Dana Burland

We got married a year ago ? Ben always says it doesn’t seem that long and I contrast him by feeling it’s been a few years already. We average each other out. It’s been a happy and adventurous first year of married life. We traveled to Denver , Palm Springs , Chicago , Milwaukee and up north to ski and bike . We attended two other weddings—where I ever so briefly missed planning our own. We befriended a few great local couples who we spend late night weekend time with. We started and have already tackled so much in this year’s yard landscape project. And in true “in sickness and in health” fashion, Ben kept me level headed, and suggested I should see a doctor already, when the weird blisters on my finger were in fact shingles . Yeah, shingles. No wonder I feel older and like many more years have passed. For our anniversary we decided to take a day-trip to a Lake Michigan beach town to explore and relax. Originally our plan was Holland but given the holiday/nice weather we o...

Every year we try to figure out how many times everyone in the group has done the 50-mile Zoo-De-Mack bike ride . So first and foremost, here are the stats: 2016 was… Ben/his parent’s 3rd year my 6th year my brother’s 8th year and my dad’s 10th year Ten years of 50 miles and all he got for the effort were some chocolate chip cookies and beer. I suppose that’s not a bad reward, actually. This year was perfect for biking. The sky was clear and blue, temps held steady in the mid 70’s. Ben and I rode together the whole way—through the first hilly 25 miles and the second 25 where you just. don’t. want. to. be. sitting. on. a. bike. seat. for. one. more. minute. I love doing this ride. It’s certainly not easy, but it’s also not so difficult that you can’t do it—a more accurate statement would be when it gets to feel that difficult you’re too far in to turn back. Along the route we rode through rolling farmland, shady forests, tiny towns with a single room general store, p...

My husband is NOT a morning person—but he is, much to his surprise I think, a fan of a good 5K. We woke up at 5:15 on Saturday morning for the Fifth Third Riverbank Run 5K. I really love this race. It draws a huge (18,000 people) crowd downtown and the air always feels electric with positive racing vibes. Ugh, In my old age it makes me tear up at the starting line. The race is relatively flat, with two hills in the second half of the course. At the bottom of those hills you get an incredible view of an ocean of runners ahead, as wide as the road and as far as you can see. Ugh, now I’m feeling mushy again. Neither of us had a goal but to run the whole thing. And we did. I mostly matched Ben’s pace but pushed him a little to pass an older woman wearing a unicorn horn and glitter tail I spotted in front of us. With about a quarter mile to go, we did, and powered past the finish line strong. Jumping out of bed for a three-mile run doesn’t come naturally to Ben, and I could tell wit...

I joked with a friend recently that I was homeownerwhelmed at the idea of re-growing grass. Homeownerwhelmed —a new word that explains so much. We have a few patches of dirt around our yard from recent cut back projects, a spot where we had a diseased tree removed and from the snow plow man’s plow of a good 10 feet of perfectly good grass from the corner of our yard. So I went to Lowe’s and bought some grass seed. And all their skinny orange reflector sticks to mark our property line. Two weeks ago I laid the seed down. Then it rained and rained and I figured we’d either have amazing new grass soon or grass-less mud piles from all the seed being washed away. We got the latter. Last week I went back to Lowe’s and got more seed and this time more details from the Lowe’s man on how to lay the seed down again. And we did last weekend. Then again it rained. And got cold. And I’m thinking we might never have that new grass sprout up. I wonder if that Lowe’s man can recommend ...

Oh my god... it happened again . I left for my bike/swim/bike training workout at noon. It's beautiful in Grand Rapids today. Sunny and high 60's. I biked through some neighborhoods to get to the local high school pool for my swim. The bike there was uneventful. The swim was uneventful. The bike back was EVENTFUL! As I biked through a neighborhood I noticed a TURKEY. A BIG TURKEY. Five feet away from me. In EAST GRAND RAPIDS. Just walking through some very well off family's yard. I stayed a safe distance away to snap a couple pictures. It's doubtful anyone would believe me, especially since I didn't get a picture of the turkey monster I encountered almost five years ago when I was out in the Pennsylvania countryside for a solo run. Why do I have so many random animal encounters while working out by myself? If this is a sign I need more deep couch sitting inside, I'll take it.

This summer is our summer of landscaping. There are jungles to cut back, perennials to transfer, patches to sprinkle grass seed and an above ambitious project to stone pave our side yard into a patio. I don’t know how to stone pave a patio. Ben doesn’t know how to stone pave a patio. And yet I’m confident by fall we’ll have a stone paved patio. I pitched this project to Ben like I usually do, as if I were throwing a handful of hot spaghetti at the wall. Ben sifted through it all and analyzed what was involved. The side yard fence would need to be straightened. Because it’s worth doing once and doing once right. And the fence should be stained, too. Because it’s worth doing right and doing right and stylishly. So the plan was together to dig around the the fence, straighten it, stain it, and stone pave our side yard into a patio. But after a week or so later when we discussed again, Ben said the project was going to be even more involved. We’d have to tear up the side yard...

A real, real, real nice coincidence of my user experience conference being in D.C. was that my bestest girlfriends could drive down from Pennsylvania to meet me afterward. From Friday night 'til Sunday morning we played all around the D.C./Georgetown area--and it was so great. Saturday morning I got time to sneak in a triathlon training run with Jill along The National Mall. I haven't been able to run with her since Chicago in 2013 and it really felt like the good old days again. Then we shopped and shopped and ate tiny desserts from Dean & DeLuca because we needed to refuel from the shopping. That night we had an amazing dinner at a swanky French restaurant, Le Diplomate . We giggled over wine, weird cheeses and radish slices with salted butter, and got beauty tips from our waitress who had the most perfect eye-lined cat eyes. We stayed until well after dark and after Thai coffees with a shelf of sweetened condensed milk sitting at the bottom. Now all...