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 ...

OMG. Look at this glow up! (left: before; right: after) This tight space used to be our family room, and man did we squeeze all we could out of it. The size of this room, and everything we wanted out of our home, kick started the whole construction project. I got so many questions about what this space would become once it wasn't the family room. There's a beautiful gas fireplace in the middle of it. It couldn't just be a hallway. It's no hallway. It's the hearth room*! (*overly fancy name listed on our construction blueprints). The room that didn't seem like it would make sense fits in just fine. It's right between the action--kitchen in the back so I could somewhat monitor the oven, and right next to the great room. Better yet, it's steps away from a little coffee bar we made.  This is so cozy. This is where you can find me when I'm afforded my standard 4 minutes of no-one-needs-me, sit down time ( unless I'm crazy over stimulated then I'm...

We had an epic family holiday baking party today. For record keeping, here’s how the day broke down by the numbers: 4ish hours of baking 7 recipes 1 not done yet because oops I forgot Auntie Rae’s famous strudel dough has to rest overnight in the fridge and my Dad, who is a HUGE fan of this recipe, wouldn’t let me cut corners and freeze it for 20 minutes and call it good 12 sticks of butter 7 cups of various sugars Numerous amounts of chocolate, chopped nuts, butter Crisco which is so gross to work with, and annoyingly just ⅓ cup of molasses so now I have a full jar I’ll never use Basically 2 full hours of dishwashing (shout out to Mom!) 1 foul call where I accused my lovely dishwashing Mom of using too much sweetened condensed milk, but I was wrong, and maybe she’ll forgive me but maybe not 7 cookie plates made for neighbors, bosses and (perhaps the sweetest of all) Lowes paint employees who walked my brother through 99.8% of his extensive condo renovation projects this ye...

C’mon… how is my little guy 5?! Today is A’s 5th birthday. 5 years of joy and laughter with this silly, sweet boy. At 5 A is: … smart . I love when he backseat drivers B saying: “Daddy, put both hands on the wheel, what do you think this is, a aw-tan-ah-mus vee-hic-el?” … silly . He makes up songs, dances, silly names, plays so much imaginative pretend. He really loves to spread joy. … a deep feeler . A good example is when we came upon a sad part of the “Lilo & Stitch” movie and he said tearfully out loud: “this is breaking my heart!” … so able and creative . He’ll construct his own Hot Wheels tracks out of cardboard boxes. He’ll move the bathroom stool around to reach anything he needs–sometimes without concern, although often it’s to make “swimming pools” for his Peppa Pig figurines. … still little . He gets cozy in a newborn-esque fetal position, with his knees tucked under him and his butt in the air. He’s got chubby cheeks, just like me, and a sweet round little ...