It’s been a really long time. 2025 was pretty wild. I spent a couple of months freaking out about the speed and horribleness of the new administration. Eventually, I came to a place of calm about what it could mean for my job, and was then just left worrying about… everything else. There is a lot to worry about there, and it feels a bit hopeless, but maybe we are at least slowing fascism’s. Maybe we can hope for more soon.
Work turned out to be, for now, fine. Even pretty great. The long-term picture is still not great – but with the rise of AI, I can’t really think of any field that seems like a safe haven from big changes. My long-term big work project finally reached its most major milestone late last year. It’s what we’ve been working towards since I came back from maternity leave over 7 years ago! It was very very exciting. It was insanely busy with 12-hour shifts for a few weeks and a many trips away from home. But it was largely successful. The project is in its next phase, and I’m winding down my role to part-time role, and ramping up on a new project. Getting going on a new project is always a bit of struglle, getting over that hump of newness and slogging to become familiar and comfortable with things. But I’m far enough in that I’m getting excited and interested – even if measurable progress is slower than I’d like.
LO completed first grade, had her first “friend” party for her 7th birthday, and continues to be an amazing kid. She’s so smart and funny and kind and creative. She keeps growing up in little ways that slip by quickly, and in big ways that… also seem to slip by quickly. She spent 3 weeks with T’s parents in the Midwest, giving us a huge break in parenting and our first adult-only vacations since she was born. I am always envious of people with family help nearby, but at least we have family. Family that will offer this, and that we fully trust can take good care of her. I really didn’t have a single worry about it, aside from missing her a lot. It has been a time of rest and hanging with T, and much-needed after what feels like months of overstimulation and chaos. It also allowed me to get around to “maybe update the blog?” on my list of things I maybe want to do, someday, when time and energy flow in that direction. She is back now and getting ready for a family vacation and “phase 1” of braces.
We spent 4 weeks in Paris last July at the apartment we were in for T’s sabbatical. LO was at a bilingual day camp for 3 weeks because we had to work remotely for much of the time. This year, we’re looking forward to having more time locally and to visiting family. We have already had some fun: coastal camping with friends, a tidepooling and horseback riding weekend, an adults-only trip to Santa Fe, and then another to Sonoma wine country. Coming up is another coastal weekend (hotel), family camp, and a trip to visit my family at a Minnesota lake. We’re trying to be somewhat intentional about to focus spending money on family trips. Money is comfortable enough that it shouldn’t be the reason we don’t go, especially when the vacation is nothing extravagant.
On dilly-dallying:
LO is going to a variety of day camps the rest of the summer. I’m basically jealous that she gets to spend the summer exploring her interests, hanging out with her friends, and making new ones. Wouldn’t it be nice if adults could do that too?
I’m finding that while I get very excited and interested in my projects at work once I’m into them, I also have little ambition for specific work- or achievement-related goals. The day-to-day work is very interesting and rewarding, and I often find myself thinking about or doing work outside of the typical work day. But at the same time, once I turn the work switch off, I want to spend my time mostly dilly-dallying, then maybe walking/hiking, self-care, and actually getting into strength training
. I’ve gotten a bit into gardening over the past 2 years, with one stainless-steel planter thing and a bunch of little pots. Last year didn’t work out well – abandoning all of July for Paris derailed things, naturally. This spring, I was on top of things enough to get some things growing. I’ve had a few harvests of snap peas, though now powdery mildew is threatening them. My cucumber plants started off strong, but have stalled out for a bit, either due to cold, overwatering, or underfertilizing. I’m taking care of the latter two concerns, and maybe the hot weather will come back to my microclimate to help. I added some green beans that I expect can take over for the peas if it gets hotter, a tiny lettuce bed, and some dill. I have several pots of flowers plus some in the ground, with hopes of decorating my table with cut flowers for several months. There is also Thai basil that we rooted from leftover sprigs, culantro, and Thai chillis. T’s hoping to use them in cooking, though we may not get hot enough weather for the peppers. I added some everbearing strawberries and harvested a few. Is it a rule that you have to get into gardening in your 40s? Or is it because my kid is getting too old to fuss over in that caretaking way? I don’t know, but it has been fun!
I’ve been reading a lot again, something I struggled hard with for the first ~5 years of LO’s life. So many good books. Years too late, I read Super Sad True Love Story, and man, that book was prescient. I gave 5 stars to some other older ones: Little Fires Everywhere and A Gentleman in Moscow. Newer ones I loved include My Friends and The Correspondent. Mostly, it is just nice enjoying books again.
Then there are the little half-finished crafty things I have, just waiting for my mind to be able to pick them up again. Learning to knit. Finishing the raccoon crochet kit with step-by-step basic instructions that LO gave me after discovering it was too hard. It stalled out when I couldn’t figure out the “front” and “back”. Figuring out the rest of this art thing I want to make for LO’s room with this iridescent acrylic already cut into small squares and drilled with holes. Wheel pottery – the sensory experience is so pleasing! Maybe some baking or cooking projects (not just cooking so we don’t starve). Then bigger, less attainable things, like figuring out a better decoration or system for our entryway, some sort of backyard project, redoing the fireplace…
Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble with keeping entertained and busy during an early retirement. A life of little projects sounds nice. Then maybe save the world from facism for the hard part.
On FIRE and Money:
Financially, we obviously aren’t there. I accidentally mentioned something about being retired in ~10 years to some “normal” family friends of ours, and the reaction was… interesting to me. First, one assumed I’d made a mistake: “2036, in your early 50s?”, and I played it off as a maybe idea, but also said something about saving money. Which it is. I have no specific plan to retire on any specific date, other than I want to be financially ready to do so as soon as is reasonable.
I haven’t been able to keep up on our spreadsheets or calculate a savings rate or spending or anything. Most of our money is going into savings and housing bills. Now braces are on the list, though a lot of that can at least be from our FSA pre-tax. I think they quoted us ~$4200 for 18 months of braces/expander/etc treatment, with $1500 lifetime benefit for orthodontia from our insurance. We still spend a fair amount on child care – after care during the school year is about $700/mo, and summer camps during the summer are anywhere from $250 to $700/wk, depending on what you sign up for. It’s nothing like having a young kid in full-time daycare, but it is still significant. Food spending is higher due to a combination of convenience food and rising prices. I’ve been getting Thistle deliveries for a few weeks to help get into the habit of nutritious salad meals for lunch. I could/should make these myself, but I’ve been so burned out that I’m more worried about my health and mental load than about the money right now. It’s a luxury to be able to make that choice, though. And travel, even in a “light” year like. We splurged on our adult-only vacations, but are driving for our family trips. We bought tickets to “granny camp” and tickets to see my family later in the summer, and then flying home for the holidays will be $2,300 for the 3 of us. Ouch, but also, important. I want to quantify this all, but it sounds like a lot of effort. I want to dump it all into AI and have AI do it for me in a quicker way than my old manual process – but I don’t actually want to give all that info to AI either. That’s why I’ve used homegrown spreadsheets for so long – I want to control the data. But I no longer feel compelled to spend time on it.
T has become interested in at least tracking our account balances, so we have that. I don’t have a specific target number. I’d imagine we’d want to get LO through university, or at least have a clear line of sight for that. Health care is always the major question. But also, we are prioritizing some of hte “now” parts of life, at least when it comes to things like seeing family and making our own family memories. I finally feel comfortable enough to do that. I’ve convinced my self that we’ll be ok, or things will have gone so badly in the world that any choices we make now wouldn’t have much impact on our level of “ok”.