I keep following ideas to see where they go.
I live part-time on an island in the San Francisco Bay, own a salon in the city, and routinely decide that now would be an excellent time to learn an entirely new skill.
A life built a little sideways.
There has never been one neat subject. The connecting thread is that I want to know what happens when I actually try.
I have spent more than 21 years behind the chair and now own Makers Make Parlor, my salon in San Francisco. When you spend that long with people, you hear thousands of stories. You learn that ordinary lives are rarely ordinary when someone tells you the good part.
This is where I tell the good part: what I made, where I went, what broke, what worked, what I learned, and the exact moment a reasonable interest became a full-blown project.
None of it was the plan. All of it counts.
I have lived around the Bay Area, aboard a boat, and now part-time on an island. Somewhere along the way, curiosity became less of a personality trait and more of an operating system.
Behind the chair
Hair became my first real craft and the salon became a front-row seat to people’s lives. More than two decades later, I still love the making—and I may love the stories people bring me even more.
The boat before the island
Before Matt and before island life, I lived aboard my own sailboat. It had survived a fire, and I rebuilt it with a friend: wiring, plumbing, motor, exhaust system and all. Apparently that was easier than accepting that I might not know how.
Water kept calling
I became an ASA-certified coastal cruiser, an advanced scuba diver, and a deckhand on a 100-ton vessel in the San Francisco Bay. I hike, solo camp, and collect national park T-shirts like evidence that I was there.
Then came the island
I met Matt in 2021 and married him in 2025. He is the island’s caretaker, which means our life is shaped by tides, weather, boats, wildlife, broken equipment, and whatever fresh bit of nonsense arrived overnight.
You do not have to know what you’re doing before you try the thing.
This is not a website about mastering everything. It is about giving the idea in your head a chance to exist. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it becomes a shitshow. Either way, there is usually a story—and often something genuinely useful to bring back.
Everything makes sense once you stop sorting it too hard.
The subject changes. The point of view does not: go somewhere, try something, pay attention, and tell the truth about what happened.
The Workshop
Jewelry, sewing, Cricut projects, furniture repair, DIY, and whatever skill has currently taken over the room.
The Greenhouse
Plants, gardens, propagation, growing food, ambitious seedlings, and lessons delivered directly by dirt.
The Kitchen
Cooking, baking, preserving, recreating meals, and finding out whether the recipe needed that many eggs.
Travel
Road trips, faraway places, rockhounding, national parks, makers, food, classes, and the detours worth keeping.
Life
Island stories, water life, the salon, home, beauty, mental health, Honey, hats, and everything that does not need a cute name.
Grunge grows up. Then gets salty.
My first blog was called Grunge Grows Up, which still explains more than it probably should.
Ray was the name my family and childhood friends used. A Salty Ray of Sunshine is what happened when that old name met this current life: older, more capable, slightly sunburnt, still irreverent, and still willing to begin before I feel ready.
I did grow up. I just kept the boots, added a concerning number of hats, and moved closer to the water.
The details that probably explain the rest.
Learning something for which I have already bought too many supplies.
Trips planned around rocks, food, antiques, makers, or a class.
Living according to boats, tides, weather, and what just broke.
Hats. So many hats. Plus national park T-shirts as travel receipts.
Married to Matt. Dog mom to Honey. Growing a palm with alarming ambitions.
“How hard could it be?” immediately before finding out.
I’ll show you what happened.
Pick a door, follow the current obsession, or start with the newest Field Note. You do not need to know what you’re doing either.