New Beginnings: Dusting Off the Blog and Embracing 2026

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Why I Went Quiet

It’s been over a year since I last sat down to write here. If you’ve ever maintained a blog, you know how it goes — life picks up speed, the days blur together, and suddenly that thing you loved doing quietly slips off the priority list. It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop. There was no dramatic moment. I just… didn’t open the editor one week, and then another, and then months had passed.

The truth is, the end of 2024 was a whirlwind. Between travel, work, and the holidays, I told myself I’d get back to it in January. Then January became March, March became summer, and before I knew it, an entire year had gone by. I’d think about writing occasionally — usually on a morning walk or over a glass of wine — but the activation energy to actually sit down and do it felt enormous.

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What Pulled Me Back

A few things converged to bring me back to the keyboard this February.

First, I was scrolling through my old posts the other night — the Napa trip with Alex and Paige, wandering around San Francisco, that incredible drive down to Paso Robles — and I realized how much I’d already forgotten. Details that felt so vivid at the time had faded. The posts I did write preserved those moments in a way that nothing else could. The posts I didn’t write? Those memories are just… gone. That stung a little.

Second, Jason and I have been talking a lot lately about being more intentional with our time. It’s easy to let the days wash over you, especially when routines are comfortable. Writing forces me to pay attention, to notice things worth noticing. It’s a form of mindfulness that I didn’t fully appreciate until I lost it.

And third — honestly — I just missed it. I missed the rhythm of organizing my thoughts, the satisfaction of finding the right word, the quiet pleasure of hitting publish and knowing that a little piece of my experience is out there in the world.

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What’s Changed Since December 2024

A lot and not much, depending on how you look at it. We’re still in San Francisco, still loving it. The city continues to evolve in interesting ways — there are new restaurants to try, new trails I’ve discovered in the Marin Headlands, and the tech scene feels like it’s in yet another reinvention cycle.

I’ve gotten more serious about cooking at home. Jason and I have been doing a Sunday meal prep ritual that’s become one of my favorite parts of the week. There’s something deeply satisfying about spending a few hours in the kitchen with good music playing, building out meals for the days ahead. I’ll probably write about some of our favorites soon.

Fitness-wise, I’ve shifted from pure cardio to a mix of strength training and long walks. My morning walks have gotten longer — sometimes two hours — and they’ve become less about exercise and more about thinking time. Some of my best ideas happen somewhere around mile three.

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What to Expect From Here

I’m not going to make grand promises about posting schedules. That’s a recipe for guilt, and guilt is the enemy of creative habits. What I will say is that I have a backlog of experiences from the past year that deserve to be written about, and I have a renewed appetite for doing the writing.

Expect more of what you’ve seen before — travel stories, food and wine adventures, reflections on life and mental health, the occasional deep dive into something that’s caught my attention. I might experiment with some shorter-form posts too. Not everything needs to be a 2,000-word essay. Sometimes a few paragraphs and a good photo are enough.

For now, I’m just glad to be back. The cursor is blinking, the coffee is hot, and the fog is rolling in over the bridge outside my window. Feels like a good place to start again.

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Here’s to new beginnings — and to not letting another year slip by unwritten.