Amy Patterson

Hi, I’m Amy, a systems thinker, wife, mom, and digital retail growth leader. I’m raising a strong-willed girl and three very large dogs. I write about motherhood, marriage, faith, business, and mostly organized (but sometimes feral) chaos.

Mama Found Ms. Rachel

🐸On business trips, manufactured magic, and the village that keeps everything moving. As I write this, I am flying into O’Hare with a frog occupying most of my carry-on. The frog is for my colleague Lindsey, who lives in Massachusetts but will be in Chicago at the same

The Traditions We Choose

🧡Some traditions are inherited. Others begin because you took the same picture twice and realized you never wanted to stop. Every September, Jimmy drags a giant inflatable Tennessee football helmet into our front yard in Lakeland, Florida, which is exactly as subtle as it sounds. The first year, Haisley was

Everything I Hated About Boston, I Loved About Ed

💡On Boston accents, answered prayers, and the promise that goodbye is not the last word. Last night, without knowing why, I found myself trying to write about Ed Casey. Specifically, I was trying to explain how one man could embody nearly everything I disliked about Boston and yet make me

The Preschool Plague Has Arrived

🤒On sick days, breaking points, and the village at the door. It is Monday morning, and Haisley is not at preschool. She is at the pediatrician with Jimmy while I sit at my desk and work. Her triumphant return to PK3 has been postponed. She made it through approximately one

"You Don’t Have Diabetes"

🍪On the things we never realize they’re learning. We stopped at a coffee shop this morning, and I got Haisley a chocolate chip cookie and an apple juice. She was happily eating her cookie in the car when Jimmy asked if he could have a bite. “No.” A clear,

The Unpaid Labor of Sounding Reasonable

🤪On 38 AI conversations, 5% odds, and turning “Ma’am.” into an essay. No, I have not given up writing my blog. “Have you given up writing your blog?” my mother texted me at 9:05 on a Tuesday night. Ma’am. I have a demanding executive-level job, a

The Playground Is Harder Than the Boardroom.

🛝On working motherhood, belonging, and the places where grief catches you by surprise. Haisley starts Montessori in a few weeks, and I've spent the last several days trying to figure out why my anxiety is so much higher than I expected. It's not because I'

Six Words

🪞On accountability, grace, and the quiet formation of who we're becoming. "Just... give the kid some grace." Those were the first words out of my mouth Thursday morning. I've been thinking about them ever since. Our doorbell rang around 8:30. Jimmy answered it

Fixing Things

🔧On growing out of the need to save everything. Earlier this morning, before Haisley was awake and before my first call of the day, I published All the Dogs I've Ever Loved. That essay was about a dog named Gia, but it wasn't really about Gia.

All the Dogs I've Ever Loved

❤️‍🩹On compassion, compatibility, and what a lifetime of loving dogs has taught me about saying yes. My parents have been looking for a dog for several weeks now, which has somehow become a family project. Every weekend we climb into the car and head to another shelter, convinced that maybe

My Gut Has a Search Warrant

🤔On intuition, evidence, and learning to cross-examine my own assumptions. A question popped up on LinkedIn the other day. You could choose between two jobs. One was an at-will position with annual raises. The other was a five-year contract with no raises but a payout if you

Forty-Two.

🎂On patterns, perspective, & appreciating the view. Today I turn forty-two. When I was younger, I thought getting older meant accumulating answers. I pictured forty-two-year-olds as people who had life mostly figured out. They knew who they were, where they were going, and how they were

The Alien Tree

🌳On discovery calls, three-year-olds, and the danger of making assumptions. Last night, Haisley started talking about aliens. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have made much of an impression. She's three, and three-year-olds say all kinds of things. Most of them disappear as

Raising Dragons

🐉On raising children and other creatures. On Tuesday night, I found myself standing in my kitchen shredding zucchini for a bearded dragon. This was not a sentence I expected to say four days earlier. On Saturday, we were merely considering the possibility of getting a bearded dragon. By Tuesday, there

In the Back of the Sanctuary

💞On ordinary Sundays, faithful people, and the gifts passed between generations. This morning, while most of us were finding our seats and waiting for service to begin, three little girls were dancing in the back of the sanctuary with Ms. Connie. Haisley was one of them. The girls couldn’t

Life Between the Numbers

🍭On LADA, lousy sensors, and spending twenty years solving the wrong equation. Today, my diabetes technology staged a full-scale rebellion. While I was in the middle of a client presentation, my continuous glucose monitor insisted I was headed low. The alarm screamed at me repeatedly. My insulin pump responded

The Dress Still Fits

A few years before I became a mom, I saw another woman online share a tradition she did with her daughter. Every year, she wrapped her little girl in her wedding dress and took a photo. I remember thinking it was beautiful in this quiet, understated way. Not overly curated

Grandpa Milton

🐾On good dogs, grief, and the ones who quietly become home. Some dogs are pets. Some dogs are companions. And then there are dogs that quietly assume responsibility for your family like they were assigned to you long before you ever met. Grandpa is that kind of dog. When Jimmy

Right Before Three

🧜‍♀️On Ice Packs, mermaids, motherhood, and slowing down long enough to notice what’s changing. I had knee surgery this week, and it’s forced me to slow down just enough to realize how much is happening all at once right now. My meniscus repair was supposed to be a

The long game isn’t loud.

♟️On playing chess in a world that rewards checkers. There’s a difference between reacting to what’s directly in front of you and actually understanding what’s happening. Most people move based on what they can immediately see. A comment, a moment, a single data point. They respond quickly

Minnie Mouse, Ducks, Podcasts, and a Whole Lot of Restraint

🦆What I didn’t say, fix, or edit over the past few weeks. There’s a version of me that most people experience, the steady, capable, direct one. The one who can walk into a situation, figure out what actually matters, and start moving things forward without a lot of

The Bumblebee

This morning, my best friend of 30 years went to be with the Lord, and I’m still trying to understand a world where she’s not in it. Even typing that doesn’t feel real. I’m in Baltimore for a work trip, in the middle of a team

It Was Never About the Bracket

🏀On March Madness, work brackets, and the things that quietly make teams work. What started as a simple work bracket has, predictably, turned into something a little bigger. Not in a dramatic way. No big kickoff, no plan behind it. Just a link dropped in Slack, a handful of reactions,

When All You Can Do Is Pray

💬On silence, perspective, and the stories that aren’t mine to tell. If you’ve been following along here for a while, you may have noticed something unusual: It’s been quiet. Normally, I publish something every few days. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes reflective, sometimes a little ridiculous — but rarely silent.

The Year Between Fathers

🕊️On grief, legacy, and the quiet ways love keeps walking forward. Haisley learned to walk in the hallway of an oncology floor. At the time, it didn’t feel symbolic. It just felt like a small pocket of light in a place that usually holds a lot of heaviness. She