Running Into Joy

Hello, internet people! This week brings us our first edition of Adventures in Self-Care.  As part of my mutual goals to exercise better self-care and put myself in more social situations to make new friends, I signed up to attend my first Geek Girl Brunch event: a wellness workshop at a little shop called Well Oiled.  Geek Girl Brunch is an organization with a number of local chapters. I'll let them speak for themselves, since I've only attended the one event so far. According to the national website, Geek Girl Brunch  " is a meetup group of ladies who geek out together, typically when mimosas are involved." Their mission statement is "t o create a safe environment where identifying geek girls can be themselves to give voice, network, create friendships, inspire each other and hang out!" I've been a member of the Pittsburgh chapter's Facebook group for a while, but this is the first time that my interest in the monthly topic and my schedule li...

Before we begin, I'd like to throw in a little trigger warning: this post deals with weight loss and trying to achieve a healthy weight. So if you're struggling with an eating disorder or other body issues, please skip this post. Today's topic is one that I'm a little hesitant to write about, if I'm honest. These days, it seems like my social media feed is full of body positive messages. I love these posts and fully support the movement of women (and people in general) being comfortable with our bodies as they are, rather than being subjected to unrealistic and harmful body standards, to the idea that women's bodies should be constantly changed and sculpted to fit some impossible ideal. So... it's a bit of a weird thing to say I'm trying to lose weight. I don't talk about it much outside my close friend circle and, of course, the Weight Watchers app. I almost feel bad, or guilty, for wanting to lose weight. Like it's a failure to fully love a...

Today, I'm here to check in and recap on my first finished fitness goal of 2019: completing Yoga with Adriene's Dedicate, that 30 Day Yoga Journey your friends have been posting about on Instagram. I first discovered Adriene's YouTube channel while in college and fell instantly in love with her laid back teaching style. For me, it's the perfect blend of taking the practice seriously while also infusing it with a sense of humor. I was there for the OG YouTube journey, 30 Days of Yoga, back in 2014. That means FIVE YEARS of starting my January off this way! This year has been especially weird and wonderful seeing how much Yoga with Adriene has grown since I first joined the community. Where once, I was basically talking at myself about this online yoga thing, now it seems everywhere I turn people are posting about Dedicate . It's heartwarming to see Adriene garner this success and take on new projects. In that unique internet way, it feels like I've known ...

Hello, internet people! I'm currently cozied up in my warmest hoodie at the coffee shop, because the university where I work got a snow day ! It's in the single digits with a negative wind chill here in Pittsburgh, so it is cold. As much as I try to embrace winter, I can't help but ask "why do I live here?" any time the temperature gets below, say, 30 degrees. But instead of complaining about the cold, let's talk about those 2019 goals and some of the reasons behind them. First: run a half marathon. More specifically, run the 2019 Flying Pig Half Marathon. As I mentioned in my intro post, 2018 was the year I became a runner. Since my first 5K in college, I'd been flirting unsuccessfully with the idea, running for a little while before giving up when I didn't see progress or when it got cold outside. I loved the way it felt to finish a run, but I didn't feel like I could be a runner. I expected to give up before I even started. When 2018 tim...