Gretch Runs

It’s been a MINUTE since I’ve been here- February and March were both such crazy months that I feel like I haven’t even had a minute to myself, let alone to do anything extra! February in particular was insane- I had 2 trips to Pittsburgh for work, also went to Virginia to teach my first crochet class (!), and went on vacation to Argentina (!!). Much more to share about that trip, but for now let’s just get caught up on my goals! I’ll give updates for both months and just share the updates for goals I’m crossing off, so let’s get right into it.   Fitness   Day Hike.  I’ll talk more about this in my trip recap, but we did a ton of hiking while we were in Patagonia, and one of them was a full day hike. Definitely counting that for this goal! ANNUAL GOAL: Try a new class each month.  In February I went to my friend Erica’s treadX class at Flow Corps. This was such a fun but hard class- the class is divided into treadmill and pilates/strength. I was so tired at the end but loved it! In Mar

January was such a busy month- not only did I pack my schedule full of social activities (3 book club meetings; hosted a "board" party, a progressive dinner party with my neighbors, dry January non-alcoholic beer taste test, a movie night, and a game night; brewery yoga; Bunco holiday party) but I also had 3 releases for work that made me work nights and weekends, as well as a new project that made me travel in to Pittsburgh for a week! To say it was hectic is an understatement, and February is going to be even more busy! One of the highlights of my month that I talked about above was a neighborhood progressive dinner party. This was an idea a friend posted about and I shared with my neighbors a year ago- we finally made it happen! The way we made it work was that each course of the dinner was hosted at a different person's house. We started with cocktail hour at Wanda's house, then moved to my house for appetizers, went next door to AL's for the main course, then

We are officially one week into the new year, and today I’ll be sharing my goals! This is probably more exciting to me than any other post that I create in a year. I absolutely love making goals for myself (in fact, every week I sit down and make a  list for the week and love to check each item off). This year I decided to do something different than usual. I keep seeing people doing 24 for 2024 lists since it’s such a nice and even number and breaks down to 2 per month, so that’s what I decided to base my goals on this year. I broke them down into four different areas, and tried to make 5 regular goals for each area as well as one year-long goal. Let’s get into the goals!   Fitness Run a trail race. I love to run trails and don’t get out nearly enough, so my goal this year is to make that happen. One way to force myself is by signing up for a trail race (hopefully more than one!). I already found a half marathon in May, so that will be my goal. I’m also looking for a few others so I’

Can you believe it's the end of the year? In some ways this felt like the fastest year ever, and in other ways it dragged. I'm looking forward to 2024 for a number of reasons (and will share some of my goals and plans for the year in another post) but for now I'm excited to recap 2023! I'll be sharing how my goals went, as well as some highlights and favorites. Annual Goals Korean Vegan Cookbook I started this really well at the start of the year, and it kind of trailed off towards the end. Going back into the office, working on house projects, and general winter laziness made me get way worse at meal planning, so I didn't finish up this goal. But- I did try a ton of new recipes from this cookbook and I'm excited to keep trying it when I get back into the groove of meal planning! My favorite recipe that I tried was the Curried Tteokbokki skewers from June  - they were so flavorful and unlike anything I've ever made or tried before. Temperature blanket This w

It's almost the end of the year, and I'm getting very close to my annual reading goal! This month I was really busy with some trips and bathroom projects, so I listened to more books than usual. I also started some holiday books that were so disappointing, so if you have some good ones please let me know! Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon The premise of this book absolutely sold me- a woman has the worst one-night-stand of her life, then gets an amazing opportunity to ghost write a memoir for a celebrity and guess who it is?! Of course hijinks ensue, and while they're working together on a book, the writer is also teaching the celebrity how to be better in bed. It's pretty cheesy and predictable but I still enjoyed it as a quick and easy read. My Rating- 3.5/5 Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun I absolutely adore Christmas romances, so when I saw this on a list I picked it up without even reading what it was about. As it turns out, it's about another o

I realized today that I need to wrap up my posts about my trip to Europe, because we just booked our flights for our next trip! This is to a part of the world we’ve never been to before, and a new hemisphere! Any guesses where we’re going? But back to our last trip. So far I shared about going to the sea , the mountains , and the lake , but now we’re journeying up to Austria!  We went there for a good reason- the Red Bull Ring is right outside of Slovenia in the town of Spielberg, Austria. For those of you who don’t know, Dan and I are both big Formula One fans (he’s been one for a while and I got into it after watching Drive to Survive).  He found out that there are opportunities for regular people to drive cars on the same track that the race uses, so we had to do it! I got to be a passenger princess and it was such a cool experience- we got over 150 MPH and it was insane how fast it felt, but still way slower than the actual drivers. We also got a tour of the track and got to stand