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Hey, If you don’t know me, I’m Marie.

I’m a designer, teacher, systems thinker, permaculturist, and home chef. I co-founded Oki Doki with my partner Benjamin Borowski, and over the last six years we’ve been co-creating the Notion Mastery program together. I’ve been publishing my yearly reviews publicly for well over a decade.

This is my year in review for 2025.

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This year was the year I designed and renovated my kitchen, recovered from injury, shifted gears around my work, and grieved the loss of both family and friends.

I knew that the kitchen renovation was going to be intense, and I wouldn’t have a lot of time for taking on any major projects. While my publishing output decreased dramatically this year, I knew at the beginning of the year that the kitchen project was going to require a lot of my time, energy, and attention, and I’d given myself permission to surrender to the chaos of it.

This wasn’t a year of business growth, workshops, masterminding, and Youtube videos.

I experienced many different kinds of grief and loss, and was reminded of how short our time is here on this planet, and how important it is to make time for the relationships that matter.

A lot of this grief I’m not able to share publicly, but I have been deeply impacted by in different ways, and expect to be working through in 2026.

There are both challenges and highlights to celebrate this year.

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Year at a glance / table of contents

Life

• Designed and renovated my kitchen
• Returned to playing sports again (after my hip injury in 2024)
• Signed up for personal training
• Spent time in nature
• Attended Euchre tournaments and board game nights
• Went alcohol free
• Got Invisalign to correct my crowded teeth / bite
• Grew my backyard garden
• Attended a local Harvest Table dinner by One Straw Society
• Provided chef services (dinners) for two retreats
• Took an Indian cooking class at NWCAV
• Grieved loss/illness of friends + family

Work

• Social: Quit Twitter, moved over to BlueSky
• Clients: Partnered with the Stanford dschool
• Content: What I published, created, and spoke about
• Course: What I taught, and the new material I’m working on

Best of

My fave media, movies, games, etc

What’s next…

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Life / Personal

The Kitchen Renovation

Ben pretty much gave me carte blanche with this project, which was both a blessing and a curse. It meant a LOT of decisions were up to me, and there are a bajillion decisions to make during a kitchen renovation project.

From which appliances to buy, to the kitchen layout, to what to put in which drawers, to hiring contractors, setting budgets, choosing fixtures, backsplash, sink, etc.

Ben of course had some loosely held opinions, but he was happy for me to take the lead, since the cooking is typically my domain. I did tons of research and short-listed options, while we made final choices together about things like the flooring, cabinet colors, and general layout of the space.

I made a whole document outlining the process from start to finish if you’re curious to dive in in more detail: Kitchen Renovation Project