Bread & Butter - Issue 08

I want to talk about conversations — having tough conversations with compassion in a world that feels ever more divided, violent, and escalating in terms of hatred, ignorance, and hyper-individualistic groupthink.

Even though I don’t write about politics, it’s easy to politicize everything nowadays. Outrage seems to be the commerce by which we define our social identity and our sense of morality, instead of remembering objective right and wrong. That’s the problem with a vacuum of hyper-individualism.

Even the smallest moments of recognition from the right person at the right time mean the world — more than you could ever realize.

I want to use this as a way to spotlight and thank Blyth of Quicksilk Solutions (who I may or may not be working with), as well as my editor over at Apartment Therapy for recognizing the quality and ethos I bring to my work — whether it’s a personal puff piece or a more deeply reported feature.

A little bit of an extension makes all the difference in building trust and respect and validating my creative abilities and professionalism. I hate how rare these things are nowadays.

Community and accountability are the intangibles that glue us together. What we use to define value in a community or set scope and expectation beyond our sense of self is more important than ever. Look at the grand scheme with a clear picture and a sense of reality — versus the “self-truth” so many are sold to live by.

Zillow’s newest storm — lawsuits, FTC scrutiny, and the Compass merger mess — says the quiet part out loud about housing: trust is brittle at every level. If a platform built on listings and data can stumble when expectations and disclosures blur, what chance do the rest of us have when communication breaks down?

The headlines might be antitrust and scale, but the root is familiar: promises made faster than they can be kept, scope shifting without consent, and relationships strained because no one slows down to clarify expectations. Accountability scales both ways — whether you’re listing a million homes or trying to finish one kitchen remodel.

I keep coming back to my Apartment Therapy story on Belfast sinks — a 200-year-old design people constantly confuse with farmhouse sinks. What started as a look at plumbing and density turned into something else: how context gets lost when we reduce things to aesthetics. It’s the same dynamic that plays out in bigger systems —from platforms like Zillow to our day-to-day conversations.

When we forget the why behind something, we stop seeing what made it worth building in the first place.

If we want better conversations — and better outcomes — in housing and home improvement, who carries the message matters. Partnering with ethical journalists and trusted newsrooms maximizes visibility and credibility because reporting standards, disclosures, and corrections culture are built-in.

That’s how I work: clear sourcing, plain English, and consumer translation you can check. It’s also how home industry publishers like Emily Fazio of Home Living Handbook create value: focused beats, fewer gimmicks, more service.

Generative search is eating distribution. If you’re a home brand, designer, pro, or materials company, pairing with reporters (like me!) who can contextualize (not just hype) helps you stay visible without selling out the audience.

The trust recession won’t stop if we continue to turn to superstition or become overly emotional about things that have logical solutions. That doesn’t mean we don’t care. That doesn’t mean anger or outrage aren’t natural or healthy responses. But it’s what we do with those feelings that defines us.

If our response is to loot and burn and mock death —regardless of who has died — then we do no one any good, and humanity is worse off than before.

Showing up for the people we care about means doing more than half-assed self-reporting and self-validating vacuums of shared content that reinforce our limited beliefs and ignorant groupthink.

Selective exposure is an unintentional psy op in the sense of social media — based on how we curate our algorithms. And even though subscribing to ethical and professional journalists is a way to avoid what seems like sold-out media, it can also become its own vacuum and void of nonsense, ignorance, and chaos.

The same way deferred maintenance piles up at home, emotional maintenance piles up in us. You skip a hard talk, ignore a feeling, scroll instead of calling. Hairline cracks become stress fractures.

Tiny recognitions are how we shore it back up.

“I see the effort.”

“You were right to flag that.”

“We still need a fix — here’s what done looks like.”

That’s not softness; that’s structure.

This week, the shout-outs mattered. Blyth at Quicksilver Solutions. My editor at Apartment Therapy. Pro storytelling marketer Cyndi Zaweski showing up with support.

A little trust extended at the right moment changes the whole job. We don’t need more outrage. We need better punch lists, clearer scopes, and the courage to say what’s true without burning the place down.

Make the call. Define “done.” Leave the kind comment. Patch the crack. Then move to the next item on the list. That’s how houses — and relationships — stay standing.

If this made you pause, plan, or see your home a little differently — that’s the whole point.

Know someone who’d love this? Pass it on. Or hit reply and tell me what’s on your plate.

Helping folks feel at home.