gretchen says

1) My family is the most important thing in my life. I have been married to my husband Dave for 10 years this October, and we have two little girls. Ingrid will be 7 in May and Willa will be 3 in April. I love them the most. My parents live in Maine, too, splitting their time between the house I grew up in in Grand Lake Stream, and spending winters now at Sugarloaf. I have one sister that lives in Golden, CO, and she is getting married this summer, when I will add a brother in law and nephew (his son) to my family.

2) In the last year or so I have started running. I have never considered myself an athlete, and still really don’t, but have learned as an adult that I enjoy pushing my boundaries and stepping out of my comfort zone. Running is a big leap out of my comfort zone, and I am slow and not very graceful, but I feel so good after 3 miles, I don’t care. I am missing my pre-dawn outside runs now that the snow has fallen (I know plenty of people are running outside at that time, but maybe that will be my comfort zone to challenge NEXT winter), and the treadmill just isn’t the same. My goal for 2013 is to run a 10k, and to make 5 miles my default distance. (Right now I run 3 miles 3-4 times a week.)

I have also returned to skiing after a 15 year hiatus. I skiied all the time as a kid, and stopped as a young adult, and now that my oldest daughter loves to ski, I decided it was more fun to ski with her than that just watch her zoom by. Even after 15 years, my body remembered how to ski! (Although my 7 year old is still smoking me on the mountain, and I have to remind her to wait for me!)

3) I am really passionate about making sure that girls and women are given lots of opportunities in life, and not marginalized. An organization I support is Hardy Girls, Healthy Women. The 5k photo here is from a race I have now done twice. I was the biggest fundraiser for this event in 2012, and told my donors if I raised $250, I would wear a sparkly skirt (I am not much of a sparkly-skirt-wearing person) in the race. Now, that is my “official race skirt” and I have worn it in other events, too!

After finishing the Freaky 5k in October

4) I love to read. Lately I have been on a nonfiction kick – I just finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and am reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. I have started using GoodReads to track my reading, and get recommendations from others. I got a new Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas, and Dave thought it was ridiculous that I’d want Yet Another Device, but I love my kindle for being JUST an e-reader. When I read on my iPad or iPhone, I am constantly interrupted by email notifications, tweets, game updates, etc. On the Paperwhite, I can just disappear into a book. I also love using Maine InfoNet’s Download library to borrow Kindle books for free. I also love listening to podcasts, usually when I am at the gym or running. My favorite podcast is This American Life, and the Moth Podcast is a close second.

5) I love to travel, even though it’s slowed down now that I have little kids. In my twenties, I drove cross country 3 different times, and spent a month in Australia backpacking on my own. In November, I took Ingrid with me to a conference in Denver, where my sister lives, and traveling with a bigger little kid was great. It made me look forward to taking my children on adventures as they get older. We visited with Kate and also spent time learning at the zoo, science museum, and other venues. Ingrid also had saved her money for months to buy an American Girl Doll, which was one of the highlights of her trip.