After a month of counting weeks differently thanks to my birthday, the new year, and the intense weeks we lived through in January, it’s time to go back to counting the weeks by COVID, since we are about to hit the one year mark.

Going back and reading my first few weeks living with COVID feels wild because I would never have considered we would still be living in such an altered society a year later. I suppose it’s better that we didn’t know then what was coming for us.

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Friday’s Frugal Five

1. I’ve continued to help folks get signed up for their COVID vaccines this past week, and it feels like a very good use of my time, but it’s definitely exhausting. I think I’ve helped close to 100 people now, with a focus on people of color.

While maybe I’m pushing myself a bit this past week or two, it feels like I’m doing the right thing when the state shares where the vaccines have gone so far, and it has not been equitable so far. I may not be changing that number in a big way, but I – along with the admin team on Find A COVID Shot WA on Facebook – are shifting it. And that matters.

2. Along with all the time I’ve spent on vaccines, Regina and I also opened Women’s Personal Finance to our Founding Members cohort this week. We sent out the email opening up sign ups late one weeknight, and by mid-morning, we were full and had a waiting list started. We expected things to go well, but we were completely blown away by how many women are excited for this new chapter of WPF.

I am so excited to roll out this first cohort, and we are working hard to open up to the next group soon. One of the best parts of having a paid membership community now is that it means we will be able to pay other women to write and create money related content. It’s been a good week.

3. I want to note again that I am working 80% time, as is my husband. SlowFI really has made our lives so much better, and it makes it possible for me to have the time to do the above things I’ve just shared.

My day job is wonderful and fulfilling and I’m so glad to have landed in the career I’m in, but I find that I love it even more when I work it 80% time and I’m able to also pour myself into my volunteer and other interests. It really is the best balance (even if this past week or so hasn’t exactly been “balanced”).

4. We had a dusting of snow Thursday night (and are looking at more through the weekend), so I finally went out and harvested the Brussels sprouts in the garden. This was the first year that I’d been successful growing them, and it was so satisfying to harvest them.

The Brussels were baked with olive oil and then drizzled with honey and balsamic vinegar, and they were awesome. I’m not sure if it was the recipe, or the freshness of the Brussels going straight from the stalk to the pan, but they were the best I’ve ever made.

5. We booked a weekend trip for later this winter! I got an email saying that someone had taken a trip on Airbnb who’d signed up through my link, so I had a small credit to use, and it was the nudge I needed to start looking.

We haven’t left the state of Washington since we returned from Iceland on January 8th, 2020, and we still don’t plan to for a while thanks to the pandemic. That said, we haven’t gone anywhere overnight even more locally since the beginning of October, and we were all really feeling a need to have a trip somewhere. We haven’t even taken the trip yet, but just knowing it’s coming has really been a positive change for all of us.

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

Exercise Update

I can’t believe I forgot to mention that Saturday was also the kiddo’s 6th birthday! We went for a family run that morning to celebrate, and then he had a small (outside, masked) party with three friends and a COVID piñata because he wanted to “beat the shit out of COVID.” (Me too, buddy, me too).

Sunday we decided to go back to Lord Hill Regional Park, and this time we hiked the full pipeline trail all the way to the other parking lot and back, which was a good 7ish miles with quite a bit of up and down and quite muddy but fun. Monday was a 5k run by myself around the neighborhood.

Wednesday was a long working meeting walk, and then Thursday I ran up and down our neighborhood’s hill while the kiddo played outside. Maybe a bit boring, but the steepness of the hill meant it was a pretty good workout.

How was your week?