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Wednesday Wisdom: A Parent-to-Parent Heart-to- Heart About Roblox
Let me start here: if your kids have played Roblox, you didn’t fail as a parent. Most of us said yes because it was 2020, the world shut down, our kids were isolated, and Roblox looked like creativity, connection, and harmless fun wrapped in bright colors. We were doing the best we could with what…
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Florida Day: Sunshine Dreams in Snow
I have been embarking on a song-a-day challenge over on Substack, and thanks to Winter Storm FERN, I completely forgot that it was National Florida Day. Because of course it was. There’s something wildly ironic about celebrating Florida, the land of sunburns, palm trees, and salt-rimmed glasses, while staring out the window at over a…
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Red Hair Pride: Lessons from Jolene and Aging
For Kiss a Ginger Day, I can’t help but think about Jolene and about the years I spent wishing I looked like someone else. I was born with naturally auburn hair. Not fiery red, not strawberry blonde. Auburn, the kind that shifts with the light and refuses to be easily categorized. And for a long…
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The Journey of Faith: Embracing Uncertainty
There is something deeply restorative about being alone in your car. No one is asking you to turn the radio down. No competing playlists. Just a stretch of road, a few thoughts, and a song that somehow knows exactly where you are in life. On my way to the doctor’s office this week, I found…
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Mastering Vintage Reselling: Insights from Kelly Really Resells
Keeping It Real (and Really Vintage) with Kelly Szabo Tools, truth, and thriving as a secondhand seller After the holidays, many resellers find themselves standing in front of overstuffed closets, half-listed inventory, and a quiet sales dashboard, wondering, What now? That’s precisely why today’s Feature Friday matters. Kelly Szabo of Kelly Really Vintage doesn’t sell…
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The Roller Coaster of the 2020s: Unraveling and Re-Weaving Society
The first half of the 2020s will be remembered as a decade that didn’t tiptoe in. It barged through the door, knocked over the furniture, and dared us to pretend everything was fine. Many of us walked into 2020 with vision-board optimism, only to find ourselves saying, like the Friends theme song, “No one told…
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Manic Monday, Time, and the Spaces We Can’t Control
After today, there are only a couple of Mondays left in this year, and it feels like time has been moving as fast as the Millennium Falcon jumping to hyperspace. One moment you’re planning, the next you’re wondering how the calendar flipped so quickly. Somewhere along the way, the days began to blur, and now…
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Thankful Thursday: The Gift of Water
It’s November, a month traditionally steeped in gratitude, yet the world feels heavy right now. Wars rage across the globe, the economy feels uncertain, a government shutdown has disrupted travel and strained food banks, and late-season Hurricane Melissa has left communities reeling. In moments like these, it can be hard to find reasons to be…
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Wednesday Wisdom: Tough Cities Rise Again — Youngstown’s New Chapter
“Tough times don’t last. Tough cities do.”Those words, painted boldly on the side of Penguin City Brewing in downtown Youngstown, aren’t just a mural. They’re a mantra, a reminder that even after decades of loss and hardship, resilience still runs through the veins of this Rust Belt city like molten steel once did. From Steel…
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Sunday Funday: The Price of Magic
I was five years old in the summer of 1979 when my parents loaded up the car — no GPS, no iPads, just a paper map that folded like origami and an endless chorus of “Are we there yet?” We were headed south from Ohio to sunny Florida to visit friends in Daytona Beach. Their…
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Big Brother Season 27: A Bittersweet Goodbye
Finale night always carries a strange mix of excitement and sadness. For me, it’s not unlike the end of a summer spent working at Cedar Point. While I wasn’t locked away in a house for 90 days, I worked up to 100 hours a week, six days at a time, living in dorm housing and…
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Friday Flashback: Rom-Com Road Trips, Woody Wagons, and Singing with Chicago
Before swipe-right culture and algorithm-driven meet-cutes, there was something magical about serendipity. A Lot Like Love (2005), starring Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher, is a testament to that beautiful chaos of timing, chemistry, and chance. It’s not just a rom-com—it’s a soft, slow burn that captures what it means to grow up, fall apart, and…
THE OUBAITORI EDIT 