I love all things beauty; I operate with a sense of blithe and buoyancy; I’m obsessed with the human body and our ability to transform it; and I’m becoming the woman God has designed me to be.

I was a military brat born in a small town called, Havre de Grace, MD (of course you’ve never heard of it), so let’s just say Baltimore. After bouncing around from Baltimore to Germany to Leominster, I spent most of my childhood running the streets of Huntsville, AL and finally claimed a home in Chicago, IL, where I’ve lived for the past 20 years. I graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in English. Yes, I was totally one of those students that had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I only knew that I loved to write – songs, poetry, journals, notes, to-do lists, basically anything worth writing, I wrote. Upon graduating, I lucked up on a corporate job as a Vendor Manager for a concierge company and somehow that job led me to a career in Human Resources as a recruiter. In addition to my corporate jobs as a Recruiter, I was also pursuing my passion as a Makeup Artist – something I’ve always considered as a hobby up until 10 years ago when I turned that hobby into a career. Now, I’m a full-time Makeup Artist in Chicago, known as LYBartistry and still continue to work as an independent Recruiting Consultant.

Now that that’s all out of the way, I’m not just my work. Throughout the course of my life, I have experienced a multitude of things that have enhanced me, creating the woman I’ve become – relationships (good and bad), set-backs, accomplishments and insecurities. Things that I’ve cried about, laughed at and worried about almost all of my adult life. Things I’ve never thought of sharing, not knowing or even caring who my stories could inspire. This is me unloading – sharing some of my most interesting stories with hopes that I can aspire to inspire. And so it begins…. My journey – full of life lessons, dreams and failures.