Amelia Garvey

Hi, friend. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want my life to look and feel. The thing about getting laid off is that all of a sudden, all I have ahead of me is a question mark—a big open expanse of what if. And for a type-A hyper-planner like me, that’s, uh, terrifying. Had this happened even just a couple years ago, I would be throwing myself back into the job search, immediately seeking the stability and certainty (lol!) of a full-time job (LOL!). But my brain is working...

Hi friend. Over the past few months, I’ve been circling around a set of ideas about creativity, curiosity, routines, and lifestyle in this newsletter. At first these all felt pretty unrelated, but I’ve started to realize that they’re all pointing to the same underlying question: how do you build a life you love? How do you actually design your ideal life? Lately, I’ve been trying to answer that question by finding the “right” next step in my career. I feel like I keep trying on personas that...

Hi, friend. As I write this, the windows of the house are all wide open, letting in a cool breeze that feels like heaven after a week of intense humidity. It feels like the house—which, despite our air conditioner's best efforts, was getting stuffy and stale—is exhaling. Outside, the birds are singing and the wind ruffles the leaves of the trees. The air has that green tangy scent to it that you only get on summer mornings, the kind of scent that promises a beautiful day ahead. It's cozy....

Hi, friend. Last week, Mike and I flew out to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia to hang out in the small town of Chéticamp on the Cabot Trail (that's a mouthful). Old friends of ours have opened a fine-dining restaurant in Chéticamp called Table Doucet, and we wanted to visit them in the new place they've made home. For those of you reading this newsletter, it probably doesn't come as a huge surprise that I'm usually a hyper-planner of trips: while I'm not big on having every day scheduled...

Hi, friend. I've been thinking a lot lately about time. When I decided, back in March, to not return to corporate after losing my job, the amount of time that I suddenly had on my hands was overwhelming. I didn't know what to do with it all. Add in the fact that I was coming off a decade of working nine-to-five and the result ended up being that I was somewhat paralyzed. I found myself keeping up the same routines I had when I was working: at my desk by nine to do work for clients, taking...

Hi, friend. Back when I was in corporate (which is starting to feel like it was a thousand years ago even though it was actually only two months ago), one concept that never quite landed for me was the idea of lifelong on-the-job learning. That's not to say that I wasn't learning over the course of my career. In a way, I was learning all the time—that's just what gaining experience is. Things that panicked me as a new manager barely warranted a raised eyebrow five years in. I used to sweat...

Hello, friend. The other day, I went for a walk to the park near my house. It's an old park with big majestic trees (one of which I got married under), and is home to one of the oldest cemeteries in Canada. It is bordered on two sides by our town; on one side by big empty meadows of tall grasses, and on one side by a small river. I like walking there because it's one of those places where you can really feel history brushing up against you—for example, in the mid-1800s, there was a whisky...

Hi, friend. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about storytelling. That’s probably not enormously surprising—storytelling is the thing I do professionally (now taking clients, tell your friends!) and, more relevantly for this newsletter, it’s the thing I’ve been doing for fun since literally as long as I can remember. (That’s barely an exaggeration, by the way. The earliest story I remember writing was one I dictated to a parent at the age of four as they dutifully typed it out on our...

Hello, friend. If you've known me for any length of time, you know that I am a Winter Girl™ at heart. I love a deep lungful of icy air; a cozy blanket; a wood fire. I love when snow crunches underfoot, I love the strangely vibrant minimalism of the frozen woods, I love wearing a rotating crop of sweaters. But despite even my dedication to the colder months, March really does love to try my patience. I go into March every year knowing it'll happen, and still every year around this time I start...