-
Sidebar: Rest and Relaxation
April owes me nothing! It was a great month full of rest. Much needed. It started with a big professional accomplishment—I facilitated my first city-wide town hall meeting by myself. How grown up lol Basically the city often puts on open meetings to discuss important issues and receive feedback from community. And of course depending on the topic, things can go south. Thankfully, my years of experience training other attorneys, facilitating discussions, and camera work all prepared me to take this on. I was really nervous for lots of reasons but not only did it not go terrible, people enjoyed my approach so it was nice to be able to…
-
Sidebar: Surviving a Chicago Winter
Happy new year (a month and two weeks late)! It’s so funny because in the fall, I wrote about how things felt a little more normal and then of course the next wave came and put everything back on pause. How much longer is this going to take? Very frustrating. But easing into the year wasn’t a bad thing, it let me really plan out my time and focus on my health a little more. And that was really the theme in January–getting more in tune with how I feel/making healthier decisions. So, I think I mentioned that at my annual the Dr realized I had extremely low vitamin D.…
-
Sidebar: Things just keep on moving
Goodbye 2021! And lets hope it’s not 2020 part II—seriously, I’d like to live in precedented times for a bit—us Millennials have had enough of “once in a generation” experiences, thank you very much. But whatever 2022 has in store, I guess I’m ready lol And thankfully this past year was not as tumultuous as the one before. It felt like things were stabilizing or at least felt more manageable. I returned to the office five days a week; was triple vaccinated; finally saw my mom!; celebrated my 12 anniversary in Tampa (the Paris of the US); had a lot of great moments with this community; and had a lot…
-
Sidebar: Grateful
This month felt a lot more like the “before times” than ever before and that is a good and bad thing. So the good, because of the booster, we felt comfortable enough visiting my in-laws, which I haven’t seen in a long time. This meant an overnight trip the farm! I haven’t been there in forever and while some things were a little different (no more cows), everything else was like nothing had changed. Good food, E got to play IT expert to make sure his parents stay connected to the internet and it was really nice to get away. It’s hard to describe how calm and quiet it is.…
-
Sidebar: So this is Adulting…
Wow, January was ridiculously long, was it not? I mean was it just last month we feared entering a serious war? What is this life even? One thing I’ve done to keep myself semi-sane is to keep focused just on local news. I know it’s a little bit like head in the sand mentality, which isn’t great, but I just can’t consume all this news all the time. Plus, local news is really pertinent to my job so it helps two-fold… Speaking of work, I made it to the six month mark! I can say that I finally, truly feel steady about what I’m doing and have found a rhythm…
-
Sidebar: 2020 Vision, lessons for the new year
It’s still early enough in 2020 to share the vision and plan for the new year, right? Just asking because the new cycle moves fast & we’re basically on the brink of god knows what but trying to not live in terror, you know the vibezzz. #hidethepainharold 2019 was such a year of growth for me and I want to share some lessons I learned (some the hard way!) and hopes for the new year. One. Have the courage to change. Easier said than done! But 2019 was when I realized that if I wanted to grow in my career I needed to seek new challenges. It would have been…
-
Sidebar: It’s been a year or, I’m back bb!
Hello, So, for my ride and dies, I’m so sorry we’ve had such a long pause on the sidebar series. It’s been a minute. For those that are new, sidebar is just way fo me to share some (usually fun) updates on my life. I like giving this peek into my month to month because I find it less likely for people to take guidance and advice from some rando. It’s also fun to get to know each other this way! But having said that, you probably noticed sidebar stopped around March and that is because I was in a weird spot that was not super easy for me to…
-
Sidebar: Booked and Busy
That is how I would define February. I’m booked and hella busy in all arenas of life. Which is good, because that is always good but it is also stressful. Work has been busy like normal but there has been added work because one of the staff attorneys I supervise left so I have a few more added cases. There’s not a ton of work to do on them (like urgent deadlines) but adding more to your caseload is always stressful. I’ve also done a lot of extra work in terms of committees and projects outside of my direct rep that has been time consuming and mentally exhausting. It’s one…
-
Sidebar: It’s Cold AF
I can’t believe January is over. It felt like it lasted forever, which I think January usually feels long but also had a super busy time at work that just made this month dragggg on forever. What didn’t help was that my two best friends at work left. #everybodyleavesme. I have only one left and that makes me super sad. So I had two going away parties to attend, one at the beginning of the month and one about a week ago. They have moved on to bigger and better things, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it lol. Work in general has been steady, but…
-
Sidebar: All Talents & Skills
It’s the end of 2018 and I can’t say that I 100% met my goals for the year but I definitely accomplished more than I thought I would and that is progress. The main thing is obviously this site. Working on the logo–actually the turn around time after I commissioned Carina was quick, but the concept, believing that I should do it, tracking down a graphic artist that had the skills I wanted, took time. But this new lewk has inspired me like no other. I feel like Laney in She’s All That after her eyebrows have been tweezed. Is that too old of a reference for many of you?…