-
Okay, I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a clickbait title, but I made a change to my retirement withholdings at the beginning of August, and while the change was carefully planned and thought about, it’s still occupying a lot of space in my mind. So I might as well write about it. Next year, I’m…
-
Italy! If only this blog existed when we went to Italy the first time, in 2023. That trip was my first time going to Europe, and my first trip out of North America as an adult. It was also the most exciting two weeks of my life, and I have spent each day with some…
-
New Recipes Ligurian braised rabbit – Okay, I’ll admit, I made this with chicken, both because I didn’t want to try to source rabbit and also because coming back from vacation and making my pickier youngest child eat rabbit seemed like a bad idea. This is a dish we ate in Genoa, at a restaurant…
-
Another European summer vacation in the books, where our investments grew more than we spent in the time we were away. This has happened in 2023, 2024, and now 2025, though we notably did not travel in 2022, when it may have been a different story. (Actually, looking at the graph of the S&P500 during…
-
As I write this from my European vacation (what a pretentious way to start a post), I’ll note that I don’t usually pay too much attention to the market when I’m traveling. However, two days ago I remembered to open Monarch and refresh our retirement account balances, and discovered that I was quite close to…
-
I did it! I finally did it. 810 days into my Duolingo streak, I finally finished the Duolingo Italian course. Working backwards on the math, it seems that I started this latest Duolingo quest back in March of 2023, a few months before we were scheduled to go on our very first trip to Italy.…
-
New Greek pasta salad – My husband loves pasta salads. I, on the other hand, do not, and apparently have been subtly resisting any meal plan suggestions that veered into that territory. I must have been oddly receptive this month, as I, myself, suggested this recipe, after seeing it on Budget Bytes. With the chicken…
-
One foot in front of the other this month. It felt like the first two weeks sped by, then everything ground down to a much slower pace. It was also one of those annoying months where my semi-monthly pay schedule had my first paycheck arriving on a Sunday, which moved it to Friday the 13th…
-
Back in 2019, I decided to sign up for a trail half marathon to give myself a new challenge. I picked the Tulip Trail Run in Woodburn, Oregon, which was set to be run in late March of 2020. I started training twelve weeks in advance, and dutifully progressed through the training in the cold…
-
Recently, I had a nice weekend. It was a long weekend, which meant that myself and my youngest child had the day off. My husband and my daughter also had the day off, but since it was a Monday, that’s less notable for them – my husband works Tuesday through Friday, and my daughter doesn’t…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Violet Sky 