Olive's transition to the big city has been weighing on the hearts and minds of her loved ones. "How's Olive?," our friends, family, and colleagues regularly want to know. So, a quick update on her adjustment must be blog-worthy. In short, Olive is a champ. But, she misses her therapy dog duties--a day filled with purpose, friendly faces and lots of pats, treats from the office next door, and (too much) time in the car. She misses trotting in Forest Park or along any number of trails in wild Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Here in NYC, morning visits to Central Park are good enough, once in a while she gets out of the city for some fresh air and quiet, and she spends most of her time in our apartment, spooning her cat. Needless to say, we both hope to see you in 2016!

Just in case an old friend, a curious colleague, or a former client decides to come around my website to check in, I figured it'd be useful to type an update considering that, at least in my life, 2015 zipped by with the lion's share of change.

A year ago, I was ringing in the new year during a snowstorm in the backcountry of Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the Northern Cascades. On that trip, I skied dozens of fresh tracks while setting a broad intention to shake it up and pursue some personal and professional challenges in the year to come. 
Today, I'm writing this from the other side of the country in the Green Mountains of Vermont, taking a break from my new, wild home in NYC, and grounding myself before the second and final semester of my current studies. As you can infer, change was bold last year, and there's more around the corner.

I've applied to a dozen PhD programs in sociology departments around the country and I expect messages of acceptance or rejection (hopefully more of the former than the latter...does that go without saying?) to arrive in February and March. In the meantime, I'm conducting interviews for my current research, prepping a paper for a conference, looking forward to a meditation retreat in Massachusetts, training to hike down and up the Grand Canyon in the spring, and expecting to graduate in May. Our whereabouts for the second half of 2016 depend on whether or not I get an offer from a sociology program and whether or not it's how I decide to spend the next 5++ years of my life. So, there are extra question marks to life these days, maybe more than I'm comfortable with. It's exciting but disruptive, and I will be relieved to have some clarity and direction.

All this to say: three cheers for 2016! I'm leaning into the challenges of this chosen adventure, finding more questions than answers in my current work, and understanding more about myself through this uncomfortable process, which is probably the whole point, after all. And while so much of my surroundings and just as many of my thoughts are unclear, I'd like to share the small handful of things I know (and because list-making is extremely comforting to me): 

1. I miss my colleagues, my professional community, and my clients. I'm glad for the break, but it's a good (and hard) feeling to miss my work.
2. It is ridiculously humbling and more uncomfortable than I'd imagined to start a new, unfamiliar thing after relative mastery of something else. Yikes.
3. I recognize the full worth of living in NYC and I'm seizing all the moments...
4. but one year is plenty for this gal.
5. I dig sociology and I'm excited to find my way as a multidisciplinary something-or-other.
6. I still don't know what the end-goal is in the longview, and I'm good with that (for now).
7. I wish you and yours wellness, light, peace, and a healthy dose of challenge in the year to come.