life lessons


  • Quandary Peak Hike: My First 14er

    Quandary Peak Hike: My First 14er

    There are pivotal firsts in everyone’s life – many that we share, like a first home, first child, first funeral. And then there are the firsts that are less common, and maybe even unexpected, like my first 14er (14,000+ foot mountain) in September of 2017. I had no idea what I was getting into when…


  • Embracing the ugly stage of the creative process

    Embracing the ugly stage of the creative process

    The creative process contains the space in between the start of a portrait painting and the finished piece that is filled with discomfort, frustration, impatience, and skepticism. While the initial concept and sketch is all optimistic energy and possibility, the next stages of the painting process are the start of the ugly part: the base…


  • The pursuit of happiness

    Trying to sell our house may well be one of the most uncomfortable situations we’ve ever chosen to put ourselves through. We just never expected it to be this hard with the way this market has been and with the amount of work we’ve done to update this home. We are not naive to real estate…