2025 - A Review
This year started off pretty rough.
I was on a major project in Miami in January when, in the first week, my house flooded. In the second week, Dad passed away. I was lucky to get on the last flight to Nashville and spend his final hours with him. His health battle was so long and hard fought. I am grateful for peace for him. It was the kind of start that makes the rest of the year feel like it has to be rebuilt from the ground up.
A huge theme of this year was home improvement, both by necessity post-flood and by choice. I replaced the floors and the doors, almost every major appliance and by the end of the year I’ll be finishing a basement renovation that gives me a proper primary suite with a fireplace, ensuite, and a laundry room. (Plug that I have so many rooms to host you in now, and would welcome visitors!) Weirdly I’m most excited about the laundry room because currently the washer/dryer are in the Airbnb.
Speaking of the Airbnb: it’s going really well. The company was incredibly helpful while I dealt with the flood, including helping re-home the guest that was here during it (who found it!) and handling bookings I had to cancel during repairs. I still get emotional when I receive good feedback from a guest. I genuinely love being a small, happy part of someone’s trip.
Work travel, especially to Miami, was another major theme this year. I was glad I could be flexible as I stepped into an interim Head of Product role, and eventually became the only product person at the company until we could rehire. We went through ups and downs, multiple layoffs, and some genuinely hard moments. But Found is ending the year in a strong place, and my coworkers tell me I played a big role in that. I’m proud of that.
Miami is not all work =)
The garden was a huge joy this year. I started most days wandering through my 4 beds with a coffee in hand. And, unlike last year, it was actually productive. My most exciting crop was greasy beans, the kind Granny used to serve and can. I also had great tomatoes, sunflowers, zucchini, zinnias, cucumbers, and herbs. My freezer is now full of tomatoes and pesto!
Bouquet of garden bounties
June included a true bucket-list food moment. I’m a massive fan of Noma in Copenhagen, and I managed to get a reservation that lined up perfectly with my 10-year London Business School reunion. I went to London to see lifelong friends, then to Copenhagen for the meal of a lifetime, and then on to Spain to spend time with more friends.. Along with Noma, I ate at countless great restaurants in Denver and made it to Quintonil in Mexico.
Still single, Olive continues to be my main companion. If she were to write a year in review she’d recount the number of times she ran for Zeebs or the frisbee and would happily report a perfect record of zero escapes! Toward the end of the year, I hired a matchmaker… Consider yourself lucky if you’re not dating in 2025.
The face of zero escapes!
Love is in the air anyways! Mom married her high school sweetheart Alan on her 70th birthday in September. It’s a story for a Nicholas Spark’s book. We had a very fun surprise bachelorette for her and then the wedding was beautiful. Along with Alan, I’m grateful to add his daughter Aimee, her husband Kevin and her son Tristan to my count of family. As a only child, it is so fun to be singing “Sister, Sister” for the first time ever. We are blessed!
Looking ahead, my goals for next year include learning to ski, maybe getting ducks (Olive needs something to protect), continuing to invest in my garden and landscaping, finally hitting a groove of habits like yoga/strength training, and working on some personal projects that could one day be my own company. If I haven’t cornered you yet to talk about Ai, consider this your warning: anything you can dream up, you can probably make within an hour now.
Love you. Thank you for being part of my life this year, in years past, and in the years to come.
—
Alice
ps. I have a bob now
