Who Are You?
hej hej, My name is DeAnn and I craft written and visual stories about my cycling and cabin life in The North, and my lived experiences as an athletic GenX woman.
I create at my home bases in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin.
What is äventyr?
äventyr the word is Swedish for ‘adventure’.
äventyr the brand originally started as a bicycle bag company in 2018. I designed and made the bags, but I also wrote a lot on my business blog and for my business newsletters.
Many people for many years have told me how much they like my writing (a skill I sharpened in graduate school). I took mental note of these unsolicited (but much appreciated) comments and started realizing that writing is an important thread in my life.
So when I closed my business in late 2021, I wanted to keep one of the most important parts of my business alive ~ my writing.
So hej! Here I am sharing my writing with you.
What’s Are Your Stories?
My husband (Kurt) and I are avid Gravel Cyclists, and because of that ~ in 2022 we started building The Crash Pad in Northern Wisconsin. A place to spend more time at so we can gravel bike more than on just weekends, and become part of the amazing cycling community in our area. It is also the place I do my best writing.
We became our own general contractors (not by choice) on our cabin/part-time home and have learned/are learning A LOT. We thought sharing our journey would be educational, entertaining, and inspiring. Cabin Stories documents our building process and our life as cyclists.
In the Fall of 2023 I added GenX Notes. This is where I share our experiences of aging as GenX Athletes. After all, we built the Crash Pad specifically so we could live part time on a gravel road and ride our bicycles right out our front door.
I specifically started GenX Notes because…. what I didn’t expect at the time of our big Crash Pad project, was that soon after our decision to build, the roller coaster ride my body would start taking me through during the menopause transition would begin affecting my dream to ‘ride as much gravel as I can for as long as I can’ right out our front door. For me, it felt like one day the wheels fell off and I was worried I would never get them back on.
I have been thinking about writing these stories long before I started knowing fully the journey my body would take me on. As a GenX female athlete, I knew how important it would be for me to share my experiences during late perimenopause and beyond.
I am frequently sharing what I have learned with my friends and fellow athletes, so GenX notes is for me, for them, and for you. My goal is to make what I have learned more easily accessible and the experience less daunting for others. May my self-taught PhD in late perimenopause, the MPT (what I call the Menopause Transition), and now menopause, as an athlete, be your Cliff Notes (any good GenX-er remembers those) to your discovery of how to navigate your experience and educate yourself and others you will need as part of your ‘MPT Team’.
I will likely write about other things too, and I talk about it all here.
Community is about sharing
We originally started äventyr because we wanted to build a community of like-minded individuals. Here you can be part of a community of people who share your interests.
I have found in particular with our cabin build, and dealing with the MPT as an athlete, how important community is. Without all the great people in our new community helping us, and in my cycling community helping me, our cabin and me would not be where we are today. And without the important and effective MPT Team I have assembled, navigating may menopause transition would have been harder than it already has been. This has solidified to me that COMMUNITY IS EVERYTHING.
Come be part of it!
Why subscribe?
When you subscribe to the äventyr newsletter, you get one email that summarizes our latest stories, videos, and other goings on. This is for people who don’t want an update every time I release content ~ just a summary in their inbox so you can read and view at your leisure, instead of feeling like your inbox is overflowing. Typically I send newsletters once a month (max), sometimes less (like Summer when I am LIVING!). The newsletter is a great place to get grouped updates.
Separately you can choose to also subscribe to each section of our website:
Subscriptions to individual feature sections will ensure that as soon as I release a story, you get notified.
How to update your subscription(s):
If you decide you want to change your subscription options, simply go the the bottom of your most recent email from us where it says ‘unsubscribe’. [Note: we don’t want to see you unsubscribe!, we only want you to get notifications for sections you want to read about! Read on…].
Click ‘unsubscribe’ at the bottom of the email, which will take you to a subscription option screen showing the sections of our website (i.e. ‘Cabin Stories’, ‘GenX’, ‘Newsletter’).
Here you can change what you are subscribed to by moving the toggle bar.
Stay up-to-date
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new story or newsletter goes directly to your inbox. If you get the substack app, our updates will appear in your feed. I have used a blog reeder for years (currently Feedly), it is great to have access to an app that you can go to pick out what to read!
I’m just thankful you are here supporting my creativity and mental health, however you choose to do that. I appreciate you being part of this community! ~DeAnn
