Blog – Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, August 5, 2025 There’s a moment, not marked on any calendar, when a place shifts from somewhere you’re in to somewhere you’re of. It doesn’t come with balloons or a banner. Most of the time, you don’t even notice it until after it’s already happened. You just look up one day and realize: Your co-worker’s last name that you used to have to effort through pronouncing just rolls smoothly off your tongue. You flick on the correct light switch in a series without even thinking. You know the shortcut that saves two stoplights, but only if you turn just [...]

Tuesday, July 29, 2025 At a certain point in life, you stop pretending. You stop pretending you like kale. You stop pretending you want to attend that 8:00 p.m. event that “should only last a couple hours.” You stop pretending you’re excited about the group chat. Somewhere between your mid-40s and early 50s, a glorious shift happens: your Give-A-Damn meter breaks in all the right ways. So in the spirit of midlife clarity, here’s a short (but ever-growing) list of things I no longer pretend to care about: Uncomfortable clothes. If I have to shimmy, tug, suck in, or re-adjust [...]

Tuesday, July 15, 2025 We’ve all heard the phrase “give better than you got,” but usually it’s delivered with a slightly raised eyebrow — part challenge, part consolation, and sometimes a quiet warning. Maybe someone was unfair to you, so you’re being encouraged to break the cycle. Or maybe you're being reminded of how much more is possible when you respond with grace instead of grudge. I’ve started to see it differently, not just as a reaction to poor treatment, but as a philosophy. A way of showing up that doesn’t wait to be earned. It's easy…natural, even — to [...]

Tuesday, July 8, 2025 Big changes are coming to non-financed real estate transactions. It will impact more than just title & settlement agents or real estate attorneys. Estate planning attorneys, trust departments, wealth management advisors and financial planners all need to know the new rules of the game. We’ve brought in guest blogger, Ruth Dillingham, Esq. & NTP to share the 411 with you in today’s blog. She’ll also be featured on the Keys to Real Estate podcast episode on Thursday, July 10. It’s never too soon to start planning for this massive new FinCEN requirement that becomes effective December [...]

Tuesday, July 1, 2025 If you’ve never been to Ravinia Festival, it’s worth the trip. I should clarify that Ravinia Festival is a place, not a multi-day event.  Nestled in the trees just north of Chicago, Ravinia has been hosting music lovers since 1904 — the oldest outdoor music festival in the country. But it’s more than that. It’s a ritual. You bring your own picnic. You set up on the lawn. You open a bottle of wine. And then, as the sun sets and the cicadas hum, the music begins. Ravinia has hosted legends across generations — from classical [...]

June 24, 2025 There’s something quietly rebellious about deciding to like Mondays. Not tolerate them. Not power through them. But genuinely like them. We’ve started a little tradition in my house that has completely changed the way we experience the start of the week. On Monday nights, we make steak. A really good one. We open a bottle of red wine that we might have otherwise saved for a “special occasion,” and we sit down and have dinner together. That’s it. No fanfare. Just intention. We talk. We connect. We look each other in the eye instead of at our [...]

Tuesday, June 17, 2025 While you’re reading this, I’m likely somewhere in Pittsburgh; either racing down a hallway at the NS3 conference or standing in the back of a packed session trying to gauge the mood of the room. Maybe I’m helping with a panelist’s last-minute change or moderating a Q&A. If the timing is just right, I might even be having a quiet cup of coffee and thinking about how this whole thing came together…or a talking with a colleague over a glass of wine and wishing it would never end. Conferences like NS3 often look seamless from the [...]

Tuesday, June 10, 2025 I was in Florida recently, attending a conference at a resort with one of those wave machines — the kind where people can hop on a small board and try their hand at surfing without the ocean. Most people treated it like a game. A laugh. They’d wipe out gloriously, bounce back up grinning, and race to the back of the line like kids on a waterslide. They weren’t trying to master surfing; they were just doing something fun and out of the ordinary on vacation. But one person caught my attention. He wasn’t playing. He [...]

Tuesday, June 3, 2025 In the rush of daily life, it’s easy to lose sight of the small moments that ground us. Whether it’s work deadlines, family demands, or just the constant hum of information, we rarely pause long enough to breathe deeply and simply be. That’s why I’ve come to appreciate the importance of carving out a serene space; a place that feels like a little refuge you can visit every day. This space doesn’t have to be grand or complicated. It can be a nook, a chair by a window, a spot under a favorite tree, or even [...]