On the morning of January 6th,  I welcomed my 43rd-year perplexed by my deeply-rooted desire to figure out if I am who I was meant to be and over complicating what I should be doing with my life.  From my very early and tender memories until now,  too frequently- I’ve taken my life WAY too seriously. In my past, I’ve often caught myself desperately trying to know for sure God’s will for my life, which I now strongly believe is the incredible gift of free-will given to all of us. Relaxing into that to embrace 43 felt empowering as it gave me permission to continue to be the human I decided as a youngin I wanted to become.  Yet with that, what I’m learning to appreciate most is- I’m interested in a lot of stuff but I’m not a die-hard for anything more than connecting with other people and sharing meaningful experiences. It’s who I am and I’m finally completely okay with it.

There isn’t one passion I have that resonates above the others. In my free time, I equally enjoy indulging in them all. There’s my love for playing with personal styling, making my own jewelry and everything fashion and style centered. My life is a dress-up party simply because I love beautiful styles, and not because being a marketing strategist and entrepreneur requires it.  Then, of course, I’m all in on women’s empowerment initiatives and educating women around how they can leverage their businesses into magnetic personal brands to reach their successes. See while I love fashion, speaking and teaching personal branding there is still tons more jewelry making techniques for me to explore. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been quite the ‘redesigner’. Taking jewelry pieces that I almost loved and re-engineering them to my own loving! Yup, my closet has just as much jewelry making gadgets as I have jewelry, and this year I’m making time to do more of ALL OF  THAT!

For me, 43 represents embracing all the things I love and letting go of things I don’t. There just isn’t enough time to do it all and be great. With that, I’ll be blogging sharing more of my life and style, speaking, hosting events (lunches, drop-ins, events you name it), designing fabulous accessories and breaking all the style rules I possibly can. Which leads me to my birthday outfit, a tuxedo ensemble (for a similar look) with a super-sexy deep v-neck onesie and how to rock it. So how do you best rock a tuxedo ensemble? The way that makes you feel your most amazing and confident self, your personal style journey is yours to explore, have fun with and express your own unique fashion and style taste. Feeling frisky at 43,  I opted for a risque and luxe look mirroring my thoughts: bold in head-to-toe black and powerful.  Yes, my 43rd birthday celebration at Swift & Sons was everything: a celebratory evening discussing 2018 goals and 43 years of a life that’s been far from perfect, yet perfect for me- with my life partner and best friend. I turned a few heads that night, confirming a girl still has a lotta life past 40. Things are exciting and I’m forever grateful!