About

Welcome to The Real Life

My name is Vanessa, and I live in Colorado with my favorite person ever, my husband Nick (aka “the man”), and our shepherd pup Harper.

I am a magazine editor and I sometimes dabble in running and performing in musical theater around Denver. Nick is a social studies high school teacher who also is an ultra-runner and incredible food-crafter in his spare time.

The Real Life is meant to be a glimpse into the wonderful day-to-day he and I have created: a life centered around savoring the simple things—being playful and making mundane tasks goofy and fun; relishing in delicious food; taking care of our bodies and our minds; exploring the gorgeous Colorado landscape and beyond; dabbling in making a house a home; staying vulnerable to all of life’s scary things because that’s where the thrill is—you know, the real stuff.

Speaking of real, I am in recovery from an eating disorder. If you’ve poked around here a bit, you’ve probably noticed that I used to share a lot of content about what I was eating, how much I was running, and what I was wearing. While I thought I was celebrating how lovely my new life had become, I (or more appropriately, my eating disorder) was using this blog to body-check and keep tabs on my restrictive and compensatory behaviors… and to reinforce the false belief that I deserved this life only because of my lower weight. When I finally came to terms with how much the disorder was controlling my life and destroying my mental health, I went AWOL for a while, but now I’m back and ready to share my journey as I go.