Once upon a time, a little girl who loved writing half-finished stories about love and adventure thought she’d create stories for Hollywood.

At LSU, I majored in procrastination and Mass Communications, hosting and producing television shows for our campus channel. That led to a magical internship at Entertainment Tonight in NYC…where I quickly discovered fast-paced glam actually wasn’t my brand of Happily Ever After.

Luckily, I came home and met the man who is on a double date (with other people—we switched halfway through). While we'd somehow managed to remember completely wrong names for each other, we still decided to become official the very next day.

Thus began a whole new kind of adventure.

For two decades, we built the life I wrote about in those childhood half-finished tales— one filled with love, family, faith, laughter, and way too many library fines.

My real-life HEA inspired me to write, complete (!!), and publish 11 novels, hitting the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and introducing me to readers around the world. But my greatest joy has always been my family.

Between crawfish boils, kitchen dance parties, and countless museum visits, we homeschooled our two beautiful girls for sixteen years, and I count it a blessing to have witnessed and been present for so much of their lives.

But then came the plot twist: Empty Nest.

Cue the record scratch.

“Wait… who am I if not Mom?”

That’s when I realized I’d spent years shining a light on everyone else’s stories while hiding pieces of my own.

God used that season of discomfort to remind me of the daughter He'd created, unlike the woman I'd created in response to the world. He also whispered an important truth: my joy, curiosity, and creativity aren’t flaws — they're fingerprints of His design.

Real talk? I wasted years wishing away my joy, fearing childlike came across as childish—especially in Christian circles. I wanted to be seen as having a 'gentle, quiet spirit,' which I'd grown to believe was somehow a requirement of a good Christian woman.

Now, through ReStory Studio, I help moms from starter-nest to empty-nest unmask their true selves, rewrite the narratives that keep them small, and reclaim peace, purpose, and play — right where they are.