Sober Not Somber Hour

Hey all. Welcome. It's Tuesday, it's 4 o'. Clock time for sober not somber hour. Welcome in, welcome in. Today's NA bev of choice is UB soda and this is by a friend of mine, Mel Bozzo, who lives in the Minneapolis area. And it's Utopia Borealis you be well Natural's Maple ale and it's a sparkling electrolyte beverages. So a lot of the NA now on the scene are not just, you know, substitutes like soda. They are adaptogenic. They have all sorts of good stuff in them. You can drink them for breakfast.

This one in particular, maple always makes me think of like having pancakes. I don't know why, but it's a super light sweetness. But it's not overly sugary, which I think is a distinction. You hear my dog in the background. I have a golden doodle and he makes all the noise when I'm on my calls. I'm sharing, sharing on Cadre with you. So welcome. It's 2026 speak wonder and I saw Rachel Mac popped in here for a second. Welcome. The theme of the month is all around reset. And I've been thinking a lot about the secondary topic kind of under that, which is pace, like the pace of productivity.

That's one thing that has just been on my mind. I have been going at such a fast pace this holiday season. Yeah, dogs are good at that always, always knowing when I have something to do and wanting attention. They're really good at that. I've been going at an incredibly fast pace over the holidays. But I would love to hear from y', all, how were your holidays? Did you actually take some time? What was your pace like? And I mentioned that because mine looked very different this holiday season because of the industry I'm in, the non alcoholic industry and dry January, as you all know is, is big.

So my December consisted of planning events and the pace was more, you know, collaborative meetings and you know, getting creative and planning out what was going to happen in January. And I found that I didn't take the time really over the holidays as much as I maybe you could have used. But on the flip side, because I spent that time preparing for January, I'm feeling like the 12 events that I have like the 12 days of Christmas, the 12 days of eventing in January for Jen are going to go well just because I took the time and I understood that the pace at the end of December was not the usual holiday slowdown, but it is setting me up for a great January business wise.

So my, my break or my Pace based on when I look at my calendar, my pace is going to slow down early February. After I get through these events, I'm going to take some time. And I love that Rosie just threw this theme out to the Cadre sphere. She's the one that kind of champions. You know, what are we going to be talking about this month? Giving the contributors some inspo. And yeah, when I saw that I was like, oh, my pace is really fast and quick right now. I don't have a lot of time to dwell or react.

I need to be in the proactive pace kind of mindset and productivity right now. It's just how it is. So I don't know if you've all had times like that. I think the biggest thing that I've noticed is I'm not mad about it in the past where demands of work or other demands might have had me at a very fast pace that I didn't enjoy because the rewards weren't there. For me personally that feels different than the pace that I'm working at now, which is faster. But it's also I'm motivated and it's reward driven.

So yeah, I've just been thinking about that like it's, it's kind of a gift to be able to not have to, to like really understand that these are seasons. If you are able to take a break over the holidays and kind of, you know, slow down a bit which sounds like speak wonder you did that, that's great. Any good things out of that? Being able to slow down. Any new perspectives or shifts? I'd love to hear from you guys. Yeah, Rachel, important things that you do have time to planned to slow down. Timing is different for everyone.

Yeah. So like I said, my planned time will probably be in February and that's not the only break. But when I look at my calendar I think it's important to like actually put self care time on the calendar when you know you have time to slow down because we all need it. And if I in the past have tried to slow down at a point where I feel stressed about something that needs to be done business wise or whatever, then it's just not as relaxing. So pace is really important and you know we're on January 6th already and I feel like I've sort of ran a marathon this year and just today I referenced, you know, this year is still 2025 so that always takes a little bit of time to get used to being in the new year.

Like where did 2025 even go? But yeah, the pace of this year, for me personally, it feels fast and it's my one word of the year is adventure. And I think that aligns with the word pace. Like, it's just, we're at least at a fast pace. Do you guys have one words? Have you thought about that? And how does your one word relate to the pace that you want to create? Do you want to build quickly? Do you want to take time to reflect? And you can choose. A lot of times you can have some freedom to choose what that looks like.

Yeah. And I did have a couple days over the holidays where I really did slow down. And on the flip side, like, it meant that I was able to be very productive and focused in a creative venture. Like, yeah, like, I don't know that I would have had that energy had I not slowed down, slowed down my pace for a few days. Speak Wonder. I'm so surprised. Your word is wonder. That's great. Is it that every year? That would be fun. Mindful reflection. Yeah. So important, so important. I feel like I need more.

Like that's really actually tied to my word. Adventure is a little bit of wonder and exploration. And I think I shared in a previous post, like, my word of 2025 was attraction and it sort of backfired. Like everything burned to the ground. It was just like a year of, you know, the snake, like shedding of everything and clearing energy. So this year I feel like the year of The Fire Horse 2026 is aligned with adventure for me. Speak Wonder. Word was illuminate last year. That's a great one as well.

That's like shadow work, like showing, you know, what needs to be seen and what light needs to be shown. Oh, well, I love thinking about pace. I'm going to be thinking about that all month. Thank you all for chiming in. On a side note, I finally today got Christmas lights for my Christmas tree. That's crazy. I shared, I think that I barely got the lights on the tree and like two weeks later the, the first set of lights went out and then the second set and then I was not able to get lights anywhere and so I finally just ordered them and they came today.

So I'm gonna keep my tree up longer maybe through the holidays to illuminate the darkness and whatever works. It's just been such an upside down holiday season for me. Navigating so many new things. Big staying single, being a dog mom, having two grown kids. You know, like, it's just, it was a different season and I definitely did it non traditionally in my way. So that was a good pace. That was a good pace. Thank you all for chiming in again. My beverage of choice today that I highly recommend is Utopia Borealis's maple ale.

It's delicious. Okay, cheers. We'll see you next week. It.