Welcome to the Tonitunes Universe.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you may have noticed something.
I got quiet.
Not because I wanted to disappear, and certainly not because I had stopped loving what I do. In fact, my stores never stopped. Orders still went out. New treasures were still listed. Customers still received the same care and attention they’ve always received.
But life has a way of reminding us that our time and emotional energy are not unlimited.
Over the past eight months, life became… heavy.
I said goodbye to several of my elderly fur babies, each one leaving a little paw print on my heart. My family walked through a serious illness that demanded our attention. There were personal family challenges that, while I won’t go into detail, required a great deal of emotional energy to navigate. Some chapters belong to more than one person, and I believe those stories deserve privacy.
Through it all, I kept my businesses moving forward.
Maybe not at the pace I would have liked every day, but I kept moving, Etsy, eBay, and Shopify never slowed down.
One listing at a time.
One order at a time.
One customer at a time.
But the Tonitunes universe kept moving.
Sometimes that’s what perseverance looks like. It isn’t loud or glamorous. It’s simply choosing not to quit.
What I didn’t have was the emotional bandwidth to create.
Social media requires more than posting pictures. At least for me, it does.
It requires enthusiasm.
Curiosity.
Storytelling.
Connection.
And for a little while, I simply didn’t have much left to give after taking care of the people and animals who depended on me.
So I gave myself permission to be quiet.
Looking back now, I don’t regret that decision.
Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is stop pretending we have energy that we simply don’t possess.
But something interesting has happened recently.
The clouds have started to part.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
Just little by little.
I’ve caught myself laughing more.
Listening to my “joy music” again while I work.
Thinking about new projects.
Getting excited to create instead of simply trying to make it through the day.
Those little moments matter.
They tell me something inside me is waking back up.
And with that comes a renewed excitement to share this wonderfully odd little life that I’ve built.
And with that comes a renewed excitement to share this wonderfully odd little life that I’ve built.
If you’re new here, welcome to the Tonitunes universe.
It’s a place where vintage treasures share space with crystal collections.
Where online businesses somehow coexist with donkeys, goats, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats… and whatever other critter decides to wander into my day.
It’s a life where I’ll happily spend an afternoon researching the history of a piece of silver, then walk outside and have a donkey waiting by my warehouse door as if we had an appointment.
It’s a life that includes running multiple online businesses, learning new skills, constantly improving, and embracing the fact that I discovered I was autistic not as a child, but as an adult. Looking back through that lens has helped so many pieces of my life finally make sense. And somehow, it’s all set to a mixtape of ’80s hair bands, heavy metal, classical music, rap, and K-pop.
It’s also the story of someone who was adopted, later found her biological family, and discovered that life is often more complicated than the movies make it seem. There have been beautiful moments, difficult moments, and everything in between. While some parts of that journey will remain private, it has shaped who I am in ways I never could have imagined.
In short…
It’s eclectic.
It’s occasionally chaotic.
It’s definitely unconventional.
But it’s mine.
And I genuinely love it.
One of the biggest lessons these past months have reinforced is something I’ve believed for a long time:
Don’t wait for perfect.
Whether you’re building a business, healing from loss, learning a new skill, or chasing a dream, perfect has an amazing way of never arriving.
I started in a closet.
Then I borrowed a corner of the pantry.
Then a tiny pump house.
Eventually, I bought my little warehouse, and every payment came from the business itself.
None of those steps were glamorous.
Every one of them mattered.
Life works much the same way.
Healing isn’t one giant leap.
It’s a thousand tiny steps that, one day, you suddenly realize have carried you farther than you thought possible.
So…
I’m back.
Not because life suddenly became perfect.
But because joy has slowly started replacing little pieces of the heaviness.
I’m excited to tell stories again.
I’m excited to introduce you to the people and animals who make this place feel like home.
I’m excited to share vintage finds, business lessons, farm adventures, organization projects, and all the wonderfully unexpected moments that somehow become “just another Tuesday” around here in the Tonitunes universe.
I recently took one more leap and joined TikTok. If you’d like to follow along there as well, you’ll find much of the same thing you’ll find here: honesty, humor, hard work, and a healthy dose of controlled chaos.
Thank you to everyone who stuck around while I was quiet.
Your patience meant more than you probably realize.
Here’s to new adventures, old treasures, and remembering that progress has never required perfection.
Welcome back to the Tonitunes universe.
I’ve missed sharing it with you.