I still get a thrill writing 2019 on the cover photos for these. Sometimes I feel like I've been a blogger forever, and other times I can hardly wrap my brain around how long it's actually been. It still has not been crazy long in the grand scheme of things, but the third calendar year…
Well, we're now a few days into the new year and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with myself since I've yet to write 2018 (though that will probably change now that I've jinxed myself here). I'll take my success where I can since I have yet to create any kind of goals or…
Amazing that this is somehow the last of my Frugal Five posts of the year already. Even more incredible is that I've been writing them consistently since October 2017. Something that began initially as "filler" posts has turned into something I love to write. My Monday posts tend to be more broad and personal finance…
Since my birthday was last Thursday but I had an evening meeting that day, we celebrated over the following weekend instead. And since that weekend happened after last week's Frugal Five, I decided to write about that trip here. Like most birthdays and holidays, we tend not to buy each other physical gifts but instead…
Apparently Tuesday was the darkest day in the last two years with almost no sun output (0.55 mJ/m^2, if you're counting). The good news is, we aren't even to the shortest day of the year yet. Oh wait. Perhaps that isn't good news. I do love the Pacific Northwest, and I do love the holiday…
A newer tradition in my family has been to visit the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle during the holidays for Wild Lights, and we went again this past weekend. Last year was rainy and windy, so still fun, but it made us really appreciate this year with relatively nice weather. The temperature was in the…
Last Saturday after Thanksgiving, we headed out for our second annual trip to a tree farm outside of Sequim to get our Christmas tree. Since we live in a more urban area, there aren't many tree farms to choose from close by, and even those are a good 45+ minute drive from us, so we've…
My youngest brother went off to college out of state this fall, but he's in town for the Thanksgiving holiday. He and our son are close buddies and they were so, so happy to see each other this past week. My brother and I are twelve years apart, and the two of them are fifteen…
I know I've talked about it before, but I really don't enjoy how dark it gets so early in the evening this time of year. But once Thanksgiving happens and the Christmas lights go up, it feels not nearly so bad because it isn't nearly so dark outside. Maybe not the best use of electricity…
Apparently it's week 45 of 52 of this year already, which feels a bit mind boggling. Our anniversary is on Tuesday, and then Thanksgiving is just a few weeks after that. I do love this time of year, but it feels like October happened in a blink because of how busy I've been. Even good…