January is over; I'm callin' it - 1/12 of 2025 done.

I go into everything with high hopes and low expectations. Now that it's the end of January, I can confidently say that I'm tired and in need of a big win for ALL of us.

Jan 27, 2025

I really want to be positive and sunshiney in all things, but that’s wearing on me already, so we’ll see how this goes. After an amazing trip to Winter Park, CO last week and NYC this week, and no matter how I tried to not get sucked into the sadness of what’s happening, now that I’m back home it’s coming down on me full force. I have been holding out hope that our leaders would safeguard the USA against criminals who openly stated that they cheated, but here we are. Seeing billionaires gesturing in terrifying ways and legal everythings on the chopping block. It’s hard.

It feels weird to share about how amazing the last two weeks was for our family while everything else is starting to go exactly as we had all feared, but that’s what I’m going to do. We keep fighting and keep talking to our neighbors, we keep hope and we keep hoping that our country will not slip into despair, but it’s tiring. With that, I’m just going to share all the wonderfulness that we have had and at the end of this week’s newsletter I’ll share more real talk. Thank you for being patient with me as I figure out my feelings and how to proceed in life.

Our First Family Ski Trip

This week I’ll be publishing the first of my articles about family skiing following our trip to the Winter Park Resort in Colorado. We have cross-country skied once before and Chris and I tried snowboarding once, but this trip was our actual first ski trip. I was really nervous about heading to Winter Park, CO for a few reasons, including that we’re not a ski-family, but mainly I was worried about the elevation following our trip to the Andes of Peru last year.

We spent days and days of our Peru trip suffering from elevation sickness and I lost more than 10 lbs. Machu Picchu is more than 2000 feet lower in elevation than Winter Park Resort, so I was nervous. The highest point of Winter Park was as high as Chinchero, Peru where we all thought that would be the end of us… BUT WE WERE OKAY! In fact, we were better than okay. We used our Peru experience to not suffer in Colorado, including drinking Gatorade non-stop.

Not having grown up skiing, I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, either being on the slopes with kids or even just managing myself in the cold. All of that ended up not being a problem at all. I’m not going to share the whole experience here because it’ll be on the blog this week, but basically with a day of lessons and being wise about where we skied, it was an incredible experience. I don’t know if we’re going to turn into a ski-family or not, but everybody had fun and unanimously we all want to return to Winter Park Resort or wherever we can get on the slopes together.

As a side note, it was great getting messages from people before we did our Winter Park Resort ski trip sharing both their stories and tips. I was stunned how many people came out of the woodwork sharing how they learned to ski there or that they used to work there or were going back for their 5th visit in the coming months. I know there are destinations people return to or are special to them, but I had no idea how much Winter Park figured into my own friend and follower circles. It was great!

NYC with Elliott

In 2024 I brought Oliver (our oldest) with me to my annual New York City trip and we had an awesome time playing tourist and seeing shows. This year I brought Elliott (youngest) and he had a different idea about what he wanted to do. He’s super laidback and just wanted to enjoy New York (very vintage attitude). He did want to do some of the same things that Oliver and I did last year, but also, just to go with the flow. Thank goodness because this was the coldest trip to New York I’ve ever had.

Coldest Day at the Statue of Liberty

The last time we were at the Statue of Liberty, Elliott was four years old and it was so cold that his little shivers made tears that crystalized on his cheeks. Wouldn’t you know it, our visit to Lady Liberty was during that 9 degree F day (below 0 with wind chill) and it was painfully cold. Even though we’d just come from Colorado where it was -28 with wind, this felt much colder. Either way, we still climbed to the Crown of the Statue of Liberty and enjoyed some of the historic sites of Lower Manhattan.

Broadway Shows with Kids

Of course there are the standards like The Lion King or Aladdin on Broadway, but we didn’t see either of those on this trip. We had friends with us so we polled the audience to see what everyone wanted to go to and ended up with an awesome run of shows. PS: Broadway week is THE time to go to NYC. Most shows offer 2-for-1 tickets and discounts, so it’s more affordable to see many of the Broadways standards and new shows.

We went to SIX, Little Shop of Horrors and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Elliott loved each one, but I think SIX was his favorite. At 90 minutes it doesn’t have an intermission, but the show moves along so well and is so high energy that it’s great with older kids. Elliott is 10 and I feel that it was just right for him. There was minimal adult content that he realized and there were tons of jokes and the story was completely digestible for him. And this is my new favorite show (yes, it’s now beat out Wicked for me).

Highlight: Michelle Yeoh at the Empire State Building

One more really cool thing we got to do was hang out with the press at the Empire State Building for an event. I have a friend who works here and he graciously takes us around when we visit to see what’s new and enjoy the coolness of this amazing icon. And on this trip there was another icon there: MICHELLE YEOH.

I have loved her since I first saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and now Elliott knows here from Wicked and he thinks she is the coolest. Last week her new show premiered on Paramount Plus, Star Trek: Section 31, so she was there with the cast and director talking about it. She was great as she spoke about diversity in film and television and how Star Trek has always been at the front of that. I love her.

My Doomsday Sadness

Funny thing: the price of eggs that everyone was so concerned about has gone up. Oh, and so has gas. And soon prescription drug prices. And taxes on normal people. The people that voted for this, I hope it stuns them and they rise up or wake up. It’s what they voted for. They also voted for FOTUS (F stands for Felon) to extend pardons to 1500 people involved with the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Rule of law doesn’t matter it seems. Great.

On the more personal side of things, all the complete a**hats I talked to about Project 2025 and were like “Oh, that’s not his thing; he said it’s not.” and we were all like “Yes it is and look at who he surrounds himself with…” well, here we are with specific actions and executive orders straight outta that playbook. Whaddya know. As I see the people who told me not to worry and that it was all just a way to make him look bad, well, if you knew that it was bad and would make him look bad, that means that now you can see that he IS A BAD PERSON by your own definition.

One of the things that really strikes a chord is the attacks both in speech and EOs dismantling gender equality, transgender rights and protections, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs and more that literally are designed to take opportunity, positions and power away from non-white, non-hetero, non-male people. It’s gross. When somebody’s actions intentionally attack those who are different from them, you know they are actually not acting for the good of all.

There’s a lot more afoot and I’m dreading what’s going to be happening in the coming months. I hope that enough has been done to safeguard our democracy and that enough people wake up soon, but that hope is mostly out the window.

Tips for the Future in the USA

As the government begins to target more people and communities, remember these things:

if you’re being asked about if you know any immigrant or transgender people, no. No, you don’t know anyone. Keep your mouth shut to allow people time to protect themselves from the persecution in store.
if your own health or healthcare is impacted by changing policies and purges, find a doctor who takes their Hippocratic oath seriously.
if you see your friends and neighbors being threatened and treated poorly, including drastic measures that many of us fear, do not keep silent about it. Yes, there is safety in silence… and often silence is complicity.

As I think about how things could unravel, I do have fear for my family. I do fear that the worst-case scenarios of Project 2025 could come true (including criminalization of p*rnog*aphy as defined in the project which includes LGBTQ discussion and topics in the presence of minors). The playbook is there and it’s scary. I’ve seen too many people sit by and not ruffle feathers or think they won’t be impacted. Welp, it’s too late for anyone to keep living that way.

Anyways, sorry to end on such a doomsday note, but that’s what’s occupying my mind now that our wonderful January travels are done. I hope I’m wrong about everything and that FOTUS loses all his influence and power and that actual democracy wins out. I want to remember that people are good, but it’s just slipping from my memory.

Next week will be a much more uplifting and exciting newsletter, I promise! Thank you for coming along on this journey though and supporting people like me who want to use our voices for good where we can. Have a good week, stay healthy, and stay tuned for happiness in the future!