Dana Burland

New job news: I’m BISSELL’s new Senior Manager of Shopper & Retail Insights! This is a new role on the Consumer Insights team, where I’ll use research and analytics to create shopper-focused strategies to increase our success selling through retailers. I’ll get to present research to retail partners (time to sharpen my mediocre public speaking…), collaborate with tons of new-to-me associates, and lead a new team to support me in it all. This work brings me back to the UX backbone I grew at Steelcase, and serves as another stepping stone in my career growth. Also, I get to move to a desk near windows… coming from a windowless, hyper Vitamin D deficient space, that’s a sunny win. Time to learn all the new things.

Today was the first of three winter YMCA indoor triathlons.  This one was 15 minutes swim, 15 minutes bike, 15 minutes run. I had a clear goal: have fun, and DON'T over do it. I'm so competitive with myself. I want to sprint, leave it all out there, see that I did it better than last time. That's given me a sense of immediate elation but long lasting burn out and injuries. This series of three triathlons I want to be in control, practice a comfortable pace and be able to walk tomorrow. I need to see I'm capable of relaxxxxxing in these races, or frankly I shouldn't sign up for them at all. Anyway. I did just that.  I was steady through the swim, proudly not flinching to keep up with my brother in the lane next to me who pulled ahead at the start. I finished JUST shy of 1,000 yards/40 laps. I relaxed into the bike, keeping my gear around 11 and finishing right at 4 miles.  I found a comfortable pace for the run that just started to tax me at the end. I was pleasantly...

Taking down holiday decorations last week snowballed into a total home clean out. I was wild. I was ruthless. I realized I’d been compulsively buying paper plates and storing them in unique corners of the basement. You know when we use paper plates? Maybe twice a year and also when I draw on 8 of them as paper plate awards for C’s soccer team. Good thing I have 3,000 of them! Clearly I need to get better at monitoring and using what I have. That big time applies to the kitchen. I’ve got a stocked pantry, yet I’m a frequent flier at our grocery store–constantly filling the gaps of what we run out of or suddenly want. For shame! This week I had a craving for homemade soup, a want for granola on my yogurt when we were out, and a need for a dinner side dish hit and I…*groundbreaking I know* used what I had. Here’s what I made, and altered, cooking out of my kitchen: Greek Fries A half bag of frozen Costco gyro meat A half bag of frozen fries Diced cucumber & red onion Fet...

Last but not least in our big home construction project is “tiny bathroom”. This former half bath was our ensuite bathroom. Perhaps the most valuable part of the whole construction project was adding a shower to make this bathroom a full. Ok. It’s still tiny. So tiny it’s hard to photograph. We considered expanding it but didn’t want to cut into other rooms unnecessarily. Before: After: This shower is NICE. It’s the biggest part of the bathroom! I get big time spa vibes in here, AND there’s no basket of plastic bath toys staring at me. I’m real happy with this storage cabinet. It seemed like we’d have to skip that due to space, but I find an opportunity to make this work and I’m so glad. It’s very shallow, but so tall. A great space for extra toiletries. Do you like my gallery wall? I LOVE IT. It’s full of small scale art extra meaningful to me–art from my great aunt, framed cards from grandparents and B, quotes that resonate with me. The wood shelf above the toilet is ...