killer Tribes Conference, and my heart is filled with joy at all the amazing online blogger friends I will finally get to meet in person. Bryan Allain has an […]

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Welcome to a special Tuesday edition at River of Thoughts!   I recently had the honor of reading an advance copy of Shawn Smucker’s new book Building a Life Out of Words. Shawn’s dream, like mine, is writing.  In 2009, Shawn went all-in to follow that dream, and now he’s sharing his story of the difficult by rewarding transition to full-time writer. Shawn’s story applies to anyone looking to make more out of their life. So often, we believe that to follow our bliss, to chase our dream of creating art or opening a dress shop or breeding hedgehogs, we must quit […]

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I broke up with Resistance. He’s trying hard to win me back.  Sympathy didn’t work, so now he’s tempting me with Piecaken. Pie + Cake = Piecaken Everyone in my house is trying to watch what they eat. I need to be writing. But I love to bake. I have several projects that are behind schedule.  Guest posts for people that are important to me about causes that are important to me.  Work to be done to put food on the table and gas in the car and college money in the bank. But all I can think about is […]

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