Hi Reader,

Monday was my birthday and for all intents & purposes I took the day off, because I got so many birthday calls & messages that day that I couldn't get anything done even if I'd tried. 😂 #notcomplaining

All I wanted for my birthday was to order some 'bad' pizza from a chain like Dominos, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Little Caesars, etc. Why? Because while there's a great little Italian restaurant in town that has amazing 'good' pizza with fresh & locally sourced ingredients, ––there's no chain restaurants within 20 miles of my house because we're so rural and I recently realized it's been 3-4 YEARS (literally) since I've had cheap guilt-pleasure pizza from a chain restaurant. 🤭

So while I took all my birthday calls & caught up with everybody, my husband went to get Dominos for dinner from the closest city that had one like 30 miles away. 🥰

Later, I made myself a cake using a (chocolate) Molten Lava Cake recipe I've been eyeing for a while from my Sweet Tooth cookbook* by Sarah Fennel. It was quick, easy –& OMFG– really good. So I posted an IG story & tagged her profile in it. And then I woke up Tuesday morning to this gem from Sarah in my IG DMs! 🤩 She saw it & wished me happy birthday!

So, of course we're besties now. 😂 JK –Totally kidding. lol

But TBH, 4-5 years ago, I NEVER would've tagged 'an author' or anyone of any significant social standing in anything I posted because-imposter-syndrome & thoughts like, 'they'll never notice my post in their sea of notifications anyway so why bother?'

But I'm here to tell you that if you're doing that too, you're missing out on little gems & life-surprises that might just make any day extra / unexpectedly delightful. 😉

General updates:

• I'm still catching up on my inbox from Monday's barage of unattended emails in addition to all the new ones that keep coming in. 😬 Hoping to clear that out by the end of the day today.
• I launched my client's live site redesign last week, and have been chipping away at post-launch details this week like SEO optimization with SEOSpace and attending to the tasks it's telling me are critical, important, etc.
  • FYI: I did have a request last time I mentioned this to do a tutorial on how to redesign a live site step by step, so if you're interested in this too, hit reply & let me know!
• I have a call with Noan's Co-Founder, Neal, tomorrow to ask some questions & discuss some recent feature updates, which I'm pretty excited about!
• I have a co-working session planned Thursday afternoon with a friend to plan & map out our content marketing for the next couple months –much needed!
• Dubsado just refreshed their website & brand –and it's completely different than it was before. I don't know what website platform they used before, but now they're actually on SQUARESPACE! 🤯 So I shared it in this post with my Club, and we came to the conclusion that there needs to be a list of companies that are using Squarespace... so of course I made one & YOU can contribute to it too!
• I have a couple hours of work to check off my to-do list today for a retainer client.
• I've been invited to beta test The Color Palette Studio's new Builder tool updates –so excited to get an early sneek peek!– but need to submit my feedback on it by Friday.
• I'm still working on recording the update tutorials for the new Kitchen Client Portal in the template! So exciting!

Your Feedback:

I've had SUCH great feedback from the last 2 videos/posts & excitement about Kitchen* in general.

Thank you to everyone who has commented or replied somewhere! The feedback from those of you who have already tried Kitchen* or are excited to try it for your client's portal has been overwhelmingly positive, which makes me SOOO happy for you!!! 👇🏻 This let's me know I'm on the right track! 💪🏻

​

This week, as promised, I'm (honestly) partially venting & also sharing what happened + what I plan to do about losing Markup to get easy feedback from my clients on their website designs. Fair warning, I'm a leetle salty in this one. 😂

(Check the YouTube video comments specifically for some ideas that have already been shared for those of you who don't want/need a software to do this!)

​Markup’s Free Plan Is Dead: What It Means for Website Designers​ Find Out Now

Next week, I'll be sharing what I learned from trying the 2 Markup-replacement options I decided to test & maybe also a couple ideas from anyone who shared what they're doing in the comments on this post/video, too ––so you'll have ALL the options to make the best choice for YOU. 😁

This week's gems & golden nuggets of (mostly) delight:

🤖💬 ​Custom Codey​ Becca from Inside the Square just shared the link to get lifetime access to her custom GPT specifically for Squarespace code & questions – for just $20. And if you use Christy Price's code (CHRISTYPRICE) you'll save another $5. I'm not an affiliate, but Becca's stuff is always good so I bought it myself & have already used it! $50 $20 until March 1, 2025

🖥️ 🆓 Squarespace in the 'wild' I'm making a database of user-submitted Squarespace websites! (free & public) If you spot a larger company out in the wild using Squarespace for their website & think to yourself, 'wow, I think they're using Squarespace!' please add it to the list! My goal is to have a searchable reference that we can share with clients or just to use for inspiration, etc. ​

📘 🧠 General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) This new EU-based law is creating some chatter (annoyance) online –but oddly not by any of the experts we look to for advice on this kinda legal 'crap'. If you're worried/concerned about what to do or haven't heard about it, a member recently started this thread in the Club –and that's all I know but at least there's that! lol ​

⏯️ 🆓 The Money-Making Expert A client of mine recently shared this video with me; it's long so it took me a few days to get through it but OMG was it good!! 👇🏻

⏯️ 🆓 Body Language Expert's Tips That same client of mine also sent me this video, which I've just started & I'm already very interested in this episode! 👇🏻

⏺️ LIVE Squarely Speaking Podcast Diane & I are doing another LIVE episode of our podcast Feb 18 @ 2p ET to share WHY we decided to start a casual podcast together, and answer some FAQs related to being designers with nearly 40 years of combined experience. 😃

That's all for this 'episode' of Launch the Damn Thing®! 😂

Now if you've read all of that, you still need something to do & you love to read, here's what I'm reading this month:

• Mel Robbins new book The Let Them Theory* ––I'm only about 40 pages in so far but it's already so good!!
• ​Fourth Wing* by Rebecca Yarros ––epic fantasy/YA fiction, but it's gone viral for a reason; totally addicting!

See ya next week!

Katelyn Web Designer & Educator​ ​Thrivin' on coffee, community, cursing & carefully laid plans!

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