curious about em?

What do you write about on Em for Marvelous?

I write about the people, places, and things I love — anything marvelous, really. I especially like to write about financial freedom, organization and simplicity, my goals, love and marriage, parenting, and our adventures. I have truly marvelous readers who love to join in the conversation – don’t miss the comments section!

I’m new here! Where should I start?

Welcome! As shared by readers in my annual surveys, here are a few crowd favorites:

The entire How We Do It series, starting here
Anything from Marvelous Money, especially my post on paying off debt
My Marvelous Mama series
Anything having to do with Articles Club
My monthly prep days
A house contentment hack + the beauty of an imperfect home
Favorite board games
Making friends in your neighborhood and regularly seeing your friends
How to slow down time (part one, part two, part three)
Deciding to have children and deciding to have a third child

I see you’re married! I love hearing about wedding details.

Me, too! Here are all the posts I wrote about our wedding while planning it. I recapped our celebration in seven posts: wedding week, rehearsal dinner, wedding morning, first look, ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception. Here’s our wedding highlights film. I’ve organized things a bit more neatly here.

Tell me more about your family!

As you already know, I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We were raised in New England but now live in the South. We spend time at a family cottage in Maine every summer.

We have a marvelous daughter who is eight, a marvelous son who is five, and another marvelous daughter who is two! Here is the story of June’s birth and these are her newborn photos. Here is the story of Shep’s birth and his newborn photos. Here is the story of Annie’s birth and her newborn photos. Here are all my posts about pregnancy and parenthood.

I also have a marvelous extended family, and you will likely hear about my parents, sisters, sisters-in-law, parents-in-law, and various other family members if you stick around long enough!

My goodness, you sure like goals a lot, don’t you?

Why yes, I do! Here are a few posts you might find interesting if you like goals, too:

My 2024 goals
My 2023 goals
My 2022 goals
And my ongoing goal project: the Years of Making Magic

I’ve been breaking down my goals monthly since 2013 (and have literally never missed a month, whaaaaaat). You can read those posts right here.

My most important goal, though, is to be a light. I love this from John 1: He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

Where do you live?

We live in the Triangle of North Carolina. You can see our first apartment here and learn more about our first (and current) house here. You can find most of our NC adventures here. I also wrote a Durham city guide!

Is this your job?

Nope! I have a part-time job I love. I work on Em for Marvelous in my spare time. I do on occasion use affiliate links, where I earn a small percentage if you make a purchase via my link, but I wouldn’t consider that a job :)

I also take on a very limited number of product development clients throughout the year. I have more than a decade of experience in shaping physical products for sale that are impactful, meaningful, and beautiful. I’d love to help you brainstorm, develop, write, refine, and/or edit your product to help it shine. Email me at em @ emformarvelous.com if you’d like to chat about your project!

Tell me about your secret talents.

Gift wrapping, dishwasher loading, playing croquet, and guessing first baby genders (I have a record of almost 100% accuracy)

Are you marvelous?

Of course I am! And you are, too!

Photo by Graham Terhune