{snowy suburban wonderland}

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As dangerous as this snow is for drivers, it's undeniable that it's absolutely gorgeous. The result: this series of photos of my neighborhood. I had a lot of fun walking around and taking these photos, despite the fact that I fell on my ass and almost slipped countless amounts of times. I'm still trying to figure out the ins and outs of my new camera, so hopefully my photos will get better with some time. Cheeers, and stay warm everyone! Looking forward to the sun this weekend.

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{chalky butts and bbq}

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{Playing around with different ways of uploading photos!}

Last Saturday was quite an adventure! After seeing my friend's Instagram photo of her rock climbing at Brooklyn Boulders, I decided it was time to trek into Brooklyn to finally try my hand at rock climbing.

Tl;dr, I figured a double date would be fun for this experience, so Christina, Weng, Kevin and I met up for a fun morning filled with freak-outs from the top of the wall (me, all me, with videos too) and imprinting hand marks on each other with chalk. Weng and Kevin climbed the walls like little monkeys while Christina and I sat down and watched them sweat. About two hours later and after our arms gave out, we ventured out to Fletcher's BBQ for brunch. There we encountered an extremely friendly staff and stuffed ourselves with delicious food. We peeked into the Morbid Anatomy Museum (chock full of taxidermy and more), and finally headed to our final stop: ICE CREAM. Van Leeuwen's was a delicious treat, and as an added bonus, they carry Doughnut Plant doughnuts on the weekends! It was definitely a tiring but enjoyable morning spent with three of my favorite people.

I'm happy that I was able to challenge myself with both bouldering and climbing the auto-belayed walls. While I can pack a mean punch at times, my upper body strength is seriously lacking. I managed to reach the top of one bouldering wall and one auto-belayed wall, a huge accomplishment for my out-of-shape body. With that being said, little girls were crawling those auto-beylayed walls like it was their job, nimbly and easily reaching the top. I ended up failing the second auto-belayed wall, but I'll definitely be back to conquer it sometime in the near future. Put me in coach. I'll be ready... eventually.

Brooklyn Boulders also has locations in Chicago and Somerville as well, so if you're nearby, it's definitely a spot worth checking out if you want to challenge yourself!

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{spring snow showers}

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March certainly crept up on me because I didn't even notice February fly by! The short month was filled with countless amounts of heartwarming moments, from meeting the lovely Minnie Kim to a fun double date with my favorite couple {post to come soon}. But these wonderful moments are not without their bad days. We all have our fair share of discouragement, but it's important to keep moving forward and to not let these setbacks knock you down. Power through this month with whatever your goals may be and use that energy to encourage yourself. It's also okay to ask for the support of others, whether it's a friend, mentor, or better yet, your own family members. I hope this quote encourages you the same way it did for me. Never let the bad days get to you. Choke 'em down!

“This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. “Oh, it’s just a couple little innocent bad days.” Well, we had a big rain. I don’t know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke ‘em down to nothin’. They’re your days. Choke ‘em!”
— Tom Waits