She Does Better

January Catchup

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I think I’d like to get into the flow of writing my goal posts again. They’re not for anyone but me really.

I didn’t do that this month because I was focused on my EOY process, but I did do a monthly goal setting process. Clearly we’re a bit into the month now, but here’s a picture from the other day.

I’ve been really inspired by Amy’s initiative to spend time 20 minutes outside. So that’s what I’m aiming for. In my mind, it has to be an intentional 20 minutes. In our last house, I did this a lot, but since moving we don’t really have a space that makes sense. I set up a camper chair in front of the house and that’s been okay.

The other night, I decided I’d have dinner outside. The lighting was so good. I just had to snap this. You’d think I kinda knew what I was doing.

Working through the CrossFit L1 book and I loved this snippet.

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
Practice and train major lifts… Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics…
Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense.
Regularly learn and play new sports.

I bought a new desk for work. I settled for the Autonomous standing desk. My plan is to stand until lunch and then sit afterwards. When I lived in Baltimore, I only worked at the standing desk, so this is a great step in the right direction!

Last Saturday morning’s view. This pup of mine is something special.

Just a bit of a hodgepodge of life lately today.

2020 Goals & My Word of the Year

// Goals

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Growing up, I remember being SO excited for my first day of school. Now, as an adult, I feel that way every time take an couple of days of work. And I always feel that anticipation in a great way thing at the top of the New Year. There’s something about this whole reflection and goal-setting thing that just feels good.

Word of the Year: WIP

Okay, okay, technically it’s an acronym, but my work of the year is WIP, which stands for Work in Progress. This year I’d really like to lean into accepting that it’s okay that I’m a work in progress. I don’t know what I don’t know.

I’m really focused right now on checking my ego, on making sure that I don’t make decisions or take actions rooted-in my ego.

I explained it this way via email:

Everything is a work in progress. This is possible because we work with a low level of shame. I’ve often highlighted that a low level of shame requires both confidence in ability but also the ability to not let fear or ego keep you from doing something. So my word of the year will be WIP because this year I want to really lean into the idea that everything, especially me, is a work in progress.

2020 Goals

Read 34 Books

Last year I read 36 books after setting a goal of 32. It was doable, but that reading wasn’t eventy distributed through the year.

I had a burst of reading at the end of the year, but I struggled to keep pace most of the year. I felt like I read a lot, and I read a good mix of books. If I read more fiction, or even only fiction, I could probably move through a lot more books. The thing is I enjoy reading nonfiction. the data shows that it takes me longer to read nonfiction than it does fiction, and I’m not willing to commit to reading less nonfiction than I did this year.

Process steps: Read 2.8 books per month ~ 27 pages per day. Have this nifty reading pace chart live for 2020.

Push the limits of what my body can do

This is purposefully ambiguous because this could be measured in a lot of different ways and I don’t want to commit to any. I want to: PR a half marathon, deadlift 300 lbs, and get my CrossFit Level 1.

Process Steps: I tracked 170 workouts last year, which averages to more than 3 workouts per week. My months were all over the place- as low as 5 in June when I did a ton of traveling and as high as 26 in July when I didn’t travel at all. Given that, the process goal here is to go to the gym 5 days per week or 19/month. Life is going to get in the way and I’m not going to average anywhere close to that, but I’m going to get workouts in pretty regularly.

Build a career plan

This feels like something I should do. I had a role change this fall into a different kind of job. I should spend some time this year intentionally reflecting on this role, on where I want it to go, what I want to do next, what I need to do after that, and what I need to do to get to either of those places. This isn’t something that I need to set in stone, but I think it’s an important exercise.

Process Steps: Start journaling as part of my weekly review process. This will be a good reflection point.

Be more proactive in cultivating my friendships

I’m not great at this. I’m a homebody by nature and I work from home. This year I gave up social media, and I feel so much better for it, but I’m now totally out of touch with folks and the details of their lives.

Process Steps: Have two purely social events (not tacked on to an obligation!) with friends a month

Say no to more things

Still trying to learn to say no. Still not good at it.

Process Steps: Say no to one thing every month and note what I say no to.

Previous Yearly Goals:

2019 Year In Review

// Personal

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Oh that time of year where we sit down and think about how grateful we are for all the things that have happened. This year was an amazing one. Despite a deployment, it was great for our marriage. Because of the deployment (at least in some ways), it was great for my career. I had so many travel experiences, including visiting The Great Wall of China which was on my bucket list.

Visiting The Great Wall of China in June

Overview

January: Brought in the New Year with Kelly and Chad in NC, Went to Rob and Talia’s wedding (solo), Spoke about DataOps at at TechSAV meet up.
February: Attended PyTN, Took a pasta-making class with C for Valentine’s Day.
March: Had my sister visit for St. Patrick’s Day, Made homemade everything bagels, Watched sunrise over Tybee Island for the first time.
April: Went to SF for Women in Analytics and DataCouncil, Delivered “Understanding Data in Your Life” at Geekend.
May: Went to New Orleans for GitLab Contribute, Watched C and his soldiers drop out of a helicopter into the ocean at Tybee Island
June: Went to BORA BORA on our honeymoon, visited NYC where we had dinner at Raclette and watched The Book of Mormon, Enjoyed Philippe and Bella’s wedding in Massachusetts, Visited Ohio to visit the in-laws, C deployed, we both turned 26, I went to Shanghai and Beijing (crossing The Great Wall off my bucket list!!!!) and speaking at KubeCon Shanghai.
July: Visited Ohio again, Cheered on the Savannah Bananas, Grew my own Sprouts, Did my first Escape Room in Sav, Visited Blair in D.C.
August: Made my own cutting board at The Makers Space downtown, Watched The CrossFit Games, Spent 2 weeks in SF for work (with trips to Vancouver and Vail while there)
September: Spoke at GitLab Commit on DataOps, Went to Brazil for my Vo’s 80th Birthday.
October: Handled a cross-town move solo, C came home, Celebrated Halloween as an Insurance Duo (Flo from Progressive and Jake from State Farm).
November: Visited SF for our e-group offsite, Watched Army Football play at Michie Stadium over Veteran’s Day weekend (and we got to see JCB play!), Established the first annual Cousin’s Weekend in Massachusetts, Attended Meltano Assemble in Denver, Played Settlers of Catan over Friendsgiving.
December: Claire visited, Visited Hilton Head Island for the first time, PR’d all my lifts.

We went to Bora Bora in French Polynesia on our honeymoon in June

Physical

In a lot of ways, this year feels like a wash when it comes to my physical fitness. I started the new year weighing 2 lbs less than I weighed when 2019 started. Despite little-to-no change in my weight, I made strides in two things related to my physical well being.

First, I rebuilt my fitness habit. Because I strongly disliked the gym I had a contract with for the first half of 2019, I was slowly going to the gym less and less often. In April, one contract terminated and I took the opportunity to shop around for my membership.

Second, I PR’d every single one of the major lifts- the squat, deadlift, press, bench, squat clean, squat snatch. I am the same weight and much stronger than ever before. For example, my bench PR went from 90 lbs to 141 and my squat PR went from 170 to 205.

Financial

Money-wise we did okay this year. Because I did well at work, I netted an almost 35% pay raise from the beginning to the end of the year (these were smallish jumps along the way). We both maxed out our Roth IRAs and contributed a lot to our work-related retirement accounts (401K for me TSP for him) and got our full matches. We handled an unexpected 15K expense and rebuilt our emergency fund. We went on an incredible honeymoon to Bora Bora.

All-in, we did really well this year. The problem, though, was that we really let go of budgeting. We made a lot of money which is why all of this was okay, but a little more intentionality could have done a lot more.

My sister visiting Savannah for St. Patrick’s Day in March

Professional

I was promoted twice this year. I’m still at a company where I feel incredibly fulfilled. I’m challenged professionally- I’m uncomfortable, but also learning a lot and being stretched.

I didn’t make as many contributions to Open Source as I wish I would have, but I made some- at least 2 contributions to dbt, one to dbt-utils, and 4 to Meltano. Through work, we released the Snowflake Spend package, and I wrote a blog post outlining a framework for Assessing Data Team Maturity that was really well received.

It was a great year for my career.

Fave 5 Blog Posts

Honorable Mention: Consolidating Responsibilities

I think these six posts lean into to what I wanted to capture this year- being more present, saying no to things, actively choosing what I say yes to, savoring sunrises, accepting the things I cannot change, and controlling the things I can.

Top 5 Books

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Normal People by Sally Rooney

Even thought C wasn’t here for most of the summer, we made sure to visit Tybee Island together when we could

Goals

Just going to dive right in…

Read 32 books

Yep! I read 36 books this year! The notably new thing that happened was that I leaned into fiction, reading 14 fiction books. Prior to 2019, I read one fiction book since graduating college.

Stitch Savannah Ornament

I didn’t get it done in July- the deadline for having it in time for Christmas, but I just sent this out to the finished this week! It’s still our ornament for the year!

A lot of my family celebrating my grandmother’s 80th Birthday in Brazil

Hit 100K Combined Net Worth

I shared a bit about our financial progress above, but I think this is mostly true. In a rough outline:

Cash (savings + bank account) ~ 35K
Equity in the house ~ 15K
Cars ~ 10K
My retirement accounts ~ 25K
C’s retirement accounts ~ 25K

Well done to us. Last year, my goal was to end the year with a positive net worth. Now we’ve gone from that to 100K. Wow.

Finish Content Audit

As I wrote about in Making this space mine again, I trashed this goal.

Hit a 300 lbs Deadlift

I ended the year with a 250 lbs deadlift. I’m very far from 300 lbs, but 250 is a lifetime PR and even though I had to fight for it, it wasn’t the worst.

Christmas 2019 in our Schario family jammies

2019 in Review

All in all, it was a great 2019. And set a high standard for 2020.

Previous Years in Review

December Life Lately

// Life Lately

Reading Time: 4 minutes

December was amazing. It was a bit of a crazy month, why with the holiday madness made extra crazy by Thanksgiving being extra late, but it was also a really wonderful month with no travel, lots of visitors, and delicious meals.

This month also marks my 12th without Facebook or Instagram. And I’m so happy about it.

This year, the IRA contribution limit is 6K. We have $500 auto contributions set up every month. I knew that we’d max it out, but this email was a cool one to wake up to. This is the second year in a row where we’ve both maxed out our Roth IRAs and put hefty contributions into my 401K/his TSP. Marriage and adulthood are so fun.

This whole system is totally automated. I haven’t written about how we do our money recently, but the tl;dr here is:

Our paychecks get deposited into our primary USAA checking account
We live on the previous month’s income, so Dec 15 and Dec 30 paychecks fund the spending that happens Jan 1-Jan 31
On the first of every calendar month, money gets dispersed to all the places it goes. We have automated withdrawals to: mortgage payment for rental home, Emergency Fund contribution, Roth IRA contributions, sinking fund for new cars, travel fund, etc.

Automation is the way to go.

My training focus is going to change come Jan 25, so I’ve been trying to max out the major Starting Strength lifts before that happens. I’m writing this a couple of weeks after this picture and I have to say, I’m pretty please with these maxes.

Squat: 205
Deadlift: 250
Bench: 141
Press: 105

This year, I put 20% on my squat, almost doubled my bench, and lifetime PR’d all my lifts. Even though my weight it about 20 lbs higher than I’d like for it to be, I’m pleased with the work I’m putting in, and optimistic that this will be the year I get my weight closer to where I’d like.

Along the lines of reflecting on a year’s progress, I was very pleased to crush my reading goal this year. I set the goal of 32 books and closed out the year at 36. It’s a nice consolation prize given I missed my goal last year by 4 books (finishing 32 of my goal of 36).

We have a $10 personal waffle maker from Amazon. One weekend, I bought cinnamon buns (out of a can) and turned them into waffles ala the picture. So easy, so fun, such a cool weekend breakfast.

We finally set up a guest room, buying a cheap mattress from Amazon that Liz suggested. I’m so glad we did because we had 6 visitors in December and 4 of them slept right in that room!

Setting up the guest room is an exercise in going through all those boxes that made it there when we moved in and haven’t been touched since.

Since I knew we weren’t going to be here that long, I feel myself hesitating to really put energy into these things. We haven’t put anything up on the walls in our master bedroom.

This was a step in the right direction

Speaking of visitors, CLAIRE VISITED. I showed her Savannah! We watched Army-Navy, visited Kevin Barry’s and Savannah Smiles, ate at The Farmer’s Market and The Emporium downtown.

I promised to return the visit to Philly

We also ate at The Bodega, and how cute were these everything bagels toasted with cream cheese. The veggie cream cheese was so colorful I couldn’t resist taking a picture.

Denver, a book I’m excited about, and Thanksgiving

// Life Lately

Reading Time: 3 minutes

As long time readers will now I have long been a fan of open source and in my current role I get lab I get the chance to support a really cool open source project called Meltano. I recently got the chance to go to Denver to attend Meltano’s first off site called Meltano Assemble.

Prior to this, I had only interacted with these folks via zoom, which is fine because that’s how I work every day but it’s still nice to meet people in person. I had met some of them at the last GitLab Contribute, but meeting everyone and working with them in the same space was so special to me.

We saw beautiful Colorado views, ate lots of tacos, brainstormed world takeover, made pizza and had so much other fun. I will say I’m glad I don’t live some place where it snows but it was cute to enjoy a little bit of snow while there.

If you’re looking for a good tool to explore, Meltano.com is the way to go.

I just finished reading The Phoenix Project. The Unicorn Project is the sequel. I’m reading it for work, and it is good!

Thank you iPhone for looking out for the well being of my marriage 🥰

I have a pretty routine scheduled, so I don’t edit my alarms day to day. I almost forgot to turn off my early alarms for Thanksgiving.

We had a pretty chill Thanksgiving planned with a couple friends.

On the morning of, we had to get a couple of last minute things figured out. Getting this Settlers of Catan game was an adventure in itself, but I’m so glad we did! We loved playing it. We now also have the expansion pack!

A feast was had not just by us but also by Bo!

Simple but wonderful. These are my wedding plates, but we didn’t break out the china.

I made the cheese plate. I was very proud of it. I think it came out beautiful.

Our friends the Parsons were wonderful company. We had way too much food. We played Settlers of Catan and Risk. I’m not allowed to play Risk usually but in this case I won so it was okay, haha.

All around a great day.