Around here, “June Gloom” is a phrase we’re all used to - wet and gray weather through the 4th of July when summer officially starts in the Pacific Northwest. Usually, though, June Gloom feels acute because we’ve had some nice days in April and May (along with plenty of rain). This year, however, we basically…
It's been a week now since we returned from Italy, and the grief that gripped me has lessened a bit. As my husband noted, I've never been so heartbroken to return home from a trip before. It was our first big trip (first plane flight) since Covid began, the first time to see our dear…
Today is Regina’s birthday! Happy happy birthday to one of my very favorite people on the planet. We have maybe only met each other in person four times, but that doesn't matter. Something I've learned over my five years of blogging is that it doesn't take in person time to grow some really wonderful friendships.…
You might have noticed (or maybe not), but I skipped posting last week. With everything going on with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, my bandwidth was completely zapped and blogging just wasn't happening. I do still want to keep this "pandemic" (and now war) public journal going, which is what TLRE mostly is at this point.…
T minus twelve days until the days start getting longer again. Not that I’m counting or anything… Okay, fine. Totally counting. It is so dang dark this time of year and I’m over it. But my birthday is on Monday and I’m taking the day off of work to be selfish with the day just…
Monday we took the kiddo in for his second Covid shot. Due to staffing shortages, a lot of appointments locally have been cancelled, so I felt especially thankful that he kept his appointment. T-10 days until my birthday and two weeks after his second shot. Fully vaccinated on my birthday. With the Omicron news flying…
We are now 16 days to Halloween. I may not always know what day it is at any given time, but since the kiddo is now updating me daily, I do know how many days are left until Halloween. After Halloween, I expect to have a similar update for Thanksgiving and Christmas (and then his…
I would really like to be wrong about Covid and find that I’ve been overreacting at some point. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet. There was a point where I wondered if I should stop tracking these weeks as “Covid weeks,” but I knew we weren’t out of it yet, just a reprieve, earlier this…
So the question is, when is it time to really hunker down again? I asked a friend this yesterday, and they responded with “Again? I didn’t realize we ever stopped.” So then I realized I needed to explain myself a bit more. Since all of us adults have gotten vaccinated in our regular circle, we’ve…
Last month, Jessica over at The Fioneers led a workshop for the Women’s Personal Finance Insiders on 5 year planning. Part of what she talked about was experimenting about big dreams you have - taking action in the place you’re at but practicing the big stuff. My head’s been spinning since then. It probably comes…