Kimberly Figures it Out

For the first adventure from my list, I watched several days of stunning sunsets in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The pink light fades to orange and then deepens as the sun sinks out past the edge of the lake. I added watching a sunset to the list because we live a few miles from the ocean and I should be watching these all the time but rarely do. There's something so magical about the transition from day to night so I'll be keeping track of all the sunsets I witness this year. One wasn't enough!  The campgrounds were almost completely empty which gave us several days of the lake all to ourselves. The area has no cell coverage so everyone was off devices and spending time with each other. Being that we are raising kids in the city, getting them out and into the mountains for at least one week a year is one of our traditions and (fingers crossed) will help them be well rounded people. I know a lot of people don't like the dirt and roughing it of camping but I ...

Lately I have been getting into the garden one day a week to trim and work on the plants. The garden used to be one of my favorite places but over the past few years I wasn't getting out to garden very often and some of the plants became overgrown. My new routine is to put on a podcast and start working, before I know it several hours have passed.  I find that I feel close to myself when I am in the dirt or up a tree with clippers. As soon as I take that first smell of bitter dirt and sharp, sweet lemons in our garden I feel grounded.  Lately, I have been pruning our lemon trees that have become woefully overgrown. Trimming the lemons is like solving a puzzle with no answer and takes complete concentration, I trace back each branch to the main branches to see if I want to change the path or if it's growing solidly. I find this process very restorative and a direct analogy to my relationship with myself. I am paring down habits and ideas that aren't useful and making plans f...

I don’t have a bucket list, I have what I now think of as a “Backpack List.” The things I have to go out of the way to do but aren’t exactly lifelong dreams. Things I can strap my backpack on at the front door and set out to do or see or experience. I also have a hard time committing to possibly un-achievable goals like a bucket list contains so this is a way for me to have little dreams. Here’s the story of how I got to thinking of this concept.  NYE 2024 we spent celebrating at the San Jose Sharks game. The atmosphere was fun and exciting and the teal was on display. It was our first time watching the Sharks and the first time for me and the kids to see a hockey game in person. The stadium lowers down a giant fiberglass shark’s head that the players skate out of at the beginning of the game which was both exciting to watch happen but more fun for me to watch the shark handlers in the rafters getting the whole thing ready. I am really a sucker for logistics.  On the way home ...

My word for 2025 is Peace.  I love New Year’s Resolutions and have set and taken them seriously most of my adult life. One year I committed to getting 10,000 steps a day and another I vowed to go back to school for my Master’s degree. Last year my best friend gave me the idea to sum up the year’s resolutions with a word. Choosing was hard but once I landed on “Invest” the list wrote itself and I have had so much fun investing in the last year both in the literal sense as well as in myself. Credit for this idea goes to Gretchen Rubin. One major investment was disengaging with all of my volunteer commitments which set me up to have time to reflect and make plans for myself.  Peace is all about the quest to quiet the nagging should haves of the past several years. Last year my word was “Invest” and I made great progress investing in myself. Through that journey I started working on this blog and noticed immediately that making my idea come to life left me feeling lighter and more...

I started this blog in my thoughts several years ago, brainstorming in the shower or walking around about things that I'd like to write that might be interesting to read for other people. I chickened out of publishing last year but now I've drawn the courage up to go for it and here I am. This year is my 39th and as I approach 40 I have been figuring out who I am and who I want to be in my next 39 years. These days my biggest identity is being a mama to my two middle schoolers. Currently 12 and 14, they have been keeping me busy and learning since they were born as they move into stage after stage of development and we navigate the world together as a family. 40 looms large doesn't it? I do not dream of being younger as I am far happier and healthier than I was in my 20s but there is a weight to 40. It's not insignificant. Case in point, I moved to San Francisco when I was 17. So, I have been living in the big city for 22 years. Twenty two! That's the kind of number...