1/12.
WE GOT HAVASUPAI PERMITS! After a very, very stressful few hours last month, five of my friends and I managed to snag Havasupai hiking permits. We’ll be staying at the reservation’s campground for three nights and exploring Mooney, Beaver and Havasu falls while we’re there. I am BEYOND excited! These are some of the hardest backpacking permits to secure in the states, and after years of my friends and I trying, we are finally making it happen. I actually screamed.
I have been back on my CycleBar bullshit lately. I’m a pretty infrequent CycleBar visitor, but the cold weather has me pushing my workouts indoors, and spin class is a great alternative to those really chilly dark morning runs.
January’s book club meeting was a fun one! In addition to chatting about our latest book (“Davita’s Harp” by Chaim Potok) we also did a white elephant book exchange. I brought a copy of “Piranesi,” which Jenni opened, and I ended up with a copy of “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch (if you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m obsessed) until it was stolen. I think we all laughed since I’m the one who suggested it for our book club. At the end of our book club, we decided to read our way through the white elephant books throughout the year. Definitely a cool way to select our book club picks for the coming months!
I finally got around to trying Gloria’s over on Fourth Street. I ordered some breakfast tacos, which were incredible, but I’m definitely going to have to go back for the pastries because they looked delicious.
One of Ryan’s Christmas gifts was delivered a bit late, but it was worth the wait! I’m obsessed with these custom dog socks from Sockologie, and Ryan loved them too.
I’d been meaning to check out acoustic emo night at Dark Sky’s Atmosphere Kitchen and beer garden, and I finally had an excuse to do that with my friend Claire. The musician, Mike Goodrick, played so many of my favorites. Hearing Coheed and Cambria on an acoustic guitar was a new experience for me, but Claire and I both had a great time.
I finally found a good hairstylist! It’s been five years of searching here in Flagstaff. The first stylist I tried was overpriced and underwhelming, the second stylist was a little too MAGA for me, the third stylist moved… but I finally found an incredible stylist (shout out to Seren Dubel at Roots!) who not only gave me the best haircut I’ve had since I moved here, but was also reasonably priced and an incredibly wonderful person. Seren works out of the Uptown Salon Suites, which was somewhere I hadn’t ever explored. I never knew it existed, and now I’m excited to explore some of the other businesses in the building.
The air fryer meals continued through January! While we were waiting on our kitchen project to finish up, I tried several new things. One of our favorites was halloumi with roasted root vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots and parsnips) in a red pepper-infused honey glaze.
My Brick was delivered! I immediately set it up, bricked my phone, and walked away. It’s been an incredible device for keeping me off my phone and fully rooted in the real world. I’ll write a bit more about this one later as part of my ongoing journey to reduce my screen time.
Somehow, all the audio and lighting systems in the yoga studio failed last week. I was lucky enough to experience the failure midway through my 6 a.m. Tuesday class, which is definitely something I’ve had nightmares about before. While we waited for the sound techs to come fix our system, we brought in some bluetooth speaker, set up some battery-powered candles and improvised. It was actually kind of nice!
Ochi and I have been exploring some of the trails around our new house on evenings after work. We haven’t had a lot of snow lately, but we have had awesome sunsets. We really loved our routine trail loop by our old apartment — the McMillan Mesa — and are looking forward to eventually getting into a routine out here in Foxglenn.
I spent a Saturday earlier this month thrifting with my friend Mackenzie — now that Ryan and I will have a dedicated library, I’m really into the idea of collecting physical media. I checked out the CD collection and found this album, which absolutely thrilled me! I loved The Audition when I was in high school. I didn’t get it because, well, I don’t have a CD player. But, it was a cool find!
