Author: calihoo

Hello Friends!

Well, actually it’s 5:02am, but I’ve been up and typing for about an hour. This AM I decided to run an experiment… and I just couldn’t do so without sharing with you – those wonderful, indulgent and supportive friends & family who may read my ramblings from time to time. Thank you!

As we all know, I run at a fairly high RPM… I’m incredibly grateful for this fact, and I’m regularly amazed by it as I really don’t know where it comes from. However, I do accept that it is my gift… and I’m trying very hard to figure out what I’m meant to do with all of it to make the world a better place. The GREATEST THING is that in my new life, and with my new job, I have found a happily bottomless pit where I can direct so many of my ideas, thoughts, and efforts + experience.

But, here’s the thing – even though I know that I’m under 1000% less stress and I’m infinitely happier in my new role & new life… I’ve found that I’m waking up in the almost-middle of the night (3/4am) very regularly with my “brain on fire”. It doesn’t seem to matter much when I go to bed, I wakeup a this awkward hour just completely buzzing with energy, thoughts, ideas, to do lists. It’s weird and very annoying. I probably started noticing it in September, because honestly in July – August I was just too exhausted for this to happen. Aha! That is probably a HUGE key to the equation – I’ve been doing ZERO physical exercise, and that is certainly impacting my sleep quality. (Good stuff, glad I started writing!). But now, it happens alot, and I’ve been trying to do two things: resist the strong desire to pick up my phone, check the time and start putting things in wunderlist + meditate to get myself back to sleep (while trying to remember all the great ideas I’m having for fear of losing them in the AM). Alas, this approach has not been super successful.

So today, since it is Saturday and I have the whole weekend to recover if this turns out to be a terrible idea, I decided to just GET UP and let the ideas flow. I thought, if I just indulge my crazy brain for an hour, I can go back to bed at 5am and sleep another few hours and I should be OK – plus I can take a nap this afternoon. Experiment underway! I just spent about an hour working in my favorite Google Sheet where my colleague Jennifer and I are tracking topics we want to discuss and collaborate on as well as another Google Sheet with our master calendar for the year. All very satisfying, and not super hard on the brain but also a great place to park ideas so I don’t lose them.

Who knows? This might be the perfect time for me to start writing in “ye baby blog”, so stay tuned… you might hear more from me at these wee hours. For now, I’m going to sign off, crawl back in bed, and hope that by opening the escape valve on my frenzy of thoughts I’ll be a bit more calm and able to sleep. At the very least the cats think this is fun – they are here keeping my company.

Sleep tight friends & Happy Saturday!

XO

Hello Friends!

Happy to say I’m a long way from where I wrote my last missive. Today I’m  cozily settled in my writing nook at home in Saratoga enjoying the gift of a dark and cold Thursday morning when I woke up early…without trying, and motivated to get up and make some tea and capture some thoughts before the day begins.

My hope is that I’ll find a few minutes to write a bit on our upcoming holiday travels, but just in case that doesn’t happen – I’ll take this brief moment to recognize the upcoming 1 year birthday of my “baby blog” (and no, despite a few startled replies from friends… this blog is NOT about a baby. Hee hee!).  Yep, I vividly recall the morning that the Maven and I were driving up 95 north to spend Christmas with his family last year, the same morning we learned that we “almost” had a contract on this house, and I decided to dive in to GoDaddy and setup a blog – and here we are.  If I don’t write over the holiday, I’ll at least take some time on one of our various planes/airports to read back to how different the world looked through my eyes one year ago.  Yep, it’s been a big one!

Today, the theme I’ve been wanting to capture is the recent and powerful epiphany I have had about what I now realize is the foundation for this new  “wonderful life”.  It’s the small town magic!  Like any good epiphany, this seems super obvious when I say it out loud… it’s not like we didn’t know this was a small town, but two specific moments happened over the last few weeks which really crystalized the magnitude of change we’ve made from life in Old Town Alexandria (which was a sort of small town too..) to Saratoga.

First, the W&M Alumni Networking Call –

The (largely unnecessary) Backstory: One of my favorite things to do in life is to connect people.  It apparently runs in the family, as my Auntie Susan has the same gene. I especially people like to connect people I really like (looking at you Fran & Maura, one of my first really good connections here in my new world).  It always makes me think the world is a better, stronger & more powerful place when the good people meet the other good people… and I really love it when they link up and start doing awesome things together.  A book that I often reference, and should probably read again for all the times I’ve recommended it and referred to it, is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  As I recall, it presents the concept that we are all one of three types of people: Mavens, Connectors or Communicators.  I LOVE this!  As you may have gathered, we have a Maven in our family – and he is not me. 🙂   Meanwhile, I really love to be a connector, and then my true calling is to be the communicator – the relayor of the information through the network. 

So, anyway, I’m definite a blend of connector and communicator – and over the years of my life in our old world of DC, I took pride in making connections as effectively and impactfully as I could – always looking for that “dual benefit”, but also really trying to give the “new kids in town” as much information to make a plan of attack for cracking the code of the business community around the network.  Having done this for a living for a short time, through my work under the flag of my little consulting company, I had run headlong into the brick wall of how hard it is to “get a meeting” with someone in DC.   Not for the lack of interesting people there to meet, but just for the cultural defenses of a people I now see as collectively in adrenal failure trying to keep up the pace expected and demanded by the engine of the beltway business scene.   I have alot of thoughts about why people in DC are so frantic and time-crunched, and I know it’s a whole cocktail of reasons – over-achievers, cost of living and above all, the traffic.  In sum, the harried people of the greater metropolitan DC area simply feel and live as if they have less than the same 24 hours allotted to all of us on this big blue marble every day – and the mad dash is a normal, and invisible to everyone who lives there as the water is for the fish in the sea.

While I’ve always believed this about DC, and tried to both live by the rules of utmost respect of people’s precious time while also helping newbies to this world figure out how to merge onto the rushing traffic by connecting them with a few strategically placed people who might offer a more welcoming, gentle hand to help them get in step with the hubbub (let them merge into their lane without honking).   In fact, after all this leadup, it was simply one of these calls with a newbie – Jennifer, a recent W&M MBA graduate – that brought this all back to me in a flash, and in that same moment illuminated how incredibly different is the world I now live in. Like, entirely different – and it was clear of day like one of those old-timey camera flashbulbs went off, with a boom!

BTW – so much for posting before Xmas, here we are in the Charlotte airport heading home from our SoCal holiday

So there I was, sitting in a doctors office waiting room (waiting for a friend) on the phone with Jennifer, sharing my thoughts and advice for how to “crack the code” of the crazy busy DC scene. I was explaining my theory of why people in DC are so stingy with their time – the traffic, the frenzy, the over-programmed lives, and the chronically long hours in the office that result in everyone zealously protecting their every waking moment like they have less than 24 hours in a day. This sense of scarcity means that the simple idea of a coffee or a phone call with a stranger seems like a risky waste of time with uncertain benefit. Even perfectly nice people become impossible to reach – and the only magic wand a person can wave is the “personal intro”. People will take meetings/calls/coffees if someone they know & trust suggests the meeting with some assurance that the time will be well-spent, or at least appreciated as a favor to the mutual friend.

I completely believe this to be true in DC, and yet as the words came out of my mouth I could hear – clear as a bell – how entirely alien this whole scenario sounds compared to Saratoga. It was hard to resist blurting out “don’t do it! Run away! Go find a small town!” :-). It was amazing to absorb how different our arrival has been. Here, just by nature of being “new” we have been welcomed – with warmth and even curiosity! No banging on doors or leveraging our friends connections – the only magic wand we’ve needed is a big smile, a handshake and an expression of our joy in having landed in our “ideal scene” (thank you, Dr Ana). We could not be more grateful.

Second, the Victorian Streetwalk –

This moment was much more visual & immediate. On the Thursday after Thanksgiving our adorable town kicks of the Christmas Season with the Victorian Streetwalk. Our Main Street, Broadway, is closed to traffic at 4pm and by 5:30 everyone gathers to welcome Santa in his horse-drawn carriage, and the mayor lights the tree. From then on, the whole town enjoys an evening of holiday cheer, music, shopping and neighborly greetings. And when I took the photo above, the bolt of lightening hit me as I noted the time was 6:15pm …and every person in town was gathered for a joyful evening. (And the Maven and I had even had time for a post work cocktail before joining in the fun.). At risk of just totally annoying all of our friends & family – it just crystallized how wonderful it is to live here in this charming small hometown!

Signing off – as I have a new idea to share as we close out the year. More soon!

Warmest wishes for the holidays!

XO

Hello Friends!

Well, it’s an adventure! I am just over 7 hours in to a 2.5 hour trip from Albany to NYC (pretty much parked in Mahwah for the last 2+ hours) thru the wacky winter storm of November 15th. If this isn’t a time to do a little reflecting, I sure don’t know what it is!

I find myself turning back to my theme of “thanksgiving & lists” – and here are the two at the top of my mind, as we slog our way thru a wild, winter scene creeping along Rt 17  – just in New Jersey (formatting a little tough on the phone, sorry):

1. Gratitude List for the million little  – this is the daily list of tiny moments when I find myself saying “thank you” to whatever power makes things unfold, every day, as they do. Whether we call it God, the Universe, or magical unicorns, I totally believe that there is something that makes it all happen – and I feel compelled to express my appreciation for each and every little detail that makes my day brighter, happier, more fun, fulfilling, productive, beautiful, memorable, joyful, meaningful or just more!

A sample of today’s list –

* my super comfy, warm, winter-ready, fuzzy-lines, super grippy new slip on shoes – arrived just in time for this crazy weather, thanks to a random Facebook ad.

* choosing comfortable clothes for this marathon bus trip

* getting my window seat, a good seat mate, a (so far) calm set of fellow passengers, and a super competent, confident & chill bus driver on a day he will never forget

* the good news that Meg & Addie landed safely at LGA after a super early start & looong day of travel

* the good news that my friend Jennifer had a good meeting with her surgeon & now has a positive plan to repair & recover from her Breeders Cup injury

* the good news that my friend, Kim, had an easy 3rd chemo treatment, 1/4 of the way done & rocking her awesome lavender hair.

* knowing that two of my besties, Kendra & Rebecca, were together on a snowy day in Old Town – hoping they might have enjoyed a beautiful Misha’s latte

* ok, I won’t bore you with more, but I wholeheartedly encourage the practice of making this list – constantly – in your head and simply uttering the word “thank you” for each little gift of goodness. It’s amazing how quickly they add up!

#Gratitude

2. The ways in which people, in my opinion, fall into one of two “types” or at least at clear sides of normative curve. This is an excercise I find fun, fascinating and endlessly interesting to undertake. I guess it’s my “Kim’s take on sociology” and I find this little matrix incredibly helpful in a world made of relationships among an extraordinarily diverse humans. (I’ll come back & add to this for a long time – and would love to hear other filters you find helpful & telling!)

When I find myself talking to younger folks, this is one of my favorite perspectives to impart – that figuring out where someone falls on the spectrum of these characteristics can provide a roadmap to navigating & working with (and living with) lots of colorful characters more harmoniously.

And, of course, the underscore to all of this is to firstly “know thyself” – and just because you land on one side, does not make that the “right” side. 🙂 But, then again, I am totally a “see everyone’s point of view person”. It’s a little easier for me to say this.

* Black & White (Maven) or Shades of Grey (Magpie)

* Timely or No Sense of Time

* Phone or Email/text

* Scheduled or Unscheduled – especially with phone calls, good to figure out with friends & colleagues

* Text or Email – although really, who likes email at all any more?

* Homebody or Adventurer

* Hate to wait or Hate to rush – the airport test (some people can’t bear to waste an extra moment at the airport and feel that getting there early is a waste of time, others – Magpie – hate the stress of rushing and are happy as a clam with time at the gate to chill before boarding)

* Need to drive (Maven!) or Prefer to be the passenger (Magpie)

* Planner of events or Always glad to jump in

* First reply to doing/going/meeting/eating something new: Yes! Or Let’s investigate

* Early Bird or Night Owl – true test, is a sunrise worth getting up for

* Coffee or No Coffee

* Always eat order the same thing at restaurant or Always try something new

* Beer or Wine

* Coke products or Pepsi products

* Bubbles or No Bubbles

* Stinky cheese or Not stinky – yes, I am kind of hungry 🙂

* Travel preference – exploit or explore

* Spicy/weird food or Traditional faves

* It takes a village or I am a lone wolf

* Games (card, Board etc) or Not Games

* Individual sport or Team sport

* Camper or Not Camper

* Chocolate or Fruity (candy, desserts)

* Ok, just because I am kind of trapped, does not mean I have to bore you all to pieces with this one list, but it is a pretty fun way to distill all those people lessons we’ve all learned through our various trips around the sun.  Please share yours!

So, rather than break WordPress with this megapost (I probably have plenty of time to write another!), I will sign off for now with a really exciting photos from my “night on the bus”.

I know I’ll get to my destination in the Big Apple eventually, hopefully before the sun comes up, and tomorrow will be an awesomely super fun day in the Big City with Meg & Addie – with stories to tell! Wooo hooo!!

Namaste

XO

 

 

 

 

Hello Friends!

In a flash, the leaves have changed, Autumn has come and (nearly) gone, and our first flakes of Winter have fallen (and melted). See photos below – all taken within an 24 hour period on Friday into Saturday. Wow.  Winter is coming!

Refraining from the recap of what we’ve been up to, I’d point the interested follower to #mavenandmagpie and @ThoroughbredRetirement on instagram for the highlights of our somewhat epic horse-filled journey to the Bluegrass Commonwealth (one of 5 in our United States… can you name them all?).  Instead,  tonight, I’m intent on a bit of introspection as the season of giving thanks is upon us and we, the Maven & the Magpie, have an extraordinary list of things to be thankful for.  Handily enough, it’s also a great season for lists!

I love lists! 

In order to jump-start a bit more frequent posting over the next few weeks, I’m going to just share one of my favorite lists with this post, in hopes that it might be interesting for folks out there in blog-land to consider. My intent is to share a few others over the days ahead. We’ll see.. I might need to make a list of lists. 🙂

One of my absolute favorite lists is the list of every person who has made an impact on my life… starting from the very beginning, like the first people who visited me in the hospital, that kind of beginning.  Yep, it’s a biggie. This is one which I call upon regularly when I’m in my jogging routine (which I call shogging = jogging just enough to make everything shake), I don’t write this down – I write the list in my head, as a sort of meditation crossed with a memory exercise.  Do not fear, I promise that I won’t go through the exercise now… but I have to tell you, it’s an awesome project if you want to engage your brain for a significant amount of time.  It’s one that will easily  make the minutes tick by while you’re out there huffing & puffing and/or otherwise trying to keep your mind off your woes.

I find it a fascinating to track the mind’s patterns. Sort of like HQ, it starts easy and then suddenly becomes pretty hard. I always start chronologically and it’s pretty easy when you’re working from your 0-8ish year old days, as there just weren’t that many people you remember.  However, as you get to a certain age… for me it’s about 11, it’s like your life just expontentially expands – in terms of peers you remember and adults who began to influence you, far beyond the family & friends of your parents.

I find there are three main challenges (which keep it interesting):

• staying with a certain branch of the “thought tree” before jumping to another branch (always afraid I’m going to forget someone you have to sort of “stick a pin in them” to hold them, while staying on your branch);
• acknowledging that you’re not really trying to list every single person you have met, but focusing on those who made an impact on you (often proven by remaining in your life, but not always);
• making silent apologies to those folks you’ve remembered, but not added to the list, because – quite simply, they didn’t help you become who you are.

The good news is that this isn’t homework you have to turn in, so no one will know when you’ve momentarily forgotten someone super important. It totally happens! However, it seems to me that once you set this train rolling in your brain, those people will pop back into your mind, along with their words, their stories, the places you spent time together, meals you ate, adventures you shared… even if it’s long after you have had to cut short the exercise (for me usually, my watch tells me I can stop the shogging).

Throughout the whole exercise, I find myself saying a heartfelt “thank you”.  Thank you for making me the person I am today. Without you entering my life at that time, in that place, with that lesson… I would be a different person.  It’s amazing what malleable clay we are, so molded by the hands of those we’ve spent time with – sometimes by design, but so much more often by sheer “accident of the universe”.  It’s simply amazing.

At this time of Thanksgiving, I’m humbly and profoundly thankful for each and every person who has given me the gift of their presence in my life – for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime.

Including each of you!

Namaste,

M.

Hi Friends!

Funny how time passes, eh?

Yawn! I know, this is a topic more people have ruminated & kibitzed about (yep, had to look up the spelling of that word – thank you Urban Dictionary for the modern use of the yiddish word) than one can count, and I certainty don’t think I have anything novel to add – but, really, it is amazing – isn’t it?   All days simply aren’t created equal, nor are weeks, months or years… and while we seem to have sort of lived a lifetime since the Spring, it’s really just been 6 very, very technicolor months since we landed in the “new life”.  While the 425,600 minutes is consistently our measure of a year, they just feel so different depending on your perspective.

Highly recommend a quick listen to “Seasons of Love” from RENT soundtrack... I’m listening to it right now.

So, one more statement of the timeline for those scoring at home.  While many key steps transpired in Feb & March, the FIRST, REAL & OFFICIAL first day of our new life took place on April 11,2018. The historical plaque will read: on that day the Maven & Magie woke up in their bed at 123 Madison Street – a new house, a new town, and pretty minimal employment to start their new life. (Thank goodness for the Figs!) The Maven signed his final “check out” papers on Monday the 9th, we drove up on Tuesday the 10th, and we woke up on Wednesday the 11th to our brand new world.  It was a big day in the #YearofWeir.  (Might have to resurface the article in which that term was first coined for a future post).

While this funny, imaginary 1/2 anniversary is a topic on my mind this week because I want to recognize it, think about it, and appreciate it – I also want to move on – to the what comes next.

For me, the Fall has really kind of taken me by surprise. I knew that the gears would shift, but I didn’t know in which direction. Very, very happily for the first time in a very long time I discovered that September is kind of awesome.  It looks and feels much like Summer, but everyone is getting back to the business at hand… and my new “business at hand” is horses.  Pinch me!!!  For the record, I’m making a public apology to the month of September for all the many years I openly loathed everything about it.  As with so many things one resents and struggles with – it wasn’t you, it was me – and my perspective!

Trying to sort out why I’ve found the frenzy of the Fall such a surprise, I think I was so focused on making the utmost of the Summer, and since we’d never been here for the Fall, I just didn’t think about it all.  It was clear only in that it would be absolutely, positively not like it used to be in our old life.  And, very, very happily that is totally true. However, now that we’re in it – I definitely imagined it would be longer, slower, quieter and that we’d have a lot more time to do stuff… road trips, apple picking, pumpkins, porch time.. .maybe even a little hike!

Let’s face it, the reason that the Fall we’re living is more frenzied than the Fall I vaguely imagined is… me and my work, and the plans I’ve made to accomplish my goals for the horses.  It’s literally all good (and totally of my own design, for which I’m profoundly grateful), but it’s definitely “a thing”.  Continuing with my mission to meet as many people in my new work community as possible while I can still claim to be the new kid at the TRF, I planned my first trip to kick off pretty shortly after the racing season ended.   I started with an interest in reaching out to our donors in VA and MD, and a goal of seeing more of our farms and meeting more of my colleagues who are caring for the horses in our herd, and it evolved into a 1900 mile, 13 day roadtrip which was filled to the brim with nonstop people – an amazing number of my besties from Philly to Chapel Hill (photos in my last post, continued below) and an incredible array of individuals who are totally dedicated to the horses of the TRF caring for them and supporting the work we do to care for them.  I was totally impressed and inspired – and I learned so much!

At this point in my post, I feel sure I’m droning on.. and not sure which way to go.  I really want to break the “online diary” approach that has become my blogging mainstay, and I aspire to be more reflective with a glimmer of hope that something I’ve experienced may resonate and be helpful in some way to one of my peeps out there patiently following this little experiment.

So, I’m going to just say no to the temptation to share my first TRF Road Trip itinerary, and I will include a bunch of my horsie photos below so you can take your own tour. And, trying to take the less boring fork in the road, I’m going to end with something that at least hints at being thoughtful…

As I met with so many friends along the way of my travels, I caught up with a bunch who didn’t quite know how the whole magical story had come together, since only a rather edited version of the whole process appeared on Facebook.  On the highly curated FB it looked like: A. we put our house on the market, B. we bought a house, C. we sold our house, and D. I landed in my dream job.  So simple! Ha! You know the duck, looking so calm above the water with those little webbed feet madly paddling below the surface? Yea, that was us. While all of those things happened, more or less in that order, there was also a whole lot of “leaping and the net will appear” going on… not to mention the emotional growing pains of uprooting ourselves and extracting ourselves from a life we loved and were very, very entrenched in.

Anyhow, here’s the thoughtful bit... as I found myself telling the “whole story” to a bunch of friends during my trip, I heard this exchange happen a couple times :

• Friend asks “but really, how did you do it?  how did this all happen?”
• Magpie answers “we just listened to what we knew.”  (Honestly, I was as surprised as anyone to hear that come out of my mouth.)

And yes, I think that’s really it.  We simply, totally and absolutely knew we were no longer where we were supposed to be. We knew a change – a big change – was what we needed.  There were absolutely a zillion things we didn’t know, but we focused on what we did… and I guess that made all the difference.

For now, I’ll sign off at the end of this very long rambling post (Game of Thrones beckons.. .and yes, Winter IS Coming) to say this:

Listen to what you know.  Don’t try to un-know what you know.

Them’s my 2 cents.

Happy Pumpkin Season – next post will likely to be coming at you from the Bluegrass State!

XXOO

M

Hi Friends!

It’s a Monday that feels like a Sunday here in Saratoga, thanks to the unexpected gift of the Columbus Day Holiday day off from the office. Grey, misty, in the 50s and my first day wearing the Uggs & turning on the fireplace – surely a few things I’ll lose count of soon.

While I know you must be thinking “no, really, girl puh-leeze – not another first!”… and so am I, but still, there is a subtle and strong sense of something new in the air since I returned from my terrific TRF road trip to VA & MD. (Photos Part 1 below)  Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that this felt like  the first time I came home to the new life – especially coming back to routine, real life with work and the house in place (Hawaii was fabulous, but after 3 weeks of work, and just over a month in the new house – it had a distinctly different feeling).  It just sort of suddenly, feels normal to be here – and this, in its own way, is new.

It strike me that this is when I really need to make some commitments to the things I so dreamed of when we envisioned this new life, because even with the much calmer, quieter pace of life – it’s still powerfully easy to not do things.  All Spring and Summer there were happy distractions to use as excuses, and then my road trip – the schedule was different from day to day, friends & family to spend time with, the intense FOMO of the racing season in my new role.  No regrets, in fact, I’m weirdly proud of sticking to the priority of being in the moment and making the most of it all.  However, we are distinctly shifting gears now – with Fall upon us, and Winter is Coming (and yes, I’m going to start watching Game of Thrones… so I’ll eventually understand the second meaning of that phrase).  So, it’s time to set some intentions and remember that great quote given to me by the Maven:

“Discipline is remembering what you really want”

So, I guess I better figure out what I really want. 🙂

One of the things that seemed so clear to me in the old life was the lack of “white space” in my life, by which I meant a combination of unstructured, unscheduled time and time to do things alone, quietly and thoughtfully.   From time to time I’d find a rare window – a delicious days when I could just stay in the house, all day, with the cats and a book and read it from cover to cover.  Those were wonderful days, but in 10 years at 301 S. Henry Street my guess is that there were less than 10 of them. More often, I’d find myself frittering a few hours away when I’d run up upon a free morning or afternoon caught between wanting to do nothing, and knowing I had so many things I should do, and then not really doing anything or nothing. It was a weird sort of paralysis because I was so wired to do, do, do, and always be doing… I couldn’t shift gears quickly.  I’ve heard people talk about that adrenal failure or exhaustion, and I think I kind of had my own version… I just couldn’t do nothing very well, and I missed it.

So now we’re here where the days are longer and the challenge is how to make the most of each of them. For the record it’s a fact, not just a feeling, that the days are longer here and the simple reason is: there is no traffic. Simple. Crazy. True.  When I think about the time spent in the car over the past 10+  years, it’s just staggering and kind of nauseating. Not that there’s anything remotely interesting about my writing about the impact on schedules & lifestyle of the traffic in/around DC. It’s mind-numbing and I’m 100% certain that you’ll hate me if I do. I bring it up more because I am aware of it, and the incredible gift of all that previously spent time getting places.  It’s a huge opportunity and responsibility – to repurpose all that “found time” and not squander it.

Perhaps there’s something in here for all of us, even without the massive change of town/house/job/life, to set those intentions and find and make time for the things that matter.  As the Maven always says (thanks to his chief all those years ago)… “you always have a choice.”.

In my case, I have a choice AND time, and that’s a big responsibility.  So, I’m thinking about it a lot and trying to remember all that I wished for when this reality was still a dream.  A few things, simple as they were included:

• More time to read (just this weekend, I sat for my first full hour to read… in eons)
• Meditating (happily, I think this one new habit has set – thank you Headspace)
• More regular running &/or yoga
• More time with B
• More time at home
• Keeping in better touch with family
• Less scheduling – fewer nights out
• Being more timely with thank yous
• Be more engaged and participatory in policy (via politics0

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s one I want to pay attention to because now, as we quickly slip on the comfy pants and fleeces, it’s “go time” on setting up those new habits which I’ll be able to practice throughout the Fall and Winter. If not now….? And, if I practice them over the cold months, my guess is that they won’t be so easy to “let go” when Spring & Summer return.

For those of you kindly following along, the schoolteacher in me can’t help asking – what are those things you wish for in your current life?  what are you  missing? what do you want to prioritize?  Maybe make a list – and we can review them together from time to time.

Like that old annoying saying says “there is no lack of time, there is simply a lack of priorities” (or something like that).  We all have time, it’s just totally up to us what to do with it.

Wishing the best, most happy & healthy use of your days ahead!

XXOO

M.

Photos (part 1) of the VA & MD Road Trip:

Hi Friends!

Two weeks ago today, when I wrote this, it was a spectacularly beautiful Sunday afternoon on the front porch at Casa Weir and my sense of the change of the Seasons was acute, Fall was in the air and it seemed a good time to change gears. Today, I’m sitting in the lovely living room of a dear friend in the Richmond at the tail end of a wonderful road trip – heading homeward to Saratoga tomorrow.  I’ve been thinking about sharing this and going “public” with my baby blog throughout this journey.  Perhaps it’s just perfectly fitting that I do so today, on the last day of September – the end of the first 6 months of our adventure in Saratoga, with the perspective of my travels over the past 10+ days.

Since I started & wrote most of this post two weeks ago, I’ve covered a lot of ground and look forward to sharing all of that over coming days.  But for today, I think I’m just going to “go for it” and share this post – which I’ll post on FB (gulp!) and make this little exercise/experiment available to all who might possibly care to follow along.

My goals for this “going public” edition of the Maven and Magpie blog has two specific goals:

1. Testing the Technology: To see if my newly installed widget to allow those who want to receive  notifications when I make a new post to receive an email, actually works.  Happily, my two wonderful guinea pigs confirmed that the new “subscribe here” button works.  Thank you Megerly & Padre!  So, if you are inclined to follow our adventure, please consider signing up.   Admittedly, I much prefer the interface & presentation available if you sign up to follow through wordpress (download the app, set up an account, then follow) – this also means you can comment, but if you’re not much of a wordpress person or not inspired to set up an account, the button should work just fine.

Or, just visit the URL anytime – there’s a little more there than the blog there (and big plans for more), including a list of all our “faves” (mostly foodie spots) in the cities where we’ve traveled: www.mavenandmagpie.blog

Hoping it does work, those of you who have asked or who might be interested can now sign up in that orange box in the lower right corner of  the page to receive an email when I post something new (you will have to validate your subscription via a link that will go to your email). My goal has been once a week – and I’m usually way over or way under.

2. Setting the Stage: I am delighted to welcome some new friends & family to the world of Maven and Magpie  (B is the Maven, K is the Magpie), what I fondly call my “baby blog” where I’ve been capturing my thoughts along the way of this journey that the Maven and I have been traveling over the past year+ (almost two).  This is the “rest of the story” beyond the highlights shared intermittently via FB and Insta.  My guess is that this is likely to be the first post for a bunch of folks who may have been wondering “where did they go?” “did they retire?” or “what’s up with all the horse photos on facebook?“.

If you’re taking at look at this little hobby-project for the first time, welcome!  If you’ve been along for the ride since I started these ramblings – my apologies for a bit of a recap.

So… welcome to Maven and Magpie, the story of our adventure in creating a brand new life and (yes, I know this sounds cheesy) living our dream in Saratoga Springs, NY.

How did we get here? 

I shudder to think of anyone jumping in at this point to read all of my writing since I started the baby blog (first post was from the car in December, driving to the Hamptons for Christmas as we were trying to get a signed contract to buy the house we now live in), but heck – I guess that’s what they are there for should you suffer from insomnia. Enjoy! Ha!

Truly, I think those old posts are really there for the Maven and I to have as a reference (basically an online diary) for that day in the future when we wake up and this all seems to have suddenly become “normal”… perish the thought! I just wanted to capture how it happened, what it felt like and what we did/felt/thought/encountered along the way so that hindsight wouldn’t dull the edges of our always-dodgy memories.  Primarly, the blog was written for me, and only me, ten for anyone but me, as an outlet to capture my thoughts and feeling along the way.  Secondarily, it was written for the audience of close friends & family who were following along with the step by step of our move, with hopes that it kept those who might care for all the gory details fully up to speed with the bumpy road we traveled to extract ourselves from our deeply-rooted lives in Virginia to plant ourselves in the town we’d fallen in love with over 20 years of summer & assorted vacations.

Certainly the transition to our new life has been a process – like watching a seed take root and grow over time.  The seeds were planted over those many years of long weekends at the Spa from 1999 to 2010 +/-. Then, the shoot really started to grow the summer we first rented our beloved house on East Ave, four blocks from the track with a wonderful screened in porch and room for our friends & family.  Having a place to call “home away from home” absolutely accelerated our ability to envision living here… and made returning home to Virginia harder and harder each year (as many of you know well – having suffered through our whining re-entrer blues). Then, on New Year’s Day 2017, we woke up and decided it was time to stop just talking the talk and to start making it happen.  That moment, for me, was very much the “if not now, when? if not us, who?” moment… and we haven’t looked back (too many times) since.  I actually think I have photos of that fateful day – I may need to chase them down and add them to this post at some point.

So, now what’s left to talk about?  Good question!

As I wrote in my last post, I think we’re now entering the 3rd-ish chapter of this story: 1st was the move process; 2nd was the getting settled (plus the fun-frenzy of our first full summer); and now, 3rd, we figure out what real-life looks like and focus on achieving the finer points of the dream.

Way back when my BFF Megerly suggested a blog to me, while we  were walking along a forest path in Burgundy (I have great photos from there too), we discussed the idea of the “lifestyle blog” – a mashup of horses, racing, food, drink, travel – all the things that the Maven & Magpie most enjoy.  Be sure to check out our “Faves” page for our growing list of food & drink we love. While that concept sounded good in France, my reality over the unsuing months has been much more of a “making dreams a reality” story. Looking ahead, I also want to use this teeny platform to share my views on the racing industry – specifically the broad arena of Thoroughbred Aftercare.  And, I also think it’s fun to introduce friends to my view of the racing industry and the amazing mosaic it is.  As we continue down this road, I imagine I’ll find myself navigating between these various themes and often blending them. We’ll see!

Honestly, I don’ t know where this will go or what this will be. Acknowledging this gives me freedom from worrying about breaking promises, failing to achieve goals or worrying about not meeting expectations (spoiler alert: this is actually my greatest fear in life).  I just feel that writing is something I’ve always enjoyed and that I want to find a way to do more of it in this new adventure.  I even have a big ghost-writing project in mind… perhaps you’ll hear more about that.

So, having made no promises – I’ll tell you no lies.  🙂 I’m a sharer by nature (Captain Obvious reporting for duty), so I’m really very glad you’re here.  🙂 I have a lot more to say than even my excessive over-posting on FB and Insta allows me to convey and I’m doing my best to squeeze every drop of life out of this technicolor adventure.  I do like to document the journey – in words and photos, and it would be fun for me to have you follow along.   The more the merrier! 

Without any pressure, please know that I’d love for you to subscribe and follow the journey of the Maven and Magpie with hopes you find something that makes you smile, possibly chuckle, likely shake your head… and maybe, just maybe, consider the mantra we’ve lived by this year (thank you Maggie Stauffer):

“Leap, and the net will appear”. – Zen proverb

XXOO & Namaste,

M.

P.S. I’ll often include a bunch of photos with each post!  Many also available on Insta #mavenandmagpie. These below were from my Saturday AM in Old Town last weekend.

Hi Friends!

Making the most of a delightfully unstructured weekend to do a bit of writing, and it dawned on me at some point this week that we might suddenly be running up on the anniversary of a few key milestones that happened last  year in September.

For folks with any interest in the timeline of our journey, I think I tried to capture the 18 month “blow by blow” in an earlier post (link here), but for the sake of this specific milestone- the critical steps in our journey to this new life (aka the hard ones) all pretty much happened in September and October last year.  From telling my dear friend, boss  and trench-mate that we were putting the house on the market (a day I’ll never forget…) to watching the for sale sign go up in front of 301 S. Henry.  We had a lot of big days in September and October 2017, but it’s fun to look back and see the evidence of one of those days – the day I sent my letter of introduction to John Roche, CEO of the TRF.

It all started with some heartfelt words on a blank page.

For all the heartache, hand-wringing and projecting we did to get ourselves extracted from our old life, it’s kind of funny that both Bobby and I started down the path to here with a letter to one individual person who had only the foggiest of notions who we were… and for both of us, those single letters of introduction resulted in our current jobs.  We basically took aim at the bullseye of two seemingly impossibly unavailable and insanely specific targets, launched our arrows… and hoped, prayed & dreamed – and the universe totally did the rest.

On September 21, 2017 I signed, sealed and mailed this letter to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation:

Hi Friends!

Racing the clock, as always, as I try to capture two very special snippets of today so that I don’t lose them along the way. (And admittedly, I am finishing and posting this a few days later).  These two little tidbits are examples of why we made this move, and they are also two things that I hope (and trust) will happen many more times over the days ahead… so today I just wanted to mark them as “the firsts”.

Tidbit 1 – meeting a new friend for lunch.

While we treasure, cherish and have no intention of losing or replacing any of our amazing friends from our old life (and we so appreciate all of those who are making the effort to keep in touch and visit) – this new adventure includes the opportunity for both the Maven and the Magpie to make new friends, in a new community, based on different factors – new jobs, a new neighborhood, more time, a closer connection between who we are and what we love and what we do.  It’s just a whole new context within which to make new friends and build new friendships – with the great luxury of more time, a smaller town and a closer connection through more shared experiences (and a heavy dose of horses!). My expectation (we’ll see if true) is that it be less likelye for one of us to have a friend that is not also a friend of the other and/or we’ll have more couple-friends.. because we’re spending so much more time together.  Anyhoo, without wanting to jinx what seemed like the start of a fun, joyful and wonderful new friendship (officially my 2nd new friend in Saratoga, outside of work), I just want to say what a treat it was to do the following:

• I met this woman at one of our TRF events a couple weeks ago, we had a lovely chat, learned that she was just moving to Saratoga after spending lots of time here, exchanged numbers….
• I then texted photos of this woman and her family, and suggested we meet for lunch one day
• She enthusiastically accepted, we set a date for today at 12:30 at Scallions
• And, today, we sat at 12:30 and finished after 2pm!  Much fun!!! (And Ellen, I tried very hard not to tell her my entire life story… but I came pretty close)
• We covered a lot of ground, and felt like there was much more to explore, and she specifically said how happy she was to now live in a place where someone would reach out and ask her to lunch – and I feel the same way!
• Yay!

Tidbit #2 – my job is to ask for money for the horses, and today I asked for money!

Lest you grow concerned, this is not the first time that I’ve discussed the ask and addressed the numbers I’m looking for (I had two very good prospect meetings after my Chenery brunch),  and this week I started putting “renewal” asks in letters to those on my LYBNT list (just learned that acronym.. love it and it’s cousin SYBNT).  However the special thing today was that this one happened by phone with next to no “chit chat”.

In sum, here’s this first – which I trust will be like my walks around the State Park, one of these things I need to count or put a dollar in the jar for every time…

• I made a call to a past donor, she answered her phone (rare!)
• She didn’t dodge me when I told her who I was
• I tried to engage in convo (with mild success),
• She told me she didn’t have a lot of time, so I leaned in with
• “I just have 2 points to share: I’ll be coming to CA in January and I’d like to meet with you and, based on your generous support last year we hope we might count on your continued support at this level in 2018”. Boom.
• She said, “as long as you put something in the mail to me, I’ll probably be able to do that” – not the most smashing win, but a direct answer to a direct question.
• And yes, the letter with the ask went in the mail within minutes of the call.
• I’ll keep you posted!

And just like that, we move forward into the next chapter.  If this were a book, I’d say this is Chapter 3.  First was the move (March-April). Second was the setting up our new life (May-July). Not sure what to do with the Summer, still part of the “new-ness” I think as there were so many new people, routines, experiences with being here the whole summer. And now, Chapter 3 is this settling in, getting in a groove.  While we are going to continue pursuing firsts – with so many places to explore in the region and all of the new seasonal experiences (apples! pumpkins! winterizing!), this is more the deep breath, get comfortable, and make this our home… less of an exploration and more of a destination.

We couldn’t be happier – and I so appreciate sharing the journey with you.

XXOO

M.

An assortment of fun photos since Labor Day – scenes of the “life after the racing meet is over”.

 

Hello Friends!

Another first – our first Sunday night at home, with Fall in the air and football on TV.  We are so excited!

Nothing like a little travel to add some punctuation to the end of one chapter – the 1st Summer in Saratoga, and the start of the next – our first Fall in our upstate NY home.  We took the Megabus to NYC on Thursday night and had a really fun, restful, change of scenery version of the reset button – with a much craved dose of super spicy chinese food at Xi’an Famous Foods and an awesome meal at our designated “special treat” foodie experience at The Bar at Ko (by David Cheng) – adding both immediately to our faves list   We so enjoyed the change of scenery, the yummy food, the time with family, and for me, a more needed than I realized break from nonstop running. I found myself completely out of gas on Saturday, and after sleeping 12+ hours Saturday night, I still slept the whole way home on the bus this afternoon.

It was such fun to drive home from the train station (where the bus picked us up and dropped us off), and realize… once again – we still live here!  And, now, with racing season behind us… we really get to begin to explore our new home, establish a new routine and find new favorite haunts. It’s another beginning!

With that in mind, we jumped right in to trying a place on “our list”.  We have at least 5:  we each have a list we’ve been building in Yelp, I have one wunderlist of “Capital Region to Explore”, we have a Happy Hour list, and we have a Pizza list…we love lists!  As we wandered homeward, we decided to drop in on the Ripe Tomato, which was on each of our lists… and lo and behold, we entered through the Tap Room entrance to find the all day Happy Hour in effect at the bar… I think we rolled in about 3:30.  Yay!

Without boring you with the what we ate and drank (oh, there will be plenty of this over the days ahead), the fun thing was to get home to our quiet, grey home and find a mashup of symbols… our first three tomatoes ready to pop off the vine – see photo of super crazy volunteer tomato plant below; and a cool breeze in the air… a huge contrast to last Sunday, when the racing meet was still going.  Super quiet, but just lovely.  Our kitties were super happy to see us – and Bobby was in his “comfy clothes” in no time, ready to watch the Redskins from our couch while I put on leggings and fleece to head out for a walk around the State Park.  I’m considering putting a dollar in a box every time I do that loop… as it seems like one of those things I’ll do more times than I can imagine over the years ahead.  I can only hope!

As I walked, I found my thoughts swirling around all the things I can’t wait to do at work this week, this month and over the coming weeks . So very grateful for the feeling of excitement, anticipation, creativity, and positive energy I feel about my work… and the incredible opportunity to apply myself whole heartedly to something I am so passionate about.  Meanwhile, I started thinking about all the new habits I want to add into this next chapter.   It’s about to be the perfect season for jogging, and I foresee 5ks many weekends ahead – I’m signed up for one on 9/22 in VA, and I know there’s one here on 10/13, and I just noted one next Saturday 9/16.  Good stuff!  I’m also feeling alot of achi-ness, and I’m aware of how long it’s been since I did any stretching – having taken a hiatus from yoga since the end of March.  I’m looking at the classes available on Sat & Sun AM at the Museum of Dance while planning to find a class on TV or on a DVD which I can do in the basement this winter. Meanwhile I certainly could start a simple routine of my favorite poses in the living room, if I set my mind to it… I could put a routine together, be my own teacher.  I’m also thinking about all the thank you notes I’m overdue to send… determined to catch up and get more timely with these over the months ahead.  And looking forward to spending more time writing – notes related to work, letters related to work, diving into more thoughtful topics here in the blog… and hopefully tackling a bigger project too.  More on that later, but it’s exciting to put a plan together for a winter writing adventure.  Plus, I want to knit, I want to read, and I want to catch up with folks on the phone.   So much to do – and fortunately, the time and the place available to do it all.  So grateful!

Meanwhile, as our center of gravity now switches from all the summer activities toward the Fall – more homey-ness, more new restaurants and day trips, and also our upcoming travels:  MD/VA in Sept, KY in Oct, NY in Nov, CA in Dec and hopefully New Orleans in Jan, and maybe Florida in Feb, I want to not move too quickly away from the summer without spending a bit of time giving thanks for all of the beloved friends and family who added their love and laughter to our first Summer in Saratoga.  It was a whirlwind, and we loved every minute of our time with dear ones in the house, on the porch and making this new house feel like a home.   I truly hope that everyone felt warmly welcomed!   I had done a tally in my last post about the total of heads that had rested in Casa Weir, but I also want to say a special thank you to each person who came to stay with us over the course of the Spring & Summer.  We thank you for the joy that you each brought to our lives here.

In first five months at 123 Madison, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to have so many of the people who mean so much to us travel – my train, plane and automobile – to spend time with us.  Tonight, before I sign off, I want to thank each one (and many photos below).

A recap of overnight guests to date (March – August), thank you!

1. Marilyn – March, Bobby’s mom, our first overnight guest, just days after the furniture arrived!
2.  Adam & Alyssa  (2)- May
3. Shana & Kathy (2) – May
4. Auntie Sue – June
5. Dinks – June
6. Anne & Kendra (2) – June
7. Rebecca – July
8. Scarboroughs (4) – July
9. Padre & Linda – July
10. Alpersteins (4) – July
11. Dallas & Sack & Augie (3) – August
12. Melanie, Ben and Marilyn (3) – August
13. Dave, Melissa & Hudson (2+) – August
14. Adelmans (5) – August
15. Mike & Michelle and Patrick & Sara (4) – August

And, beyond our wonderful array of houseguests, we also loved the porch-guests who brightened so many of our evenings – from the girls who joined in the Doobie brothers, to Maura who helped me “break in” the new porch furniture one marathon Happy Hour Friday, to Robert our new friend and plant-whisperer, to our many racing fan friends who gathered in our cozy gazebo while Bobby grilled Brats in the rain.

We are so happy to be here – and we are so grateful for the opportunity to share this happiness with those who care about us, and those who have made the investment of time, travel and vacation time to share their precious free time with us.   It makes this whole adventure feel more real to have you here with us.  Thanks for bearing witness and adding your sunshine to our summer!

XXOO

M & M