This is a cross-post from my Substack “Little Drops of Happiness” — go there to get the full post with all the pictures, and subscribe there to get notified about new posts by email.

It’s been about 7 months since my last post and life has picked up a new faster cadence. This change sits at the confluence of waning grief, renewed enthusiasm for being out in the world, memories of the pandemic starting to fade, my startup gaining traction, and transformation of key relationships. Hello, hi there, it’s me!

After nearly 20 years and ~500 posts I find myself craving some kind of narrative arc on my blog. I re-read it and remember my life but when enough time passes, it can be difficult to tie things together. I’m an old school blogger, mixing in my personal life we other musings and I like to have a single place where the big life stuff is noted because otherwise I have to look across a lot of different social media accounts. Now that I’m down to just Twitter (still refuse to call it X) and Insta it’s a lot easier because Twitter = text and Insta = pics.

So in order to unblock myself to write smaller posts about more recent events, and keep this in some semblance of chronological order, here are some highlights of life since I last opined on the glorious summertime in the Rocky Mountains.

September ‘23

Nashville for the first time! Exploring with Jonathan and Regan, and driving to Gatlinburg to celebrate another friend’s wedding in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Highlights: an emo sing-along in country bar, snacks from Buc-ee’s, and a day at Dollywood . I loved traveling with the whole Groupthink crew for this one!

Back in Colorado, we headed up into the Rockies to see the fall leaves, grill burgers, ride the UTV, and sit around the bonfire. We were up early for a hike among the Aspens turning orange in Arapaho National Park, and went out on a friend’s boat for its final run of the season.

October ‘23

Montana to see friends for the last of the warm weather! Two hikes, including my first time up “The M” at Bridger Canyon — a 850 ft climb in just over a mile.

Kevin and I had a blast celebrating Jonathan and Regan’s wedding in Las Vegas!

November

The Christmas lights went up at our house before the first snow!

Nuggets basketball season started — and of course I cheered for the Warriors with my gold nails, which ChatGPT designed and my tail tech made real!

First snow, up at Red Rocks with Dagny for my final dry-ish hike of the year.

December

Achieved an angel investing milestone: $1 million of my own money deployed in companies and funds since I started doing deals on my own in 2012.

Hood River for Christmas! The first celebration without Angela was sad at times, but I also found comfort in seeing how resilient kids are. We stayed at Skamania Lodge on the Columbia River Gorge, and wow the Pacific Northwest is pretty.

January ‘24

Stepping into the new year, my cofounder and I made a switch in roles and I moved from CTO to CEO of Groupthink. This decision deserves a much longer post. I spent a lot of time in Arizona working on our roadmap and transition.

Frugality has been on my mind with more international travel and big plans for home improvements on the horizon, and one area I knew we could do better was our monthly food spend. Two people really don’t need to spend $3,000/month between groceries and eating out — even when food is my major hobby.

To save money and improve nutrition, I upped my meal planning and prep game, with daily mis en place in the late afternoon and much more attractive container game for leftovers. I’m re-visiting my whole view on leftovers, and trying to get more green on the plate and experiment with plant-based and vegan recipes.

February ‘24

Hawaii for my annual trip with my parents! My Dad was waiting on a knee surgery (successfully completed with no complications last Friday) so we had a very laid back time in Kauai, and I stayed behind for a few days after everyone else left to write and think and work on my CEO transition in peace.

March ‘24

Celebrated the elopement of friends with a fancy, and I loved my new dress!

Then it was off to San Francisco to hack on an Apple Vision Pro app prototype and catch up with old friends! A packed social scheduled meant reunion meals and drinks at old favorites like Cotogna, Local Kitchen, Burma Love, As Quoted, Coqueta, Shotwell’s, Plow, Senor Sisig, Zuni Cafe and Saison and new spots like Early to Rise, Dalida, Pacific Cocktail Haven, and Copra.

Even “casual” food feels a bit more special. There is a lot of pride in the food culture here, and it shows. In the land of move fast and break things, his perspective on craft, quality, and excellence is refreshing.

Breaking bread, telling the long versions of stories with lots of eye contact, holding space for the anxiety of big news (a birth! a death! an engagement! a divorce! a loss! a breakthrough!) and never quite being the right temperature but dealing with it because you’re just so happy to be here.

The same parts of San Francisco that were gross and dangerous when I moved there in 2009 are still like that. The locals avoid 6th Street (drugs) and Union Square (tourists). It smells like eucalyptus and sounds like parrots in the morning.

Onward!

Lately, I feel like I am unlearning how I use the Internet.

This weekend I deleted all my posts on X (fka Twitter) and removed the app from my phone. This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted a cleanse of this particular channel and I can’t guarantee I won’t be back (though I have managed to stay off Facebook for nearly 2 years now). As the place where I have my largest following, it’s the most tempting to turn back to when I have something I want to get out to the world — particularly when it comes to promoting my startup or portfolio companies. But I’m not sure who I’m really reaching there, or what the quality of that attention is. I’d rather just pay for ads. If that even works anymore. Lately, I’ve found hyper-targeted direct email outreach to be a more effective customer acquisition channel but I’ve been out of the growth game for a hot second while building so I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that in the coming months.

So what am I consuming information-wise?

First and foremost are books, and I remain committed to finishing 100+ per year (tracked on Goodreads) and my habit tracker right now is committed to a minimum of 95 minutes spend reading per day. Thanks to Audible I can easily get this in while doing chores, walking the dogs, working out and gardening and I’m probably reading 3+ hours per day on average. Enough where I actually journaled yesterday that perhaps my habit tracker should function more as a maximum.

There’s something about reading “too much” (I have a hard time really believing that is a thing) where I can get very in my head, a little disconnected from the world — especially if I’m reading fiction with a really compelling world and characters who are in the midst of resolving a conflict. I’ll find myself living in the mood of the book with them until I see it through. I also struggle with this when reading academic non-fiction (I recently slogged through the final 20% of “Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour” just to get in a fresh headspace). Whenever this happens, my strategy of simultaneously reading multiple books is out the window until I’ve resolved my obsession by either finishing the book or abandoning it on purpose. Books that make me feel this way are usually worth finishing, I just have to pour a weekend into them and then have a bit of an emotional hangover.

On the lighter side, when it comes to periodicals I’ve been reading a lot more on Substack, subscribing to randomly interesting publications to see what else the algorithms will bring me. It’s been pleasantly surprising to break beyond my filter bubble (to some extent) and find some weirdos. For now I don’t want to turn this into a highlight list just yet because it makes me worry I’ll become too self-conscious about my exploration, but you can see what I’m subscribed to on my profile if you’re really curious.

Deleting all my posts on X got me pondering what it would be like to shelve all the books I have “In Progress” on Goodreads (>500), Audible, and Kindle and start my reading spidering approach from scratch. I doubt all of these are “In Progress” by any stretch (I’d be willing to wager I’ll finish ~20% of them in my lifetime) but it’s daunting to approach the idea of cleanup. Same for my playlists on Spotify.

I turned 39 last week, and I’ve been an adult on the Internet with a blog for 20 years and I wish there were better tools for telling people who I am now. People still talk to me about Twilio, or Mattermark, depending on where our lives intersected and there doesn’t seem to be a space where I can point them to catch them up. I guess that’s why I keep blogging, but who other than my stalker is going to read through ever single one of these. I don’t even want to read through. them. Perhaps I’ll send the LLM back over all the journals like Dan Shipper.

As we live closer and close to the possibility of electronic life forms trained on the things we write on the Internet, I feel like it matters more than ever that we have all these navel-gazing posts for these beings to draw from. Something with a little more entropy, with a little less predictability. Is my reading diet just the training fodder for my own internal LLM? I wonder.

and a few things worth wanting (scroll down for a gift guide)

In case you’re catching up after not reading for awhile, I’m on a break from Twitter and using this blog as a place to share more of my day-to-day life. You can also follow me on Goodreads and see the combination of philosophy and smut I consume voraciously.

My weight-loss journey continues, and I reached a really important milestone: I’m officially down 60 pounds, and right on the cusp of no longer being medically “overweight”. After doing quite a bit of research, I decided to move my intermittent fasting into maintenance mode and start cooking plant-based high protein, high fiber meals and go mostly vegan. Fortunately, I shared my research with my husband and he’s been down to meal plan and prep cook!

Using a shared list in Apple Reminders to keep a running list of meals planned, shopping items, and recipe inspiration for next up has been working really well for us and it’s pretty cool to see him getting more and more confident with his kitchen skills and creative with ideas for what to make.

After returning from San Francisco we had a few nights back home, and whipped up these goodies. Please let me know in the comments if a recipes post is a good idea.

Groupthink Team Week in Arizona

For our week in Scottsdale we found an awesome Airbnb just down the street from my cofounder’s house, ordered groceries to be delivered right when we arrived, and were able to unpack and cook a healthy meal as if we lived there.

We hit some really lovely early spring Arizona weather, dry and barely touching 75 degrees Fahrenheit most days, and it was fun to bust out these neon pants I unearthed from my basement clothing collection:

It was a week of eating, catching up, coding, grilling, and even hitting golf balls!

When we got home, I was thrilled to see my seedlings really starting to take off! I’m excited to start swapping with friends, neighbors and even complete strangers on Facebook marketplace in a few more weeks.

Work also started on the lot next door, which we are slowly transforming into a garden now that the house has been demolished and the ground is no longer frozen. At first we thought we would do the work of improving the soil, grading, installing drainage and rockery ourselves but I am so glad we didn’t! It took a team of 4 people and a backhoe 3 days to do this work.

Before

After

There’s still a LOT more to do, including taking down the fence that separates the two lots and starting to place large potted plants in different locations to get a sense for sun exposure readings through the growing season. All very exciting!

While it’s too early for much in my own garden, Kevin and I took a walk over to Denver Botanic to get a dose of colorful blooms on the first warm day.

We kept things low key for my 39th birthday, and Kevin took the day off to hang out with me. I also received beautiful flowers from my loved ones. Thank you

And of course we got a spring snow storm the next day! Fortunately our trees had recently been pruned so the heavy blanket of snow didn’t break off any branches.

I’m definitely ready to be done with snow for awhile.

Last, but possibly most important update for those of you who follow me for the food stuff — Kevin and I made the Eleven Madison Park granola recipe (it’s the same as what they give guests on their way out to enjoy the next morning… or you know, in the Uber). And it is glorious! Highly recommend making it.

Shopping Guide: A Few Things Worth Wanting

Spring cleaning has me shopping my own house, turning up lightly used candles, smudge sets, bubble bath, silk pajamas, spring handbags, sandals, and so many random kitchen gadgets. As I take stock of what we have, what we need, and what we’re giving away I’ve also made some purchases I’m absolutely thrilled with!

Long ago in another life I had a Y Combinator startup called Referly where we helped our users recommend products and get paid, so making this shopping guide feels like a little nod to that past. However, I’m too lazy to track down referral links for all these products (and the universal affiliate link generator still doesn’t exist!) but please know I have bought — often multiples — of everything I’m sharing with you here.

In the Kitchen

Charles Heidseick Rose Reserve — I’m not drinking much alcohol these days as part of my push to eat clean and get lean, but when I do I like to order the same champagne we enjoyed at Saison when Jonathan and I had our cofounder dinner in San Francisco. This drinks dry and if you had your eyes closed you might not even guess it’s a rose at all.

For No-ABV cocktails my go-to spirit is still Monday non-alcoholic gin

Clothes

After getting rid of more than 20 bags of clothes that no longer fit, I’m in the process of re-stocking my wardrobe and it’s leading me to re-think my personal style. While I love fashion, I don’t need it much since my lifestyle outside of working on my businesses revolves around gardening, cooking, roadtrips and my dogs. I have classic staples that I’ll probably get tailored down, so for now I’m focused on the casual functional pieces for the warm weather months.

Isabel 3.0 Pants from Wondery Outdoors — just got these in Ochre and Agave and they’re incredibly comfortable, soft and flattering on the butt.

Forme Power Bra — for improving posture while living an active life.

Teva Voya Infinity Sandals – squishy and comfy, but a little cuter than the ones I wore growing up (…but don’t worry, I bought a pair of those too!)

Z Supply Sloane Tank Mini Dress — so comfy it doubles as a sleep dress

Ribcage Wide Leg Jeans in Splash Zone – 30 inch inseam is the way

Self Care

TheraFace LED Mask — by Therabody, the company that makes Theragun. It sits on a stand, and I had it on the bookshelf next to my bed and when Emo (our black lab) made eye contact with it, just sitting there, her hackles went up!

Smythson Portobello Notebook in Panama – love to get mine personalized, my favorite color right now is Nile Blue but hoping they’ll bring back Olive

Summer Sleepwear

Lunya Washable Silk Bias Slip Dress – I have this in blue, lime, and pink

Eileen West Iconic Swiss Dot Cotton Nightgown

Cheers to thriving in all the seasons, shopping our own closets, and aspiring to want what we already have. GO NUGGETS!

Elle

P.S. What do you think of the “old school” style of blogging? Do you read anyone else who does this kind of life posting in long form who you’d recommend I check out for inspiration? Thanks!

Hello from Santorini, where the heatwave across Greece has finally broken and we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into Instagram worthy views at literally every turn. It’s even better in real life with the smells, tastes, feeling of warm wind on skin, and air conditioning that is set to 27 Celsius and still requires me to sleep naked. I’ll be writing up the full trip later, but for now let’s catch you up on my adventures of the last 6 weeks or so!

Out and About

Scottsdale, Arizona

Aside from squeezing in some in-person roadmapping for our startup Groupthink, I attended the annual Kentucky Derby Day shindig hosted by my cofounder Jonathan and his lovely wife Regan.

Treats included many flavors of Kit Kat bars and other Japanese snacks from their recent honeymoon adventure to see the cherry blossoms and revel in the strong US Dollar.

We dined at modern Indian spot Feringhee in a strip mall in Chandler, AZ — and it was totally worth the drive. It’s a vegan-friendly spot that had been on Jonathan’s hit list for ages, and rolling up in the suburban parking lot provided a strong reminder that being snobby about neighborhood or curb appeal can cause you to miss out on so much in life!

Standout dishes included the Malabar crab cakes, Old Delhi butter chicken, and the pan puri trio which came in passion fruit, blackberry and mint self-served to fill little globes of puffed rice dough that had to be popped fully into the mouth before they disintegrated from the moisture. The timing of the whole process made it exciting!

Washington D.C.

I was in town for the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation & National Security and the AI Expo for National Competitiveness, which were co-located this year as defense tech and AI trendiness have converged, making Dr. Carter’s vision more prescient than ever.

On my first night I hit the top spot recommended by my Twitter community: Rasika. The food reminded me of much loved (now closed) San Francisco spot August One Five, which was opened by our friend Hetal Shah and made it four years but sadly didn’t survived the pandemic. I hope for more modern Indian food all over the U.S. and I’m looking forward to tracking some down back in Denver.

I met up with a former member of my team at Gitlab (who’s now working on a nuclear energy startup — love this so much!) for drinks at Death & Co D.C. and dinner at Supra, the first Georgian restaurant I’ve ever tried and a newly recognized Michelin Bib Gourmand for 2023.

I also had the opportunity to re-connect with Eric Koester, who goes back to my Seattle startup days / Startup Weekend mafia / is the reason I got to travel to Reykjavik to give a TedX talk back in 2011. He’s now a published author many times over and known as “the book professor” at Georgetown University. I was most excited to hear about the creative process of writing a best selling book with his daughters during the pandemic!

The culinary highlight of the trip for me was the lamb sandwich at Levantine-inspired cafe Yellow (also Bib Gourmand) where I took no pictures of the sandwich itself, but I can tell you the foodgasm went on and on.

For my final evening, I solo dined and people-watched at the bar at Lebanese restaurant Ilili down at The Wharf.

Bozeman, Montana

The hunt for my perfect 100+ acre ranch property continues…

More snow. Seriously, I’m done with snow! Fortunately it melted as quickly as it came, and I made the rounds to Wild Crumb for pastries, finally had a meal at the James Beard recognized Little Star Diner, and even got to see the aurora borealis with friends!

I was so into the meal that I forgot to take pictures, which as with Yellow is among the highest praise I can offer.

Seattle, Washington

A last minute invite from my Mom to do Mother’s Day brunch came in while I was already traveling, and I thought “after being gone so long what’s another 24 hours on the road?”

It was so good to see my sister and my nephews, and this get together also marked my Dad’s first time out of the house since his knee surgery. It was good to see him up and about again, as it takes a combination of driving and riding a ferry boat to get to Seattle from my parent’s home, so I know it’s psychologically powerful for them to feel free to move about again. He’s been cleared to golf and ride his Peloton!

Back Home… for Jury Duty

In the two week stretch I’d hoped to be home to recharge from my domestic travel adventures before heading to Greece for my friend and former business partner’s wedding, I was selected to sit on the jury for a gruesome murder trial.

I’m not your true crime gal, and while I framed the inconvenience as doing my civic duty it was difficult. The medical examiner testimony and evidence of a strangling were viscerally disturbing, I found myself taking my job as a juror so seriously that I couldn’t sleep at night as I grappled with the burden of proof, and ultimately defendant was convicted of first degree murder.

One silver lining is that my friend Maria was also part of the jury selection panel for the first two days of voire dire, so we randomly got to hang out for several hours sitting on the hallway floors of the courthouse, trying to stay limber and get some work done.

Aspen, Colorado

The jury wrapped deliberations (after all that, I ended up being a randomly selected alternate!) the afternoon before we were slated to leave, so this became a much needed break from the stressful routine of reporting to the courthouse around 7:30am each day.

We’d hoped to do our annual shoulder season trip (aka pilgrimage to Meat & Cheese) over the top of Independence Pass, but thanks to a late spring snow storm it was still closed for the day we had planned so we took the long way on I-70 through Glenwood Springs.

For the uninitiated, Meat & Cheese is a sandwich spot worth driving 5 hours for and their cocktail program is perfection itself. Our default order is their Banh Mi riff and classic Italian, and both come with an ample side of the most delicious homemade salt and vinegar chips I’ve ever had.

My mouth just started watering as I typed that! Ughhh take me back! If you go for round 2 or with a group so you can try more things, I suggest skipping the famous chicken board and going for the tacos (usually fish and a rotating special — this time with lamb) and the mushroom French dip. Messy kissy fingers good.

We stayed at the Viceroy in Snowmass, which just re-opened from renovations and was basically empty and we had the pool and massive hot tub to ourselves. It’s dog-friendly so we’ll definitely be going back with the girls!

My haul from Explore Booksellers included Bulgarian speculative fiction novel “Time Shelter” by Georgi Gospodinov. It seems quite appropriate for the times we’re living:

A ‘clinic for the past’ run by an enigmatic therapist offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time to a familiar, safer, happier moment.

Denver Farmer’s Markets

The start of the local farmer’s market at the beginning of May is really how I know winter is over. Cooking what’s fresh, seasonal and affordable is important to my idea of being a solid home chef.

I’ve visited the South Pearl Street Market on Sundays (local tip: go for the $15/bag all-you-can-fit produce stand) and City Park Farmer’s Market on Saturdays for the food carts and people watching.

Around the House

The Kitchen

After almost 5 years in our house it is time to have a place people can gather around that doesn’t require them to put their plates on their knees. I was telling myself a story that I can’t have people over because we don’t have a suitable table and guests will think we are weird. To unblock my hosting ambitions I found something that suits us: a bar height chef’s counter style table that also fits my “house as workshop” aesthetic.

One of the unexpected benefits of this setup: the dogs aren’t able to see the food, so they immediately lie down once I’ve served our meal.

The Garden

I’ve been enjoying warm mornings working and sipping coffee at the outdoor table in my garden, which we finished planting just in time to head out of town for a couple weeks in Europe. I’m grateful to friends and neighbors who’ve come by to check on the moisture levels in my absence.

Dahlia seedlings I grew from Floret Flower Farm seeds, waiting to be transplanted:

We finally got permission from the Dept of Forestry to have our street-side tree on the lot next door taken door, which is a relief as it had a very large dead bow over the street we feared might crush a car (or person!) in our next heavy wind storm.

The trunk and limbs were chipped into mulch which was spread across the lot to protect the topsoil and hopefully encourage more critters to move in and start improving the soil quality.

We’re looking forward to planting two new trees on the hell strip, depending on what the city and our neighborhood association will allow. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a flowering varietal!

My Dogs

Taco is living her best life, and looking quite gorgeous this spring as her winter coat sheds out and she resumes her daily ritual of holding court at Aviano. And by holding court I mean that I bring her, we sit, and everyone wants to approach her and comment or her beauty and pet her. It gives me a window into what it would’ve been like to be a popular blonde!

Emo is a bit fat, and fat labradors are something I’m accustomed to and on the watch for. We’ve got a bit of a “shake out the cup” plan in place, and I’m excited to see how she’s looking after 10 days of being out of town. As her momma I think she is perfect, but I also want to have her with me as long as possible so I appreciate my vet’s honest appraisal of her belly.

Media & Culture Worth Consuming

Nonfiction Books

• “Good Energy: the Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health” by Dr. Casey Means (or listen to her interview on The Huberman podcast)
• “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect” by restauranteur Will Guidara, former GM and co-owner of Eleven Madison Park and NoMad with Chef Daniel Humm
• “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” by Benjamin Franklin

Science Fiction Books

• “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• “All Systems Red” by Martha Wells, first of the Murderbot series

Fantasy Fiction Books

• “The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison
• “Cosmic Progeny” by A.V. Ray (space Daddy smut, you have been warned!)

What About the Startup?

So glad you asked. This blog has become a small way to prove to myself that I really do have a life outside of running my businesses, but that’s not because I don’t love them. I just can’t go back to my pre-2017 existence where my meaning and role and sense of importance and usefulness come from work accomplishments. I’m sure I’m building a new edifice of identity that will get torn down eventually, but I hope that comes from the ravages of aging on my body rather than the fickle tides of economic markets and unsustainable business models.

This time, I’m building a startup with network effects and an extremely low volatility cofounder configuration, so no matter what it can live forever. On average, each new signup to Groupthink generates 4.4 additional users and in the past few months that number has climbed to >10. We’re working on retaining new users, activating invitees, and keeping the whole flywheel humming with a team of 4 people. In a world where capital is expensive, cheap customer acquisition and strong retention cohorts are Everything. This is our North Star.

We’ve got about 2 years of runway and we’re hiring for a Senior Software engineer — so check it out at groupthink.com and get in touch if it looks like your jam!

Whew! Looking back on all this, it definitely feels like the cadence of life has swung to some new local maximum of social engagement, adventure, exploration and culinary consumption. Rather evaluate this for some deeper meaning I’m just in it, and I trust the ebb and flow will do what it needs to do with me. I will share that I was awaiting the results of a preventative cancer screening (all clear!) during this time so I do wonder if I was going harder in the face of mortality?

Here on the patio on day seven of my time in Greece, I’m losing track of time and that’s the freest feeling of them all. Maybe I’ll even take a nap.

Until next time, xoxo

elle