LINDSEY
Hello and thanks for checking out my blog! I'm 31 years old and I live with my husband, Jon and our two cats, Dharma and Gizmo in Pittsburgh, PA. I'm an Email Marketing Analyst for Dick's Sporting Goods headquarters full time. When I'm not working I enjoy watching hockey, going to see bands play live and hanging out with friends any chance I get. The other things I enjoy (and the ones I'll be highlighting in my blog) are beverages, food and traveling. Let me break this all down.
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BEVERAGES This is very specific to craft beers and coffee. I took up beer drinking a few years ago after my husband started drinking while he was on a work trip in Sweden. We always thought if we ever began drinking, we would be really into craft beers...and man, were we right. We aren't into the party/bar scene and never really have been, given our age when we first started drinking. To be honest, we mainly just enjoy a casual beer or two at different breweries or at home with each other or a few friends. My favorite beers are sours (but I enjoy a good dessert stout every now and then) and my favorite breweries are Prairie Artisan Ales, Victory, Southern Tier and Troegs - almost all of them are based out of PA. I've come across some great breweries while traveling and I'll post them all to my blog. My interest in coffee peaked when I become close friends with a great barista who knows a LOT about it. I began eating cleaner/healthier shortly after Jon and I got married in 2016, so I slowly weened myself away from the cream and sugar and went straight to drinking my coffee black. I'd drink a small coffee every morning for a while until recently when I noticed I developed a sensitivity to caffeine. It's all about the decaf for me now! I love when coffee shops have many different options for decaf and I absolutely LOVE trying new flavors and combinations.
FOOD My parents were both great bakers, so I picked up the hobby at a young age. My mom and I would bake cookies during Christmas every year. My dad would literally just bake whatever he felt like whenever he felt like it. There would always be some kind of sweets in the house every week...I honestly don't know how I stayed so thin during my teens and young adulthood. Baking pies with him for Thanksgiving was something I always cherished though. We would bake over a dozen different pies just for one day - and they were always completely from scratch. So naturally, pies are my favorite thing to bake, but I also love baking cookies and cakes and whatever other treats I find that sound good. I also enjoy cooking...but not as much as baking. As I've mentioned, I've been trying to live a healthier lifestyle for the past few years and finding and trying out new and healthy recipes is something truly satisfying to me...especially if my husband likes it. I consider myself a 'foodie' because I follow a lot of restaurant accounts on Instagram and I always know what local restaurants are currently serving or promoting. I also just REALLY love food, which makes dieting hard...but a fun challenge!
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TRAVELING I didn't travel much as a kid. We would go to Myrtle Beach, SC every summer for a week, We would go camping often as well. We actually owned a traveling camper and would take it to different camps in PA, Eventually my parents bought a campsite right next to my grandparents at a year-round campground in PA and we would spend most of our summers there. However, there was one trip I took out west when I was 15 years old. It was the National Youth Conference trip back in 2006. A bunch of different church youth groups in the area took a bus trip the whole way from PA to Fort Collins, CO. We stopped in different cities and did a lot of site-seeing on the way out and back. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I knew I wanted to be able to get the chance to travel more when I was out on my own. I had just started dating my husband at the time and he actually never traveled when he was a kid either. His 'vacation' was also camping...and his first time seeing the ocean was when he came along with my family to Myrtle Beach the last year we went. I knew after traveling out west I wanted him to experience all the things I did and that I wanted us to experience new places together.
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Here's how all of this comes together for my blog. Before I travel to a new place I look up a bunch of different bakeries, craft breweries, coffee shops and restaurants I really want to try. My decision is basically based on what menu options they have available, their social media/marketing presence, their community involvement, and their overall aesthetic. Visiting these places I find online is one of the main reasons I love traveling. The other one is more obvious...the views and the overall feeling and experience you get in an unfamiliar place.