(Source)

Premise: A late 20s woman recently married and relocated from New York City to Chicago. After 2 years of living in Chicago and not really finding many friends that she could call up just to hang out, she took matters into her own hands. She decided to do 52 friend dates in 52 weeks in hopes of finding a Chicago BFF (best friend forever). And she blogged about it! Yes, it’s a true story!

I’m only about two-thirds of the way through the book…and I’ve identified with so much of it already. It’s hard to find friends when you move somewhere new (remember how I moved to a new city last summer without knowing anyone!). According to the book, research shows that it is much harder for women to find and have meaningful friendships from their late 20s to 40s. One of the things I love about this book is that it isn’t a regurgitation of the author’s blog. It’s filled with research about friendship along with her reflections from her 52 friend dates. Like the author, I have some really good friends. Some solid BFFs. It’s just that most of them live elsewhere (Twin Cities, Milwaukee, Madison, Portage, Whitewater, Ohio, etc.). I try to keep in touch through various methods, but it’s not the same as being in the same geographic area. Thank goodness for Kendra! Even in that situation, we were essentially set up on a blind friend date this past September. However, we’re both in the same boat…new to Duluth & wanting to find people to connect with. Slowly, but surely, we’ll get there.

Okay, so some of you might be thinking, “You work on a university campus. Wouldn’t that be a hotbed of potential friends?” Technically, your thinking would be correct. At this point, most of the people I’ve met that are around my age are merely acquaintances. The individuals in my office are great people that I get along with, and they are all significantly older than me. Sometimes, it’s just hard to relate when their kids are the same age as me. I’ve always been in situations where there were plenty of people to become fast and close friends with: high school (band & color guard), undergrad, post-undergrad (hung out with friends still living in Eau Claire), and grad school. Now that I’ve moved into my professional career, things just aren’t as easy as they once were. At this point in time, I’ll just keep working on getting to know people on campus through meetings, events, casual meet ups in the hallway, and my knitting group (they are a fun group of ladies!).

Back to the book, I highly recommend it. Reading it has helped me understand how much I cherish strong connections with other people. Those connections help to make life bearable and fun. Here’s to friend making!  

1. Set standards for job searching (& stick to them). Accomplished! Not only did I stick to my set standards for what I deemed the “research” phase of job searching, I had a job by the end of March. I got that job because I found the posting during my research phase (finding info on different institutions (i.e. size, affiliation, location, mission, etc.) so I wouldn’t waste time looking into a position at institutions that I knew I would never work for) and decided to apply even though I wasn’t necessarily in the “applying” phase of my job search.

2. Write at least 1 personal blog post each week. Accomplished through about September. Yeah, I wasn’t too happy that I let this one slip up in the final stretch of the year. I’m going to be working on it this year again.

3. Read at least 2 fun books a month. Accomplished, but on different terms. I didn’t exactly read 2 fun books a month. Some months, only one was finished. However, throughout the year, I did complete reading 24 books this year. I consider the resolution accomplished!

4. Live healthier (greener, eating better, increase exercise). Yes, in some spurts, but not really. Totally repeating this resolution for 2012.

5. Travel more, hike more, & photograph more. Accomplished! Took another road trip, explored the North Shore, heck, I even flew on an airplane for the first time. Hiking did increase in 2011. 2012 should be even better because I’ll be springing for a MN State Park pass, which will make my adventures much more cost effective. I photographed a lot more, too. I even bought a new point & shoot camera to get me through to when I can purchase a lovely Canon Rebel T2i.

6. Complete my graduate assistantship & program internship positions with strong commitment, professionalism, & thirsting for more. Accomplished! Yep, knocked this one out of the park.

Okay, so for 2011, I figure 4.5 out of the 6 resolutions, is not too shabby at all. Go me!

2012 Resolutions

As I’m looking at my list (for typing up), I’m realizing that I haven’t set any new resolutions for work. Ah, I’ll tackle that a different day. Most of my resolutions for this year are branches or extensions from last year.

1. Read 30 fun books this year with at least 15 of them being borrowed or already owned. I’m doing this for 3 reasons: to read more this year (no grad school to read for!), work on the library I already have, and to cut costs. I’m going to try to not spend as much money on books this year.

2. Complete at least 1 30 day photography challenge. I’ve already found a couple to choose from through Pinterest. So excited about stretching my photography muscles!!

3. Travel. I’ve got some fun stuff planned…such as San Francisco (thanks to work!). I also am excited to explore Duluth, the North Shore, and Minnesota in general this year. As I mentioned, I’ll be buying a MN State Parks pass. I’ll be able to utilize the parks for hiking, photography, and general enjoyment without having to pay a day use fee. I also want to check out Voyageurs National Park (only about 3 hours away) and the Apostle Island National Lakeshore over in Wisconsin. I also plan to spend my vacation time this summer visiting friends in Southern WI, instead of an extensive road trip for the 3rd year in a row.

4. Live healthier. I need an actual plan for this, this year. I want to do things such as: drink more water and less soda, incorporate more fresh food, complete some wellness programming through work, increase the amount of exercise/activity I complete, etc. I think the main motivator to actual kick this resolution in gear is that I truly want to rock my bridesmaids dress at my friend Jennifer’s wedding this summer. Those pictures are going to be around for a long time…I want to look decent.

5. Complete more pins on Pinterest. I have found so many cool projects, recipes, ideas, etc. on Pinterest and I’d like to do more doing, along with my pinning. No clue what Pinterest is or how to use it? Check out this cool tutorial: Pinterested.

6. Be a better blogger. This includes posting on a regular basis, keeping up with my blog reader, posting comments on other blogs, finding new blogs to read/try out, etc.

So, what do you think of my resolutions for 2012? I think they’re doable. They won’t happen over night, and I definitely will be doing what I can to make sure that I’m 6 for 6 in 2012. Yep, I’m pretty sure 2012 is going to be a great year!

As 2011 is winding down, I wanted to review my favorite posts, blogs, and books read for the past year.

Posts
11. Sisterly Bonding: discovered Duluth with my sister during the 4th of July holiday
10. Power Vacationers: covers days 3 and 4 of the road trip my sister and I took out to the Dakotas in May. In these two days, we thoroughly explored the Badlands and Black Hills.
9. I’ve Graduated: celebrated earning my Master’s Degree
8. Photo Friday: North Shore of Lake Superior: I love the photos in this post. They cover Gooseberry Falls State Park, Split Rock Lighthouse Historic Site, and various pullouts along the road on the North Shore.
7. Growing Pains of Job Hunting: covered some of my ups and downs of the post-Master’s job search.
6. 100 Things for the 100th Post: shared some fun facts about myself while celebrating a blogging milestone.
5. Explore: #oneword2011: my life during 2011 explained with just one word.
4. My Best Day in Student Affairs: discussed why I love working in Student Affairs on a college campus.
3. Deciding to Be More in B’more: results of attending my first national professional association conference.
2. Things I’ve Learned at UW-Whitewater: summed up my 3 years of working at UWW while in graduate school.
1. How to Find Blogs to Read: top post in terms of number of direct hits this year.

Blogs (not in any particular rank order since I read these daily or as soon as something new is posted)
- Peanut Butter Fingers: fitness, food, life, etc. 
- Young House Love: DIY everything from a whole kitchen to art work
- Bower Power: another young DIY couple & photography
- First Class Great Outdoors: exploring the outdoors in style
- Healthy Living in a Hectic World: healthy living, social media, technology
- Iowa Girl Eats: so many awesome recipes!
- Running off the Reeses: Texas girl who runs, loves chocolate, has a sassy dog, & is hilarious
- Carrots n’ Cake: enjoying life while still being healthy
- Becca Obergefell: I just love her writing, plus she is in student affairs.
- Meals and Miles: fitness, food, life, fun, etc.
- Anywhere There’s an Airport: expat now living in Spain after she found love

Books (some of my favorites read during the past year – again not in rank order)
- Ranger Confidential: Andrea Lankford
- The Lost Girls: Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, & Amanda Pressner
- Ansel Adams in the National Parks
- The Help: Kathryn Stockett
- My Life in France: Julie Child with Alex Prud’homme
- Remember Me?: Sophie Kinsella
- Sisterhood Everlasting: Ann Brashares
- American Wife: Curtis Sittenfeld
- The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost: Rachel Friedman
- The Choice: Nicholas Sparks
- Knit the Season: Kate Jacobs

What were some of your favorite things for 2011?

Saturday was filled with peppermint bark, mince meat pie filling, and 2 types of cutouts (gingerbread & sugar – double batches of each kind). Sadly, the bark went unphotographed, but it was delicious! Here’s the stove in action ready for the mince meat cooking & canning process. Side note: all my photos were with my iPhone, so they aren’t the best quality. However, the best camera you can use is the one you have on hand.

Cookies were an evening process as the mince meat took most of the day. Plus, we went out for dinner and ran some other errands (such as picking up cookie sheets at my apartment).

This stacking cooling rack was so cool. It now needs to go on my kitchen wish list. Since we were baking cookies until the wee hours of the morning (and having a blast doing so), I just stayed at Kendra’s. Who cares that I actually only live about 5 minutes from her? Plus, the view from the apartment rocks.

Sunday brought Eric’s delicious Swedish pancakes for breakfast, Christmas shopping, taffy, jam, and cookie decorating. Our day was a bit packed. We learned that taffy = sugar, water, and butter…and then we had to butter our hands. Slightly gross at first, but not enough to go undocumented.

I wonder if Girl Scouts has a taffy pulling badge. If so, we would have earned them!

Here’s our final product: yummy peppermint flavored taffy. Well, it’s more like hard candy that softens into taffy. Delish nonetheless. I brought my half to work on Monday and a good portion of it was consumed. I think that signals a success.

While the sugar and water for the taffy were working on the stove, we made peach mango jam. O.M.G. it’s delicious.

You want some of this on toast or a bagel now, don’t you?

Our final task for the weekend was to frost and decorate all of the cut out cookies. We may or may not have used 9 cups of powdered sugar to make the frosting.

And then we had more sugar for decorating.

8 episodes of Cake Boss later, we had all of the cookies frosted and decorated. Yay for Netflix! Okay, here’s my take on Cake Boss, it’s not as good as Ace of Cakes (no one is better than Duff!), but it served it’s purpose of entertaining us. So here are the cookies in all their glory.

So, how was your weekend? Do any or all of your holiday baking? Who’s ready for Christmas?? It’s only 4 days away!! I’m so looking forward to 10 days of hanging out with family. Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating and happy Winter Solstice! I am so ready for the amount daylight to start increasing again.

What does “Explore” mean to me?
For me, it means to embark on adventure to a new place or exposure and embracing of new knowledge. “Explore” embodies my goal to be a lifelong learner.

So how did I explore? Oh let me count the ways! I literally traveled to several new geographic locations and revisited some locales as well.

Baltimore, MD!! This trip embodied both exploring a new location and also professional exploration. I attended my first national conference where I met so many people and was introduced to new practices/ideas in the world of student affairs. I ate crab for the first time on this trip. I flew in an airplane for the first time (I’m generally a car driving type of traveler).

Dakotas Road Trip!! This trip was 6 days with my younger sister to celebrate my graduating with my Master’s degree and her starting work on her Master’s degree. We explored history with this trip by visiting three home sites of the famed author Laura Ingalls Wilder. My sister and I grew up reading these books and it was fun to see where the stories actually took place. We also visited national parks and monuments all of which were new to my sister, and for me some were new and some were revisits. We even celebrated Julie’s 25th birthday during our trip! Here are the posts from the trip.

• Bluffs and Farm Fields (Road Trip Day 1)
• Little Car on the Prairie (Road Trip Day 2)
• Power Vacationers (Road Trip Days 3 & 4)
• Advice from the Night Sky (Road Trip Day 5)

Duluth! I moved here in June. I was in full explorer mode most of the summer to learn about the new city I was living in.

• Sisterly Bonding
• Photo Friday: Leif Erikson Park
• Good Weather, Good Water, Good Fun

North Shore of Lake Superior! This stretch of geography from Duluth to Canada will provide years of exploration opportunities.

• Photo Friday: North Shore of Lake Superior (Split Rock Lighthouse Historic Site)
• Hanging Out at the Shore (Gooseberry Falls State Park)
• Waves Crashing
• Falling for Color

Pattison State Park! Hiked and photographed another state park in Wisconsin.

Other Exploration

• Moved to another city and state. I didn’t know anyone in Duluth when I moved here, and thankfully that has now changed. I’m slowly, but surely, becoming a Minnesotan. However, my Wisconsin roots are deep and will never go away. Go Blugolds, Warhawks, & Badgers!!
• New Institution! Working for UMD has been a dream so far. All of my presentations and joining a knitting group have aided me to get to know people across campus.
• I’ve been making new friends!! We’ve done fun stuff such as attending the Christmas Parade. We also have plans to attend the Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. Could you get anymore quintessential Northern MN than a sled dog race? I’m so excited for it!!
• Other professional development. This has included attending the MCPA conference and completing some assessment trainings (Strong Interest Inventory & StrengthsQuest).

Looking back on 2011, “Explore” was a perfect way to describe how I tackled the year. I’m on such a roll, I may keep it as my #oneword2012!

How would you describe your 2011 in one word?

On the 20th of this month, I’ll be hitting my 6 month mark at work at UMD. Yay! As I shared with family and friends in my Christmas letter, I knew UMD was the right place for me even before I was offered the job. That first night when I walked around campus before my interview, I just felt at home. Honestly, I still feel that way. I couldn’t have asked for a better reception.

My semester has been filled with a lot of presentations and individual appointments. I completed over 40 presentations this semester (some alone and some with another presenter). The majority of these presentations were for the freshman UMD seminar class, along with presentations about interviewing, using social media in your job search, and interning abroad. I even got to present to a few student organizations on various topics. In the UMD Seminar presentation, I talked about Career Services, choosing a major and/or career, and a short interest assessment with more information for the students about interests. My favorite part of these presentations was working with our intern who is a graduating senior from the psychology department. It was fun to watch her become more comfortable with the presentation content and to really settle into her own career choices. She came into our office wanting to pursue either K-12 counseling or Career/Higher Education counseling. It was exciting to see how sure she became with her choice to pursue higher education as the semester continued. Next semester will bring us another intern and another adventure of self-discovery.

This semester I had the opportunity to travel in Minnesota for various reasons. I was able to attend the MCPA conference in October down in the Twin Cities. MCPA is the Minnesota College Personnel Association and is a state chapter of the larger national organization of ACPA. It was nice to start to get to know other people from throughout the state of Minnesota. The only thing I really didn’t like about the conference was being the only person from my institution to attend. It was hard to be introduced to new ideas and not be able to debrief with someone who could understand how the ideas could be implemented on our campus. The fun part was staying with a friend of mine instead of at a hotel. The week after I was at MCPA, I returned to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St.Paul for anyone not familiar with the Midwest) for training on the StrengthsQuest assessment. This training was awesome! It was an intensive day, and I learned so much. The philosophy behind StrengthsQuest is to find out what we are naturally good at and then work on those areas to elevate them from natural talents to bonafide strengths. Basically, instead of trying to elevate our weaknesses to mediocre, we work to excel at what we naturally are good at. My strengths are: Input (collecting things, ideas, etc.), Learner (thirst for knowledge), Positivity (glass super full type of person), Developer (encourage what we see in others), and WOO (people person). All of my strengths help me to understand how I can best serve my students and their needs.

Now that semester 1 at UMD is just about wrapped up, I’m excited to see what semester 2 will bring!

The Basics: food, shelter, clothing, money, etc. These tend to be things I take for granted and I realize that I shouldn’t.

Family: without my family, the world would be a sucky place.

Julie & I in front of Mount Rushmore.

Friends: both new and old friends because they make life so much more interesting.

Maria (PhD student from Sweden who’s at UMD for about a month), Kendra (cousin-ish/lunch buddy at work), & me at Duluth’s Christmas of the North parade.

Ashley & I on the day of our Masters graduation.

Me, Jennifer, & Carissa at DCI Finals in Indianapolis in 2009.

Education: it has always been encouraged, supported, and embraced by the people who mean the most to me. A lot of work for a couple pieces of paper that allow me to pursue the career that I want.

Job: I have finally started the profession I am meant to do. Yay!

Books: I love to read. Books allow me to be absorbed into a whole new world of characters and to travel to new places.

Camera: it allows me to capture the world as I see it, and provides me with a creative outlet to record my travels & experiences.

Vineyard in Washington

Sequoia in Hoyt Aboretum in Portland, OR

Leaf stuck in my parents’ deck.

Love of Travel: to explore and learn about a new place and allow it to add value to my own life. Travel allows me to return home a better person than when I left.

The Black Hills in South Dakota

Me with the world’s largest spruce tree in Washington state.

The Blog: I have a platform to share my thoughts and life experiences with family, friends, and everyone else. Now that I’m getting used to my work load at UMD, I’m hoping to spend more time on my blog.

What are you thankful for this year?

While Kendra and I hiked, Eric went running on a different trail. Kendra and I were in “break out your cameras and leisure hike” moods on Saturday. It was great! After checking out Big Manitou Falls, we continued on the trail to see where it would lead us. The trail lead us down into gorge for the Black River (which is the river the runs over Big Manitou Falls). Once we were down in the gorge we took some time to enjoy the nature and to photograph the lovely afternoon light.

After having some fun with our cameras in the bottom of the gorge, we realized that we had 15 minutes before we had to meet up with Eric again. We busted a move to hike up out of the gorge. At the very end of our trail we came across a porcupine having some grass for lunch. We couldn’t resist breaking out our cameras once again.

Here’s Kendra in action getting some good shots.

While Kendra was having her porcupine fun, I found this solitary leaf just hanging out on the trail. I thought it was so structural and pretty. Side note: the trail was only paved to the viewpoints for the water falls, after that it was dirt and leaves.

And finally, here’s my required photo with a sign for the park.

After we met up again with Eric, we did some more hiking on a different trail. No pictures though. I just enjoyed being outside, breathing in the fresh air, and not having to listen to gunshots in the distance (as we have had to do if we went to a MN park). All in all, a wonderful day spent with friends.

• Blogging: Duh, posts about blogging.
• Books: I’m a big reader and I didn’t realize how many posts I had written about books until I was analyzing the posts.
• Hiking: One of my new(ish) hobbies that I picked up while I was in Oregon two summers ago.
• Minnesota: Covering my new adventures in Minnesota.
• UMN Duluth: This category was added when I started working at UMD.
• Wisconsin: All of my travels in Wisconsin.

Now that work is quieting down a bit, I’m hoping to get back on a regular blogging schedule. Until next time, enjoy the weather because snow will be flying soon.