The most cliched title ever, especially for a January post, but… I think it’s fitting. 2022 was hands down the worst year of my life. It wasn’t one thing, but rather, one thing after another – where each time I thought I had found my footing, I lost myself again. The combination of the devastating Marshall Fire and burnout at work led me to take three months off work to deal with my mental health; then I went through IVF {Read More}
Hocus Pocus 2 Watch Party
Last weekend, I hosted a watch party for the Hocus Pocus sequel. Back in September, my friend Elizabeth texted a few of us when we first heard a sequel was coming out, and I said I’d be happy to host a watch party. It had been so long since I’d hosted a party, and as it turns out, my friends really missed them! I had a number of people tell me how excited they were for me to organize events {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Mountain Weekend of Unplanned Rest Days
My weekend started out a little bit early, as I headed to the mountains Thursday after work. My company was giving us a four day weekend for Memorial Day, and I was excited to get started! I took a long time to get going on Friday morning, both reading in bed and then eventually really craving a bagel. I decided to go to Avon to pick one up before heading out to hike. On the way back, Sadie and I {Read More}
Weekend Recap / Race Report: Siete de Mayo and Colorado Women’s Classic
Speaking of returning to “the new normal”… this weekend, I was thrilled to convene my friends for my first “party” in over a year. Normally, Cinco de Mayo is a great excuse for me to host dozens of friends to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas. This year, I scaled it back to a party of eight people instead of eighty, but still made all the same dishes. And it was a lot of fun! I was able to intersperse {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Three Day MLK Weekend
This year, my company declared Martin Luther King Day a holiday – so I went into Friday knowing I had a three day weekend ahead. To boost my mood even more, I took Sadie for an early morning hike up to Royal Arch – and we had an amazing time! It was an absolutely beautiful hike, and even though it was only 21°, we were both bundled up and it didn’t feel that cold. I was grateful that the cold {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Happy New Year!
Although my consulting firm had our holiday shutdown and I was technically off work all week, I had a different kind of work scheduled – ski instructing at Beaver Creek! I had an absolutely amazing time teaching seven classes, mostly levels 4 and 5 (linking turns and getting parallel on easy blue terrain), and even ended up with a high-ranking political official in one of my classes! (No, not Mike Pence, though he was apparently skiing in Beaver Creek all {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Christmas 2020
While Thanksgiving was a bit of a letdown compared to my normal big gathering of friends and family, I’ve been used to having a small Christmas since I was a kid. Growing up, we didn’t have any family that lived close by, so most Christmases were spent just me and my parents. However, in Poland, the big celebration is actually on Christmas Eve (Wigilia) rather than on Christmas Day. If I’m honest, I used to hate the tradition of Wigilia {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Getting Into the Christmas Spirit
This year I’ve been very late in getting ready for Christmas. I normally put my tree and Christmas decorations up on Black Friday; this year, I delayed and delayed and finally put my (bare) tree up about a week ago. But this weekend, it was time to amp up and get in the holiday spirit! Work this week helped, with not just one but two (virtual) team happy hours on Thursday that helped me start getting excited for the break. {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Thanksgiving Week
I normally only recap my weekends, since weekdays I typically work pretty late so there isn’t a lot to blog about. (Although I know it’s easy for you to check out my LinkedIn, I generally don’t blog about work stuff, or when I do, I try to keep it vague.) But this week was Thanksgiving week – and while I didn’t take any extra days off work, my mom and I celebrated Thanksgiving across multiple nights, starting on Tuesday. Long {Read More}
Weekend Recap: Independence on the Trails
I wrote last week how I was really dreading the holiday weekend. Mostly, I think it was because I’ve been looking forward to the long break from work for weeks… but now that it was here, I was disappointed in the plans I had made. However, it ended up all turning out much better than I expected! (Hooray for low expectations!) On Thursday, I had wanted to do the Skyline Traverse – an 18.5 mile hike that covers 5774 feet {Read More}