What’s She Reading, Watching and Listening To?

By Keri Foy


A chiropractor in Louisville’s Middletown area, Elizabeth Tamminga-Counts believes if you aren’t feeding your mind, it’s not getting stronger. That’s why she is constantly tuning in to podcasts about her profession and reading books to elevate her mind. But like most of us, she does have her guilty pleasures — listening to Taylor Swift and binge-watching The O.C. on Netflix.

I Don’t Let a Lot of Junk Into My Head

By Keri Foy


You won’t catch Abbey Mueller indulging in an episode of The Real Housewives. This life coach and founder/owner of Abigail Academy is selective when it comes to what she listens to, reads, and watches. She’s carefully screening each message she allows in her realm — and it must line up with her beliefs to make the cut. Find out what this determined visionary and mentor to young women allows to influence her mind.

Why She Might Be Stalking Your Social Media for Her Job, and Other Things She is Reading

By Keri Foy



Kristina Johns is young, successful, and funny. She is director of social media marketing at Vest Advertising. Find out what makes her laugh, keeps her balanced, and how she stays informed about the social media marketing industry.

What’s Valerie Casey Reading, Watching, Listening to?

By Keri Foy


Valerie Casey hits target areas for her personal growth.

“I help entrepreneurs piece together their vision into something sustainable…”

By Megan M. Seckman

Vallorie sews a Nuno piece of fabric, which she created to make her top.  Nuno involves felting together merino wool and silk to produce a warm and soft fabric. Photos by Melissa Donald  

Like most art, Vallorie Henderson’s textiles mirror her life. She takes fragments of felted wool and silk, a traditional technique inspired by her native Kentucky roots, cuts them up into morsels of color, and pieces them together to make a masterpiece. The lines are sometimes askew, the edges are often rough, the array of colors contrast, yet somehow create cohesion. The final product is not perfect, it is never precise, but each imperfection helps to create a small miracle. It is alive, organic, and raw. A new life born from scraps of disjointed ideas.

What Kelly Sullivan is Reading, Watching, Listening to… (also about how the girl who thought school was dumb became a Ph.D.)

By Megan M. Seckman

Kelly loves wearing this beaker pin her boyfriend gave to her. Photos by Melissa Donald 

At 33, Dr. Kelly Sullivan holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, is an Ivy League graduate, and has received several prestigious honors including Purdue University’s A.K. Balls award for excellence. Her passion for science runs so deep that she’s tattooed her favorite scientists, instruments, and formulas on her body. This inked tapestry consists of a pipette measuring tube that decorates the base of her neck, the Gibbs free energy equation, and Madame Curie. Among these odes to her field of study are a menagerie of other tattoos, 26 in all, ranging from raucous to random: Ric Flair, a trio of wolves, and a pink fan won at a “tattoo derby” when she drew a random number that corresponded to the image, just to name a few. She breaks the mold of the stereotypical chemist, and that is all right by her. “People never believe what I do when I tell them. They can’t imagine I’m a Ph.D. To them I’m just another weirdo at the Southend Kroger,” Kelly says with a laugh.

What this Medical Student (and Miss Kentucky) is Reading, Watching, Listening to…

By Megan M. Seckman 
Madelynne Myers, 22, wears the tiara with pride as she makes her way through the small towns of the state, but don’t underestimate this Miss Kentucky USA. Where the runway ends, a future in medicine and public service begins. In May, Madelynne graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in molecular and cellular biology and minors in chemistry and Spanish. Once her year as Miss Kentucky is complete, she plans to begin medical school and pursue a career in pediatric trauma surgery.

What this Master Distiller is Reading, Watching, and Listening to

By Megan M. Seckman

Joyce Nethery and her daughter Autumn merged their talents together to create Jeptha Creed Distillery.
Photos by Trina Whalin

A lifetime of career moves went into preparing her for this great venture. She earned a chemical engineering degree from the University of Louisville’s Speed School, worked as a process engineer in a distillation unit, spent six years teaching high school chemistry and physics, then shifted gears to become the CFO of her husband’s companies for a decade, and, last but not least, learned the art of growing the perfect heirloom tomato. Now, a lifetime of skills from farm to finance have come to fruition. Joyce Nethery, co-owner and master distiller of Jeptha Creed Distillery, is raising a glass to her future while honoring the past.

What She’s Reading, Watching, and Listening to While Brewing Kombucha

By Megan M. Seckman

Since the inception of their business Elixir Kombucha in April of last year, Danielle Wood and her husband Corey have followed the same routine. Before “Monday-Brew-Day” begins, Danielle and Corey (bonafide high school sweethearts) meditate and practice yoga together. With their minds and bodies ready to channel peaceful energy into their product, a 2,000-year-old elixir known as kombucha, they set off to their facility in Chef Space, a shared, commercial kitchen in the Russell neighborhood available for rent to food entrepreneurs.

How Kimberly May Inspires Wellness

By Megan M. Seckman

Before afternoon coffee, Kimberly May had written a poem, traded a healing session with a friend (Pranic for her, Havening for him), and counseled clients on how to find their inner fire.
Years ago, this certified life and wellness coach, and owner of Inspire Wellness, would never have imagined these items on her daily agenda — a drastic shift from her former life in the corporate world.

Phyllis Haag Smith is a Hemp Farmer — and it is paying the bills

By Megan M. Seckman

Think “hemp farmer” and I’m sure your mental image conjures up someone bearded and bohemian.

But Kentucky, it’s time you met your real local hemp farmer: Phyllis Haag Smith. She’s 67, a part-time elderly caregiver, women’s fitness coach, farmer’s market vendor, and a full-time grandmother. She loves heirloom tomatoes, Wendell Berry, Kentucky history, and, of course, farming. She and her husband have worked their Henry County land, Green’s Fork Farm, for decades, and they think they’ve finally found a crop that can pay the mortgage and secure their retirement: hemp.

What the Coolest Person You’ve Never Met is Reading, Watching and Listening to

By Megan Seckman

Colene Elridge started her own consulting firm to help employees thrive in the workplace. 

Colene Elridge is probably the coolest person you've never met. After our short hour together I left feeling calm, inspired, and reinvigorated. Her contagious smile, overt positivity, and sensible philosophy on life had me wondering where I’d gone wrong — and that was just from an interview over hot tea — no coaching involved.

What the Horse Trainer is Reading, Watching, and Listening to

By Megan M. Seckman

Years ago on the North Dakota Chippewa tribe’s reservation, Turtle Mountain, there lived a family of four little girls and a pasture of broken-down thoroughbreds. Each day, the girls would exercise these horses the rest of the race industry no longer deemed valuable. The girls’ father, Sylvester Alex Poitra, may have quietly wished for boys, but taught each daughter to ride before they could properly walk. And that is how he made a living out of these discarded, maned athletes — and how Reta Underwood was introduced to the world of horse racing.

What This Environmentalist and Artist is Reading, Watching, and Listening to

By Megan Seckman

Clare stands in front of one of her paintings called Osage One. The painting represents the oneness
of the cycles of photosynthesis. 

Clare Hirn never considered art to be a viable career. That is why she split her studies as an undergrad at Indiana University between biological sciences and fine arts. The two worlds of arts and sciences are reflected in her expansive art career: she illustrated an Abiocor artificial heart that appeared on the cover of The New York Times, and she paints majestic murals that bring the vibrant natural world inside otherwise sterile environments. Her murals can be seen locally at Waterfront Park Place, UK Chandler Hospital, and UofL Healthcare Outpatient Center.

She is an environmentalist and an artist. “My work is nature-oriented with the running theme of connectivity to the planet. My parents always had land, and as a child, I always waded through creeks. I could sit and observe nature for hours; I’ve always been passionate about our planet,” Clare, 52, recalls.

What This Health Coach is Reading, Watching, Listening to

By Megan M. Seckman

After her daughter faced back-to-back concussions and began experiencing debilitating headaches, mood changes, fatigue, and severe sensitivity to light, Lynn Greene went looking for answers. Lynn, 49, and a single-mother of three teenagers, met with countless doctors and was finally told by a neurologist that the treatment for her daughter’s post-concussive syndrome would entail blood pressure medicine that could possibly make her already emotional daughter suicidal.

She’s Painting a Story on Story Avenue

By Megan Seckman

One drive through Butchertown will remind you how it earned its name. There is the unmistakable odor, for one, and the endless flux of steel-toe booted men traversing crosswalks to the pork processing plant, for another.

But look a little closer.

What Inspires this Master of the Mic?

By Megan M. Seckman

“I’m already African American, how much black do I need to look slim?...I know I’m no Disney princess but Queen Ursula, royalty. A self-made boss; a threat to you weak-minded mermaids who are too afraid of my tidal wave...So when they call you ‘Fat Girl,’ you say ‘And?’”

What the Comic Lady is Reading, Watching, and Listening to…

By Megan M. Seckman

Sonya Linser, 49, walked into what was supposed to be a part-time job at The Great Escape 21 years ago and never left. Once she stepped foot into the quirky world of comic culture, she instantly felt at home.

What This Butterfly Farmer is Reading, Watching, and Listening to...

By Megan M. Seckman

Photos by Melissa Donald

Blair Leano-Helvey flits around the insectarium like the moths and butterflies that surround her. Dozens of wings flutter and skim the netting of the tents; the butterflies reveal their gorgeous wingspans and copulate freely. Blair, too, bats her wings against their tents as she lovingly tends to them: pouring Gatorade onto paper towels for their nourishment, spraying them down with water, crooning over their beauty and behaviors within as if they were her own children.

“Come here,” she says, motioning to me enthusiastically. “That is butterfly sex, riiiiight there!” She points. “We love sex here! Look at you,” she croons adoringly to the attached pair. Then she turns toward me to explain, “If they aren’t mating, there’s no paycheck!”

Uber Therapy: What She’s Reading, Watching and Listening To

“When people step into my car, they never know what they’re going to get,” says Elizabeth Elliot, who for the past year has been driving for both Uber and Lyft — and blogging about it.
By Megan M. Seckman

Elizabeth playfully holds the Lyft symbol -- a mustache -- that she also displays on the dash of her car.
Photos by Melissa Donald 

Elizabeth identifies herself as a holistic lifestyle educator and has a background in just about everything that involves education and integrative health. She is a certified yoga, group fitness, and Silver Sneaker instructor. She holds a master’s degree in education, has a Waldorf home-schooling background, and is a certified HANDEL screener (an energy and movement-based therapy for educational efficiency). She owns