I've decided to join the masses and spin up my own little blog. It will likely be under construction in perpetuity. My writing muscles have atrophied so much that I'm feeling nervous about this venture, but one of my 2023 intentions is to practice vulnerability, so here we are!

2022 was a tough year for many, myself included. I was caught up in a wave of layoffs in the summer, which was a massive disruption to my daily life and my already modest (I think?) sense of self-esteem. But in the wake of that experience, I started to establish some new habits that I hope to continue. They include:

• Practicing taiko. I stumbled into a local taiko workshop last fall, thinking it would help me relieve stress ahead of my 40th birthday, and ended up loving it so much that I immediately signed up for recurring classes. I’m incredibly lucky to live near a masterful taiko instructor and to have discovered this mentally and physically therapeutic hobby. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s dramatically changed my quality of life. I’ve made new friends, I feel good after every class, and I’m motivated. And I get to bang on big drums once a week—BONUS!
• Exercise. Okay, okay, it’s still early in 2023, so there is plenty of time for me to fall off the wagon. But I bought an exercise bike and it really has changed my game. Gone is the friction of getting in the car and going to the gym, or putting and my shoes and (gasp!) going outside. I can just hop on my bike in the next room and start pedaling, and in 15 minutes I feel fantastic. Fingers crossed that I can keep this up.
• Trying to improve knowledge retention while reading. I read a lot, mostly fiction, and I love it. But I don’t always remember the details of the stories I read. Ask me about a book I read early last year, and odds are that I may remember the title and whether or not I liked it, but little else. I’m trying a new thing with the books I read this year: flagging pages as I encounter passages that resonate with me, writing down quotes, and writing reviews after I’m finished. It’s too early yet to say whether this is actually improving my life or just creating more work for me. 😅
• Learning React. Gotta get (and stay) employed, so it’s time to use my down time to learn new tech! It’s actually been [kind of] fun, and I like it much better than Angular in many ways.
• Back to sketchnoting. I had an awesome conversation with Mike Rohde just this week, catching up on life, and it charged my creative battery quite a bit! I’d long fallen out of the practice of sketchnoting, and I’m eager to pick it back up again and apply it to some of the aforementioned habits, like reading fiction, and working on React.

Maybe I will add blogging to this list.