Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

-
Last year was the most challenging year of my life.  I did two of the most stressful things that you can do.  It made me a stronger person, and I am a better person for going through these experiences.  I started a new job, which is wonderful! I am so happy there. It is a very rewarding job, and the people are great! However, with any transition it is stressful. I also got a divorce which is pretty obvious why its stressful. Weird saying it still, but it happened. I think I am doing pretty great though! I have an amazing family who is very supportive and great friends who are super fun to hangout with.  I also got a new kitten.  Her name is Mia Mittens aka Miacat (pronounced mer-cat).  Her and Otis are starting to get along just fine.  It is cute, they are friends.  Watching a 20 lb cat get chased by a 4 lb kitten never gets old.

I also got a new nephew! He is a bundle of joy, just adorable.  I wish I lived closer to all of my family but thankfully technology can bridge that gap a little bit. Google Hangouts for the win! My other nephews are growing like weeds, I love seeing them grow up.  For Christmas I got them all Bucky Badger hats, it was pretty adorable. My family is very important to me, I am so happy I am so close with them all.  On a sadder family note I also said goodbye to two of my grandparents (both my dad's parents) this past year.  They both lived pretty full lives, it was sad but I know they are now in a better place and pain free.  Love you both!

I also joined a running group (Endurance House Madison, shameless plug) and made a lot of great friends there. They helped me reestablish myself as a runner.  I look forward to every Tuesday! They helped me run over 700 miles in 2013. That included 2 1/2 marathons, 1 full marathon, and a couple other races.  I ran distances I never thought were possible. You really can do anything if you put your mind to it and have the right support group to back you up. My goal for 2014... run 800 miles.  I think it can be done. I started off the new year by running a light 4 mile run on new years day morning.  It was fantastic.  Running in the cold only sucks if you don't get the layers right. haha.  After the first mile your core warms up and you are good to go.

So 2013 was a hell of a roller coaster. How does that song go, you never know you were high until you are low? I think I got it, thanks :) My goal for 2014 is to just have less of that.  I want to excel in my running and possibly do a triathlon, but other than that I don't want to do any live altering changes.  I want to just be. Get used to life, and be happy.  Let go of unwanted/needed stress and just do what makes me happy.

So here is to a happy, relaxing 2014. Cheers!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Async Standups

-
Image
 In the more global world that we live in, people are not only working remotely, but people are working across the globe and critically across many time zones. Due to our global reach even within a team, we have less daylight that we share with our coworkers. In the past, I’ve been part of very successful remote standups, but I noticed they only really work well if you are in close time zones. If you only have 1 hour of overlap with your coworker, do you really want to be going over high-level status with your broader team? I’ve asked my teams about this, and I got a very loud “NO!” We all use Slack as a communication tool, so I started an experiment with a team where a bot posts in the channel at the beginning of the earliest person on the team’s day. It asks a few simple questions: @team-name welcome to today and good morning! What did you work on yesterday? What are you intending to work on today? What blockers do you have on your priorities? What help do you need? As people trickle
Read more

Supporting People, Process, and Projects

-
Image
When you approach a bridge that overlooks a river do you tend to look upriver at the past, or downriver to see the future? I am naturally drawn to looking downriver because I like to plan for the future. For the role of manager, you have three major areas of responsibility, the people, the projects, and gluing those together. That last part is where the magic happens. If you get great alignment with your people and what they work on, that is where you have the best outcomes. People Helping people thrive is the cornerstone of any people manager. How we align people and set them up so that they can be at their best self is critical to our success, and the success of the company. It's a win-win-win situation. It all starts with hiring and onboarding. For me, there are three critical areas that I focus on during the interview process. Do they have a growth mindset, do they include others during their decision-making process, and overall is the candidate a kind human being? Beyond the
Read more

Year in Review - 2021 Edition

-
Image
 Holy buckets, 2021 went by quickly. Felt like 6 months! It's been a very rollercoaster year, but here we are, about to reenter the start/finish line and preparing to start another year. Starting off, we are still going through this pandemic, that has had an impact on my goals and aspirations, more on that later. Regardless, on to the review section. Looking back, I didn’t ever publish my 2021 goals, LOL. My general ideas were to stay healthy, and read a book per month. I read a lot more this year, reading 10 books (2 shy of my goal of 1 per month), and even enjoyed a few non-fiction books this year. We built a house and moved to a new town (still near Madison) and have really been enjoying the quieter life and funny enough my walking score here is way better than when I lived on the edge of the city. This was pretty huge part of the first half of the year. My kiddo started preschool and is really having a lot of fun. I did a bit of working out, more on that later. I took on a new
Read more