Becka's Epic Adventures: December 2014

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. -Tom Bodett

It's easy to get caught up in disappointment this time of year. The days are too short, the stresses of the holidays can cause pretty big mood swings (the least fun type of swing), and I never got around to making New Year's resolutions last January so how am I supposed to measure my success at living in 2014? Honestly, there were some let downs this year. I injured my back skiing on a beautiful day and it's made yoga quite difficult. I cried for most of Mile 18 during the Ogden Marathon. I never caught a fish and therefore never found my zen. I think I might have irreversibly damaged my sanity by doing most of my field work this summer alone. And the timing and balance between tomatillos, tomatoes, and squash was totally off in my garden. This year has also been an introspective year, I've spent a good chunk of time figuring out what makes me happy so I can ultimately figure out what I should do with the rest of my life. What follows is a list of the things that brought me joy in 2014, in no sort of order. If anyone knows what I should do with the rest of my life, based on this list of things, let me know. For now I'm thinking professional vacationer.

1. Every time I went trail running, especially the downhill parts. Usually marathon training kind of sucks; it's all the hard work of a marathon with no one to cheer you on and no finish line ice cream sandwiches. I learned from past year's efforts to focus on trails as soon as they were clear of snow and it was so amazing. There were so many moments I felt my heart leap as I rounded a corner and caught sight of the beautiful canyon I was running through or got excited because the next section of trail was hidden in the forest. I couldn't help thinking over and over, "How lucky am I? I'm the luckiest person in the world."

How lucky am I? I live a quick run away from these beautiful places: Green Canyon/Mt Elmer trail, Forest Service road between Lefthand Fork and Righthand Fork, and Millville Face trail.

2. Skiing on Becka's Mental Health Half Days. I thoroughly enjoy skiing with friends and family, but there's something really great about skiing by myself for a few hours. This year I really got into tree skiing, which is amazing, but the thing that makes me most happy is hitting the gentle slopes about mid-way down the mountain at Beaver (think Lower Harry's after you pass the ski lift or the middle 1/3 of Redtail). The combination of slope, inertia, and control make me feel like I'm going so fast and skiing so lightly. Plus the ski season really picked up this year around February, so much amazing powder.

3. Doing line work on cross stitch projects. I'm working on a blog post where I admit I love cross stitching and all the reasons why. For now, let's just say I've picked cross stitch up again after a few years off and my favorite part is the line work. It's the final part of a project, when you go through and outline all the stuff you've been stitching over the past month to years. It's very gratifying, even though using a single thread of yarn instead of two makes it so the yarns knots up all the time.

4. Morning coffee from my white jellyfish mug. The days I get to drink my coffee at home before going into work are usually not the most productive, but they always start great. I have my mug there, reminding me of good times in Maryland, my yoga mat unrolled with the intention to actually stretch out on it, and Morning Edition playing on the laptop (because I've actually slept through the live broadcast). It's a good time to find my center and prepare for the day's to-do list.

5. Learning the power of the pottery wheel. Karina talked me into taking a ceramics class this fall and it was great! I almost quit after the first class because I didn't know what was going on, but I stuck to it and learned to enjoy our teacher's enigmatic suggestions (i.e., mind your rim, you should stop soon). Once I started thinking about it, it's pretty cool that the wheel turns the pot around and around so in order to make a change to the pot I just need to hold my hands in place and let the wheel do the work. Focusing on the wheel rather than my issues with adding twists to blocks of clay made the experience more relaxing and rewarding.

6. Marsh Yoga. Yoga and field work were both challenging this year. Yoga was hard because I developed sciatic nerve pain that made all the stretches my hamstring muscles enjoyed hurt my nerves. Field work was challenging because I was by myself in the sun or rain most of the summer. I thought I'd really enjoy being alone but it made me feel crazy. The break in the crazy came when I decided to do a yoga pose at every site (I've got 50 sites) that was representative of each site. It was fun because of yoga and stimulating because I had to figure out how to make a tripod with the field gear I had. I also learned why all those stunning yogis wear form fitting clothes in their pictures: waders and other loose fitting clothes make the poses look less magnificent and more awkward.

7. Starting and summiting King's Peak. My solitary vacation this year involved hiking King's Peak, the highest peak in Utah, by myself in one day. Most of it was pretty great, I felt bad ass and strong and amazed at the views of the Uintas. It's nice to remember that I can do hard things and it's always great to get time in the mountains.

8. Sibling/nibling together time. I've got great sibs and one of them had some great kids (the niblings). I enjoy spending time with all of them. This year all the siblings got together for super secret Christmas pictures and it was amazing. Looking at the pictures of them I'm reminded of the qualities I love in each of them and how much fun we have laughing together. And any time I get to cuddle with Tyler, the only one of the niblings that will sit still for cuddles, lifts my heart for weeks at a time.

9. Finally catching my breathe trad climbing. I've finally started getting back into my rock climbing groove after years of being really afraid of lead climbing. One day, after months of thinking hard about it, I had this moment leading a trad route when I was able to calm my breathe, quit shaking, and finish clipping in the protection I had just placed. It was a miracle! Remembering to breathe rather than freaking out that I might spontaneously let go of the rock I'd jammed myself into made the whole climb better and faster and infinitely more enjoyable. Enjoyable climbing was really what I've been looking for.

10. Figuring out a 'for' loop in R. My other secret hobby I've developed this year is statistical programming. I love that the text changes color when you get it right. I love that with a few lines of code I can get through a process that would take hours in Excel. I really love that I can make a little function to do whatever I want and that after 9 months of work I can now make that function run through all the rows and/or columns of my data set with a simple 'for' loop. I love programming.

Note the lack of red warning messages. Yay!

11. Every time I rode my bike uphill, especially all the mountain biking. It's twisted, but I love riding my bike uphill. I have these moments when I'm down in my lowest gears, pedaling away, that I feel like my body and mind were meant to be powering a bike uphill. It's alright on a road bike, but gaining elevation on a single track mountain bike trail can't be beat.

12. Finishing a leisure reading book. I've taken up more leisure reading in the past two years and it's the one sit-around activity I never regret. I love and hate that moment at the end of book where the story is all wrapped up. It might be what closure feels like. But there is some pain because it means I need to find something else to read. Right now I'm partial to books by Tom Clancy and Steph Davis. And if Tina Fey were to write a second book my quality of life would improve by 30%.

13. Sitting under my heated blanket by my Christmas tree. Reading or cross-stitching or just drinking cocoa, it's the best place to be. I still haven't taken my tree down because I love it so much. Being able to sit in my living room is closely related to my other favorite winter activity: shrink wrapping my windows so a breeze doesn't come through them.

14. Vacation planning. As a life strategy, I generally avoid planning too much, but I love planning the activities for a few days out of town. I love sitting down with my maps and finding some place I haven't been before that merits a mention on the map. I love finding the best, most scenic route to a new place. I enjoy figuring out what watersheds we'll be going to, how many times we'll cross county lines, plotting elevation profiles, etc. I have big dreams when it comes to vacations and they often come true. In 2015 I've got plans for the Tetons and my dream bike tour.

That one trip we decided to stop at all the dinosaur-related landmarks we could find on the map. Amazing.

Well, I've found 14 joyful moments and there are still more I can remember from this year. Clearly, I live a good life. Continuing in no sort of order are other great things that happened this year: