taking notes: may 2025

nine years in Arkansas, quitting my job, and unfiltered thoughts on journaling content

June is on our tails¹. I can’t believe it. I’m writing to you from what my cousin and I call The Puppy Nest (our respective couches, where we sip coffee, cuddle the dogs, and text each other). I just whipped up a little list of what I even did this month, for reference.

Love using my Aura Estelle B6 Daily for work & random lists

May flew by for me. I worked all but five days, and days off felt quite “life admin”-y. Eric also has worked six days a week on average. We’re still in good spirits from our April birthday/engagement getaway, but have spent zero time planning anything wedding-related. To celebrate our achievement of deciding to lock in as The Bubbers Family, we did finally make reservations at Mezzaluna here in Bentonville a few weeks back. So good. Worth the hype, 100p.

i’m all in for another strategy/planning meeting over spaghetts and aperol spritzes

The top half of the month was a lot of paperwork, a first birthday party, CHICAGO POPE MEMES, and our first Walmart AMP show of the season, complete with a pretzel for dinner. We saw Buddy Guy (living legend) and Tedeschi Trucks Band. Seeing blues/blues rock live will cure you of many ailments. One of my favorite genres of music is “A Dozen-ish People On Stage Wailing On They Instruments”. And has been since I was like, three years old (thanks Melissa and Greg). TTB is definitely going to be one of those bands that is thrown into the “when they come to town, we’re getting tickets” category.

Over the past few weeks, I have had a lot of ‘lasts’ as I finished out the school year: last day for seniors, then underclassmen, then last day of finals, last day of work a few days later. I started my position at the high school four years ago, so the Class of 2025 are “my freshmen” and I love them so!!! Grad announcements pepper the fridge. I’m following them back on TikTok, as promised. They’re sending me updates on their summer jobs and future plans. I am going to miss them greatly.

Some good purchases

Fresh Nikes | Necessary for hot Arkansas summers | Didn’t yet but I’m deffffff buying a ticket to the Chroma 20 year anniversary tour | Yummy kombucha | Really just a kickass ‘elevated basic’ t-shirt

Nine years since my huge life shake-up

I am celebrating NINE WHOLE YEARS of making the brave and slightly risky decision to move from Chicago to Fayetteville, Arkansas alone. After clocking Northwest Arkansas as a Very Cool Place after a visit in 2013, I knew I would be back in some capacity. It came sooner than expected and in a more permanent way: in 2016, I got into a post-baccalaureate program at the U of A to complete a year’s worth of undergraduate coursework in speech language pathology. Using the rest of my savings and an extremely generous amount of money from my mom to basically start over, we moved my belongings — that I spent all of April and May that year reeeeeally paring down — to Arkansas in crates and laundry baskets. I lived in housing on campus for the summer, then got my first-ever apartment that fall. The TL;DR recap of course is that I did get into graduate school in Fayetteville, stayed, met Eric, got my masters, started working, we moved up to Bentonville, got the dog, got engaged, and here we are.

june 2016 — after meeting my friend kristen via instagram for lunch at arsaga’s one time, we decided to camp out in a hammock at hawksbill and watch the sunrise. safety awareness score 0 (kristen is an angel but i’m positive neither of us brought any type of self-defense)

May 28th, 2016 and the few years that followed were very important and transformative for me, and I don’t think I hold enough space for it these days. Sometimes I felt like I dreamt it. I didn’t have any friends living here at the time² and I didn’t even have a long lost auntie or cousin nearby. I was alone. Until I was wasn’t. I met up with my online pal Shayne³ after I discovered she did not, in fact, live in Little Rock like I previously assumed. She was going into the same field, and we discovered we had ALL OF THE SAME CLASSES TOGETHER that fall semester. The year that followed was filled with moments exactly like that. I met so many amazing people who I’m still friends with to this day: from my program, because other friends connected us, because Shayne managed an Onyx location and I would go there and study/hang for hours on end, from online⁴, and more. I didn’t even have to join a non-denominational church whose stances I don’t agree with. Friends from Chicago knew my vibe was ~ALONE and VERY SINGLE with NO FAMILY and POSSIBLY VERY LONELY~ and were good at checking in on me. I made two special friends via Instagram, Ashley and

Kathryn Watson

, who ran an online magazine/blog⁵ that I contributed to a few times, whose presence in an ever-lit group chat kept me company & kept me grounded. I was/am so lucky. Fayetteville is (still!) so special, but I feel like I hit the jackpot with my 2016 arrival… before everyone else still being able to enjoy certain aspects of “Fayetteville funky” before the massive growth, even if I caught the tail end of it. Maybe I’m part of the problem (sorry), but my name is on Senior Walk at least, I lived in a shotgun apartment with no real doors (sliding glass only) on Hill (that lives to see another day, apparently), and a combo moldy/cozy townhouse on the top of Dickson just shy of Mount Sequoyah for several years, monthly rent being reminiscent of days gone by. I bought my first pair of Chacos within my first 24 hours of living here, and ended up with a Crosstrek from Adventure Subaru, naturally. I remember Greenhouse Grille, loved Nightbird Books, have an unhealthy obsession with Petra Cafe, took a million selfies in the old Puritan bathroom, and made it a point to learn how to get to Ponca without using navigation as quickly as possible, so I feel like I’ve earned my keep. If everything shakes out to allow us to ever own a home in Fayetteville someday, that would be wonderful, but I’m realizing what I would really love is to time travel. How lucky am I to have moved to Arkansas exactly when I did. This state is a true love of my life.

TikToks in my Saved folder

Get a job, Twin!! | I can’t wait to be in a movie theater in the Ju-ly heat | Un-chic epidemic | SPRINT MONTH!!!! | It’s a new day, but it all feels old!! | Scripture says, WRITE IT DOWN, MAKE IT PLAIN! | Things I normalized when I was racking up debt | Bring back handwriting

I tried Whole30 again

For three days. Bad timing. Will revisit. Moving on.

it’s an unpainted toenail summer

I love being online, but we all sound the same

Let’s get you married! I’m just a girl. Sweet treat o’clock. Recession indicator. So easy to celebrate you. Doing everything but getting my Real ID. Close enough, welcome back _____. You know what, hell yeah! Oh, that’s not —. Labubus, butter yellow, it’s giving [I do this too], I fear. Read more here:

Is everyone boring now?

I QUIT MY JOB

AND JUMPED INTO A RIVER ABOUT IT.

I just finished up my sixth year as a school-based speech language pathologist, and I am not returning next school year. On the first day of freedom, my friend Karly and I took our annual pilgrimage to Kings River Falls to celebrate. This is our sixth year of this tradition, and I’m obsessed.

Being an SLP, specifically one who works in education, has been a huge part of my personality and identity for years. I’ve enjoyed many days, love my students, and have been lucky to have worked with so many great colleagues, some of which have become dear friends. I’ve felt the tug to leave for a year or two now, and finally worked up the courage. I’m just ready for a change and a switch-up. I am currently working part-time with adults at a nursing & rehab facility. I love my patients so much. Honestly, between you and me, I would like to find full-time employment outside of my current field, which might prove more difficult now than it would have been in recent years. But I’m going to try. I will now transition to talking about something else because my tummy hurts. I do believe very very very very deep down that I can do many different things, maybe even some of them well, but imposter syndrome is alive and kicking right now. If you have any well wishes, lightbulb ideas, or sage advice (esp. if you’re local to me or you’ve made a career pivot out of education/SLP), feel free to DM me.

Is everybody junk journaling without me?

As promised, a little more elaboration on some thoughts I shared via Instagram stories last week. TW: Opinions ahead!!! I posted a very frenzied succession of slides evaluating how I feel about posting — specifically about my journaling hobby — online these days. You can view my original thoughts on highlights if you’re curious, but to sum it up, I don’t know how jazzed posting about my journal gets me right now. *Obama voice* Let me be clear, it’s not like I have even been posting all these flip-throughs or tutorials as of late, but I had worked up this idea in my head that after the school year concluded, I would finally have time to really dig in. To post more journaling content, like I had wished to do for so long.

Many of you know this: I’ve kept a journal since I was five or six, started bullet journaling as I was planning my move to Arkansas nine years ago, and started sharing online shortly after that. Remember Shayne from a few paragraphs ago? We brought our washi tape, Tombows, and Leuchtturm1917s to many a coffee shop date in 2017 and had some of the very best afternoons together studying, planning, and memory-keeping. It is through those journaling dates that we became so close. Karly, you know, also from a few paragraphs ago? We had mutual friends, yes, and went to barre classes together, but she saw me post about my journal and asked to meet for coffee because she wanted to start journaling, too. In the years that followed, we had a pretty steady monthly journaling date. Our friendship also probably wouldn’t be what it is today without journaling. THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS CANNOT BE OVERSTATED!!!!

Creative journaling got me through quarantine. I got my first Hobonichi in 2021 and I experienced nirvana. Sharing about my hobby just happened so naturally because 1) it’s a huge part of my life and 2) posting about it gave me attention & positive reinforcement, because I am simply a human displaying classic human behavior. Plus, in terms of shit to post about, it set me apart! I don’t dislike that my favorite craft and pastime has gone viral (why on earth would I want to gatekeep something so transformative and helpful for me? I always want more people to pick up journaling). But I’m just… tired.

My admission is this: while I think talking about creativity, expression, and play is so important, incredibly important, I just don’t know how much I feel like being a creative journaling arbiter at the moment, because I’m burnt out myself. I need a reset. I don’t enjoy the feeling that making content about the hobby is ever more of a priority than actually just engaging in the hobby for the sake of it. I think junk journaling sticker packs are stupid (quote me). I don’t have a job where playing with paper even in the most functional capacity fits into my day, which makes executing content and spending time on my hobby a little more difficult. I’m not whining about being busy; I’ve been busier in my life. But I just spent the past four years in a cinderblock box in an internal hallway in a high school, and not to be an iPad baby about it, but not being able to access social media or texts AT ALL when in my office as someone moonlighting as a microinfluencer was kinda brutal. One time, a brand messaged me at 9:30, then followed-up again at 2:30 when I didn’t respond. BRO, I know working in education isn’t life or death, but COME ON! I’m at work!!!!!⁶ And scarcity mindset is real: I know people are making money riding the junk journaling wave on TikTok, and why not me? I’ve been here for long enough. But I start to try every now and then, and it doesn’t feel genuine. I don’t like how the over-consumerism running rampant within the context of crafting⁷ is making me feel. I’m actually actively trying to get rid of some of my supplies, and am trying to turn my ‘journaling desk’ into a journaling cart. I feel like I’m in a crafting content over-saturation flood zone. That’s likely not true, and is probably just my little corner of the internet, but being exposed to constant ideas and inspiration isn’t energizing me like it used to. It’s clear that the burnout I’ve been dealing with has effectively seeped into most every part of my being, unfortunately — how embarrassing for me that seeing a viral junk journaling video of the same gingham background, concert tickets, and friendship bracelet alphabet bead stickers can send me into another dimension if I’m not in the mood. What the hell am I even saying? Last year I was struggling to get the attention of an ink company. Fast forward to this spring, where they approached me to be a part of their affiliate program. I didn’t even get halfway through the application before clicking out of the form. WHAT DO I WANT? My bestie is running a single-woman micro-intervention by shouting affirmations at me via voice memos and encouraging me to take some time to just be this summer. I always feel better when I’m creating, but for so long I just assumed the only way I would enjoy creating is through bullet journaling, scrapbooking, creatively documenting my life through paper… and that the only way for others to bear witness to it was if I hollered about it online. But creative exploration can look like a lot of different things. Maybe because I do enjoy the act of journaling so much, it’s all the more reason to get it off the internet right now, to attempt to repair my current relationship with it. To keep at it, just for me. Outside of others’ influence. Or… not.

All this to say — and I do realize I just said a lot — I’m in a really weird place, and am a little dysregulated, so I’m not the most reliable narrator at the moment. I’m not going anywhere — you all know I can’t ever really log off — and I do enjoy sharing what I’m up to, and journaling will always be a part of what I’m up to. I’ll still be posting videos for my Substack community, and probably YouTube too. I just want to explore my creativity in other ways. I think I’m just so surprised by this discovery that I don’t have to be just one thing.

Elated and amazed,

Claire

1. ope, it’s here, this has been in the drafts for a min

2. but a few acquaintances who ended up becoming friends!!!!!! Don’t get it twisted

3. We started following each other on Instagram in 2014ish, probably through a hand lettering or other similar artsy hashtag

4. Yes, vine/twitter-era creator & fellow Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School Eagle KarlFromOnline was a huge inspo, but the reason I changed my name to ClaireFromOnline is because I can’t even count how many times the answer to “how do you know each other?” in my world is simply “from online”. Like/comment/subscribe if u agree!!!!!!!

5. upwrite magazine, forever in my heart

6. I know I had “summers off” but that didn’t work for my brain and I KNOW I’m not alone but it hit me like whiplash. I am seeking steadiness. I didn’t like the overstimulation/understimulation. Of course there are perks to a chunk of time off, but creative enlightenment was never one of them for me and that’s what I’m talking about

7. PLEASE HEAR ME, I’m not judging you for spending YOUR money; I’m talking from a personal perspective here! I can’t afford to keep up