*Breathes in audibly*

I love the smell of a new Q4 in the morning, don’t you?

The weather in Atlanta isn’t autumn-like yet but I’m moving my summer clothes into packing cubes.

Alan is running around the house turning on each faucet, one at a time, to help the plumbers map out our mysterious pipes.

The neighbors next door have been renovating their old house for over a year now. A few weeks ago they started working on their sewer line and realized their house, our house, and the rental next door all share the same line of ancient pipes. If any one of our sewage systems backed up, it would flood all three. The pipes are full of tree roots, cracks and debris.

Today there are five men in orange vests patching the sidewalk where the new sewer tap was installed, and a technician is running a camera through the busted terracotta that runs under our floors.

I am trying not to think about how much easier all of these sewage repairs would have been if we’d been able to go forward with our own renovation plans first. Our crumbling pipes would be easier to reach if our kitchen floor had been ripped up according to plan.

Staring down the final years of my 30’s, it’s clear to me now this entire decade was a sprint of work where I mismanaged the timelines. I had a small window to create the life I wanted for myself and I blew it. Doors are closing that won’t reopen again. Everything I want will only be more expensive in the future.

There are certain milestones you have to hit on schedule or you’ll never again be afforded the chance.

Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, I can accurately judge the passing of time for the first time in my life. I forget to eat and barely sleep but I know my next meeting starts in 30 minutes.

I know I’ll blink and it’ll be Christmas.

So, here’s a moment to count up the highlights from Q3 and set forward new goals for the rest of the year.

Q3 2026 Highlights

• Led a How to Vibe Code for Non-engineers workshop—helped women get websites live for the first time!
• Built a go-to-market operating system with a context layer for a team of PMMs
• Got inspired at RenderATL
• Saw Reptar in concert
• Enjoyed a Labor Day cookout with fun neighbors
• Learned to play Mahjong
• Hosted a hackathon
• Harvested a decent crop of tomatoes
• Merged in 27 PRs to Kitschy, my kitchen inventory app side project
• Completed the 20 in 30 September yoga class challenge at BeYoga ⭐
• Gave our bedroom closet a punchy makeover

Q4 2026 Goals

Beyond the basic goals I’ve set for health and financial wellbeing, my primary objective for the end of the year is to rack up an embarrassing number of rejections in pursuit of my ambitions.

Back in January, I wrote down a number of big, scary rejections I’d like to receive this year and I’ve already blown far past that number. The spirit of the rejection counting goal is to swing bigger and stop playing it small. The theory is: success is a numbers game and if you put yourself out there in enough big, scary ways, eventually somebody is bound to say “yes.”

When none of the swings turn into a “yes,” any rational person might pause to re-examine their approach. My assessment is that even my rejection counting goal was playing it safe. I got in the reps and learned not to let hearing “no” get under my skin. But I wasn’t reaching toward enough things I truly, deeply wanted.

New approach. Raise the stakes. Identify more desirable targets. Crank up the pain and get ready to take off running when the ball inevitably makes contact with the bat.

Watching / reading / enjoying

• Alton Brown Cooks Food on YouTube
• CDSM 🎷
• King of the Hill, Season 15
• Silo, Season 3
• Slow Horses
• The Bride! — This movie is not good but Jessie Buckley is a genius. Christian Bale is adorable and Annette Bening is perfection. It looked beautiful and it made me feel something, despite all its problems with plot and pacing. If it had been up to me, I would have cut the entire Jake Gyllenhaal tap-dacing bit (unnecessary) and given Ida / Mary / The Bride another 30 minutes to do whatever she preferred to do.

Until next time—