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Simple Rituals, A No-Spend Game, and Simple Routines

September 30, 2026

I’ve been playing a game with our finances since Sunday: No spending until Thursday, October 1. Jared had to get gas on Monday, which was unavoidable. Otherwise, we’re on track for the goal.

I track our income vs. expenses and we have spent $39.28 more than we brought in in September.

Fail. Spending more than we brought in has been a thing since March of this year and I tried to turn it around drastically in September. And it was a win by comparison, but we still were approx. $40 more than hoped for.

I suppose $40 in the grand scheme of two out-of-state trips in a month is still a win. Especially given the comparison to August.

Despite the no-spend game, Jared and I walked the entirety of Hobby Lobby, looking for things to make a new jute bag version 2.0 for me with. Guess what? We walked out with nothing, because I decided my jute bag cannot be improved upon.

A win— the no-spend game continued. I decided the jute bag can come back into rotation for limited runs, and the faux leather bag I bought at Robinson Salvage is sufficient for days I carry heavier things.

I’ve been playing the game of “how minimalist can I get with my photo grear?” And then I put the three autofocus lenses I have on my camera this morning and sadly, I cannot part with any of my remaining autofocus lens. I have pared my gear down to what I desperately want to keep and— admittedly first-world privilege— I don’t want to get rid of anything else.

I woke up at 5 AM this morning, an hour before my alarm was to go off. That was a win too; I like to be up for an hour-plus before everyone else in the house is up.

A load of laundry has gotten done. The laundry that has been sitting in the machines since before we left for Grinnell has been done and put up. The bed was made. Abby and the cats have been tended to. The snacks bag that we toted with us to Grinnell has been unpacked. I have sorted through most of my closet and bagged up a load for Goodwill.

A new thing: The last several days, I have compulsively had to change out of whatever I have been wearing out of the house, in favor of something more lounge-like, to get things done at home during the day. Even when it means changing back into whatever I was wearing later in the day. It seems to be a new routine.

And whatever that bizarre new ritual is doing, it’s working: it makes me feel better about my life.

This change probably started about a month ago when Jared encouraged me to buy acutal pajamas instead of just sleeping in my leggings.

Soon, I found myself changing into my jammies between 7:30 and 8 PM, or whenever we got home. I actually feel myself relaxing over the hour or so I wear them before actually going to bed.

But also: I am in the process of painting the interior of our house, and I don’t want to mess up my better clothes. So, changing into something I don’t mind messing up is a natural extension of painting and working at home right now.

I do feel more relaxed at home when I am wearing more relaxed things though— I even take my socks off and wear my house shoes.

I don’t know if this is helping my psyche long-term, but I do know that I gravitated toward the bedroom between 9:15 and 9:30 PM last night, not even worrying about whether Jared was coming to bed, to read my book. And I slept all night, and I woke up this morning before my alarm even went off.

I’ve also drastically simplified my hair maintenance, probably alarmingly-so to most people. I’m using my Trader Joe’s 3-in-1 shampoo, body wash, and conditioner on it, and that’s it.

I noticed in Grinnell, with the monsoon-like rains, that my hair had more body after it had gotten wet and re-dried. I hadn’t taken my normal hair products with me, and I had let my hair air dry after I got out of the shower. As a girl with mostly flat, easy-to-get-oily hair, I don’t mind what most people would call frizz. I guess it was frizz. I brushed it out and it was wavy again after the fact, with the right amount of body.

But after observing how my hair reacted to the rain last week with nothing else in it, I tried an experiment yesterday: I went back to only squeezing my hair out after my shower yesterday to let it air dry without touching a towel to it at all. I didn’t comb it or brush it until it was completely dry.

I also emptied out the old Trader Joe’s rose water spritz bottle I had, cleaned and washed it out really well, and put some distilled water in the bottle.

Ta-Da! Same effect on a regular day at home. I let it air dry, combed and brushed my hair out, and spritzed some of the distilled water, and it bounced right up just like after the rain.

My hair has an entirely different consistency without products in it, for the better in my opinion. I braided it loosely for bed last night and made it safely into Day 2 without needing a wash. I just spritzed it with the distilled water this morning, and there was the right volume again.

Letting my hair go bare also highlights exactly how delicate my particular hair is. I’ve been far too hard on it over my lifetime, and it seems to love a no-heat lifestyle.

I’ve mostly settled into relaxing about being the parent of young adults now that we’re home and getting back to a regular routine. Liam says his boots are still perfect; the second winter coat I ordered originally meant for Liam has arrived and is now set aside for Porter. Oliver is back on the Gold Team for E-Sports and we’re working on getting into a homework routine— it took till seventh grade but he can no longer avoid homework, much to Oliver’s dismay. Thankfully, Jared tracks Oliver’s Infinite Campus regularly and hounds Oliver when there are missing assignments, because it would all fall by the wayside if left to me.
Parents Weekend: Life as a Helix, Not a Circle

September 27, 2026

I am drafting this at 5:44 AM Sunday morning, September 27.

Parents and families weekend was a whirlwind. It was a whirlwind schedule-wise; it was a whirlwind emotion-wise.

We have been to Iowa enough— and covered enough familiar geographic Iowa area enough especially this trip— for me to figure out that my emotions are a tangled mess every time I am here mostly having nothing at all to do with our child coming to college 900+ miles away from home.

We took Oliver to Iowa City yesterday and got off at the exit Jared took to get to the University of Iowa Hospital the morning I accompanied him to class because I was in the midst of a miscarriage, in September of 2005. I could remember the severe cramping as we came down a particular hill; Jared didn’t make it to class because we ended up in the ER that particular morning as I passed the “conception material” on that drive.

Thank goodness for my good memory; I remembered as we passed the Coralville mall that Scheel’s is a major sporting goods store. So, we left Liam with a perfectly great Columbia heavy down winter coat and a brand new pair of Keen’a boots so his feet will not be constantly wet in the boggy mess that is Iowa weather a lot right now. Porter will inherit the coat I ordered to have shipped home to send to Liam because his winter coat is not that great and I was able go cancel the original shoe order.

My baby won’t be too cold or wet this winter.

We left him with a tray-mat for his wet things, some more coat hangers, a Nerf gun to add to his collection for the ever-important Nerf wars that happen in one of the classroom buildings after hours.

He took us on a tour of Burling Library, including the completely silent 4th floor. Oliver got to thoroughly explore the jungle gym study area.

Liam took Oliver to his dorm room, and Oliver said Liam lit up when it was just the two of them. I’m beyond thrilled that they had that brother time— it means we did something right. Oliver got to see the entire Nerf collection.

We got to have Z’Marik’s for lunch in Iowa City, one of our favorite restaurants in Iowa City and Des Moines.

Liam wrote a whole paper while we were there, so we had down time. We took a ride to Des Moines on Friday night and Oliver got to see the state capital of Iowa at night, and we drove him by the nearby State Historical Society of Iowa where I volunteered in the Archives and Reading Room during my pregnancy with Porter— I helped them transition from Dewey Decimal to Library of Congress systems.

It is utterly incomprehensible, the amount of living Jared and I packed into the two newlywed years we lived in Grinnell.

And all this circles back to my self-adopted tagline “a girl obsessed with time.” Time loops over on itself when life intersects with geography over and over again.

It was like that in 2007 when we moved back to the West Georgia area after I had left in 1998.

It was like that in 2023 when we started going to church in Atlanta and I started spending more time in the city, having backed off city trips other than medical in 2008 or so.

And it had been like that coming back from Iowa to the metro Atlanta area, having been away from 2005 to 2007.

And now, here we are exploring our newlywed stomping grounds from 2005-2007 in 2026.

I’m introspective by nature. It’s who I am. And I don’t know if it has to do with having family roots across north Georgia from the early 1800s or if it is just my personality, but I have deep ties to place as identity.

And somehow, in 2026, after feeling most of my adult life like I do not belong anywhere— and worse, feeling like my most important moments have been geographically fragmented in ways I cannot describe any better:

In 2026, it occurs to me that the circular life circumstances are creating integration within my psyche in ways I couldn’t have planned any better if I had actually tried to plan all these geography changes out thirty years ago, which would have been impossible.

Throughout my life I’ve had odd twinges that a higher power was looking out for me; this coming-together of time and place across my lifespan feels like one more instance of cosmic gifts.

I asked Oliver if he could imagine Jared and me living in Grinnell and he said, “Um, no.”

Jared got to see many of the people he would like to have seen if given the opportunity in Grinnell this weekend.

Liam is fine; I worry but it is my job as mom. We met some of his good friends and their parents and I exchanged contact info with one of the moms. He is starting to think about next summer plans and is utilizing as many resources as possible.

And so: we are on the way back to our lives, leaving Liam to his.

This morning as we approached Highway 218 to turn south on I-80, all of a sudden it was 2004 and it was just me and Jared in the car on an early morning drive to get me to the airport in Moline for an early morning flight.

And briefly Friday night it wasn’t Friday night at all; it was a late Wednesday night in 2006 when we were heading back to Grinnell after handbell choir at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Des Moines.

Maybe time and geography are more like my curvy, scoliotic, rotating spine in my life— more like a helix, circling in on itself but never quite meeting in the same spots over again. Not a circle.
Disgusted: Systemic Conflict Avoidance for Seventh Graders

September 24, 2026

Originally posted on Facebook on September 21, 2026:

I’m going to get on a platform that is arguably a landmine, and I’m not one bit sorry to do so. My opinion is my own and does not reflect my public educator spouse. And this critique is not about the district my children attend and certainly not pointed at any educators I personally know, who literally live out their passions for educating our children both at school and in their personal lives, too.

When I was in the 5th and 6th grades, in the early 1990s, we regularly discussed the situation in Kuwait.

In 7th grade, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot were running against each other for the Presidency, and we held a mock election.

I realize that politics is polarizing in 2026. But I would argue that it is systemic conflict-avoidance that prevents public education from being able to bring current events into the classroom, not popular polarization.

In 2026, there is absolutely no excuse for not discussing the fact that any segment of the Press is barred from the White House currently.

I asked Oliver when he got in the car today, and why, no, as a 7th grader he had no idea that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico had been barred from the White House, and he also had no idea that ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News had jointly agreed to suspend pooled coverage with CNN, for coverage of the President.

We are living through some of the most historic First Amendment tests in the history of the United States, and we are not discussing any of these current events in public schools?

That it is off-limits for discussion is inexcusable. Public schools are the primary foundational arena for civics education, and where at least the likes of my own and previous generations to mine learned the importance of staying informed. Simply focusing on general government and law structures as civics education is wholly insufficient to raise an educated populace.

I realize we teach to the test in many cases, not by choice, and there are historical structural educational changes that happened in the early 2000s that led to the current situation of social studies education.

Ignoring current events as has shaped the past twenty years’ of education is already costing society civilized public debates in real-time, and that ignorance comes with real-life costs that are showing themselves in new ways every day, with real breakdowns in social public life.

Banning such discussions in schools is only going to lead to further divisiveness in American society. And, vast ignorance, to boot.

Disgusted. Public civics education can and should do better.

Photo of our cat Bess because she is sweeter than me.
The Careful Season

September 21, 2026

It hit today, like a freight train.

It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away.

Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be.

It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not.

It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum to begin with. The calendar should tell me every year, but every year I am thrown for a loop.

Monday, September 23, 1996 I was in the throes of my first psychotic episode. That is the day I was hospitalized for the first time. I was 17 years old.

And every year since that time, whatever the situation at hand, whatever my pre-existing mental situation, it feels like a ton of bricks is hitting my body around the 20-21 of September.

As I said, it’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. This time of year, I am legitimately more vulnerable, more fragile. I have experienced more than one psychosis that began in the Fall.

Today it hit by my utter inability to get out of bed this morning when my alarm went off. Oliver had a dentist appointment; thankfully it was at 7 AM so Jared was able to take him and he wasn’t even late for school. But there was no way to make my body get up when that 6 AM alarm went off.

And 9 AM rolled around and my body just felt heavy. I managed to get up a little after 10 AM to get some breakfast, but I quickly realized that what felt just tired to begin with was turning like sour milk into a depression. So I texted Jared, and went back to sleep.

At 12:30 PM, I heard the house alarm turn off, and looked at my phone. I’d missed a call 13 minutes prior. Jared was home for lunch.

And that’s all it has taken today; Jared came home, fixed us both lunch, got dishes and laundry started, and we set two priorities for my afternoon: switch the laundry when it finishes, and get myself cleaned up.

Those feel like high bars this afternoon. And I’m not even that sad at the moment, though seeing Jared midday really did help. It just seems like a lot of work to even move— it’s a literal physical depression, not a sadness, not a despondency. I know my life is a good one.

I told Jared when he was home that I was worried about getting done what needs to be done before we leave to go see Liam in Grinnell later in the week. Mostly all that needs to be done is laundry, but there is a lot of it and I had planned to spend the entirety of today keeping the machines going nonstop, to get it all done.

An evening trip to Wash Bowl might be in order for tonight, though I didn’t tell Jared that before he left.

The body keeps score, my body keeps score, and today marks the beginning of the careful season of bipolar disorder with psychosis. The season of being extra nice to myself, of letting housework slide, of letting Jared take care of me, of tending to my sleep and taking my meds above all else.

This year marks 30 years of careful seasons; the anniversary had not occurred to me until I drafted this post. Some years I’ve been more careful than others.

17 years old. I shake my head and sigh at that; I was so very young. Too young to have to face what many people see as their worst nightmare possible: the idea that my very own brain and thoughts might not be universally trustworthy.

This week I’ve had reason to pause to consider that very situation; that my diagnosis would be some people’s (let’s face it, a lot of people’s) worst case scenario. And I’ve decided there are actually gifts in knowing what it is for my mind to fail me. In my case, I’m extraordinarily lucky that I come to in the aftermath, back to reality. That doesn’t happen for everyone.

But the bigger gift is this: because I have had some very public psychotic episodes, and because my social sphere has mutated and shrunken due to that fact, I have become very, very comfortable in my own skin. I am me, I am comfortable with my situation and my lot in life, and I happen to know that the people who are in my life are genuinely there because they want to be there, not for some superficiality I never aspired to.

So, if you’re reading this, thank you. Thanks for reading, thanks for whatever roles we play in each others’ lives, thanks for not writing me off as a lost-cause mental case, as I know for a fact some have.

It may be the careful season, but this careful season, however heavy my body is, I know I am lucky.
Those QR Code Cards were Brilliant

September 21, 2026

Birthdays are interesting. Last Wednesday the 16th was my 47th birthday.

My boys made my birthday this year, for sure. Jared had them all record video birthday greetings for me, which he compiled in Google Drive and made QR cards for, which he placed as the cards in the flowers he came to the door to deliver about 10:30 on my birthday morning. It was very romantic, and very Jared, and my boys were very sweet to play along.

This gift was particularly effective given that two of our three boys are off at college, so I was unable to actually see them on my day.

Then I went and hung out with Jared at his work, so I didn’t spend the day alone, and for most of the day, it was pretty awesome.

And then about 6:30 PM I got melancholy for reasons I won’t go into here. Jared took me to the Marina for the sunset that night of my birthday, which helped tremendously. But that’s life, right? I mean, nothing is perfect.

But can we just talk about those flowers, and those QR codes, and those birthday greetings from my boys? My husband is the absolute best.

He could have just shown up with the QR codes in hand– or an email link to the videos– and I would have been giddy. It for sure wasn’t about the money spent. It was about the effort that went into showing me how much he and my boys love me. Jared could have taken a piece of paper and written me a note, or had the boys write notes, and the message would have been equally effective: spending a dime was unnecessary to have the tremendous effect of spoiling me that he did.

Jared shows up. Every time, without fail. I am the luckiest girl on Earth. And he’s there in melancholy evenings, too.

I love you, Doodles.

Simple Rituals, A No-Spend Game, and Simple Routines

Parents Weekend: Life as a Helix, Not a Circle

Disgusted: Systemic Conflict Avoidance for Seventh Graders

The Careful Season

Those QR Code Cards were Brilliant