Happy New Year to all my friends, family, and the other people I’ve somehow tricked into reading this blog. 2019 was a big year for me personally and I’m really proud to have finished out the decade on such a high note.

In the food world I published 30 new posts here and tried 59 new recipes; discovered beet and mint play nicely together, and that coconut cream makes a delightful frozen dessert; took mimosas on a hike and had afternoon tea in the park; picked tons of low-bush blueberries and made sorbet for the first time; doubled down on my love of spicy-sweet combinations and made my own Olivelle menu; and ventured into cocktail making and took a Danish pastry class.

On a personal note I planned a sold-out Women Techmakers summit for International Women’s Day and hosted 5 additional meetups; spoke at a dinner and started publishing articles on LinkedIn; celebrated my 30th birthday and worked on my bucket list; visited Austin and Philadelphia for the first time and finally got to host my Canada friends; picked up over 200 pieces of trash plus Bozeman Clean Up Day; hiked the Juneau Ridge Trail with my dad and went to Norway (and Scotland and Denmark) with my aunt; learned how to do my makeup and got snazzy professional headshots.

And in my first love, fitness, I PRd the Bangtail Divide 38k by 12 minutes and the Bridger Ridge Run by an hour and a half; survived the Loch Ness Marathon and helped my best friend run her first half; PR’d my squat, deadlift, and bench, and made progress towards a pull-up; ran 535 miles with 126 race miles, commuted 837 miles and moved 1738 miles for the year; ran on 98 days, biked on 162, and did 5 sun B salutations on 348.

My goals for 2020 are not quite finalized but some for this blog are:

• complete a food photography class
• complete a photo editing class
• try 3 vodka infusions
• post 25 new recipes
• continue my ice cream series
• bake sourdough bread

Although I’m extremely proud of all my accomplishments from last year, there were also multiple times when I felt overwhelmed with doing all the things and found it difficult to appreciate the moments as they happened. I’ve also struggled with my relationship with food and the pressure to maintain consistency in every aspect of my life and feel like I need to take a step back to reset, re-evaluate, and recharge. In light of that, while I check those first two items off my list and plan the 2nd-Annual IWD Summit, I’m going to take a few months off from this blog. I’ll still be active on my Instagram and am likely to post a few easy recipes there, but there won’t be much going on here through March. I hope you will all be understanding of this sabbatical and I’m looking forward to coming back stronger and better in April.

In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (or Facebook, they are cross-posted) and share with me your proud moments of 2019, your goals and intentions for 2020, and any new recipes you’d love to see here later this year.

Happy 2020!

~Lindsey