Plan B

 Auggie and I at the dog park on Christmas Eve in some fresh snow. I've really fallen in love with the Glendale open space, and take her over there most days for a long loop around the huge off leash area  

                                          Nate wanted one of these and the kids got it for him. This DNA ancestry stuff is one thing that I'm just not interested in, personally. I know enough about me. I am excited to hear the results for our favorite resident mutt, however :)

 Christmas Eve fare, this was before the crab cakes and slider bar. It was all fairly last minute and it was all perfect. It was so much, and it turned into a very late night as I had gone in without any presents wrapped....but it was worth it to spend such a special night with great friends.

 Christmas Eve Dinner in the Rockies. We left around 3 on Christmas Day to head up for some skiing.

 In Keystone at River Run village, enjoying a white Christmas.

 Back in action with my best bud. We logged a lot of vertical feet in three days on the mountain!

 The kids did two days of full day lessons and we skied together the last day. 
 This was the view from our place on Wednesday night. The ice rink is a fixture in the center of town, and the gorgeous sunset showed it off in spades.

 Thursday we were on the slopes all day, then drove home. I headed into work to get all set up for my Friday am class. Waking at 4 was painful, but I went home and fell back asleep and it was lovely.

A hike on Saturday with friends, it was 60!


Here we sit, on the eve of a new year. In so so many ways I'm ready to give 2017 a swift kick in the ass on its way out....but in other ways it has been the mot powerful year of my life. I guess how I look at it all is a bit of a "glass half full" scenario, what do I want to remember from this year?

I'm grateful to have taken up skiing again as an old bird. I had forgotten the utter joy of being outside in nature all day, using your body hard, and being completely disconnected from phones and "real" life. I love seeing my kids fall in love with the adventure of it all. Being on the mountain together has absolutely been my favorite experience of 2017.

We took some great trips. From Mexico to Hawaii to Florida, Vail, Beaver Creek, PA, Keystone, Steamboat, Breckenridge etc....I feel very fortunate to have explored a little more of this world over the past year.

I made some really close new friends, but this year was not about friends. This year was about remembering my own strength and power. Sometimes that strength means knowing how and when to ask your friends for help, but I feel more firmly planted on my own two feet this NY's than I have in a long time.

I quit drinking alcohol 7 months ago. This was a great decision for me and one I hope to never reverse. Aging is about learning, and though it took me a while to be clear on the importance of this decision, I feel so grateful to have learned enough at this point to want what is best for me. My body and my mind can't be at peace with alcohol in them, and removing it is giving me peace in spades.

I've learned what it is to sit with pain. I'm not proud to admit that I've spent my life running from emotional discomfort or pain. Whether I tried to starve the emotions away, drink the emotions away, or exercise the emotions away......pain is real, and my natural inclination was to avoid or ignore it. Pain knocks on your door, insisting that you pay attention to it, and it will be waiting for you when you finish all of your machinations for avoiding it. Learning to understand that "this is messy this is painful this will not kill me"......it's made a lot of things better for me. Temporary discomfort is always better than long term consequences.

There was a lot of loss this past year. My dear friend Jyoti, my yoga sister and fellow student in yoga TT, passed away from Cancer at just 41. This was a blow. Ironically Jyoti had lived literally right nearby here in Colorado before she moved to PA and we met ~ She had told me that living in Colorado was her favorite time of her life, that her heart was here. When I see those amazing Colorado skies I think of her, each time.
Other family members are dealing with terminal illnesses. My Mom had a scare. That side of things was hard.

The flipside is my new niece, Rosie! My sister grew our family with her lovely new addition this fall. Also, my immediate family grew with the addition of Augusta Jane, our sweet pittie rescue. We are grateful to 4Paws4Life for bringing us together!


I started teaching again, and I am so so glad to be back to work. I landed in exactly the right spot. Just last night I got offered two more classes in the group training area ~ and accepted. I now teach Monday-friday each week. I will say, the pay is much better for fitness instructors out here, whereas at home I worked from $13.25/hour (the good old Y, included a free membership) to $40/hour (only one class, at Crossfit). Here the average for teachers is more like $35/hour, and $50/hour for the small group training classes. It's nice to college a biweekly paycheck thats actually worth something :)

My kids are healthy and strong and thriving. This year has been hard on my marriage, no lie. I'm learning that when people say "Marriage is hard!", they actually mean it. The beauty of going through hard times though is that you learn to appreciate the good times in a whole new way. I feel like the process of going through shitty stuff together sucks, there is no doubt about it, but you emerge stronger. I feel grateful to have have been challenged to grow and mature this year. I know exactly who I am and what I want.

A whole year can never be summed up in a post. I have a pretty extensive plan of goals or aspirations for the coming year, but thats a topic for another day.

I hope that you have a lovely NY's eve, spent doing exactly whatever it is that you like to do. I'm off to yoga at 10 for a 75 minute C2, meeting friends at the dog park for a last loop around 2, and getting ready for friends to come over for a brief, simple, NY's east coast celebration. That means midnight comes at 10, and that works for me! Be safe, be smart, be grateful.