My beloved Stellie girl was laid to rest last night. My poor little chichi. My poor babies, Dan and I are so sad. Even with a long goodbye tour, it still didn’t soften any of the blows our hearts took yesterday. To wake up without her in the world today felt criminal.

A sweet little chocolate chihuahua, who stayed true to who she was until the very end. She gave me seventeen years of unconditional love and companionship. She was the most loved dog on planet earth, still a fresh schedule in my phone as to who got to sleep with her each night.

She gave Dan and I the title of fur parents, and we took that job extremely seriously for five years. We’d take her birthday off and walk her to jumpin’ jack’s for a burger and ice cream. She’d lay next to my feet when I’d drive anywhere, and I’ll never forget the day I met her in aviation mall parking lot.

Definitely from a puppy mill, it was her and another long haired chihuahua. I took one look at her wagging her entire body and once I saw her butt — I knew she was mine. My little chocolate princess behati prinsloo. Stella Pearl. Born June 20th, 2009.

We went on so many adventures together – the Jersey shore, lake placid hotel stays, and the occasional overnight wherever we’d roam just us 3. Her time was split between my mom’s house and Dan’s apartment before she settled down in scotia. Scotia was where she became a big sister, and also the first time she became the family dog. I will always remember the early sleepless nights of motherhood — and she’d be right next to me, head on my lap while I’d nurse Mav. Never needed anything, just wanted to let me know she was there with me. By morning she’d throw herself on the floor, exhausted from keeping guard all night, and I’d tuck her in and pamper her still. These were the days she had brother cousins nearby, and they’d love playing catch with the teensiest little tennis balls.

When we moved to Saratoga, her sunset years began. She became a big sister to Ace and then Veni, and took the job seriously each time. She was part of Christmas cards, family photos, and birth announcements. She was always inside every detail of our family. This is what makes losing her hurt so much – she never assumed any position, except her signature spot on the couch, and she never needed anything more than she received. She found her place and we gathered around her. She was the center of our kids’ universe.

They dressed her, bathed her, taught her to swim. Pushed her around in baby carriages, rode bikes and peddled on easy rollers with her. She’d get her nails painted, American eagle sweaters, and Halloween costumes most years, too. She was the OG baby girl, the most loyal doggie, the best snuggler and she had the worst breath. I remember once when she tried to bite Mav, and lost a tooth on his face – it was disgusting and hilarious and he doesn’t remember it, but I will never forget.

I remember her getting mistaken for a baby Doberman when I used to walk her with my parents’ dogs in country knolls west. I also remember a time one of my best friends came to our house when we weren’t home and Stella was so afraid, she ran to the basement door, stood on her hind legs and bark screamed like she was part Doberman herself.

I got her as a present from my parents after I cut off the tip of my ring finger – I could barely take care of myself but they got her to help me through quite a depressing time – against my better judgement I sent her with them to the Jersey shore for a weekend. I taped a picture of myself to the back of her little crate so she wouldn’t forget me, and when they came home with her, my entire face was scratched off 🥰

Obviously, she was so much more than a 7lb dog to me – she was the baby I always wanted. My little special angel of the universe, my Stellie girl, stelly bell, Dedda, Stella Pearl Phillips. Big sister to Mavvy, Ace, Veni and Goose. The greatest fur baby to ever live. I know when she trotted and twirled over the rainbow bridge she was greeted by so many, too many, familiar faces and wet noses.

In the end, she became a frail little thing. Maybe it was dementia, or the blindness, or the fact that she could barely hear anymore. Or maybe it started when life got so busy I forgot to feed her for 3 days and thought she was going to heaven then. There were the comforting blankets, emotional support baby dolls, long lists of instructions for care takers. All of it became more overwhelming by the day. Some days I’d walk into the room and think maybe she had passed away, quietly on the couch in her favorite blanket – and no hard decision would have to ever be made. After how many falls she survived, I started to assume she was actually a cat with 9 lives.

My sweet little Stellie. How freaking loved you were and always will be – by my three little cherubs, by your mom and dad. My wish is that you’re resting in the sweetest of peace my little angel girl. I hope you get endless snuggles, vanilla ice cream with dorito sprinkles, cinnamon buns on Sundays, and any sweater with a matching nail polish your little chocolate heart desires.

You had the smallest little perfect chihuahua body, yet your presence filled the entire house – each one you ever entered. I hope you know you were the center of our entire world for so long, and we will miss you every day. I hope you’re free from pain, with a mouth full of cute little teeth, and I hope that you give your Grammie the stinkiest of all the nose licks ever 🤍 I love you little doggie of mine. I love you 😘

Forever My Girl

I have so many memories of being a kid. First day of kindergarten. First bike crash. Having friends in the Catskill Mountains. A trip to Arizona. A big, loud family at every holiday. Italians will celebrate anything. I think we even celebrated Flag Day 🤣

I remember bicycle rides through the countryside of Saugerties, NY. Riding past a convent with a field nearby that had a very scary bull in it. As an adult, I’m so thankful I live in a timeline where I can say I did that during my childhood.

But anyway, the sweet spot of my childhood started somewhere around 10–12.Where I really remember myself and my experiences.

I remember moving to Upstate NY around age 9, about to be 10. I was becoming a big sister, moving to a new place, and starting a new school. A very colorful opposite of where my kids are currently at.

I remember dressing like a tomboy, having to make new friends and learn a new school, all while some girls were getting boobs and I was struggling to understand what was happening to them. 😂 I remember either slicking my hair back and praying to sleep still for a perfect pony in the morning, or scrunching my hair and never wearing the right top for picture day.

I remember swimming those early summers with my new friends at fancy pools in Saratoga, and becoming friends and enemies with my new neighbors. I remember yearbooks, lockers, and being with my family a lot. I babysat. I went shopping at Victoria’s Secret and Weathervane. I loved hitting the McDonald’s drive through on my way home from school ☠️ I had sleepovers for days in a row when the weather was warm. I grew a great group of friends from all different cliques. We had a nice house with a beautiful backyard, and we went away on a cruise almost every Thanksgiving during my junior high and high school years.

And why am I telling you this?

I don’t know. Maybe just to remember a simpler time myself. For my own peace of mind that it still exists in there.

But I think my point in all of this is – now I’m a mom to three special little blessings, and I can remember being there, exactly where they are now. I can’t believe how far a person can come in one lifetime.

How many lives you live in one life.

And it made me realize how important this time with my kids really is.

It makes me want to tell someone who may be questioning what they can do differently to be a better mom this:

Change the way you speak to your kids. They’ll be chasing this feeling when they’re raising kids of their own. Be the one to give it to them by setting the tone. Their nostalgia blue print.

Let them be the leader of their friend group, even if it’s not always fair to the other kids. They chose him. He’s the leader. So let him lead 💫

Don’t try to shrink them or minimize them now, or ever, because they’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to learn how to be the person they were before someone tried to throw a saddle on a horse that was meant to run wild.

They are exactly, at this young age, who they’re meant to become.

And who am I to stunt their wonder for the world that lies ahead? Their eagerness? Their compassion? Their downright audacity to live a life out loud?

A life robust with measured danger, many firsts, and magnificent little brains soaking it all in.

An unbridled horse runs toward new territory without hesitation or fear. And so many of us want to wrap all of that wildness up in leather and wood, tie it into a pretty little pony package, and call it raising them right.

Maybe we don’t need to tame it.

Maybe we need to channel that absolutely chaotic curiosity toward more.

More direction.

More power.

More love.

More life.

More of who they were always meant to grow up to be, without harnesses 🤍

I read recently that your brain pretty much immediately deletes a year after it’s gone. Same can be said for a day, a month, a moment. And it’s true – think about the last two or three years. How much can you instantly retrieve from your memory vault?hard right?

2025; so many people hated it. Feels like everyone’s happy to see it go. I have been thinking of highs and lows from the last three hundred and sixty five days; and nothing jumped out. Kinda weird. 2025, who was she?! For me? I think my takeaway is it felt like the year that steadied me. She taught me how to carry things, and how to master the pause. To not react or respond to every single thing; that not everything deserved my attention. She taught me that just because I can see the potential, or the fix, it’s not always my duty to say so. It’s the year that taught me slow and steady may be the real winner after all.

Admittedly I’ve been a bit down in the dumps — My kids and I were all sick for the last ten days, and Christmas felt like so much work for absolutely nothing. A real shit feeling as a mom (and dad) who really did the most with their bank account this past couple months ☠️ After a Monday celebration with 25 people in my cute little house, everything quickly went downhill and so many plans were cancelled, kids were lethargic, and mama had been knocked down for the first time in 5 years. But last night 🥹 I celebrated with my sissy and her husband and have found my spirits are back to high, and my heart is just so full. My kiddos too. ((Dan escaped the entire flu week from hell somehow, so good for him blah blah🤣😘☺️))

I used to think a good year meant momentum. Forward motion. Clear triumphs you could almost touch, or at the very least point to and name. 2025 didn’t offer much of that. What it taught me instead, was steadiness. And who doesn’t love a steady mom? A steady wife? A steady hairdresser? Yes please. More of this 💫 very 💫 adult feeling 💫. Thank you Jesus.

The scab that sits on top of my grief was ripped open again this year when my father tried to make his way back into my life. He couldn’t show up (again) for my family, and I had to leave him behind (again) because one of my new mottos for 2025 is “no question mark people” So yeah, that entire situation — It’s messy and embarrassing and I won’t share more here, but I tried. And. It didn’t work. (Again)

While grief was still annoyingly present, it mostly just gets quieter as the years pass. My grief no longer announces itself. It lives in the small little pockets of who I am; in how I raise my children, in the way I hold space for the awareness that nothing is promised. In how I love my husband, my sister. My aunt. How I make time for my friends who I adore both near and far away. My grief has settled quietly in, and it’s forever changed how I notice the world around me. Even my grief, this year, has steadied me.

Homeschooling still set the rhythm for most of our days. This year, the medical freedom movement has gained so much momentum which in turn finally hushed the 7 year old question of if we’d ever really move. How could we leave what we have here? Most mornings Dan and I wake up and have coffee together, and it’s one of my favorite things we do together. My day really starts once Dan leaves and the kids wake up. Mornings slow but structured, afternoons spill outdoors, and the weeks revolve around co-op, practices, games, dance and moving our bods. This year there wasn’t much time for performing or polishing how life looks, but relishing in how it feels. It was a year of grounding. Our hearts and our life have felt so full, and it finally felt like ours 🤍

Each beautiful little baby of mine has grown so much – physically, emotionally and mentally. They each grew in their own direction. Confidence built through discipline and athletics. Independence expanded through time outside. Creativity danced in motion, curiosity, and joy. I watched them become more themselves, without forcing a shape that didn’t fit. Took me 11 years to say this, but I feel like motherhood has a learning curve, and I’m finally finding my groove.

My health stopped feeling fragile. I paid attention and listened. Food, sleep, stress, finding my own balance; none of it was perfect, but it was consistent. My body responded to consistency more than urgency or force. My mental health has taken the scenic route, but I feel like I’ve finally arrived at a place I feel content with. Dare I even say, happy. (Thank you Jesus! 🥹🥹🥹)

Work followed the same pattern. Less chasing, more refinement. I chose alignment over expansion and built boundaries that supported motherhood and my kids’ childhood instead of competing with it. My “why” has always spoken louder than the noise of the career I chose, and I have no shame in being mama before Brianna P on Vagaro. To have something that’s all my own, that I’ve built for 17 years is something I’m really freaking proud of as a mother, a woman’, and a professional who has a place in an ever evolving and demanding industry.

My marriage. My magnificently, beautiful, comfortable, wild, broken in, lovely, steady marriage ✨ r e s t e d ✨ in being real. Over the last 17 years, we’ve learned a lot. Our roles have ebbed and flowed and we’ve quite literally crashed on eachother’s shores, been eachother’s light in the dark, fought eachother and for our love, and we’re making it. To achieve anything in marriage is rewarding, and we try hard to find the time to work on US. There’s a quiet strength in honesty and commitment that doesn’t demand much else. I’m so thankful for him 🥹💫

Somewhere along the way, the noise hushed itself. I trusted my instincts more. I explained myself less. I stopped borrowing certainty from outside voices and learned to stand where I was planted. I’ve done so much work in my life. My hands and head are always busy, my heart always lets me know she’s there. 2025 probably has had some difficulties but I don’t remember that today. I realize that this past 365 taught me how to carry the hard parts without letting them harden me. How to lean into the curveballs instead of trying to dodge ‘em. How to stay soft, but steady.

And maybe that’s the real legacy of my life. To raise children who grow up knowing steadiness, even when life’s not perfect. To live in a home that feels anchored and warm; with present parents who kiss in front of them. To have parents that show strength is often soft, and slow doesn’t mean lazy. That love is not conditional. That traditions are important. And that family is forever.

Happy New Year friend 🎉 Make 2026 your bitch 🙂

Christmas time reminds me of all the doors I’ve left open to allow love to walk back through. And though my heart is usually overflowing with so many different kinds of love, this will be my tenth Christmas without my mom; and with that, it feels like the tenth Christmas without my dad too. And it stings. Like embers slowly burning inside the depths of my holiday heart. Because when she went to heaven, he went somewhere too. I still don’t know where, but it hurts. My aunt always told me that little passage – leave the door in your heart open – and it really is a special thought. But that’s where it stays, a thought. Not by my doing, but by his. And if somehow he ever were to stumble on my blog, or maybe he reads it religiously without my knowing, I’d want him to know the door is still open, and that I love him. But it’s up to him to show up. And to stay this time.

Christmas time can bring out the very best versions of people, and the very worst. I try to be my best. But so many people are hurting and this is when it shows. And though it is so unfair to be on the receiving end, I know somehow, the good ones like me are still good. Does that make sense? Even though we see all the nasty, the miserable, the rearing of the ugly head, yet we choose to still be good. We choose. to still. be. good. To do good, pour out good, show up good, teach good, speak out goodness – you get it. 

I’m finding, at the ripe age of 41, that so many people lack purpose, and therefore significance. And I nstead of finding help, or doing the hard and holy work; they spend their lives searching for ways to try to bring other people down. To undermine, undercut, and really under respect the good ones. And truly, they’ve been doing it so long it’s who they’ve become – and how shitty for them? But also, for the ones who’ve done the work, it’s annoying. So what can we do? We can watch repeated patterns, of people who loathe themselves, mirror that outwardly into their kids, their families, their friends, their jobs, and their innocent little worlds just floating around them, suffering from their lack of awareness.

This year I’m giving you the permission you need. Call them out. Tell them their behavior sucks. Or, say no to the invite. Those people don’t deserve to be around your light. They will and do dim it. If you must, spend time with them as far away from a holiday as you can, to protect your peace. 

I’m also giving you the nudge, to try and make things right. Resolution has no timeline; no end date, but it can help you know you did the right thing during a high pressure time.

My mother was so strong. And vibrant. She lit up every room she ever walked into. Any salon I’ve ever worked in, every bar or restaurant I walked in with her, hell, even doctors offices, she would drench that little vestibule with her golden energy, and heads would turn, faces would smile, and everyone was better because she was there. She spoke to everyone with the same enthusiasm and the same kindness, with a sass and a magnetic relatability I haven’t witnessed since. She was your instant friend. She rooted for you. She was just so fucking special. And I miss her. And while other years in the past have felt a little lighter, this 10th Christmas without her feels heavy again. And so, once again, for the first time in a while, I wanted to write about lessons she’s still teaching me from heaven. From the ways she handled people, the way she loved people, and the way she kept clear boundaries so the same people didn’t cross her twice.

I’d do anything to have my mother sitting at my dinner table ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. But I’d kill to have her at Christmas time. I’d love to have her burst through my doors, arms full of food and presents, showing up unannounced – So present I’d forget about any of my fears or stresses. So present I wouldn’t have to ask her for help with the next thing. She’d know where my spoons are, my apron is, and my kids favorite snacks. She’d know how to hug me with all her body and kiss me through my hair. She’d hold me and tell me I’m strong, she’d say whatever I wanted to hear. She’d tell me my sauce needs more salt, and make a face if she couldn’t say it with words. She’d cackle and go in the garage to smoke a cigarette, and she’d steal Dan for a conversation. She’d come back in, clean a little and then sit on the couch with my babies. She’d be here and that’s all I’d need, it’s all I want. Because I still needed her.

In a world of hurrying and impressing, self entitlement and disrespect – she wouldn’t care. She’d march to the beat of her own drum, laughing louder and shining even brighter. And she’d make me feel better for who I am. Because I’m just like her. And that’s my secret weapon in this game of life.

So, in this wild ride of Christmas time – be your most authentic self. It’s magnetic. It’s intangible. It’s the highest form of self respect.

Happy Holidays friends – go hug your mother for me 💜

Dan drove by my childhood home last night. As soon as we turned down the familiar streets leading up to the road that raised me, I instantly started to sob. A reaction I haven’t felt in quite awhile. “You’re really gonna drive past my mom’s house aren’t you?” • Yep! He said. He held me in our front hallway hours before and let me cry into his chest. He knew what he was doing.

She didn’t have a final resting place. We were too shocked and too hurt to think about all of that, I think. I don’t know how I feel about not being able to go and visit her at a headstone. But I felt the overwhelming weight of her absence, mixed with ability to have the space to cry over her again. While parked out front of the house she made a sacred space for me for so many years, I let the tears roll, and listened to my kids talk all about her from the backseats. They know her so well.

It’s overgrown, and unkempt, but there’s still little things about it that breathed into me. The brick everyone thought my mom was crazy for painting purple. My favorite tree that blossomed my favorite color – fuscia – every spring is still there, just bigger now. So tall it almost pointed like an arrow directly to the room I used to get to fill with my girlfriends every Friday and Saturday night. The room with the bed I sat on and broke up with my first boyfriend, she sat next to me crying too. The room I got ready for prom, and my 21st birthday in. The room we’d lay on the floor of, and read the inside of every new CD booklet, and learn every word. The room I packed up when I was 27 while I was mad at her, and moved out. The room that smelled like cool noxema after a hot summer night. She used to put it on my sunburn. She always had extra toothbrushes for my friends, and there was always fresh bagels in the morning with free entertainment inside her commentary about our behavior the night before. Her breath always smelled like coffee or mints, and her hair like a fresh cigarette or Dolce and Gabana’s light blue. There was no in between, and I loved it. I loved her. So much. And I love her still. 

This time of year is like a heavy punch to the heart. Hot tears that hurt to cry. Grief wrinkles I notice a little more, that I acquired from crying on a daily basis all those years ago. A reminder of empty cards, bought, but never filled out by her. Of hospital visits. Of scary conversations. Of hard hope. It’s bittersweet. I’m so thankful to have been able to steep in my own feelings. I remember my first therapy visit being told when I’m in my cave of emotions, it’s ok to not come out. Yesterday felt like the first year of missing her all over again. And I had no idea that was coming. That’s the tricky part. I know she’d want me to be happy, which Dan tried to remind me; but I think she’d want me to feel sad too. Because she was life personified. She was the most special person. She was the garden I walked through in hard times and happy ones. She was my rock, my stepping stone, and then God turned her into a rolling stone. So I sat. In my cave. A few times. Somehow her love still finds its way to me, and for that I’m anchored in gratitude, while her love ripples through my soul. 

Grief is an unpredictable tide. One that rises fast and consumes you. One that dissolves reason and remedy. And then it washes out into the ocean of healing, and before you know it, one foot goes in front of the other, and you’re okay again. 

To my mom, on Mother’s Day. I still needed you.

T h a n k  y o u.

I love you, forever; through all of Heaven and earth. I wish we were planning our outfits for a Saratoga brunch. Telling eachother how excited we are about the pressies we got one another. And I always wonder how you would cope with having to get used to being interrupted 178 times during one story by your grandbabies. Gaga. Glammy. Mama. You are so missed and loved by us 🩷