Right in Front of My Face

Adia Callahan happens to be my pilates instructor.  She'd been absolutely kicking my butt for three weeks before I found out she had a podcast and a life coaching business which I obviously wanted to learn all about.  As women in our mid-40's, we have a chat about how this new life phase impacts our general fitness and wellness, and we cover quite a few topics.   She generously took an hour to bas...

Mayoral candidate Casey Sixkiller gives us 80 minutes of himself.  He's a resident of my neighborhood, someone who is in my community and right in front of my face.  Casey came on the show to tell his story, tell us about what a campaign looks like, his basic plans, and tell me why he decided to run.  And I did what I do - ask simple questions I think we all have, and talk about uncomfortable topi...

In this episode,  I'm going to cover a topic that I find extremely uncomfortable, especially as a mother of a young daughter.  This week's subject is human trafficking.  This topic is so layered, with so many different faces, and I wanted to tackle it because as parents and just as humans, we cannot continue looking the other way when we drive down the street and see this happening.  We have to ed...

  Carrie Littlefield Syvertsen is the 2020 National School Social worker of the year.  She was recognized last March and her chance to be on a national stage with the leaders of the US Government recognizing her and her contributions was cancelled.  So instead of going to DC for her awards ceremony, she was quarantined with two small children and  having to homeschool.  Her professional expertise...

Are you hesitant to receive the Covid-19 vaccine? You're most definitely not alone. Approximately 30% of healthcare workers are hesitant as we've learned in the last month, so it seems reasonable private citizens would have similar fears. So let's talk about them. Dr. April Randhawa has been a part of the Covid-19 vaccine trials since they began. She is an actual expert in immune response with a P...

Aaron Wright is on the show today. He's the author of Thirteen Doors, which is due out on January 26th. Aaron's family dealt with a big topic right in front of my face - navigating the Davis, CA public school system in an attempt to get an IEP for his autistic daughter.

An open, honest conversation about menopause with Gennev Chief Medical Officer and Director of Menopause at Swedish Women's Clinic, Dr. Rebecca Dunsmoor-Su.

This week, I chat with Jennifer Porter, owner and founder of Satsuma Designs. She's a triple threat: smart, witty, and committed to lifting up her community.

Rob Turner is different from me as you'll hear in this interview.  He served our country in the Army, then became a police officer in Virginia. Following the murder of George Floyd this summer, he released an episode on his podcast Fat, Drunk and Stupid about that was raw, apologetic, and extremely vulnerable about the incident from a police perspective.  I really wanted to know more about his  ba...

Today is the day after the election and I had a new episode set to go, but it didn't feel right to put it out. So, instead of releasing that episode, I decided to re-release an episode about peace. More specifically about a peace activist named Kwabi Amoah-Forson. Back in March, when I spoke to Kwabi, he was running a cereal drive for students after schools shut down because of Covid-19. And, as h...

On today's episode, I sit down with Liz Berry, State Legislative candidate for District 36 to talk politics, what it takes to run for office, and why we need more women in elected positions.

Ellen Kuwana is a one woman non-profit. She's proof that one good intention can snowball into a movement. Wegotthisseattle.org has fed over 18,000 frontline healthcare workers and raised over $75,000 under her watch. We discuss the next phase of her organization and Covid fatigue ... turns out we're all tired.

As still a bit of a rookie podcaster, I've tried to listen to a bunch of different genres as homework to learn the trade.  Per usual, I'm drawn to the podcasts that I can learn something from - produced by truth-tellers.  I found the podcast Assorted Goods through Twitter, the motherland of podcast promotion.  What I first liked was the style of the tweets from this podcaster - funny, but sensitiv...

Welcome to season 2 of Right in Front of My Face - the podcast talking about big things happening right in front of us.  I'm incredibly proud to be announcing the next season of my humble podcast considering a year ago, I didn't even know what a podcast was.  And all of the sudden I feel like I've found a calling - what a miracle. I also, after almost a year of searching out stories and feeling in...

Vanessa Sturgeon is a CEO, a wife, and a mom of three boys living in Portland.  Her family is white, upper class, but still a bit non-traditional as they adopted their youngest, Jackson, from the Congo when he was four. She reached out to me right when my podcast started and asked if she could come on and try to educate parents on how to talk to their kids about race. Despite living in one of the...

Larkin Temme is the young principal of Holy Family Bilingual School in White Center, just 10 miles south of Seattle. We are separated by a short stretch of I-5, and a long stretch of socioeconomic circumstances.  The students at Holy Family are diverse, bilingual, and from backgrounds very different than the kids in Northeast Seattle. I wanted to hear from her about how she's pivoted her community...

I wanted to circle back with Dr. Drake after a couple of months to get her pulse check on Covid-19 and where we've arrived after two months sheltering in place. The week after our last interview, she co authored an op-ed that was published on TheHill.com. The two epidemiologists outlined what I thought was a really smart plan to create a reserve army of Public Health care workers to begin contact...

By the time this podcast comes out, it will have been a week since we've all found out that our kids won't be going back to school.   We'll be 3 weeks into sheltering in place, and feeling one more week's worth of depletion, anxiety and helplessness. Or maybe that's just me.  This way of life isn't getting any easier for me or my kids. I see them lonely, I see them trying to process not being able...

The mission of Right in Front of My Face is to shed light on big things happening right in front of me.  I'm coming in hot with a bonus ep isode because I want to contribute something in this pandemic, and what I feel like I can contribute is staying calm and finding facts.  I put out a call on my personal Facebook page to ask if anyone knew an epidemiologist I could interview that might be able t...

I first saw Dave Mampel at a 5 year old's birthday party last summer.  He was the entertainment - called himself Daffy Dave, and he mesmerized a group of kids in a way I'd never seen.  He was magical, hilarious, and completely entertaining. And when I saw that he was teaching a magic class at a community center this winter, I immediately signed up my 8 year old son.  I described Dave to a friend b...

If you lived or went to school in Seattle in the late 90's you may very well know my guest this week. Ronan O'Mahoney, one of the founders of the band, Left Hand Smoke, sat down with me to discuss the uncomfortable topic of anxiety. I wanted to get his take on this particular issue through his lens as a performer, but what came out of our time together was how anxiety has shaped his experience as...

Ali was 40 by the time she'd met the love of her life and decided it was time for a baby. Like so many women before her, she struggled to carry a pregnancy full-term so visited the specialists at Seattle Reproductive Medicine to explore her options. She and her partner agreed to try a round of IVF, and this interview is Ali sharing her ride on the IVF roller coaster. Following her journey, Ali is...

Extra interview - what's really right in front of my face?  My 8 year old son, Luke.  Take 15 minutes to hear about life through his eyes.  His positivity and life goals may might make you re-evaluate what your next career move should be.

Meet Marjorie.  For years, Marjorie has been a staple at the Ballard Farmer's Market with her "Psychic Readings"  stand outside the Ballard Inn.  Marjorie's gift is real and, while I have received readings from her, this episode is not a reading.  For the next hour, Marjorie takes us through the journey of her life - she explains what it was like to grow up knowing things about people and how she...

Meet Stevie.  Stevie is many things: a talented massage therapist, a yogi, and a mom-to-be.  She has also been a sugar baby.  According to  Wikipedia , a sugar baby is "a person who receives cash, gifts or other financial and material benefits in exchange for company. It usually includes sex or intimacy."  Yep.  It sure does.  Stevie educates me all about how she got into sugaring, but also shares...