Behind the Scenes: A Day In The Life Of LL’s Founder

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Here at Lacuna Loft, we are all about the behind the scenes, nitty-gritty of running an organization.  When I started Lacuna Loft, I relied on some very communicative and helpful small business owners to help guide me…along with a load of library books!  One of the most helpful bloggers, who often mixes the boundaries between business and pleasure in her business and her blog, recently posted a day-in-the-life post, and I decided that this idea was perfect for the first post in our new, Behind the Scenes series.

Without further ado, welcome to Behind the Scenes!  Here, we’ll talk about the various stages of the development of Lacuna Loft.  Some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way.  You’ll hear often from me, the Founder and CEO of Lacuna Loft, as well as from our Design Guru, board members, contributors, and more!  Today we’ll discuss a day in the life of Lacuna Loft’s founder!  (The day in question is Tuesday, May 19th…just in case you were curious.)

Today was a pretty normal day.  My to-do list was huge and what seemed probable for one day ended up being spread over several.

6:45 am … Alarm sounded.  Woke to a 28 lb lab-beagle-pit doggie snout in my face.

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7:30 am … Actually got out of bed.  I had intended on going for a run in the morning but my bedroom windows had remained opened overnight and the 55 degree F air didn’t feel that welcoming after the warm days Central Illinois has been spoiling me with.  I didn’t mess with my phone before getting out of bed.  My husband and I have a new ‘no smart phones in bed’ policy which includes no checking email.  I admit that I love this new agreement.  We actually wake up and talk to one another instead of instantly becoming buried in work!

7:30 – 7:45 am … Made a breakfast smoothie for the first time to include on the blog and had my husband give me his opinions on the recipe.  Fed the pups, put in a load of laundry, thought about starting a brief sprinkler but didn’t…growing grass is such a chore!

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7:45 am … Started working.  Finished up a post that was almost done from the day before.  Finished up some paperwork and wrote the needed check to file said paperwork for LL’s registration with California’s Registry of Charitable Trust.

9:30 am … Dressed, let the pups outside for about 10 minutes, and got ready to go.  Sometimes I go all out…shower, make up, nicer looking clothes.  Today was not one of those days.

10:00 am … Arrived at my work space for the day.  Today I went into work with my husband.  His company has space at a co-working space in our Central Illinois town and I spend time there every once in a while.  I rotate where my daily work space is between my home office, the local library, various coffee shops, and my husband’s office.

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10:00 – noon … Work, work, work.  This included working on blog posts, connecting with people on social media, and connecting with a nutritionist for a few future LL posts.  Some days I spend my entire time working on posts or talking with contributors and collaborators.  Other days I spend my whole time working on our strategic planning, marketing, future ads campaign and fundraising, connecting with health care professionals, outreaching to influencers in the young adult cancer space, etc.

12:15 pm … Lunch and some netflix

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1:00 pm … Did some work on the site.  Added our updated terms of use and privacy policy (after spending some time reading them).  Updated some financials for our Board of Directors, emailed briefly with a contributor, and sent out a final note to the entirety of our contributors.

2:30 pm … Spent some time working on a marketing class I’ve been taking through Coursera…love their courses!  Not all are interesting but I’ve been able to learn a lot by picking and choosing courses with information valuable to Lacuna Loft and my role as CEO.

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4:30 pm … Went for a run!

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5:30 pm … Headed home, played with the pups, did some business reading, and showered.

7:45 pm … Had dinner and relaxed with my pups and husband.

10 pm … To bed!

That’s it!  A pretty standard day.  Sometimes it takes me longer to get going in the morning and sometimes I’m still working much much later at night.  Sometimes I work about 9 hours in a day and sometimes its more like 15 hours.  Often there is a balance in between though, with some work mixed in on the weekends.

Let us know if there is something in particular that you’d like shown as part of our Behind the Scenes series!

Around Lacuna Loft – Spring

around Lacuna Loft

Lacuna Loft continues to be a busy and happening place.  (Am I the only one who still uses the word happening?)  We’ve become a Not for Profit Corporation in the State of California and are currently filing for our tax exempt status (which will make us a 501(c)3).  Our founder attended CancerCon in Denver, CO.  We’re preparing for the office’s move to Northern California in August.  We’ve talked about self care, crafting for stress relief, healthy living ideas, and more.  Collaborations are in the works, conversations are underway, and so much great young adult cancer specific content is in store for you!

Look forward to more great DIYs, healthy eating tips and choices, survivorship stories, and more as the spring unfolds!

P.S. Around Lacuna Loft Summer 2014, Fall 2014, Winter 2014/2015.

P.P.S.  Interested in adding your voice to Lacuna Loft this spring?  Email info@lacunaloft.com for more information.  Other young adult cancer survivors and caregivers are eager to hear your advice, learn your tricks on dealing with the world, and gaining powerful insights from your stories.

Together we take care of one another.  Together we unite to provide age-appropriate resources to other young adults.

Sharing My Story At The Relay Speaker Series

As many of you know, I have shared much of my story, here on Lacuna Loft.  I’ve talked about my fertility story and fears, about my caregiving journey, my exploration with sewing, how coloring was a wonderful activity for me during chemo, how I try and remember that I am tough as nails, how so much of my story belongs to my mother, how I helped pack up my childhood home, how I now eat donuts, and a lot more.  One thing I had never done until last week though?  Share my story verbally, in front of a group of people.

I was nervous as I walked in the room for the Relay Speaker Series talk that I gave last week in Tuscola, IL.  Thoughts of Why would anyone want to hear my story? circled through my head as I put my notes on the podium and anxiously waited for everyone to get seated.  And then…I told my story, and it went really well!  I was asked to speak for 30-45 minutes.  Well that seemed like a whole lot of my story all at once but we all made it through 🙂

Thanks to some much needed validation gained from my trip to CancerCon, I was able to speak clearly and without hesitation about the hurdles that I’ve overcome in the last couple of years.  I was able to talk with gusto about how my cancer survivorship is still an ongoing process and about how my changed identity can be related to by people from all walks of life, with or without their own cancer diagnosis.

For some reason though, talking with people face to face still makes me quite nervous…waaayyy more nervous than putting my story here on Lacuna Loft!  Look forward to seeing a video of the talk up here soon.

Have you publicly talked about your cancer journey or caregiver journey?  Did it make you nervous?

P.S. If you want to write here, on Lacuna Loft, email info@lacunaloft.com for more information!

Lacuna Loft At The Relay Speaker Series

Relay Speaker Series

I’m speaking tomorrow (April 28th) at the Tuscola Public Library as part of the Relay Speaker Series.  The talk starts at 6 pm and the whole event should last about an hour.  I’ll be talking about my personal story, what led me to start Lacuna Loft, and all of the cool things that Lacuna Loft does.

I’ve never done a live, public speaking event on behalf of Lacuna Loft…besides a radio show but I suppose that really isn’t live for most people.  I’m really nervous and excited!

Let me know if you live in Central Illinois and are going to the event!  The facebook event page describes location details and the like.  To learn more about Relay for Life in Douglas County go here.

Lacuna Loft Is Going To CancerCon!

I’m leaving later this week to represent Lacuna Loft at CancerCon!  The event is hosted by Stupid Cancer (a super cool organization that you should definitely learn more about if you haven’t heard of them yet) and will be in Denver, CO this year.

In their own words…

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I’ve already received my super awesome CancerCon luggage tag in the mail and I’m ready to talk Young Adult Cancer for a few, wonderful days.  One of the missions of Lacuna Loft is to help spread the news about Young Adult Cancer…about how we are different than other cancer age groups, and that with age-appropriate needs comes the necessity of age-appropriate care.  By meeting other great organizations and young adult cancer survivors, we can help share our own message of Lacuna Loft but we can also figure out how best to provide resources.

Stay tuned on our social media channels!  I’ll be tweeting and instagraming galore as the festivities go on!

Are you headed to CancerCon?  Let me know!  I’d love to meet you in person!

P.S. Our spell-check thinks that tweeting is a word but instagraming isn’t! HAHA

It Is Time To Hear From You!

We have been doing a lot of yoga and meditation on the site over the last few months each Wednesday….focusing on taking back control of our bodies and minds after young adult cancer or illness makes its home.  But you know what?  We’d love to hear from you!

What are you liking?

What are you not liking?

What do you not see at all but would like to?

Please!  and Thank You!  🙂

Welcome To National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week!

national young adult cancer awareness week

Yep!  April 6-10, 2015 is National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week!

With the knowledge of this, here is my next question…what should we do (as patients, advocates, and organizations) to bring awareness to young adult cancer and all of its topics?  How do you think we should be pushing the envelope to better educate, inform, and reach out about the importance of providing age-appropriate resources to young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers?

Last Thursday there was another tweet chat edition of #ayacsm.  (the next one is April 19th at 8 pm ET if you want to join!)  This great group is comprised of ya cancer organizations, young adult survivors + caregivers, as well as health care providers.  The question remains though, how do we continue to bring in more young adult cancer survivors + caregivers into our tribe?  What kinds of resources are/were you craving as a young adult cancer survivor or caregiver?  If you found the resources that you wanted, how did you arrive there?

How can we continue to build awareness about all of the specific needs that young adult cancer survivors + caregivers require?

Together we can build power, strength, and knowledge!  #ThisisAYACancer

For more information about what is happening this week for National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week, check out this information from Livestrong.

Happy First Weekend Of April!

Have a great weekend!  We’re signing off a little early this week.  Spring is in the air and sometimes that means more behind the scenes work than normal 🙂

Look forward to next week when we’ll be talking about healthy eating & smoothies, a self-care week long experiment, the power of actually spending time together, and more!

What A Whirlwind Week!

Whew!  I am back in the office but definitely catching up on many many many things.  Here are some pictures from my trip to keep you until tomorrow 🙂  Just another quick note…we’ll have fewer posts than normal this week.  Doing a little spring cleaning 🙂

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(just a little clarification…this guy was found pretty far from the water at low tide…I walked him back to the water and he rejoined the sea)

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Have a great Monday!

Happy 1 Year Lacuna Loft!

Lacuna Loft

Today is the first anniversary of Lacuna Loft’s launch day!  What a whirlwind of a year it has been!

We’ve been to 2 different expos, a conference, worked through a lot of business and website development challenges, and found 12 different awesome contributors.  We’ve done a fair number of cool DIY projects and recipes, talked about self care as often as possible, and started offering you some awesome weekly yoga posts.  We’ve had a few series go through the blog and listened carefully to feedback from many of you about what else you’d like to see here on Lacuna Loft.  Our founder had a two clean scans and cut off her hair for Locks of Love.  We’ve had meetings, started collaborations, and met so many awesome people in the young adult cancer world.  We even started working with a great group of lawyers to help us file as an official non-profit.

This next year we’re already attending another expo, going to a few other exciting conferences, designing our first fundraising campaign, and looking forward to a few rad collaborations with other organizations.  It is going to be a great year.  We’re excited to bring on some more people and start really taking things to the next level.  Thank you for your love and support!

With love,

Mallory & Brett and the Lacuna Loft team!

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P.S. Launch Day!