One of my friends gave me an odd request while we were waiting for the knife sharpener guy at the the farmer's market (middle-aged joy=sharp knives).Could I curate her instagram feed for her?She's opted out of scrolling for the past few years citing *waves arms everywhere.* But she's missed connecting with people and wants a clean slate. This means she's back on my pebble list - now I can send her my special blend of elderly dog videos, time-lapse crocheted frogs and always on-point muppet...
12 days ago • 2 min read
I'm sitting here nursing my twisted ankle like a wounded bird.Got a little ambitious last night in my first proper House music dance class.Now I pride myself on being a pretty good dancer. I spent many a youthful night sweating it out til 6am in deep house clubs. Even met my husband thru my fav DJ.Turns out I've been doing a few basic moves wrong most of my life. But if you've never learned how to do it right, you keep doing it the same way you've always done it. In my line of work, I see the...
19 days ago • 4 min read
I wasn't going to send a note today, but two of my afternoon consulting clients who love my nerdy finds convinced me otherwise. I don't care how techy (or not) you are, everyone I talk to is overwhelmed by AI.Most days I feel like a prairie dog poking up out of my work tunnel trying to see what's new.The rabbit hole I've gone down the past few weeks?Finding new ways to use the Claude extension for Chrome.The BFF I never knew I needed. Plus the only time it slacks off is when I go over my...
26 days ago • 2 min read
"In case of emergency, use Martello."Might be the best phrase I've ever translated on an Italian train.I've spent the last couple of weeks prying apart legacy complicated email setups and rebuilding them for a couple of new clients. Fitting then that my full name means "beautiful hammer."For someone who's pretty techy, I get frustrated with most email tools. Too complicated, too persnickety, and generally way too expensive to do the basic things that most of my clients (and my Nugget readers)...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I've been designing online educational content since the early two-thousands. Not much makes me happier than when something is easy to launch.Back in my day, (cue my walking uphill both ways to work in an actual office deep in the heart of DC) if something was wrong with the code on a CD-ROM, we had to re-burn it and overnight it to the distributor. Now I usually just have to simply re-upload a file to fix something (or alternatively, curse a few choice words and refresh Chrome approx 20...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
When a pothole has a dedicated reddit thread, you know it's bad.And this one got me good last week on a late night grocery store run to pick up protein shakes and bone broth.There goes another grand I thought as my front tire slammed into the huge pit.Not what I needed to add to my plate in a month chock full of design deadlines and family crises. But what I didn't know is that I can *maybe* get my money back.Thanks to some friendly internet folks, I found out I can submit a reimbursement...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I'm usually slow to try something out, but when I get it, I get it. This simple tool might have just changed my life. I've been hearing about WisprFlow* from friends for a couple of months but I'm one of those people that puts things on my to-do list to look at later.Later turned out to be today.On average it takes me about one to two hours to write my regular newsletter. Write it, edit it, cut out what I don't need, format and test it. Have an existential crisis if my writing is any good and...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Need help going to sleep?Check out the email marketing subreddit.It's dry as toast and often yawn inducing, but reading forums and trade newsletters is how I stay on top of the latest tech issues.Like what's causing your emails to end up in spam.You can have all the things set up correctly (DKIM, SPF, DMARC etc.***) and still have your emails stuck in the void.If you're like me and want to avoid your artisanal copy from ending up in inbox purgatory (or want to help your clients avoid it)...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I opened the envelope and muttered "he knows I've been putting this off."It was a letter from the lawyer who created our family trust and medical directives.It's so simple - a quick note asking if anything has changed in our lives and if we'd like him to review our files for a low fee. And of course we need to update beneficiaries (not exactly the most fun of tasks, so it's been on my to-do list for months two years).It's probably one of the smartest things he does for his business -...
3 months ago • 2 min read