Dec 29, 20233 min read

So I went to New Mexico and made it my whole personality...

Hi there!

At the beginning of 2023, Ponderosa Creative was my side hustle. I was an executive director of a local nonprofit focusing on estuary rights issues, I was married, and I was pretty unhappy. Flash forward to the end of 2023… and I’m doing Ponderosa Creative, full time, as a single mom, and I’m pretty dang happy. January me would not belieeeeve all of the twists and turns of this year.

When I quit the job that was like, maybe actually killing me slowly, almost a year ago, I told myself that I needed to do things that made me feel alive. That I couldn’t keep putting my life on hold, feeling stuck, for this that or the other reason– I kept making excuses for why I couldn’t visit the southwest, even though I had been feeling this insatiable calling to the high desert my entire adulthood. It’s always been my favorite place I’ve never been. So, on the day I sent in my notice (which was honestly too generous of me), I booked a trip to New Mexico. IT WAS TIME. It was more than time!! I soaked in the architecture, the colors, the landscape, the botany, the scents, the FOOD, the sunsets, the views. I had really never felt such a strange sense of belonging just click into place. I think about this place every single day and I’ve been daydreaming of doing an artist residency in the southwest ever since.

Visiting this place, booking this trip in honor of choosing art for a living over burnout, made me also realize what else I need to change in my life. We all just have one wild and precious life, and we all have the choice of how to spend it. It's ok to say no thanks to the things you thought you wanted in life, and make new plans. In 2023, I learned a lot about what this means for me, and I took steps to make my life HAPPY. That's what Taos blend, ultimately, means to me.

Anyways, I created a very niche scent that represents what this trip (and hopefully my life in the desert, once I get back there again) means to me. I can only hope that y’all enjoy the scent, too.

Meet the Taos Blend

Contains beeswax, organic fair trade coconut oil, organic grapeseed oil and the following essential oils and extracts: Vetiver, juniper, creosote bush oil, clary sage, cedarwood, copaiba. This is a very subtle, slightly masculine scent inspired by my very specific experience in Taos and the surrounding areas--trekking around in the high desert plateau and mountains; getting sunburns while hiking on snowy trails one day and alongside bighorn sheep and cacti the next (and watching the bighorn sheep come way too close, with my then-husband's arms around me, in awe and totally nervous); eating picnic lunches in the back of our pickup truck; staying in a yellow vintage trailer and feeding the resident pig named Maxine; ridiculous sunsets and views; drinking craft beer; trying margaritas in every town; daydreaming, taking pictures of everything. Feeling completely at home in a place we've never been before.

Taos blend released months ago, but in the chaos of separation and single parenthood and the holiday season small business hustle, I haven’t had a chance to promote the blend. If you order Taos blend, though, please know that you are using a huge part of my heart. It is THE blend of 2023.

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