Maria Slaby

Long Story Short

I’m a lot of labels, not the least of which is a mom / wife with four awesome kids that my amazing husband and I have homeschooled since birth. (Oh the stories we could tell!) My lifelong love of making cool stuff with an eye on our humanness has also turned me into a branding and publishing specialist. I love helping others bring voice to their passions in this wild and tangled digital world.

My biggest project is The Bunk Room, a magazine written entirely by kids. Publishing since 2008, we’ve amassed over 43 editions and for a time, offered local editions throughout the country. Now, new to 2017, we’re in a redesign, and soon to be launching our first of many e-courses plus a national edition. If you have kids age 8-18, this is a great place for them to do some relevant writing. Writing that gets published in a real magazine.

Would love to get to know you…drop me a note in the comments and catch up with me on the social media playground.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Longer Story

Finally I did it. After all these years of telling people to blog, I realized it was time for me to dare to bare.

Most of us walk around with a bunch of labels that define us by what we do for others. Whether you’re a mom, a dad, a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, or an etc, we all do stuff for others in some way, shape, manner or form. And that’s all great, but what do you do when you have something to say that really doesn’t apply to one of the hats you wear?  What if you just want to say something, but it has nothing to do with anything you “do” or who you “do it with?”

Right, you go on facebook and twitter. 🙂

And that worked for me up until I realized these conversations in my head were getting a bit stronger, louder and longer than the 140 character attention span of social media.

Then I realized (and fought it fiercely) that I should start my own blog.

For me.

For you.

For anyone that would like to share a cuppa java or wine with me on this amazing cloud called the internet.

I realized, all chaos aside, that like my yoga, diet and violin, this blog was one of those heart things I had to do.

In 2012 I decided to change my diet. Now it’s almost completely plant-based.

In 2013, I decided I would do yoga every single day. For the first few years I only missed three days. Now I’m not quite as strict but definitely yogi-up 5-7 days a week.

In 2014, I decided to take up the violin and practice every single day. Since then I’ve only missed one day.

In 2015, I decided to journal every single day. I haven’t missed a day yet.

Now, and maybe it’s because of all my journaling, I’m feeling a need to connect in a bigger way.

So, it is with this blog that I hope to flesh out and share these reflections in my head brought on by a couple decades of raising a family with my husband. From homeschooling kids, and building businesses, we have faced all the joys and madness with open arms plus plenty of winces and near misses.

At the end of the day, we’ve always ended with a huge heaping of happy and I couldn’t be more grateful.

But now, for me, true to form, my heart is leading me to write. Something is telling me inside that I might have something to say. Scratch that. We all have something to say.

I guess now, I’m feeling older and bolder, and daring to share.

Just like I tell everyone else to do.

So I’ll just leave this About Me at that.

(If you’d like to peek a bit behind the curtain, there’s a little more about me here. Blah, blah, blah. So many stories, so little time . . . )

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PS. Make sure you download my FREE Keep it Simple Planner. I’ve spent years perfecting it. It’s FUN and keeps my dreams in focus. It’s my gift to you. Enjoy!