We are back

 I'm tired, but mostly from not sleeping on the return flight. M managed to sleep quite a bit, and I was envious! All logistics went very smoothly, from our short hop flight from Queenstown to Christchurch, and our much longer flight from Christchurch to San Francisco. 

My parents were here visiting Sam on his birthday, so it's been nice to see them. We went to lunch yesterday on my last day off, & they head home today. We made an easy dinner of chicken tzatziki bowls yesterday, using rotisserie chicken from Costco. M made tzatziki sauce, and we diced up: feta, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions & served with artichokes & garbanzo beans. It was easy & delicious, and healthy as far as things like this go.

I'm attempting to get back on track with my eating, after all of the indulgences on vacation. My jeans definitely felt tight one of the days, so time to be focused on eating well & getting back into a more consistent workout schedule.

I'm feeling very behind on life, but much less stressed about work, which I suppose is one of the goals of vacation!

And, for a few extra pictures, we went to Mount Cook on one of our last days. We felt spoiled by our pristine hiking (no tourists) for the earlier hiking trip, but Mount Cook was still lovely. Just more crowded. The water is actually that blue (or, I think it's a reflection off of the clouds?) Not sure what causes the color, but it was stunning.

Back to regular programming soon!

Milford Track

 Impossible to pick photos that capture the experience, but it was incredible. Met amazing people, saw amazing things, wore out our legs, had pretty much perfect weather... Spent my birthday on the hardest uphill & then downhill. M brought champagne to the halfway point (and, hiked with it for three days!) to surprise me.

More photos to come, but a few of my favorites.

More to come! Switching hotels soon. 

Queenstown

A quick update that we made it to New Zealand. All flights were on time, everything went as smoothly as you can expect on a trip of that duration. My back is bothering me from all of that sitting time, but otherwise all is well.

The hotel is fantastic, and our room got upgraded. What a treat. Photos below are the view from our room. We stayed awake until 7 pm local time last night, and then crashed. Both of us slept around 4 hours on the flight here (red eye), so we were pretty tired last night.

Next up is breakfast, stretching (me), heading to town for the pre-hike briefing. We have dinner reservations as well for tonight. 

LOVE Queenstown & the entire place is gorgeous. 

Two days to go

Two work days left until we leave on our trip. I've been closely guarding my PTO since I started my new job, as new hires have to accrue vacation days. Having long tenure at both of my previous companies, it's an unusual feeling to not have time off. Knowing I had both New Zealand & Greece in 2026, I've been very sparing with my days off. 

I have taken a total of one day of PTO (split into two four hour chunks) to accommodate an early flight for Christmas, and similar flight for the Las Vegas trip in October. I got "lucky" in that I also had to travel on a holiday 2x, and earned a comp day for each. At my previous company, you also received a comp day if you missed an entire weekend day. Not the case here, which is... not the best, let's just say. Anyway, whatever. 

This is the longest trip DH & I have ever taken, and I'm pretty sure it's my longest vacation from any job I've been at. I'm excited & looking forward to relaxing. I've been at the company for 7 months, so I'm definitely looking forward to the break.

I've been mapping out other planned time off, and here's what's on the agenda. Reviewing this helps me track my PTO, and creates mini milestones to look forward to.

• February - New Zealand. President's Day falls during this trip, saving me one day of PTO
• March - Nick will be home for spring break, and then I'll fly to Las Vegas & spend a night there + hike at Zion with a couple of friends
• April - at the very end of April, I'll fly to Boulder & hang out with Nick & help him move his college stuff to my BFF's garage (bless her) & then Nick & I will fly back together
• May - nothing currently booked
• June - likely US work travel + Greece
• July - likely Tokyo work travel + our company closes for three days. If everyone else can make it, we will rent a house at the Oregon coast. If that doesn't' work out, M & I will likely take the boys to a California national park. 
• August - Nick's move back to Boulder
• September - family weekend in Boulder
• October - I'm tentatively running a half marathon with my sister + BFF (assuming I can get my hip issue treated) in Portland, which will be a long weekend. And, then M & I are going to Sedona for a hiking trip.
• November - Nick flying back for Thanksgiving
• December - Nick flying in for Christmas, Christmas at my parents house. 

That's it! As we move into the mid point of 2026, I will likely start mapping out potential trips for 2027. We would absolutely love to see M's mom again, but there is no option for her to travel right now, given the situation in Iran. We always worry that by the time a window opens up, she will be unable to travel. 

What about you? Do you map out your travel in a similar way? How do you use your vacation budget, or PTO days? 

January Goals Recap

 The month is over, so how did I do? As a reminder for myself as much as anyone else, I was out of town for four days for personal travel, and eight days for work travel. 

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses - yes, made a large tuition payment for Nick & signed a lease on an apartment
• Stay on top of food waste by using up 3 pantry or freezer items - gave away pantry items we won't use, and used up a lot of leftovers: chicken parmesan, an orzo dish, and a chicken & rice dish
• Be more intentional about savings & spending. Establish a goal & benchmark savings. - I've done really well at this, and have been intentionally saving into a new college account for Nick, as I would love to not pull from long term savings to fund the rest of his college expenses. 
• Find one expense to optimize - after a frustrating experience, I cancelled the $5.99 subscription to my Oura ring. I actually really like the health details they provide, but can get a lot of the sleep information from my watch for free. 

Family:

• Continue to help the boys navigate college & life - yes, they are both doing well & we have weekly calls with Nick. Maybe we should arrange something with Sam, as even though he lives with us, his schedule is quite crazy with studying & working. A dedicated time together might be useful. 
• A monthly date with M - M & I were in Las Vegas together at the beginning of the month, and had one date night & several long hikes. 
• Continue planning our New Zealand trip - we are ready to go!
• Bucket list travel planning - M & I are going to Sedona in October, and I'm going to Zion in March. Sedona with M is on my list, and we are also talking about some bigger future trips (Iceland, Patagonia, Camino de Santiago), but nothing firmly established yet. I think we're also both very curious to see how this trip goes. 

Fitness:

• Dry January - I had three days with alcohol this month, but I did make it through my entire work trip with no alcohol, which was quite a feat. I shared wine with M on a date, and had two nights last week. Not perfect, but I'm very pleased. 
• Lose 3 lbs - I lost 2.5 lbs
• 10 positive days in a month - strength train, No S, meditate - 7, 11 & 6, respectively
• Positive eating: track protein & produce - I did pretty well at this earlier in the month, but sort of fell off in the last week or so. Eating a lot of protein & produce does indeed keep you healthier & reduce snacking!
• Average 12,000 steps/day - squeaking in at 12,078

Personal:

• 10 days of language lessons - 13/10
• Declutter 50 items from the house - 65/50
• Get together with friends - met friends for a workout, a hike, and went to a dinner party
• Try something new & uncomfortable - tried a Pilates reformer class!
• Say yes to more adventures - general travel planning for adventures continue
• Get to know our neighbors - went for another walk with one neighbor, and continued to help our elderly neighbor across the street
• Try a new recipe - made a buffalo chicken recipe, at Sam's request

I'm surprised by all of the green, but I'll take it! What about you? How did you do with your January goals? 

Menu Plan Sunday

 An abbreviated plan, as we leave mid week.

• Friday - we shared a cauliflower crust pizza + chicken (freezer) for extra protein
• Saturday - out at a party, where they served Mediterranean catering
• Sunday - high protein chicken tzatziki bowls (using rotisserie chicken) - new recipe
• Monday - lemon dill chicken cakes 
• Tuesday - leftover chicken bowls
• Wednesday - leftover chicken cakes

What about you? What's on your menu for the week?

I managed to hit my step goal for the month, thanks to an 8 mile hike yesterday. I knew what I needed to do when I added the numbers, and had planned time for a hike. I also did a lot of my packing for our trip, but still a few pieces to put together. And, somehow fitting everything into our bags. We went to a really lovely party with friends, and it was nice to catch up with a few people we know.

As for today, I again need to be very productive:

• Long hike with M, although I'm not options to bring my big pack, as I'm in the midst of packing it. I will probably try to weight my day pack & use that.
• Video call with my sister + BFF to catch up + do some Greece planning
• More packing
• Laundry
• Get a pedicure ahead of the trip. M laughed a bit at this, but my nails are too long at the moment, and I am hoping there will be at least a few days where I can where sandals - it is summer after all. The weather mostly looks quite similar to a bay area winter day in the current forecast, but I'm optimistic we will get more sun. 

Hope you have a great Sunday!

February Goals

I need to run the numbers to finalize my goals for January, but thought I'd start focusing on February as well. 

It's going to be a month of adventure!

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses
• Stay on top of food waste by using up 3 pantry or freezer items
• Be more intentional about saving & spending. Immediately move all savings to account for Nick's college & track for motivation
• Find one expense to optimize
• Complete our taxes

Family:

• Continue to help the boys navigate college & life
• Monthly date with M
• Have a fabulous trip to NZ
• Finalize logistics for Greece trip
• Sort out/finalize move out trip to Boulder (Nick)
• Bucket list travel planning

Fitness:

• Continue with my focus on solving/resolving medical issues. Have two medical appointments - menopause & hip
• Lose 3 lbs
• 10 positive days in a month - strength train, No S, meditate
• Positive eating: track protein & produce
• Average 12,000 steps/day

Personal:

• 10 days of language lessons
• Declutter 50 items from the house
• Get together with friends
• Try something new & uncomfortable
• Say yes to more adventures
• Get to know our neighbors
• Try a new recipe

What about you? What are your goals for February?

Frugal Friday

I'm testing out a new category for my Frugal Fridays. I love travel savings & it's easier to read everything in one place, I think. This will be optional when I've booked something. 

Travel savings - I'm doing a March trip to Las Vegas (one night) & St. George/Zion with friends. I set a very limited budget for this trip. Here are the things I'm doing to keep the cost in check:

• I booked a promotional offer in Las Vegas, which makes the room free, provides $50 in gambling money (hilarious, but maybe I'll win big) & $200 of resort credit, which should cover lunch & dinner for both of us, if we're careful (food at the hotel we're at is expensive, and we don't have transportation to get around, but might walk - weather dependent). 
• Used a $500 credit card cash back statement (only for Southwest) to book my flight. Because I have A list status (also through my credit card), I got to select seats for free. I still have $70 or so of the credit to use for another flight.
• My friend has a house in St. George, so we will stay with her for free. She is also renting a car, and I will reimburse her for 1/3 of it (another friend is also going). 
• My friend is staying in St. George longer at her house, so we had the choice to fly in/out of the smaller regional airport, rent a car ourselves for the trip, or book a shuttle. The shuttle was by far the most economical choice, coming in around $57. 
• The rest of the small budget I set will be used on food in St. George, a hostess gift for my friend, etc.

Saving on things we buy

• Nick cancelled the digital book subscription that is charged automatically each semester, as he could buy the required books for much less. We received a refund of $225. 
• Used a gift card to buy Sam some jeans & a shirt for his birthday. Made sure to click through to Rakuten to save a bit more in cash back. 
• Similarly, used a $20 grocery store gift card to pick up a few of Sam's favorites for when we are traveling. Uploaded my receipts to Fetch & iBotta & saved a couple of dollars. 
• I also used a CVS $10 reward to pick up a pack of Valentine's Day cards + a birthday card. 

Earning money

• Filled out my expense report quickly, so I can get money back from my employer for my London trip. Not quite "earning money", but getting reimbursed quickly.
• My paycheck was again hard earned this week. 

Avoiding spending

• Tried a free Pilates class

Eating what we have

• Our menu plan didn't go as expected, as M forgot to pick up the stuffed peppers from Costco, and the street tacos only lasted one meal. For Monday's dinner, I defrosted chicken noodle soup & a piece of salmon. I had the soup, M had the salmon. Sam was at a study group. 
• The following night we had a chicken/rice/black bean/salsa combo (also from the freezer), which was pretty good & enhanced by the cilantro crema leftover from the street tacos. 
• Another freezer meal was consumed on Wednesday - chicken orzo + veggies. It was a little bland, but everyone was fed. I suppose the benefit of my menu plan falling apart is that we used up some freezer meals & created a bit more space. ;-) 
• When I woke up on Sunday like a bear from hibernation, I'd eaten very little the previous day & slept a lot. M made me a large breakfast sandwich, using up the last bagel, a slice of cheese, tomatoes & eggs, which was all from the fridge & easy to whip together. 

For others

• My mom does a lot for my special needs aunt, particularly after my grandmother died. I fund part of this, to help them both & because I'm not around enough to take my aunt out for lunch, or treat her to an extra splurge grocery run, etc. I increased this contribution for 2026, because it's such a small thing but helps both my mom & aunt out so much, which is awesome. 
• Helped my sister with a long travel booking using my dad's miles, a mileage transfer, a code share... it was an adventure, but saved her a lot of money! :-) 

What about you? Any wins to share? 

It's Thursday

 The week is going by exceptionally quickly, mostly because I have a ton to get done ahead of next week. But, time marches on, so here we go! Work has been absolutely wild & crazy, which is the biggest challenge. 

I did manage to serve dinner (orzo from the freezer) last night, and make it to my workout class, and send a request to get a bid on fixing our solar. I also picked up my prescription + ordered new jeans for Sam & picked up Valentine's & birthday cards. Woohoo for progress! Otherwise, it was all work, all the time.

As for today, it's going to play out in a similar fashion. Started the work day with an urgent call from my boss before 6 am, closing with a call that ends at 6 pm. Yuck.

Here's what I'm hoping to squeeze in around the fun:

• Sort out yet another creative dinner option
• Meditate/duolingo
• Work out
• Get in some steps
• Mail Nick's card
• Sort out transportation & logistics for my parents + the week we get back
• Make the to do list of everything else that needs to happen between now & next Wednesday

May the force (and productivity gods) be with all of you!

Wednesday things

I have no themes to my posts this week, so please bear with me. I'm usually more organized than this. This week is all about survival mode! I'm catching up at home & at work after having been at a four day all day work summit last week, which of course is part of work, but took me out of my day to day productivity. I'm jet lagged (although almost over that, hurrah), I have a team member leaving at the end of the week, another one going on PTO, a huge work project due this week, and I need to wrap a bunch of stuff up for my PTO that starts next Wednesday afternoon. So, just a bit to manage. ;-) 

I did call around yesterday to try & sort out our solar production, and found out that our panels haven't been sending power to the grid consistently all year. So frustrated by this, as our solar company went out of business. We were previously sent monthly reports where we could track production. They went bankrupt a few years ago, and the reports stopped. We could then only track our production through the "true up" power bill at the end of each year. It was a bit higher last year (our true up is in February, and the panels stopped sending to the grid in October of 2024), but we chalked that up to increased prices & more usage. This year, I got the true up & it was crazy high - because it's our entire power usage for the year, and we are also paying $15/month to send power to the grid, which we are not doing. Anyway, because the company is bankrupt, we have to try to find a solar company that maintains these type of grids. Please wish me luck! As someone who hates waste of any kind, I'm very frustrated we didn't catch this earlier, and/or there is not better alerting. It took some effort on my part to track this down, so I suppose better late than never? I really hope there's an easy solution here.

I did go to my workout class yesterday, and sorted out dinner for tonight & last night (freezer leftovers), so that was progress. Still working on the library. For the Y, I don't want to sign up until next month, due to our travels, so I may put that one off a bit & focus on a solve for the solar panels instead.

Okay, on to today:

• Workout class (I'm on the wait list, so if not, find another workout)
• Meditate/language lesson
• Be incredibly productive at work
• Start getting items ready for packing (we leave in a week!)
• Track down my parents travel while we're in NZ, so we can coordinate with Sam for airport rides
• Decide on birthday gifts for Sam

What about you? What's on your list for today? Hope everyone is staying warm & having a productive &  positive day. 

Tuesday things

I've got a full day ahead, but the good news is that the London jet lag means I'm up early in the mornings! Of course, I've been going to bed around 7 pm, so that's not sustainable either. ;-) I'm an early bird as is, but the jet lag makes it hard to stay awake until my normal 9 pm bed time.

I tried out a free Pilates class yesterday & really liked it, but the cost was absolutely eye watering. I'm going to see if I can find an alternative (the Y, maybe?) that provides most of the benefit at a much lower cost. I want to focus on adding in strength & core workouts (yoga, Pilates) in 2026 to help with some of my back & hip pain, so maybe the Y would be an option as the one near me has both. I need to call & see what they offer & their monthly cost.

M forgot to pick up the stuffed peppers from Costco, so I'm back to the drawing board for dinner tonight. I'm heading to a workout class this afternoon, so it will have to be something easy. I'm thinking meatballs. Sam & I will have them over pasta, but M will likely just have them on the side. 

Things I want to do today:

• Continue working on tracking down the drop in our solar production
• Call the Y for pricing & schedules
• Get the library app hooked up to my kindle
• Revise menu plan 
• Workout class
• Update my January workout numbers
• Follow up on summer vacation plans
• Go for a walk. My 12k step target is a ways off after my work trip, and I want to boost that back up

What about you? Hope everyone is staying warm! Nick reports that it's been very cold in Boulder!

Something different

I'm going to give this a try & then shut off comments, because I'm hoping this will be a one time note about this topic. Frankly, I was also really inspired by The Frugal Girl, who often says the things I'm thinking, but in a much more coherent way.

I wanted to address the comments regarding my lack of posts about the current administration - even those comments that have followed me around the blog space, with some commenting about how complicit I am all over the internet. You are totally entitled to your opinion. Here's mine.

I am heartbroken and exhausted & I have been for a long time. For those who somehow tied me together with being complicit and talking about who I voted for - well, you are incorrect. I stopped talking about all of that when my children became fodder for discussion & racism entered the discussion, and that was the end of my attempt to tie any amount of politics into this blog.

But, for the record, I loathe what I am seeing in the news, but I am currently walking a very thin line regarding my own mental health and energy management. I do not have the emotional strength to process this publicly or to curate a political discussion on this platform. Please understand that this blog is where I go to work on what I can control (money, my forever attempt to get healthy, balance & achieving personal goals) because the rest of it feels too heavy for me to carry. I like to focus on tangible things we can do in a world that really feels like it's gone crazy. That's how I handle this publicly. What I'm doing privately is not up for debate or discussion, but I do take action in my private life. I'm not open to sharing that here.

All of us handle things like this differently, and I respect that. Please respect my choices on this.

Menu Plan Monday

 I'm late, but definitely need a plan. Lord only knows what the boys ate while I was in London.

• Saturday - I went to bed at 6 pm, and M had a salad.
• Sunday - street tacos from Costco
• Monday - stuffed peppers (also from Costco)
• Tuesday - taco leftovers turned into a salad
• Wednesday - stuffed peppers
• Thursday - crockpot buffalo chicken + coleslaw
• Friday - lefotvers

It's a pretty uninspired menu plan, but it's something!

What about you? What's on your menu for the week?