Life happens in the uncomfortable.

The view from the floor, surrounded by dogs, coffee and adderall. 

Bode’s Top 5 from 2025

Bode’s Top 5 from 2025

2025 was a year of reckoning for me both personally and professionally. I got to experience the joy that is perimenopause, continue navigating my ADHD, and I got to witness

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Amy Poehler Got Me Obsessed with the Enneagram and Now Everything Makes Sense

Amy Poehler Got Me Obsessed with the Enneagram and Now Everything Makes Sense

 Amy Poehler's podcast Good Hang makes me ridiculously happy. Go listen to every single episode. I'll wait.In every episode, she talks about the Enneagram; there is always another reference to

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I Beg Your F*cking Pardon

I Beg Your F*cking Pardon

The New York Times published a piece asking if women ruined the workplace. In a time when misogyny, sexism, racism, and discrimination are running rampant because men have been in

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The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Not So Innocent

The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Not So Innocent

8THIRTYFOUR is hosting the Community Capital Conversation on November 19th, because enough is enough. Bring your stories.This isn’t the story about the quarter of a million embezzlement that almost destroyed

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Middle aged woman wearing a shirt that says "As Strong As the Woman Next to Me"

Hey, I'm Bode.
Writer of musings.

Thanks for swinging by to check out my dogs, my ideas, my super fresh perspective and all the things that annoy me in life.

I can’t wait to share all the things you never knew you needed to know.

Have You Heard?

8THIRTYFOUR Integrated Communications.

We’re going to tell you your site is bad, your messaging is jargon, and stock photography from the 90s is burning our eyes. A trifold will not get you a client, and cold calling makes people hate you.

We do the kind of work people remember—and the kind of relationships built to last.

It's time for Bode's Top 5 of 2025, it's like the @spotify Wrapped but not really at all. Full link in my story and bio and wherever else we put those things. 

2025 was a dumpster fire of epic proportions, but it's also the year women recognized and owned their power and influence; because of that, I wouldn’t change a thing (ok, maybe a few things).

Here’s my recap and what I think it all means for 2026.

1. The Gray Wave: Women are quitting men cause we're tired, we have each other, and life is easier without you. Ouch. 

2. I Beg Your F*cking Pardon: Women are ruining the workplace with competence, collaboration, and equality. How dare us. 

3. The Price of Your Cowardice: Is America great again? Guess I haven't noticed between inflation, rising health care costs, and the sh*tty economy.

4. The Sisterhood. There is power in our gender; when we recognize and own it, we are unstoppable. 

5. You Are the Face of Your Business. People buy from people, not logos. Embrace your personal brand, get out there, or watch your business suffer.
It’s the work no one notices or thanks you for. It’s evenings and weekends spent cleaning, organizing, filing, fixing, moving, and trying to catch up. 

It’s calling the City because your garbage can is missing a lid, or waiting for the security company to come because there is a fault in your system, it’s shoveling the sidewalk every morning and weekends...it’s replacing bulbs in lights, scrubbing scuff marks off walls, washing windows...and it’s never ending.

Small business ownership is really hard, all-consuming, and only other owners truly get it. #personalbranding #smallbusiness
Say no. This is your reminder to make space for you; protect your mental health. You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness.
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