ADVENTURES WITH KRIS

Four years ago I was working a retail sales position in Madison.  The job itself was fine (it was a JOB, not a career).  I had left retail management after 20+ years of stress for a sales position and was relieved to be able to not have the pressure of management on my plate anymore.  I was done with the mental and physical stress my body had gone through working in places that required me to use my back as much as my brain.  I had lost almost 3/4" of my height from compression on my spine.  I was lifting up to 80 pounds of weight at a time, hundreds of times a day, no joke.  My physical pain became mental pain. 

The money was actually better than I had made in a management position and I thought I had found a place to settle in for many more years.  Unfortunately, after the honeymoon phase of working a new job with new people wore off I became very aware of the dysfunction that goes with it.  You soon find out that your social life becomes one of two things:

1) You spend your days off (which were primarily on weekdays) with people you work with because they too work almost every weekend. Your friendships are forced and not genuine in some cases.

2) You spend your days off alone, with no real social culture to be a part of and just existing but not really living.

Though I enjoyed my paycheck, I did not enjoy the sacrifices I had to make to get that paycheck and that may have been the true starting point for Miss Guided Adventures.  I hardly ever saw my friends, my relationships were strained, I felt disconnected from Madison and all it has to offer.  The culture at my workplace was dysfunctional because everyone else there had the same experience I was having, but I decided to do something about it.

I started my Thursday Adventure Club.  I ran it through Facebook and invited people to go places with me on my days off and do things.  It ran a few months and I had fun.  It was when I really started posting my adventure pictures on Facebook and writing about them.  Prior to then I wasn't the Facebook addict I am now.  It's a marketing tool, just remember that.  It's social and it's business.  It's a cyber game of Connect The Dots for me.

My friend Katie (pictured above) and I went snowshoeing in Mount Horeb.  It was agorgeous, sunny, cold day and we both have big engines....it was a ton of fun and she claimed I tried to kill her.

My friend Stef played hooky from work and came out skating with me on Vilas Pond.  Another beautiful winters' day and a lot of fun.

People would talk about it, ask me about it, and it was when I really started connecting to my adventurous side.  I went to new towns, did new things, ate at new places, tried new brew pubs, etc.  It was the start of a change in me that eventually made it's way to being Miss Guided.

More to follow in the months to come....

Thanks for reading...

Kris