At Home With Mackenzie

Hey Reader! Does the thought of decluttering fill you with dread? When you open your kitchen cabinets, is there an avalanche of stuff every time? I'm going to try to make this process as easy as possible. Here are 10 stress-free, guilt-free items that you can declutter from your kitchen right now: Expired Products - go through all your spices (including those random packets that you have in the back of the cupboard), your pantry items, etc. I bet you have more than one item that is expired....

(This email contains an affiliate link. It does not affect the price of the item, but I do get a small commission if you purchase.) Hey friend! Can we just take a moment to acknowledge something, Reader? The last few weeks of school are NOT the easy, breezy wind-down that they should be. They are, in fact, a full sprint to the finish line while someone hands you a new permission slip every three minutes. I was talking to one of my clients recently, and she has FIVE kids. Her four older ones...

Hey Reader! A few years ago, I hit a point I never thought I would. I was $25,000 in credit card debt. And the worst part? It didn’t happen because of some big emergency. It was from shopping. High-end makeup. Clothes. Things I convinced myself I “deserved” or would somehow fix how I felt. Eventually, it got so bad I could barely keep up with the minimum payments… and my dad stepped in and paid it off for me. You’d think that would have been my wake-up call. And for a while, it was. But if...

Hey Reader, I'm so happy that I finally got this right... For the past few years, I kept running into the same frustrating issue. One of the buildings I work at was not withholding enough taxes throughout the year, so I always ended up owing at tax time. It felt like no matter what I changed on my tax documents (even claiming 0 dependents), April would roll around, and I would get hit with a bill I was not expecting. But last year, I finally got it sorted out (for this year). And for the...

Reader As this year winds down, I’m not thinking about resolutions. I’m thinking about release. Because growth, at least for me, hasn’t come from doing more — it’s come from letting go of the things that quietly drain my energy, my peace, and my capacity to enjoy the life I’m building. Here are 25 things I’m consciously leaving behind in 2025. Trying to do everything myself.This Christmas proved that even when I plan ahead, I can't do everything myself...especially when it comes to making all...

I don’t know about you, Reader, but November always throws me off a little. One minute it’s warm, light until 8 PM, and you feel like you can (sort of) keep up with life. Then suddenly it’s dark before dinnertime, the calendar’s exploding with school events, holiday prep is whispering in your ear, and you’re more tired even with the extra hour of sleep. I had that realization recently—while also finally, finally starting to plan our wedding. After 3.5 years of being engaged (!), we locked in...

Hi friend, Have you ever gotten excited about a shiny new cleaning routine, only to abandon it a few weeks later? (🙋♀️ I've definitely been there before). When John’s kids first moved in, I thought I’d cracked the code. I set up chore charts, hung them on the fridge, and thought, Finally—we’ll have some structure. The problem? They never touched them. Not once. I was still the one asking, “Did you do your chores?” every single day. That’s when it hit me: it’s not that cleaning routines fail...

Reader, if you're anything like me, sometimes your significant other drives you more insane than the kids do... The week before school starts:Me: "Shouldn't we start having the kids go to bed earlier?"John (my fiancé): "They'll be fine." John (the day before school starts): "OK, you guys need to go to bed at your school bedtime tonight."Kids: "Why?"John: "Because you start school the following day. And you technically should've started this a week ago." Me: *glares at John* Just to give some...

Reader There’s this quiet voice that shows up when you're folding laundry at 11pm, or picking up toys for the third time that day. It says: “You should be further along by now.” “Other moms have it more together.” “Why can’t you just keep up?” That voice? It’s lying. Because the truth is—you’re not behind. You’re building a life that’s being lived in real time. Not staged. Not edited. Not filtered through a highlight reel. And sometimes? That life is messy. Sometimes it’s unfinished projects,...

If you're exhausted this might be why... Hey Reader, somewhere along the way, being a good mom started to feel like being an exhausted mom. Not because you mind doing the work—packing the lunches, keeping track of field trips, remembering which kid needs clothes for spirit week—but because it feels like if you don't do it, no one else will. It's not just the to-dos. It's the remembering—the mental checklist of a thousand tiny things that keep your home running. And honestly? That’s the...

Reader, do you know how to spot the toxic clutter in your home?**HINT** IT NEVER STARTS WITH WHAT YOU SEE! The toxic clutter is usually what is hidden! Not the piles of stuff you see. It's what is hidden that is taking up storage and not allowing you to have the space to store what you need to store (i.e. the piles of stuff in your desk and counters - granted some of that may be junk mail that you haven't gone through or kids artwork that you know you're not going to keep - then yes get rid...