Looking forward to Friday

 And, not just for the typical "work week ending" reasons, although certainly that as well. Nick comes home for spring break on Friday (hurrah), and my boss theoretically returns from her sick leave on Monday of next week. So, Friday is the end of my filling in for her (+ one other person). I'm still filling in for three other people, but... she obviously has the most stuff going on, the most challenging stuff to navigate & just generally the biggest priorities. Not managing her work will be a huge gift! I am also falling behind on all of my own work, which creates stress, as I'm a real "get it done/check it off the list" kind of person.

As for today, I'm heading to the office for a summit, and we will have a team dinner tonight. It's important & I need to be there, but it's also a 14+ hour day, which is just.. a lot. Luckily, this dinner prevents me from having to drive into the city for another dinner I was invited to for work, so I suppose small blessings, as I'll save a few hours of additional drive time. 

M & I have been looking at our budget & expenses, and using a lot of double checking of our numbers to determine when I can quit & not have a career job anymore. (I might do something part-time, or because I really want to, but not for a career job salary/stress.) I definitely need to complete one full year, and would like to get to January. July of 2027 would be ideal, but... unless I fill some of these open roles, January feels more likely. 

We are also planning our next "big" trip. No idea when we would take it - 2027, or later, but we have a lot of fun options on the table, including Tasmania for the Overland Track, or Torres del Paine in Patagonia. If time is a challenge, we are open to Banff as well, which has been on my bucket list for years.

That's what's up in my world. What about you? What are you looking forward to today?

March goals

 I'm very overdue, but better late than never is my motto on this. 

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
• Find one expense to optimize
• Finish taxes

Family:

• Continue to help the boys navigate college & life
• A monthly date with M
• Have a fabulous & on budget trip to Las Vegas/Zion with friends
• Enjoy having Nick home for spring break & his birthday
• Finalize summer plans for everyone
• Book summer travel
• Figure out next big adventure with M

Fitness:

• Start therapeutic massage appointments
• Get hip dry needled at Stanford
• Lose 3 lbs
• 10 positive days in a month (strength train, No S, meditate)
• Come up with a general workout template (strength, cardio, Pilates/yoga)
• 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
• Say yes to more adventures
• Get to know our neighbors
• Try a new recipe

What about you? What are our goals for March?

Fitness Monday

 First off, it's generally such a lovely group of readers/commenters (thank you!), but sometimes... 

AnonymousMarch 8, 2026 at 4:10 PM

Are you making comments on the Iran war? Or is that too much for you too? Loving the high gas and food prices. So much for savings!!

There are so many things I could say in response to this, but I'll just go with... you obviously don't know me at all, and you must not be a reader. 😂

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming. 

Weight: 161.4 (basically flat, or down by the tiniest .1 amount)

Calories: 1,548/day. 

Steps: 9,635/day. Oof. So low. With a focus on getting in different types of workouts & less cardio focused, this is causing a pretty big drop in my steps. I had a ~10 mile hike yesterday, so this is particularly crazy given how much that offset the rest of the days. I really need to find time throughout the day for small walks. 

Workouts:

• 1 mile treadmill walk
• 1 cardio/strength combo class
• 1 strength training class
• 1 stretching class
• 30 minutes on the elliptical
• Yoga class
• 9 mile hike + walk & talk chat with friends

Other: as part of my quest in 2026 to improve my health & dedicate time & money to resolving the issues that really bother me (notably, my chronic back pain that interferes with my sleep & the tendonitis in my hip that interferes with many things), I got a deep tissue sports massage on Saturday, that focused on trigger point therapy, myofascial release, and active release techniques (ART). Let's just say that, short of childbirth, it was one of the most uncomfortable experience I've ever had. That said, I will go again, because while we only had time to focus on my hip, I regained quite a bit of additional mobility & my back & hip pain are both noticeably better! Next up I will go & have them focus on my lower back pain. The tendonitis in my hip is causing a lot of tightness elsewhere in my right side, which is pretty uncomfortable. 

I have also been adding a lot more stretching & yoga, which is awesome for me, but reduces my cardio output & step. I'm still working on the balance there, but I'm happy I'm making time for things other than cardio. 

Goals for the week ahead:

• Drop calories to 1400/day. I saw a suggestion to eliminate breakfast a few days/week, which I will likely try. I don't typically snack during the week days. I also need to reduce portion size by 10-15% at dinner, to see some progress.
• Increase steps.
• Add in another cardio workout

Unfortunately, this is going to be another intensely busy week, requiring two trips to the office, and one or two work evenings, as I'm still filling in for my boss. That means I need to "make hay while the sun shines", or get in the workouts when I have the chance & really focus. I also need to be creative this week, perhaps commuting in earlier than my 7 am time & bringing my gym bag & clothes & working out/getting ready before my day starts. Daylight savings is not my friend in this endeavor!

That's it for me. What about you? How are you doing with your health & fitness goals?

Menu Plan Sunday

 It's that time again! My goal this week was to use up the following ingredients: spinach, cottage cheese (it's getting used in the sauce of a couple of dinners, below) & coleslaw. 

• Friday - leftover grilled burgers, over salads
• Saturday - grilled chicken & rice
• Sunday - green enchilada skillet (new recipe)
• Monday - creamy spinach & chicken alfredo (new recipe)
• Tuesday - leftover chicken + coleslaw
• Wednesday - out with a work event, M will likely have salmon
• Thursday - leftover enchilada skillet
• Friday - leftover creamy chicken & chicken alfredo

What about you? What's on your menu this week? 

February Goal Update

 February was quite a month. We had our incredible trip to New Zealand, quite a lot of stress with M's family & reimmersion to life. My manager is also unexpectedly out due to a health issue, and that compounded with other people being out means I'm currently covering for five people. It's a lot.

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses - done
• Stay on top of food waste by using up 3 pantry or freezer items - done, broth, soup & cauliflower rice
• Be more intentional about saving & spending. Move savings to account for Nick's college & track for motivation - I set all of this up, but it's been a very expensive month
• Find one expense to optimize - canceled my Kindle Unlimited subscription, saving $11.99/month
• Prep for taxes - did a lot of work early in the month, then finished Sam's taxes, but need M's input on a bunch of stuff & haven't made progress on that recently

Family:

• Continue to help the boys navigate college & life - yes
• A monthly date with M - New Zealand!
• Have a fabulous trip to NZ - it exceeded all of our expectations
• Finalize logistics for Greece trip - yes, booked additional flights, activities & ferry travel
• Sort out/finalize move out trip to Boulder - yes, booked
• Bucket list travel planning - we keep adding to the list, but generally yes!

Fitness:

• Two medical appointments (menopause & hip) - yes
• Lose 3 lbs -up roughly two pounds
• 10 positive days in a month (strength train, No S, meditate) -5 strength training, 7 No S, 3 meditations
• Positive eating: track protein & produce - did not track well during February
• Average 12,000 steps/day - 13,384

Personal:

• 10 days of language lessons - 3/10
• Declutter 50 items from the house - 62 items out of the house!
• Get together with friends - yes, a hike, a workout class & a champagne/charcuterie meet up
• Try something new - went on an epic adventure, tried a guided tour for the first time, tried a few new workouts
• Say yes to more adventure - see above, plenty of adventure!
• Get to know our neighbors - no progress this month
• Try a new recipe -made a chicken tostada recipe that we liked

What about you? How did you do with your February goals? 

Frugal Friday

Honestly, money hasn't been anywhere near the top of my mind lately, but going through the motions of real life helps me feel a bit more grounded. 

Saving on things we buy

• Used $13 of CVS rewards to pick up some vitamins, a birthday card for Nick and eye makeup remover. I still paid out of pocket, but it was nice to have the $13 of savings. Additionally, I uploaded my receipts to both Fetch & iBotta, and iBotta had a cash back offer off of an entire CVS purchase that I took advantage of. I had to go to CVS to pick up a prescription, so this was a nice way to double up on an errand. 
• Used $30 of grocery store gift card money (earned from buying gift cards at some point in late 2025) to pick up things we needed: coconut milk (must get this at Trader Joes next time, due to cost), coleslaw mix x2, carrots, sandwich bread for Sam, discovered we didn't have enough chicken). 

Earning money

• I had a mammogram done in January, and my insurance company offers a once a year $75 reimbursement for standard screening & health care checkup. (It's a high deductible plan.) Filled out the $75 claim form. 

Avoiding spending

• Packed my lunch on Wednesday, when I went to the office. After more than a decade of working at a company that provided lunch, plus the first six months of my current employer providing lunch, I was out of practice. Luckily, I was busy enough at work that this made sense, even though I was surprisingly the only person to do it out of my work group. Saved $7 over the salad I would have bought. 

Eating what we have

• Made protein pancakes, and used up the remainder of a container of oats, as well as three overly ripe bananas that were otherwise destined for the freezer. Definitely liked these (made a large batch) & will make them again. 
• M & I teamed up for dinner on Sunday, and I made a delicious egg roll in a bowl recipe, and he made rice to go with it. We typically just serve the egg roll in a bowl on its own, but I needed rice for a weekday dinner, and opted to go ahead & have it made on Sunday to make things easier during the week. It was fantastic together & dinner was a hit. 
• Used up green onions from the garden, and we have a lot more where that came from!

For others

• A teacher on BN was looking for a Roomba vacuum for an area where their custodian doesn't clean, leaving the teachers to need to vacuum between planning periods, etc. It just so happened that I had a Roomba a friend had given us when they moved, and didn't really know if we would use it. The teacher was so excited, and she + the other teachers sent me a lovely note. It was very serendipitous that I could help them out. 

What about you? Any wins to share?

Quick update

M has been trying to call & message his family, but yesterday I decided to try WhatsApp, as I feel like that sometimes goes through when all other messaging doesn't. I heard back from his sister today! Everyone is okay, but of course it's a very scary situation with lots of bombing. She is also in contact with M's mom & the rest of the family.

I am so grateful to hear back & to relieve anxiety for this immediate moment, knowing it's still a very dangerous situation.

Wanted to update you all, as you have been so lovely with your support and good thoughts. 

Fitness Monday

Still no word from M's family. I'm trying to keep myself busy with my normal tasks & activities, but it's obviously very challenging. 

On the fitness front, this was a challenging work week, which made everything else difficult. 

Weight: 161.5

Calories: average of 1,553/day

Steps: average of 10,417/day. Very far off track most days, as I hiked this weekend & made up some ground & still didn't get to 12k/day.

Workouts:

• 1 strength training class at Orange Theory
• 1 boot camp class
• 1 yoga class
• 1 7 mile walk (pretty easy terrain)
• 1 7.5 mile hike (harder terrain)
• 40 minutes on the elliptical
• A few short walks midweek

Other: didn't do a good job tracking protein or fruits/vegetables, but did try to eat a balanced diet. Had 4 No S days

Goals for the week ahead:

• Daily workouts
• Increased steps/day to 12k
• Track protein & fruit/vegetables

What about you? How are you doing with your health & fitness goals? 

Menu Plan Sunday

 This post was scheduled a few days ago, but no news on M's family. It looks like phone & internet are currently unavailable. 

As part of my "use it up" goals for February, I was looking for a higher protein way to use freezer bananas than typical banana bread. Banana bread, while delicious, isn't exactly great for my waistline at the moment. I'm going to try & make this recipe for high protein pancakes with bananas. I'll report back.

• Friday - random fridge leftovers
• Saturday - eggroll in a bowl with Persian rice
• Sunday - grilled burgers, take 2. M didn't think his previous efforts went well, so he wants to try again. 
• Monday - slow cooker chicken satay with leftover rice
• Tuesday - leftover eggroll in a bowl
• Wednesday - leftover burgers
• Thursday - leftover chicken satay
• Friday - likely something very easy, as it's going to be a crazy week

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

Saturday Happenings

M has been reaching out to his family, but has not heard back. We are very worried about the situation in Iran & the safety of his family & extended family. (If you have a political comment on this, please keep it to yourself. I'm not interested in a debate on this topic.)

I was originally planning to post what I have on my list to do today, what I'd like to get done, and how great it felt to have a really productive week. Maybe throw in some moderate complaining about how stressful work is at the moment, and how much worse I expect it to get over the next few weeks, but... that is all really silly stuff that doesn't matter. I guess that's a good reminder to me about life in general. 

Frugal Friday

A few frugal things this week to share... On the frugal fail side, I forgot to pack lunch yesterday, so I ended up buying a salad at work. Luckily, it's the assemble yourself kind, and subsidized, so I got a large salad with lots of protein & veggies for $7. Not the end of the world, but I also had leftovers in the fridge. Need to do better next time. This is the first time I've been to the office since you have to pay (previously free), hence why I forgot. 

Saving on things we buy

• Used $20 in grocery store rewards to offset part of my shopping this week. I picked up sandwich fixings for Sam, to save money on his lunches. And, picked up some dinner ingredients. I also uploaded my receipt to Fetch.
• I earned another $45 in grocery store rewards by purchasing $300 of Southwest gift cards from the store. We will use these for our flights to Sedona, most likely. 
• I rarely see "good deals" anymore at the grocery store, but found canned beans for $1 and pasta for $1 as well. Bought two of each. 
• I get $480 in "wellness reimbursement" through my company. Submitted $250 worth of expenses for joining the YMCA (more on that in an upcoming fitness post) & a massage. Really trying to get on top of my back pain. 

Earning money

• Had my Costco credit card rebate direct deposited into our savings account, to go towards our 2026 savings goals. 
• Had just enough time to get to the bank before my grace period ended for a CD that was maturing. Made a change from a 10 month to a 3 month CD, and over 3 months I'll make an extra $375 due to a much better rate. It does mean extra work when the CD matures again, but the longer duration rates are terrible right now. 
• Filled out Sam's tax forms & got him close to a $1k refund, which will go into his long term savings account/investments. 
• We get random Amazon packages (with our name & address) every few months. It's some sort of drop shipping scam (?). Anyway, Amazon doesn't want them back & the versions we get are for healing oils & stuff we don't use. I typically list them & sell them on eBay. I made a whopping $6 this time, but these expire & I wanted them out of the house before then. I used recycled shipping materials to mail them. 

Avoiding spending

• Returned a couple of items we didn't end up using on our trip. 
• In a big money saver, I had a flight credit for Sam that I couldn't use before the expiration. My standard approach of booking further into the future & cancelling to extend didn't' work in this case. I wanted to book a flight a week after the cancellation, so I was able to get United to help me when I called, which saved $566 that otherwise would have expired. 
• I cancelled my Kindle Unlimited membership. I'm a voracious reader, but am going to try out the library for a while. I can always go back to Kindle if the library doesn't have enough options for me. 

Eating what we have

• Or, drinking, rather. There were two bottles of wine with one glass each from hosting, so I had a glass of wine from each of those bottles & finished those off. M dug out a margarita mix he made a while back, and served that over ice for himself. 
• Made an orzo chicken dish on Saturday, and used a lemon from the garden to add seasoning, plus feta from previous recipes. In addition, for M's salad, I used chopped cucumbers, onions & garbanzo beans from the protein bowls we made earlier in the week. I'll add that the chicken orzo dish was particularly dry and not great as a leftover, but... we won't repeat it.
• I meal prepped on Sunday, to get ahead a bit for meals during the week. 
• Made chicken broth from rotisserie chicken we bought this week. Used some of the broth to thin out a chicken noodle soup that I'd added too many noodles to, which made it a much better consistency. Froze the rest of the broth. 

For others

• Giving away a lot on Buy Nothing, having some career conversations/references with folks job searching. 

What about you? Any wins to share? 

Thursday happenings

 It's been a busy week, as my boss is out unexpectedly ill, and I'm covering for her. I also went in to the office yesterday, which adds about 90 minutes to my day, but was necessary for a few things.

I've been reasonably productive & am excited to try out a new YMCA class today - boot camp. I actually joined the Y to get access to lower cost yoga & Pilates vs a specialized studio for either. Of course, I know the quality will not be the same, but I'm not at an advanced level of Pilates or yoga, so it doesn't really matter to me. I'm looking for stretching, mobility & to build my strength in my core to help work on my ongoing back issues that keep me up at night & make me uncomfortable during the day.

I've also had a few other wins that I'll share tomorrow in my Frugal Friday post, and wanted to share a recipe that I swapped out & wasn't on the menu plan - Pulled Chicken Tostadas. We loved it, and used rotisserie chicken. I forgot the adobo Chiles, so we added a jalapeno from the garden. It's not the most frugal recipe with the addition of the bacon, but we really enjoyed it and the recipe made a total of 6 dinners (3 diners, x2 dinners). I made 1/2 of the coleslaw with lime the first night, and 1/2 the second night, to keep it fresh, which worked well. Anyway, thought I was share, as rotisserie chicken has been a staple on our side.

I also made a lemon chicken orzo dish & it was not good & tasted like "cafeteria hospital food", which was super irritating. I made it, so no one to blame but myself. Going to have to remember not to repeat that one!

I'm meeting a couple of friends from my morning workout class (pre going back to work) this evening for a glass of wine & dinner, which will be nice, as I don't get to see them very often anymore. 

And, for visual interest, here's how we enjoyed our Valentine's Day. This is a picture of the winery/hotel we stayed at, and the cheeseboard I put together. ;)

Fitness Monday

 This isn't a very exciting Fitness Monday update, but I wanted to get back into the rhythm again & get back on track, post our vacation. I'd summarize February so far as being very hot & cold. I had some 36,000 step days, and multiple days without a workout. We were sore after the big hike, hiked on a much smaller scale other days in New Zealand, had travel days without a workout, etc. 

We also ate plenty in New Zealand, and shared a bottle of wine most nights, and the calories of that certainly added up. My weight is up about 2 lbs since the beginning of February. I also went on HRT medicine, and that is causing a lot of other fun stuff. So, I'm hoping everything with regulate a bit by the end of this week, so I can get a good sense of where I'm at.

I did do two of my class workouts (Saturday & Sunday) & am signed up for a strength class today. I need to come up with a workout schedule for each week, to give myself a bit of structure.

For this week, here's what I'm thinking:

• Monday - strength training class + a walk of some kind for steps
• Tuesday - cardio/strength workout class
• Wednesday - work out at the office gym at lunch
• Thursday - run outside
• Friday - workout class
• Saturday - hike outside with a friend or M
• Sunday - workout class

It's also my goal to drop my calories, keep alcohol to the weekends, and move back to the "No S" plan (no snacks, no sugar, no second portions), as well as keep a close eye on produce & protein intake.

I do feel like I'm doing a good job of working to resolve my health issues & staying on top of things. I saw a  sports medicine doctor last week (super hard to get into the clinic at Stanford) & have an appointment to get my hip dry needled at the end of March. I'm also trying to get into a regular massage routine, in order to solve some of my ongoing back issues. I still need to figure out a reasonably priced yoga/Pilates option, as I definitely need to incorporate more strength & core workouts. I'm thinking of getting more details on the YMCA near us, to understand the pricing & class availability. 

What about you? How are you doing on your health & fitness goals?