My life in professional organizing began with a visit to a Container Store outside Dallas, Texas. I walked in and felt something click. Talk about life affirming — I was hooked.
My background in retail and wholesale sales, combined with a lifelong love of functional space, blossomed into Space Options. Concentrating on closet organization for builders and remodelers across the Twin Cities, I learned quickly that who you work with matters as much as what you do. So I interviewed the builders rather than waiting to be chosen. This was a foreign concept to some. For me, it was a time saver. Don't devalue what you bring to the table — or the closet, as it were.
I brought Space Options into a local lumber company and grew it into the premier build partner in the market. Over four decades, I helped thousands of people design spaces that finally fit their lives — and quietly noticed that when a space works, the person living in it stands a little taller.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
In 2016 I became a grandmother and shifted back to consulting — working selectively with clients on whole house remodels, downsizing projects, and closet design. But something else was also emerging.
I'd spent forty years listening to people in their homes — in their most personal spaces — and I'd come to understand that how we design our spaces reflects how we see ourselves. The woman who can't part with anything. The one who downsizes and feels liberated. The couple whose home no longer fits the life they want to live.
Space was always just the beginning of the conversation.
I've also been living a story worth telling. I was adopted at three months old. I've met both birth parents, discovered siblings I never knew existed across three separate families, and slowly pieced together an identity that turned out to be far richer than I could have imagined. I co-hosted a cable television show, a radio program, produced morning talk radio, and launched a podcast. I've served on nonprofit boards, led organizations, and spent a lifetime connecting people for the greater good.
What I've learned from all of it is simple: most of us are waiting for permission we never needed. To be seen. To take up space. To start the chapter we keep putting off.
WHERE I AM NOW
I believe we all see life through a lens — and that the lens must change as we change. Most of us walk around for years with the same prescription, wondering why things feel slightly out of focus.
My essay series From Where I Sit is where I write about this — belonging, identity, aging, and what it means to finally show up as exactly who you are. Speaking engagements are where it's heading.
I also serve on the University of Minnesota Foundation's Healthy Aging Philanthropic Advisory Council — work that sits at the intersection of everything I care about: how we age, how we tell our stories, and how communities support people through every chapter of life.
I co-host The View In Your Mirror podcast with Lisa Rubin — long-form conversations about identity, change, and how we live. For more information visit www.theviewinyourmirror.com.
And I still work selectively with clients who are ready to design their perfect space — because after forty years, I know that getting your space right is rarely just about the space.
I'm based between Minneapolis and Palm Springs, which tells you something about how I've learned to live in more than one season at a time.
I love when clients become friends and friends become clients. I love great conversation, bold glasses, and a perfectly designed closet. I believe the most interesting parts of us are usually the ones that seemed unmanageable at first.
From where I sit, the view only gets better when you're willing to change the lens.
"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." — Rumi
