All Posts

This month's shinies were handwritten, hand-marked, iridescent, and unmistakably Australian. The Raccoon Files at their finest.

One month before my 40th birthday, I walked across a stage in a cap and gown. At the time I was carrying a full course load, a full-throttle internship, a part-time late night bartending gig, two daughters in middle school, a couple of dogs, and — of course — my husband. If that sounds like a lot, it's because it was. I basically ran a small circus and moonlighted as a college student. I didn't have a true weekend for months on end.

Some kids wanted a pony. I wanted to cover something — anything — completely in Lisa Frank. And not something small. I wanted it to be big. A major piece of furniture. Go big or go home, that's the only way to do a Lisa Frank furniture flip!

For the newcomers: raccoons are adorable, chaotic, and will take your shiny things with zero remorse — which is also a distressingly accurate description of me. So once a month I empty my little raccoon pockets right here and show you everything I dragged home. This month the haul leans less "design finds" and more "things keeping me entertained, organized, and mildly obsessed." Let's dig in.

We raised our girls, sold the house and 85% of everything we owned, and took off. There's no storage unit holding 25 years of our crap — there's a single shelf in my mom's basement, and that's about it. We miss nothing. It's been a year and a half of this lifestyle and we keep on keeping on.