I’m tired this week. And by that I mean mentally exhausted, not physically. It’s been a long year and a half and some days the continued chronic crisis just wears extra. I haven’t been able to run yet because of my ankle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s connected.

But hey, California doesn’t have a new climate denying, abortion hating governor, so we’ve got that going for this week. Again and again, I’m so glad to live in Washington, though the recall in California would have had ripples that would impact us all.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. My dear friend and Women’s Personal Finance admin Jen Mah was in town and I got to spend Friday evening with her and Felicity. I’d had a long work day and the meetup was an impromptu one and absolutely needed.

I wasn’t going to go, but my husband pushed me on it. The mom guilt is strong sometimes, and I was feeling like I needed to go home after being gone all day at work. Seeing people in person (outside, vaccinated) was absolutely lovely and reminded me that as much as I love my online spaces, sometimes you simply need to see people face to face.

2. The kiddo and I headed out to pick plums over the weekend from a “neighbor’s” tree. (Neighbor in quotes because they live like a fifteen minute drive from us, but they are very much still local to us. Connecting with those near to us is something I’m definitely paying attention to these days. So many of our friends have moved away, mostly because of the cost of this area, but there are plenty of wonderful people who still do live here.

We picked a bag of plums for ourselves and then picked up a second small bag of dropped plums for the chickens. Composting food is great, but composting food through chickens is even better. I also dropped off some canned goods to them, and promised a video chat canning lesson in the future (thanks, Covid).

3. Speaking of focusing on local connections, we had a weeknight backyard dinner with other “neighbors” who live about a mile down the road. They brought over soup and a plum tart and I cooked up some garden kale and grilled cheese, and we shared the meal with some wine.

They have two little boys, so the kiddo had a great time as well, especially since his kid time is limited these days. Even as the weather turns colder and wetter, we’re going to make an effort to make these evenings happen. Vaccines for the 5-11 age group are looking to happen soon too, which means our options will expand then as well. I cannot wait.

4. My parents have a black walnut tree that hangs over their fence and drops a ton of fruit, so I collected up a bunch of them. Next week, I’ll likely do the same as it’s a large tree and they don’t all drop at once.

I’ve never gathered walnuts before, so it’s going to be interesting shelling them. They’re called black walnuts because of the black dye that juices out when you cut into them, so I do know I’ll be wearing gloves. Still, expanding our local food harvesting abilities always feels great.

5. Women’s Personal Finance Insiders is open now through Sunday! We only open these cohorts every three months or so, because there is a lot of back end work that goes into welcoming a new group of women and nonbinary folks. Plus, the goal with Insiders is always to be a smaller, closer knit group than the (now 40,000 member) Facebook group.

From what our Insiders tell us (and what we feel as well), it’s like the best part of the bigger community. There’s something to be said for when you opt in and pay for something – there’s a higher level of commitment and a nicer community that’s shared.

We’ll always have the free Facebook group, but Insiders really is something extra special, and I know that the paid component is actually part of that. Kind of like when you pay for a personal trainer to work out versus telling yourself you’ll do it at home with free YouTube videos.

As a WPF Insider, you get:

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