Well, I supposed we’ve made it through another week. I don’t often wish time away, because I know time is precious, but I think I’d like to skip forward to next spring at this point. I’m not sure if I have much else to say this week.

Again, I almost skipped this post, but I want the record of this time, so here I am again. If you’re tired and so over this year, I’m right there with you. There has been some good this year, but a lot more bad. Just because we have it better than others doesn’t mean we can’t lament the loss of the good stuff.

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Friday’s Frugal Five

1. We made it to October, but we’ve not turned the heat back on. I likely would have tried to last a couple weeks longer, but since the husband works most of his days outside, he likes it warm indoors when he’s off work. With the gloomy, cooler weather lately, I can’t say I’m sad about the heat either.

We did manage to keep the heat off from April – October, and we never put in our window ACs this year, so that feels good. We may not have had a great summer for tomatoes and other hot weather produce, but our energy costs were definitely down.

2. I redeemed $10 of Bing rewards again. I don’t particularly care which search engine I use most of the time, so I end up using Bing since they pay me (a small amount) to do so. I don’t love that the rewards are Amazon, but since we still do buy stuff there, at least I can reduce the amount of funds we are personally spending there.

I realize it is a very privileged place to attempt to wean ourselves off of Amazon, but I have been focused on spending our money elsewhere whenever it makes sense.

3. We booked an Airbnb for a long weekend for later this winter to celebrate my birthday. The couple that is in our “bubble” will be joining us, as will our roommate. It might not be the big weekend party that I got to have last year, but I’m very much looking forward to a weekend that will feel more “normal.”

If you haven’t stayed in an AirBnB before, I would highly recommend it. We love the flexibility it gives us while traveling as a family – full kitchen, laundry, and extra bathrooms, and it’s usually considerably cheaper than a hotel, especially when you travel as a group. If you’re new to AirBnB, here’s a link for $40 off your first stay.

4. Our neighbor had knee surgery at the end of last week, so I took her and the family down dinners twice this week, and we picked up take out a third night. Our neighborhood is really a special place, and we have had similar care taken for us when we’ve needed it (like when we had a newborn).

I love showing my love through food and care of others, and I’m glad that my neighbor accepted my help. I enjoy cooking big meals, and it made me especially happy when her kiddos asked for seconds (and her oldest sent me a text separately telling me how much he liked the meal).

5. I had some time sensitive work to get done this week, so the husband and I switched our weekdays off this week. I was then able to go into the office (in my separate glassed off space) and focus on the work I needed to get done. Knowing that he and the kiddo were having a good time at home made it easy for me to get my work done (and a lot easier than trying to juggle homeschool and work at the time time).

Exercise Update

Friday the kiddo and I went for a run after work since the weather was decent. Saturday I initially went for a run by myself, but then the kiddo wanted to go, so I went for a second one with him. Monday was another run after work. Tuesday was a long walk for work meetings and then a walk with the dogs in the evening, meaning that I got close to a 20,000 step day for the first time in a while.

Wednesday was dancing in my room thanks to a stormy day, and it made me wishing I could go to the gym, but I won’t while mask use isn’t perfect. Thursday was a lot more walking and some body weight exercises.

How was your week?