Hard Truths: May 2026 (The One With a Rebrand)

I’m a sucker for a rebrand. Over the years, I have rebranded this website, and the posts I put on it, so many times that it’s hard to even attempt to count. With thousands of subscribers who have joined over the years, I’m sure that’s been jarring. There was a time when I just posted about being a mom. Times when it was all about anecdotal complaints about marriage and life in general. And times when I pontificated exclusively about politics. But my politics have changed drastically over the years, and more than just change, they’ve grown more complicated. I’ve changed too – we all have. It can be hard to articulate that in a post that is short enough to not lose people’s attention, though long enough to be clear about what I mean so I don’t get branded one way or another in an increasingly polarized world.

Recently, my team and I – the professional side of this all – rebranded my website, my publications, and my social media to reflect who we are and where we are focusing work today. Thus became Heather Christena Schmidt Community Consulting – emphasis on the community, because it is there that I believe the most change for the good can be made.

As a result, it doesn’t make much sense anymore to be talking about issues outside of the community level.

Except…

There are so many things to say about everything else too. Things going on in the world, in DC, across the state… and about life too. This, after all, is a blog newsletter; and in truth, it’s the only way a lot of family and friends from forever ago keep in touch (because honestly, who spends much time on Facebook anymore?). And to that end, a lot of people get lost when I just ramble on about the political scene local to me. While the stories are crazy, and the tea is pretty much always piping hot, my cousins in Australia, friends in Illinois, and everyone in between, likely (a) have no clue what or who I’m talking about, and (b) don’t care.

I’ve ruminated on this for the better part of May. As it turned out, I had a lot of time to do so too: my family and I all came down with the crud the first day of the month, and even now at the conclusion of it, some of us are still recovering. Something hit me around my fourth trip to the store for cold medicine and Kleenex, though: I wanted to post about it on here like I used to. I just wanted to write a post about being sick and all the crazy and funny and annoying stuff that came with it.

These posts are supposed to be my perspective on things after all.

And that’s when I realized that along with my small business rebrand, I had to rebrand here again also.

I’m going to talk about all the stuff like I always do – the national nonsense, stuff about the greatest state in the nation (California – duh), and stuff going on here and in my life. But maybe less formal about it, and a lot more me and my thoughts with it.

I hope you’ll stick around.