Lilacs & Berries is blooming again. Not in a loud, hurried, perfectly polished way. More like a garden waking up after a long rain. Slowly. Softly. With little green things beginning to reach toward the light again. For a while, Lilacs & Berries has been resting beneath the surface. There were ideas tucked into notebooks, product drafts waiting patiently, story threads beginning to unfurl, and the quiet sense that this little brand was not gone — only gathering itself for the

There were many words people used for Misty growing up. Distracted.Sensitive.Odd.Too much in her own world. Adults spoke those words softly, as though lowering their voices made them kinder. Children rarely bothered lowering theirs at all. When Misty was seven years old, she spent an entire recess sitting beneath the old oak tree at the edge of the playground, carefully breaking pieces of her crackers apart for a squirrel with a crooked tail. The squirrel sat upright beside h