Hiatus to the extreme...

Wow. Didn't realize it has been so long since I've written a blog. My apologies -

Here is a quick update to catch up - the end of the year was as much as a hot mess as I expected it to be. Massive amounts of work, doing side projects with my personal business, not to mention Scott was incredibly busy with all of this choir, regular work and singing demands with auditions. So we hardly had much time to do just sit back and enjoy the holiday season, let alone each other. So when we found time, we tried to make the most of it. The holidays were lovely - We ended up going to Des Moines and spending some quality time with Scott's family. I couldn't take much time off of work, so I ended up leaving early and started right into the new year with working part-time at the restaurant and lobby bar in the hotel and switching over from a regular day shift to the night shift (from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) to help out since the previous baker retired.
Whenever I tell people that, they seem to think 'Dear sweet baby Jesus... how can anybody work those ungodly hours?' and trust me, I said them to myself when I started. But as the days and weeks went by, I noticed that my body responded very well to working at night, I had more freedom in many different aspects and it was tremendously less stressful. All these factors led me to switching permanently to the night shift and I've been loving it. It is a little tricky with Scott's schedule (which, with his full-time job is a typical 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. - not to mention his other music demands) - but even then, I usually see him in the mornings before he heads to work, and we have the weekends off together. So all in all, it's been working out great.

In addition to the night shift and working as a server part-time, I've also been training for a marathon that will be happening on May 1 in Cincinnati, OH. I just ran 18 miles earlier today and the run went pretty well - my main goals for this marathon training is no injuries, no sickness and to keep high fructose corn syrup out of my diet. The first two goals stem from the fact that I've overtrained for my previous marathons and have hurt my knee - not too seriously, but enough to negatively effect my performance - and not to mention, I had a cold on the Chicago Marathon. Bad news bears. And the high fructose corn syrup... I just don't want it in my body anymore. I've made some major switches in my diet to keep it out, namely, absolutely no soda, only using 100% pure maple syrup, avoiding power drinks like Gatorade (yes, it provides the electrolytes my body uses up with running, but there are other options, like coconut water, that provide a natural approach). This entire training season has gone very well so far, despite being busy from work and missing some of the daily runs.

And let's break it down and cut all the bullshit. One of the main reasons I've fallen off of the blog radar is because I had a little thing called a 'quarterlife crisis'. It sounds strange but google it. It's very real and I had no idea it existed and was natural for people my age. Near the end of the year, I got really depressed and didn't know about what I wanted to do with my future, what was happening for the future with Scott, where I saw myself in the future... It was just a bad situation for me and for those closest to me (especially Scott). I won't go into details of everything - but just say that I've been working through it... and that things are tremendously better.

And that being said, I plan on going back to school to study nutrition. I plan on continuing with culinary education and doing a concentration in nutrition. There is a fantastic program here in Chicago at Kendall College (one of the best culinary schools here) and I've been talking with them about starting by next year. Obviously more to come as this develops.

And on a personal level, I have gotten into yoga lately. I'm in the process of taking a few classes at a studio downtown and the instructor is incredible - very much about the process of uniting mind, body and spirit. It's not just poses (which I'm fairly familiar with because of Mr. Rodney Yee and his DVD's) but the classes focus on breathing, centering ones self, clarity --- it's been an incredible experience so far and has helped me quite a bit in this transition in my life.

All that and my new niece, Shiloh Huish, was born yesterday. Things are fantastic - what can I say?

I'll do better at writing on this, since I feel I'm in a better place to do so. Until then~