What do you know. It’s Friday again. And I’m tired. I will be archiving my Women’s Personal Finance group on Facebook for the weekend and taking a much-needed offline break for a couple of days.

I don’t have much else to say this week. Life continues to march on, most of my work is done from home, Black Lives Matter, and we are still in the middle of a global pandemic. Like just about everyone else, I’m tired. Somehow, though, I still keep posting – maybe, hopefully for some encouragement to others that we’re all in this together, and as a diary of sorts for when we come out the other side. Wherever that ends up being.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. We have now been in our home a full nine years as of the beginning of June. While there are plenty of things we would change about our home, I am so thankful for the location and for the ability to garden and cook and live in such a wonderful little neighborhood.

I still go back and forth about paying it off early, so for now, I send an extra hundred or two to the mortgage each month, but no more. Especially now, I would rather have the cash on hand, but I like the idea of paying it off at least a little bit early than scheduled.

2. Said garden is coming into the summer season, and I just returned from snacking on some fresh picked strawberries and peas. The garlic scapes are ready for picking, there is still asparagus to be had, and it will be time to do a second harvest of the rhubarb soon.

I’ve worked on the garden since that first summer in our home nine years ago, and it’s come a long, long way. While we clearly don’t have enough space to be entirely self sufficient, I get a whole lot of satisfaction with eating something I’ve grown just about every day now. (I share more garden photos in my Instagram stories)

3. We’ve been working with the kiddo on his reading and writing more lately as he gets ready to start kindergarten this fall. Though, at this point, school is going to look very different than it used to, and it’s going to be an interesting transition to start traditional schooling during said pandemic precautions.

That said, we want to really get him reading and writing prior to that start so that things are perhaps a little bit stressful for him. I’ve been paying him a penny for each worksheet page he completes, and suddenly he’s way more motivated. Whatever works, right?

4. I’ve been doing more baking again lately, and my second round of garlic French bread came out even better than the first. I’m finding it a fun challenge, and another way I can make more ecofrugal changes in our life. Homemade bread is way cheaper, has no waste, and it also tastes a whole lot better than the stuff from the grocery store.

5. I also cut my hair recently, following the “unicorn cut” type tutorial on YouTube. It may not be 100% perfect, but I’ve gotten a number of compliments on it, which means it is definitely not so bad.

While I definitely wouldn’t attempt a more complicated cut, that one works well, and it took all of just a couple minutes. My hair is also a lot more manageable now that it isn’t almost all the way down by back.

Exercise Update

After my 5k run last week, my heel did start bugging me again a little bit. Yoga has helped, but I took it a little easier this week just in case.

We went for another longer hike through the woods on Sunday, and then again for a bit later in the week. I managed to still do yoga every day, though some days were much lower key “stretching” than yoga. And then I did go for a twenty minute run Thursday, but didn’t push it any longer.

When you’re stuck in the combination of doldrums and overwhelm that is current life, what do you do to re-center yourself?