I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving this year. My family and I kept to a small celebration at home, not due to the pandemic still going on, but because it is something we favored this year. After watching all the recent travel issues though, impacted in one way or another due to the pandemic and misbehaving travelers on airlines, I don’t feel bad about it one bit. Most of our plans turned out exactly as intended, some things turned out better, and what didn’t work out all that well reminded us that sometimes we just need to follow our instincts.

Given that small celebrations don’t seem to receive much coverage in conversation, I am happy to share a small feast is still worth throwing in all the labor and going all out on meal preparation. I don’t know where the idea came from that if you’re only having a small gathering that it is in someway less special. Maybe things felt that way last year because people couldn’t connect in-person, but it is about the connections with the people who celebrate with you and not the total number of attendees that is important. I remember when I lost my mom the first year of doing holidays without her was incredibly rough. The memories of each holiday from the year prior crept back in my mind and our first Thanksgiving without her felt really empty.

Our society shies away from grief a lot, but it seems to be more present surrounding big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ads and shows are loaded with messages that everyone gets together. When our table was one short, it was bittersweet but I’ve noticed how the holidays became more meaningful afterwards. I became better at sorting through family conflict that arises when there are too many people trying to navigate in the same small spaces and instead saw the best my family had to offer.

I became more aware that our home gatherings were never disingenuous. It was typical that everyone brought something and that reality is something I still love knowing my family does, even when they gather and I’m not present. As a childhood fan of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, I could almost always recall that it would be sliced and fanned out on a platter for our family dinners. Deviled eggs, a family favorite, were kept pretty simple as were the mashed potatoes. I don’t think any of the dinner rolls that ended up paired with our annual holidays were homemade, but we liked them all the same. My family photographed our get-togethers with a different technology over the years: disposable cameras covered the events until they were replaced by digital cameras and later, when members started breaking out cellphones with camera features. As a result, some family photos weren’t all that great some years, but we’ve seen an improvement due to the fact we can now delete the bad copies and hold onto the ones that best represent our time together. We may have staged our homes to show off to loved ones, but nothing was staged like it is often now to create enviable social media content. My childhood was instead filled with more basic things like silly paper decorations, my parents breaking out the good dishes which they forced us kids to wash and dry by hand at the end of the meal, and cramming ourselves into the kitchen, dining room, or living room to talk to one another.

The tough thing for me as an adult now when I go to gatherings is I don’t want to see people breaking out their phones to avoid hanging out with other people. In those moments, I would happily prefer those individuals just stayed at their own homes than ruin what should be a fun time to connect. I think it’s one thing if we break out our phones to take a photo with each other or to highlight something neat someone made or a place that he or she visited. I feel it’s another thing entirely if you’re over there in the corner checking out the score for a sports game or scrolling through sites like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. I try to be the person that if my phone comes out, I take the photo that I want and then I put my phone away. As such during our recent Friendsgiving adventure, I did not carry my phone at all. The dress I wore did not have pockets, so I stowed the phone away in my purse although I could have carted that thing around in my hand the entire time. There was only one moment that I wanted to bring out my phone and it was to share a jewelry company I found on Instagram that I wanted to share with another female guest. Instead, I shared the profile with our friend after the event so she could share it with this person.

For our family Thanksgiving, I think the only thing I truly wish I did differently was to compile a list of the meal’s cost. The modest size of our family does not translate necessarily into a cheaper dinner and I don’t want to give the false impression that our Thanksgiving Day menu was cheap. It wasn’t, but then again, I spaced out the purchases so I did not have a tally to bring this all together in a cut and dry way for my audience.

My goal was never to share our family dinner that way and I only thought about it as we began meal preparation. Instead, I wanted this post to be a good follow up to my last message that holidays are not the time to meal shame others for what is on or not on their plate. We did not engage in any daily calorie counting this entire weekend. I had my daughter draft a menu so she could contribute more in line with her interests as she sometimes gets bored cooking and baking with me with some of the tasks being more challenging for her. She decided, on her own, to annotate what was dairy free with one asterisk and put in two to denote items with two asterisks. For an 11 year old, she had a lot of fun putting this together for us.

FOOD

Next year, we may consider trying a Heritage turkey to see if it tastes much better than the Butterball brand ones.

The cranberry pie did not turn out as well as the other things and I used the recipe from Baked by an Introvert. It is my fault for testing out a different pie idea than following the recipe so same problem as my ice cream endeavor! The store bought pie shell was not deep enough to hold all 6 cups of slightly cooked cranberry filling and the pecan crust got a bit overdone, although not burnt. Next year, I’d like to make my own deep dish Oreo cookie crust and I would consider baking the filling a lot on the stovetop and putting the pie into the oven for a shorter time period. Our oven seems to run a little hot so for the earlier part of the bake, some of the cranberries got a little scorched on top. Since the pie recipe intends to create a jammy consistency, I don’t know that there would be much harm in cooking it more like a cranberry sauce on the stovetop and finishing it in the oven for a short time period to bond the filling and pie crust.

DRINKS

The Hot Toddy satisfied our drink wants for Thanksgiving Day, so we actually opted to make the gingerbread manhattans the day after. The sugar company’s website uses Rosso vermouth, which I did not have, so I used Extra Dry vermouth and gin is not something in my pantry. I replaced it with brandy and the drink still turned out well. Not as good as the hot toddy, but that is only because I prefer if I’m the one making cocktails that I don’t need to make them individually.

ENTERTAINMENT

While other Americans caught up on football for Thanksgiving, this weekend we opted for some Thanksgiving themed episodes of favorite shows to honor the occasion.

*Gilmore Girls “A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving” (One of our favorite episodes and this show is my favorite. We built our bacon wrapped sausage and pancake bundles as our replica of what Luke makes for Rory before she heads off to Yale.)

*Friends “The One Where Ross Got High” (Rachel’s trifle mishap is always worth rewatching.)

*Brooklyn Nine-Nine “Two Turkeys” (Parentsgiving. Enough said.)

Aside from far too tv time, we did take walks around our neighborhood and the Eastmark area to get out of the house a bit. The weather was great and I’m always up for looking to see what new homes might be cropping up elsewhere. Their Steadfast Farm and the surrounding area is really looking like it wants to compete with Agritopia’s little host of restaurants and farm down the line. There is certainly space for it to expand a bit more than what’s available in Agritopia and hopefully they do not suffer the same fate as Agritopia’s Epicenter that took forever to be built. In my opinion, most of the delays sounded like they were based on people’s disdainful remarks about mixed used development as a number of home owners scoffed at Gilbert growing its apartment offerings rather than issues like labor or material shortages being a factor. These apartments, by the way, aren’t cheap although for many it offers a solid roof over their heads when it is easy to be priced out of the housing market right now or deal with being financially unable to qualify for a mortgage. The smallest available square footage is is a studio coming in at 504 feet up to 1,590 square feet for their 3 bedroom, 3 bath unit. According to Apartment Finder, the smaller units are in the ballpark of $1,623 up to $4,890 for the larger ones. I think my fellow community members should keep in mind how crazy it is that someone cannot qualify for a mortgage as a younger person or someone rebounding from past financial issues, but he or she makes a sufficient salary to afford a luxury apartment with more amenities than some homes in this area. Food for thought.

Other than our foray around Eastmark on two separate occasions, I am happy to report we kept the weekend pretty simple. We don’t often go out shopping in-person for Black Friday or Small Business Saturday, either. A few drinks at Starbucks made up the most of our weekend in-person spending, which was nice. I love the Chestnut Praline Latte and an obligatory holiday cup photo is a must, I guess. I have liked some holiday designs more in the past few years, but I don’t get too wrapped up in these things. You won’t see me trying to get each version that comes out. I am happy enough (and so is my wallet) with a good cup of black coffee from home and I will cart it around in my Yeti Rambler Mug when we go out somewhere.

Our only real unplanned weekend outing was to pop into the mall to check out Atomic Comics. Black Friday weekend sales are usually why I avoid the mall this time of year, but I felt the comic book store was one of the least hectic parts of the mall we could visit. From what I gathered ahead of time from our Community Impact newsletter the business closed in 2011 and only recently opened a new location. Given my family’s interests in anime and manga along with a few other things, I thought they’d enjoy going there for a visit and I’d join along for the fun. I was most interested in finding out what collectibles and clothing items they might stock. Walking through the space, I kept thinking of the guys from “Big Bang Theory” and their days spent at Stewart’s comic book store. Thankfully, this one didn’t have a creepy guy behind the counter; all the staff members we encountered were quite respectful to us and the other customers. The store is still coming together, but I would ask prospective customers to not let the soft opening deter them from visiting. My favorite thing to check out was the large collection of Funko Pop! items. The Wall-e and Eve ones plus the one of Stitch are the ones I liked best, but they had a little bit of everything to include one of John Oliver. (Note: I opted out of taking photographs in the store out of respect to my fellow patrons, so sorry I cannot show off the wall of Funko Pops to you all today.)

With yesterday being the start of Chanukah, I felt this display from the mall was also worth sharing today. I don’t have too many friends who celebrate, but I don’t want their holiday to get glossed over between all the attention that Thanksgiving, shortly followed by Black Friday sales, and the jumpstart of Christmas shopping gets in our society. It is only in more recent years that I’ve started to see more recognition in our area for this holiday and it’s hard to know if it’s just that I wasn’t out and about when the decor showed up in our local area or if our community was behind the times in getting displays and decor items here. I want to live in an area that respects all beliefs and I know I am lucky to live in a time where more beliefs are celebrated and respected than when my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents grew up.

In our world that is so vast and in this season where we should be giving thanks, talking about what brings us joy, and discussing our traditions and favorite past times, I hope everyone can open their hearts to different ways of being and experiencing life. This past year has been a difficult one and as our global community has lost many members, it would be encouraging to hold fast to the positive lessons we learned growing up and to share our cultures, faith, and languages in ways that brings people together, rather than divides them as we start to close out the year.

“Menorah is the Hebrew word for lamp, and specifically refers to the seven-branched candelabrum that was used in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, a hanukkiah, or Hanukkah menorah, is a type of menorah; every hanukkiah is a menorah, but not every menorah is a hanukkiah.” (Courtesy of My Jewish Learning)

This Thursday, we will face one of the biggest, if not, the biggest, food oriented holiday here in the United States, so I open today’s post with some caution. This blog entry is not for everyone. I cannot understand the trauma faced by all persons who have suffered through anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or orthorexia or the difficulties faced by family members and friends supporting a person through their condition or recovery or who have lost a loved one to these conditions. I am only touching on the surface of eating disorders, but I recognize my limitations as a non-medical professional. The first two are conditions I knew of growing up, both through portrayals in media like one (I’m fairly certain it was on Lifetime) movie I recall where the mother uncovers jars of vomit in her daughter’s closet or news media coverage of models and actresses struggling with their body weight.

My teenage years did not provide the wisdom to understand underlying mental health issues are the root of eating disorders. If friends personally struggled with any of these conditions, I was unaware. Lost in my own world as an introvert, I felt awkward in my own 5’2″ shell and couldn’t see others who appeared more confident in their skin dealing with any issue similar to my own feelings regarding my body. I left high school weighing 103 lbs., a weight I likely would have hovered around, with or without my short-lived career in track and cross country. I did not throw myself too hard into my sports participation, so I never tracked my weight at home. I knew my weight because I had to go in for sports physicals and for every person who called me “lucky” for being little, they did not see how uncomfortable I felt being tiny. My former boyfriends or prospective interests were interested in busty girls, not me. Being so small, I felt guys did not find me all that attractive. Regarding how people talk about body types, too, I’d rather people describe me as having a slim or slight-frame body type, rather than boyish but I get most people (sadly) gravitate towards boyish. It’s one of those terms that has gotten under my skin because it implies unattractiveness as a woman in a society that changes its opinion every few years about what features (and their prominence or diminished appearance) makes for an attractive woman.

This, photo, taken with my stepmom and sisters taken shortly after arriving home after graduating Marine Corps recruit training, does not show what kind of life I was in for when I signed up to become a Marine. Recruit training was just the start of a life changed by food options and access to those choices and the focus on my body weight wasn’t too far behind. I was something like 108lbs. -115lbs. when I joined and my weight, like that of other female recruits, was checked on a regular basis. During training, I’d write home and grumble about limitations with our food selection. Throughout my childhood, I was allowed Little Debbie treats, plenty of candy during Halloween, and was free to take seconds at dinner. Recruit training was jarring in the fact the chow hall line was the only regular option for food save for Drill Instructor approved care packages from home. Families could send in Nature Valley crunchy granola bars. Maybe they allowed us Clif bars, but those don’t stick out in my mind all that much. I started to notice that I noticed food more based on how we received our meals and what wasn’t an option. When our platoon went to the rifle range, we received diet trays. If you’ve ever seen a Lean Cuisine meal, it’s pretty damn close to those, complete with the heat sealed package but without the exterior colorful box with your nutrition details. It was not uncommon for us to be punished when recruits took cookies from the rifle range chow hall or for team punishment to come down when someone swiped a peanut butter package and the package remnants were discovered by the drill instructors.

I get the demands on drill instructors’ time are great. With all the Marine Corps knowledge to drill in and building physical strength, a lot must be accomplished with the limited weeks of recruit training. Reflecting back, I think I would have benefitted greatly during recruit training from a nutrition course built for athletes than seeing us punished when recruits stole food. We have our entire lives where we need to maintain our bodies and honestly, it’s a bit tough to navigate when a huge life change occurs, such as leaving behind a bit more of a sedentary life for something like the Marine Corps, or where I am at now with some digestive health issues that complicate my day-to-day choices. (I know I still have a tendency to see myself in light of the boundaries the Marine Corps placed on my weight and what’s acceptable.)

Navigating a world where it’s a sort of jumps on and off again from hard discipline to relaxing environment did not create the best foundation either to grow into my adult self. The constant extremes bear extra attention in conversation. While a lot of our food choices were made for us at recruit training, on our Senior Sunday outing we could go out and procure almost anything we wanted. A lot of us overindulged in snacks and paid for it with stomachaches and scoldings from our drill instructors. Post-recruit training, I went home until I had to report in to Marine Corps Combat Training. I did not eat all that healthy at home or for that month of training. I often resorted to eating junk food to stay awake during nighttime fire watch assignments. When I later arrived at MOS school the female sergeant would call our pre-packaged snacks like Hostess cupcakes “fat pills” and a part of me lost respect for our service branch.

Guilting service members over their food choices does not necessarily equate to them making more of the choices you want them to make and/or it may not be appropriate at all for you to push them in that direction. Using these numbers from 2016, as a 5’2″ woman, I could weigh between 104 and 142 pounds. If, during my service I stayed within these parameters–and I did–my leadership should not care that I want a cupcake after my lunch. On the other hand, if my weight fell outside these standards and my leadership wanted to help me get my weight back on track, it would be considerate to not break out the cupcakes and the right mentor or coach to build a sustainable eating plan geared towards individual needs. (This is why I am more a fan of knowing food portions in relation to the human hand or common object than breaking out a food scale. Most people are familiar with the size of a deck of cards or making a fist and they won’t need to meal prep as much which requires proper food storage and a lot more tracking that can exacerbate existing food insecurities.)

I felt this subject would be best to share today because you never know what someone is going through as we head into the holidays.

After my first tour in Iraq, one of my earliest weigh-ins was incredibly awkward. My Staff Sergeant was shocked that I weighed about 108 lbs. because my pre-deployment weigh-in was something in the ballpark of 120-125 lbs. and as the only woman on the team, it was easy to feel more visible in the worst way possible. To steal a line from Britney Spears living in American society comes with a feeling of always being “She’s too big, now she’s too thin” and body weight management in the Marine Corps is not all that different.

In the photo below, I wasn’t heavier because I wasn’t going through something and coping with the situation through my eating habits. I was roughly five to ten pounds heavier than when I joined my Marine Corps unit only a few months prior to when this photo was taken. Back then, I often ate out at restaurants over the weekend instead of the chow hall and restaurants serve larger portions. Had I lived in my own place instead of the barracks, I may have gone out less and/or taken leftovers home. It’s kind of hard to do in a barracks room where food storage is limited. That building was essentially studio apartments throughout with private bathrooms but no kitchens, making most barracks Marines and sailors dependent on the chow hall for the bulk of their meals.

Returning 17 pounds lighter–and after being gone seven months–was not indicative of the problems my supervisor likely thought it was, but I understand that this situation is not true of all people. I was going through a lot after returning from Iraq, dealing with undiagnosed health challenges, financial issues, and strained relationships with my family and in my dating life. I was in an age group that is often overrepresented when it comes to eating disorders and as a woman, I am more likely to deal with this issue than my male counterparts.

My dramatic weight loss was not through any real effort. I make this statement as a positive and to also reinforce the fact I do not encourage others to lose weight. If they have health conditions that can improve by adopting a more physically active life or making some dietary modifications, I will absolutely support those goals. Overall though, I try not to comment when people talk about weight loss situations because I do not want to misread a situation and inadvertently encourage someone to adopt a lifestyle that is actually doing harm to their person. The weight loss I sustained was not needed but happened somewhat organically.

Not that I think the weight came off consistently a little at a time, but it’s good to be realistic about what happened. 17 pounds dropped over seven months is just under 2.5lbs. lost per month. Different reputable resources will and do indicate it can be safe for persons to lose 1-2 pounds per week, making my weight transformation less dramatic. I did little more than moved more and ate less. My tour in Iraq left me in the position to walk almost everywhere, unless I used a unit vehicle to grab the mail, and I had limited time to sit around to eat. Back in the States, I could hang out with my former boyfriend at a restaurant for really as long as we wanted to order something and commander a table. Working 12 hour shifts in Iraq meant there was too little time to invest in a meal as a leisure activity: a 30 minute lunch was divided up into walking to the chow hall, standing in line, and quickly consuming whatever was available before walking back to work. I could enjoy snacking in my off time because we had a small store where we could purchase pre-packaged snacks and I’d get care packages, but I did not snack the way I kind of do now during the pandemic.

The season we are in now where holidays follow each other in quick succession puts us in a prime position to talk a lot about food, eating habits, and expectations (both to contribute to gatherings and expectations on what should or should not be on someone’s plate). As a parent, I am just as guilty of putting a little of everything on my daughter’s plate as my parents were before me. We learn that we should encourage our kids to “try everything” and to diminish fickle eating habits and it is a process to unlearn these things. I think some of what I’ve experienced has taught me to constantly revisit my attitudes regarding meals and eating in group settings because I want my daughter to see a variety of food choices as the norm.

I start with what I know about my daughter. She tends to like all the protein sources we do and loves about every style of bread, pasta, or rice we make. Fruits and vegetables can be problematic, but to encourage balance and avoid arguments, my goal is we have one or the other with meals. I am not a fan of being the parent who “hides” nutrient rich foods like fruits and vegetables into meal as much as it’s something I explored when my daughter was younger. Now, it’s easier if we focus on fruits and vegetables that complement our protein and starch choices. As an example, a recent dinner for us was baked chicken, seasoned simply with salt and pepper, and it was served with diced roasted butternut squash that had been tossed in turmeric and coconut oil with a touch of salt and sumac.

As we roll into this week preparing for, avoiding holiday prep until the last minute, or letting someone else take charge on the holiday meal, please know I encourage you all to have fun and to know eating is a part of sustaining our beings. Most of us did not grow up with the best lessons in how to approach eating as both an activity our body needs for proper maintenance and as a societal bonding activity with our fellow humans. Knowing this about ourselves, we should be kind with our words and not rush judgement for what others put (or leave off of) their plates and we should give ourselves grace for our food choices, too.

Speaking about what we see others bring to their tables and what we bring to ours, I figured it might help to talk about the recent Friendsgiving I attended. I haven’t been to too many in my life. The first was during my time at Florida Southern College and the home I went to already had Christmas trees, one with traditional ornaments and one that was geared solely towards the family’s beloved football team. The meal stands out a lot less than the group of people and I’ve felt that way for my subsequent gatherings. During the event, I am often surprised by people’s culinary talents and I’m equally appreciative of something someone picked up from the store because it shows their willingness to make the day a community experience, but as time passes, there are few food items that my brain recalls as a spectacular dish I miss.

My gall bladder issue and lactose intolerance now make some meal related events like Friendsgiving and Thanksgiving feel like a less dangerous version of Russian roulette and I am learning how to reduce the stress around meals where I don’t plan the entire menu. For this past Saturday’s Friendsgiving, I brought items that were dairy free or made with lactose free dairy milk. I also brought a bag of Unreal dark chocolate covered peanuts as my dessert so I could avoid asking people what was in the pies. Another option I utilized was to bring an easy side dish, a container of no sugar added apple sauce. Would I have loved something like mashed potatoes or green bean casserole? Yes, until my stomach hurt tremendously and then I would have wanted to go home, killing our outing. No one guilted me for bringing some things that made my dietary situation easier.

I stuck to safe options for dinner and I’d recommend the same for anyone else in a similar position. The protein source was easy as there were smoked meats and I shied away from the turkey in case butter was used in the basting. I had a bit of cornbread and palmier cookies (things I brought), some macaroni salad (only after checking the label), and the apple sauce from home. Later, I split a dinner roll (one I made) with my husband and I grabbed a handful of my Unreal chocolates before also enjoying one of the Trader Joe’s mint peppermint meringues (another thing from home) and losing the rest to my daughter who also wanted them. My situation has also taught me to think more about others’ needs as well; everything I brought was labeled with the ingredients so if they needed or wanted to know the ingredients, fellow guests did not need to hunt me down to inquire.

Our actual Thanksgiving meal later this week will not be entirely dairy free, but it will be dairy minimal. Thanks to not hosting this year, I felt less compelled to build a traditional holiday meal. We are having pork sausages wrapped in pancakes and tied with bacon. This is a nod to the episode of “Gilmore Girls” where Luke makes this treat for Rory the day she heads off to Yale. I also found a recipe for a bacon egg drop soup to replace a more traditional side while still adding a vegetable into our meal and there is a fun sourdough bread recipe shaped like a turkey I am dying to make that would be a great complement to the soup. We have a duck in lieu of a turkey; it’s a much more enjoyable form of poultry in my opinion and worth the extra money. There will be a homemade cranberry sauce. Recipe TBD. I am most delighted though to make progress on the desserts ahead of Thursday. Today I am tackling a whisky ice cream, replacing the dairy milk with plant-based alternatives. Tomorrow I am making the apple and frangipane tart dough (this is my dairy dessert to consume in moderation) and will complete the dessert assembly and baking Wednesday. If time permits, I can make the cranberry pie Wednesday as well and having found Diamond brand pecan pie crusts a little while ago, I now have a non-pastry and non-dairy pie shell for that treat to kick it up a notch.

In closing out today’s blog, I’d love to learn about what others like to make this time of year, even if the dishes aren’t for the Thanksgiving holiday.

On our way out of town, we nicked a butterfly with our car. Poor thing. I saw it fluttering towards our windshield and unlike other bugs that become an array of ugly splatters, my heart felt bad for this little creature. We watched its body careen towards the car and after the collision it fluttered off over the vehicle. Not my ideal way to start a vacation. I feel it’s a bit terrible to strike one of your favorite creatures any time, but it can put a damper on the start of a vacation.

A few miles later, I tried to forget the injured/deceased butterfly. His or her journey amid the pandemic was certainly easier than it has been to be human during the upheaval the world has seen since December 2019 and in our neck of the woods March 2020.

Armed with plenty of bottled waters, energy drinks, canned sparkling waters, Earth Balance vegan crackers (my Cheez-It replacement), Ritz crackers, and an assortment of protein bars, we limited our need to depend on fast food establishments and/or convenient, but way overpriced, gas station options for our road snack needs. The food and drinks we brought were not necessarily cheaper than these other options, but certainly healthier. Our planning, just as importantly, allowed us to make good timing from our home in Arizona to Anaheim, California, our home away from home for this particular vacation.

For our last Disneyland visit, we stayed at Disney’s Paradise Pier, but this time, we stayed at the Westin Anaheim Resort.

Switching gears from our planned Maui vacation to a quick vacation away in California was pretty easy, given the fact Disneyland allowed us to reuse tickets we purchased pre-pandemic for an April 2020 trip. The company’s generosity cannot be understated though as we reached the end of the yearlong extension earlier in the year and thought we’d have to repurchase tickets entirely to make the trip. Given our limited timeframe in California, Disneyland really was the purpose of our vacation, but we snuck in a few other outings. I was adamant about going to the beach, for one, and I wanted to try out a handful of restaurants I selected before the trip, most of which we ultimately did not make time to visit as we focused heavily on being in the park. My goal to visit El Matador State Beach was replaced by a visit to Leo Carrillo Dog Beach after our plans were dashed by a weekend triathlon I did not know would be going on as it was not listed on the state beach’s website.

We lucked out that the beach was pretty empty. It provided us the perfect circumstance to get in a lot of beautiful photographs and really enjoy the beach without many distractions. We did not get the chance to soak in some sun, which I do not mind, but it was quite chilly. It was only 61 degrees when we arrived at the beach with a daily high for Malibu of 66. The cooler temperature influenced the timing of our departure from the beach more so than when more people came out. The handful of people that started to show up were mostly surfers, so we all had the experience we wanted without intruding on each other’s privacy and/or enjoyment.

There are times when we travel that I wish I was a travel show host. Seeing all the different options on the menu made it hard to decide and it would have been nice if someone else would foot the bill for some extra options. I’m far too indecisive. We shared the golden bags as our appetizer; these are filled with ground chicken and shrimp. The fried catfish dish my husband ordered was amazing, but rather spicy and the size and quality of the pork fried rice our daughter ordered was better than any other place I’ve ordered the dish. I’ve never cared much for papaya, but I went ahead and ordered the papaya salad as another way of preparation to hopefully overcome my aversion to the fruit. The green papaya, from this experience, is more enjoyable than when enjoying the fully ripened fruit. Before the trip, the only way I found I really liked papaya was when it is dried but it’s always bothered me how hard it can be to find it dried and not covered in sugar.

The influence of the pandemic was not hard to miss during our travels. I wish I could have snapped a better photo of Pepperdine University for you all. It was striking to see all the flags still up to honor the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Per the school’s website the flags were to be up for public viewing from September 9th to September 25th and visiting Malibu on the 26th, we just had serendipitous timing to view this beautiful memorial before the school took down their display.

I recognize there is so much more I could say about this trip and there will not be enough said about the state of the state of California. The last visit we had to California was in 2017 and a lot has changed since then. When we started to plan, I listened to a few podcasts on travel/life within LA County to better understand how the pandemic and California’s unhoused persons crisis could impact our visit. There has been a sharp increase in homelessness in LA and we only bore small witness to the problem, having seen a tent encampment up along the freeway and lots of debris in small scattered areas up the freeway as evidence people previously had been residing in those areas.

Additionally, California just experienced an oil spill off Huntington Beach, a beach we could have visited a lot more easily during our trip as it’s closer to Disneyland than is Malibu. When we were by the ocean, we were blessed with beautiful pristine shoreline and birds soaring around us in small clusters, except for those that looked along the shoreline for food. It was beautiful and yet this tragedy is not so far removed from our visit. Again, a simple matter of timing. I love the ocean and many ocean creatures are often among my favorite animals. It burdens me to think what the scale of the roughly 126,000 gallons of oil spilled into the ocean will cost us in animal life.

This tragedy is why I was starting to second guess sharing my recent trip with you all.

I did not want to come off as insensitive sharing what had been a joyful reprieve from the cloister of pandemic life. My reason for sharing the trip remains the same. Travel is one of the largest nonessential forms of spending for many individuals and it helps to have a more representative idea of the experience than what social media influencers portray because so many rely on sponsors and ads to pay for their experiences. I just have a normal job, working in higher education. Instead of a 9-to-5, it is a 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. kind of life. I was happy to escape from it for a bit, because the pandemic created sudden changes in policies that impact my students using VA education benefits. I’ve kept up with the pace, but before this trip the last getaway my family had was in December 2019. We were overdue for a break.

My planning for the trip mostly balanced out. I won’t share the full details of costs to better respect my family’s discretionary spending decisions, but going to Disneyland is not entirely cheap. I can see why some people paid for annual passes in previous years and others are buying into Disneyland’s new Magic Key Pass. Right now, if you do not have a Magic Key Pass, tickets are as high as $104 for a single day to as low as $72 a day if you go for 5 days, costing you a total of $360 per person. By comparison, from Disneyland’s website an Enchanted Key Pass for a person 3 years and older is $649 per year up to $1,399 per year for the more exclusive Dream Key Pass. The company also has different rates for Southern California and Californian residents that requires a sign in for more info. We were not onboard with shelling out extra money to opt-in for an annual pass, but for many individuals and families, Disneyland is such a regular part of their lives it could represent a significant cost savings even if it is more upfront to afford such a leisure experience.

My planning went astray in regards to parking and being prepared to pay for extra fees. I forgot to ask my husband who made the travel arrangements if the hotel charged for parking. It does. In fact, it’s $35 a day whether you use the valet or self-park. We paid $175 for five days for our car to essentially have its own vacation. This amount can usually be used for groceries and/or dining out in our local area. That was a bummer to pay for, but now I know better. For another short–extremely short–trip we are considering later this year, we will likely Uber in that local area or walk around than pay the parking fee, which is even higher than this Anaheim resort. Regarding fees, we paid Anaheim City Tax, the ATID (Anaheim Tourist Improvement District) Assessment, and CA Tourism for a total of $6.02 per day. The total of $30.10 is more representative of what my family spends for a meal from Chic-Fil-A, but again, some families don’t have $30.10 lying around. I know I have the privilege to reduce one dining out experience from our budget in order to cover this unexpected trip cost.

My family and I were treated quite well by the staff at the Westin and in turn, we treated the staff well. We were courteous guests, wearing disposable masks properly without complaint to protect the health of others. My husband and I are fully vaccinated, but we often wear our masks in solidarity with our daughter who cannot yet be vaccinated. The hotel does permit vaccinated persons to go unmask in their building, for those who are interested in knowing their options. I would recommend anyone considering traveling during the pandemic to do their research. There are some restrictions, like how Disneyland mandates masking in indoor settings, but not outdoors, and some places have returned to limited indoor dining capacities as another means to reign in/end the pandemic. Do your research. It also never hurts to just bring extra disposable masks in case rules change during your trip!

The food at Westin’s Tangerine Room was pretty great, but I think photos really do it more justice than I can with my writing.

And, finally, for the Disneyland fans. There is just too much wonderfulness that is Disney.

I am only interested in showing off Galaxy’s Edge as far as attractions are concerned. It was what I was waiting to see when we planned this trip last year, and it did not disappoint.

And while I indicated I would only be talking about Galaxy’s Edge, I do have one non Star Wars experience to share today. From my limited experiences with Splash Mountain, I’ve found people either love the five-story drop at the end or they don’t. Any idea how I feel?

It’s been a little shy of two years since we had a real vacation; you know, something longer than a weekend.

December 2019.

We visited my family in Rhode Island. It was miserably cold out for me, but lovely to see my family.

This year, we had a mini vacation to the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain. As part of the weekend trip, we went to feed some ostriches (don’t recommend holding onto the food for these guys), sheep, goats, rabbits, ducks, and rainbow lorikeets at Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch before heading further south to the hotel, barely north of Tucson., We were also slated to venture out to Maui, but the governor of Hawaii essentially begged people not to go. I get it. With the pandemic, the hospitals are getting overwhelmed and from a parent’s perspective, our daughter’s unvaccinated status made things more stressful the closer we got to this event coming up. We recouped most of our money though when making our cancellations save for the travel insurance–and I’m sure we’ll find a way to use up our flights in the next year. (If the pandemic continues to rage on, who knows what adventures might be open to us then. Visiting the west coast or east coast is fine by me; I just want to be by an ocean again.)

Coming up with our alternative vacation this year meant repurposing last year’s plans. The goal last year was to take our daughter to Disneyland again. Disney shut down shortly before our plans came to fruition as the pandemic wrecked havoc everywhere, so the tickets went on hold. A year passed. California residents were allowed back into Disneyland, with capacity limitations, on April 30th. All us other outsiders had to wait until June 15th and I really did not see us visiting the park this year. I thought with our ticket extension window closing the company would not honor our tickets, but they did. My husband dealt with a customer service internet chat queue being open for something like 26 hours I think he said, but that’s ok. Our only out-of-pocket cost for the tickets is related to our daughter’s age difference.

Planning has been fun, bringing some hope of relaxation that’s been greatly missing in our lives. I am soaking it in as much as we can pre-trip, too. Are we watching episodes of “Behind the Attraction” on Disney+? Yes. Did we (somewhat recently) watch “Jungle Cruise”? Yes. Have I started listening to a few Disney-themed podcasts to get through the work day? Yes. Did we add some new apps to our phones? Yes. Scoured blogs (at least me) for meal planning ideas? Yes.

What I didn’t realize when we started switching our vacation plans for the year was how much of an advantage frequent Disneyland fans have over the rest of us. They just know that things were getting busier with the limited capacity. Nearly all the lunch and dinner reservation spots were taken. We broke down and set up an alert with Mousewatcher.com , but I am not sure we’d be as eager to plop down some extra money in a normal year so we could get alerts about some restaurants of interests to us. If things work out, they work out. Right now, we’ve missed out on three alerts due to other events happening at the same time, but we have some more time on our hands pre-trip to obtain a dining reservation or we can always check in when we get to the park to see where things are at.

An exciting thing for me to learn is Disneyland (and Disney World) have more plant-based options now. Years ago, I would not have changed, but after repeated bouts of digestive issues from lactose intolerance and gall bladder issues, I am probably as happy (at least) as some vegans who go to visit the parks. The company set up a leaf option on their menus to denote what items are strictly plant-based (no animal meat, dairy, eggs, or honey). I don’t expect as many choices at Disneyland as would naturally be available at the larger Disney World, but it’s a start to keep these issues in check.

Last time, we enjoyed some lovely “Lost Treasures” lemon beignets–and my friends, those are not dairy free. Will I likely partake in beignets again. Yes, yes, I will. (I’m bringing a lot of lactase enzyme tablets with me so I can enjoy dairy laden treats and I’ll work to avoid dairy in my entrees to keep things in check.) I have been intentional though about my health in planning this trip. Disneyland has fruit carts so we can pick up mango slices or pineapple spears–or other assorted fruit–that make up for the fact we won’t have our normal weekly grocery shopping choices. The park does allow people to bring in some of their own food, but staying in a hotel limits our food storage capabilities. Eating healthier is not necessarily more expensive than grabbing junk food in the park and either option saves us trips to the grocery store, leaving us more time in the park.

In fact, it is pretty easy to check on prices for comparison pre-visit; it’s not the best price for fruit, but it’s also not the best price for chips. Snack away on your choosing though. The occasional bag of chips is no worse for you than skipping an serving a fruit occasionally is bad for your health either. (I’ll be eating beignets at least one time during the trip, so not judging at all.)

If anyone’s been to Disneyland recently and has some fun tip to make the visit easier, I’m all ears.

p.s. We’re bringing a healthy amount of disposable masks to the park. I’m not onboard with paying more for Disney-inspired masks in (or just outside) of the park due to poor planning. Yours truly needs souvenir money for other things.

We are nearing the year and a half mark of full-time remote WFH and I am still up in the air about how to decorate my home office.

Like many people, there are the makings of luring people back into the traditional office space for my organization and also, like many people, there is still the reality of balancing my remote time with our child’s virtual learning environment needs. The end result is my spare bedroom is masquerading as a home office since we did not move forward with planning a second child and this space is still having an identity crisis.

On a daily basis, I am absolutely grateful to have an at-home workspace. The spartan space is still preferable for me as an introvert. For months now, I’ve verified debt situations for my employer and it’s easier to do when I’m not crowded around a bunch of other people who are on the phone for the bulk of their work. I need quiet one does not often find in a cubicle farm.

Being “stuck” at home has its moments of being a godsend. I feel more proficient at my work, because I encounter less interruptions. I feel more alert because I do not “arrive” at the office rundown from the stress and annoyance of commuting. My budget also appreciates the reduced spending in transportation the days I did drive and more formal clothing (those days I did dress up). I am more ‘me’ being at home the amount of time I have been.

Now that I am back to the reality life will at some point be a blend of in-person and remote work, I am trying to find what parts of each I want to cater to and the amount of uncertainty around both presents a challenge.

I’ve never cared all that much to decorate my in-person work environment. Most of the times, I realize I just need to find a better way to keep my papers and daily work more organized. Typically, I use a legal pad to run through some of the math calculations I do and then I have a team Excel spreadsheet so everyone knows how overpayments are looking. If I learn to do some forecasting, like I showed my boss last week, it would help if I learn to schedule days on when to look and see if my accounting counterpart might have some ideas on how to help me better understand the process. Debts aren’t something I really ever expected to learn at my job, but the Department of Veterans Affairs changed their tuition overpayment policy January 5th of this year. The Isakson and Roe Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020 made it so tuition overpayments are no longer a student responsibility, but a school responsibility and it has been a bit of a rocky road watching the VA figure out the debt letter process and quality controlling their debt letters.

Something I think might help bring some calm to my work life is a planner. Last year didn’t make much sense to use one. Our perpetual Groundhog Day lifestyle necessitated few reminders, mostly just to pay bills on time. For my work life, I use my Outlook calendar a little, but I always like a tangible product best. My feeling on this matter is that a lot of my enjoyment of tangible paper products is rooted in childhood. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and I think I was probably 5th or 6th grade when we finally got AOL and learned to use computers more. School shopping was a big adventure to start anew and I had to use a weekly/monthly planner when I started at Coronado Middle School. While I’ve lapsed at regularly using such a product, I still feel joy in having one available. In previous jobs, I’ve learned though there is such as thing as “too much” in an organizer. I had a beautiful leather bound one with spots for business cards, telephone contacts, weekly, daily, and monthly organizing, and notes. It was too bulky and the lines to record info too small for my preferences.

This slim design one from Day Designer is rather nice, but I’m wondering now if it’s going out-of-style as few were left available at my local Target when I dropped in the other day. Honestly, I just want something somewhat flexible to organize my life without feeling like I have to over-organize my life.

Regarding creating a cozy home office, I feel less challenged. The bigger thing at the moment is waiting to slowly craft the office of my dreams that also functions as a good hangout space for our daughter. She loves more bohemian girly girl things, regardless of the maintenance associated with the product, whereas I like to look for items that are more durable and/or muted so they can function in any room.

A few things I hope to add to liven up the walls (Both are Target finds.)

Office shelving will be a solution to tackle at some point, if we do not decide to bring our small Crate&Barrel bookcase back upstairs. That thing has survived several moves and is still not showing too many signs of wear, although it might be kind of nice to give it an upgrade and paint it a vivid color.

Before we tackle more of the fun stuff though, I am in need of a drafting chair. I bought a sit stand desk from workfromhomedesks last year and the metal countertop height stool I am using does not give enough support. I will research a few different websites to find something that will work. This area is one of the hardest design choices for me because I don’t want something that feels too much like the traditional office, but I recognize I cannot throw just any chair in here. I sit in this space more than any other room in the house and therefore solid back support is a must. I am just that old where function over style is more important!

More to follow another day.

-Cheryl

For months now, I’ve thought about what I would say when we rolled up to our one year pandemic anniversary. We are now almost two weeks beyond that date, but I still feel it’s important to share my perspective. I could write about more about it, but photos best capture the experience.

(Some photos are from my Instagram and photos I previously only shared with friends and family, and a few things are beautiful sentiments shared from others’ Instagram accounts. Last but not least, these are not necessarily in order.)

Clearly, I don’t go out much other than to get food.

~Cheryl

This is not a sponsored post. There are no affiliate links. I am merely an American citizen who, like everyone else, needs to buy food every once and awhile to survive in a world turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic and my attitudes have changed a lot about my love affair with grocery shopping since my first pandemic food shopping adventure March 13th, 2020 (yes, Friday the 13th!!!). Imperfect Foods was not exactly on my mind as our grocery shopping needs had to be covered by multiple retailers when supplies were limited because they did not start operations in our area I believe until late last year. I was aware of the organization prior to the pandemic and I forgot to check on the status of their future openings due to the amount of stress I was under at the time until I received one of their mailers. We even kept it on the fridge while we thought about whether we’d want to give them a try.

That might sound weird but our adventures with reducing food waste and grocery costs has not always been great.

I tried Bountiful Baskets when we lived in Wyoming. While I loved saving on produce with Bountiful Baskets because things were oddly pretty much the same to buy at the local grocery store as what we had been spending in southern California, the delivery structure with BB was certainly a struggle. Since volunteers coordinate pulling items off the truck and distributing things in everyone’s grocery containers (usually laundry baskets) I found it hard to volunteer with a young child I had to bring with me. The other thing that bothered me was not having a say in the produce I received. It was simply discussed we should gift any item we did not want to someone who did. This works for the occasional piece of produce but on countless occasions I would receive spinach bundles that were incredibly difficult to rinse fully of dirt which is a big reason I tend to buy baby spinach leaves or frozen spinach instead. I sort of feared Imperfect Foods would be a slightly different take on Bountiful Baskets.

My fears were unfounded. The brand allows you to subscribe and skip weeks as needed. They will craft a cart based off of some initial selections you make, and you modify the cart from there to remove or increase quantities. You can indicate items you never or always want in your cart. As good as that all sounds, I am most happy with the fact I am not told to just suck it up if something ends up in my cart I don’t want, like the moldy shallot that accidentally ended up in one of my boxes. I emailed the customer care team right after the box was delivered, provided a snapshot of the item, tossed it in the trash, and waited for follow up. I received a generic confirmation email about my message but the next morning one of the team members responded and let me know I’d be credited for the purchase that went awry. Awesome.

The fact Imperfect Foods delivers is a godsend. Grocery shopping typically takes me about an hour and a half plus whatever amount of time it takes to get to and from the store(s). I love saving on my drive time and I am usually only spending an hour of my time now—mostly because I do linger on my purchasing decisions. I could probably grocery shop online in 30 minutes or less if I wanted to be decisive from the get go. As parents still coping with virtual learning it’s just great that we can recoup some leisure time during our week. Thirty or so minutes might not sound like much but I’ve lost about five or so hours of personal quiet time in my week; those thirty minutes mean a lot to me. The delivery also reduces the amount of plastic waste we introduce into our home and then back into the environment.

I bought a little too much produce the first week. The only thing that ended up going to waste the first week though was the jalapeños, our fault not the company’s. We tried to air fry them and cooked them a little too long. I am also not used to buying fresh coconut so I lost a good portion of the coconut chunks when I opened the package again this week and saw they did not look good. Next time, I’ll just purchase this with a recipe in mind.

The strawberries have been one of our best purchases with Imperfect Foods. Normally, a container of strawberries from a local store might last 3-4 days before they start to spoil on us. I actually kept forgetting to get back to our second container of strawberries from Imperfect Foods, not eating them until we already had them in the fridge for a week. We only lost a few that were starting to soften too much for our preferences and due to the fact I no longer have a blender, I decided not to freeze them.

When we made the choice to start cutting back on traditional grocery shopping, I was a bit worried about what I would miss with grocery shopping: the discovery of new products. A month is too small a case study to say Imperfect Foods will always have a new product for me to try out but as you can see, I was able to find a variety of things some of us likely cannot find at a Fry’s, Trader Joe’s, Costco, or Sprouts. Sure some are a bit more pricey. I was not looking for deals in those areas when I started investigating Imperfect Foods but rather looking to find more affordable produce without having to go to H Mart as often which has some of the best produce prices I’ve found locally. I do love H Mart but it is out of the way for us and I’d like to go there when I know we need bulk items like rice.

This is where it is important to talk about us being more strategic with grocery shopping. I had to give up wandering a bit more. When I wander, I spend more and when I spend more, I reduce our Hawaii budget. Not good. My goal this past month has been to roughly spend $118.75 per week on grocery items. I certainly did not end up with a perfect month. I forgot we needed to order more coffee and I did cave in to our daughter wanting Girl Scout cookies to support her best friend. My estimate on what our Valentine’s Day dinner and dessert ingredients would cost was wrong due to not finding smaller portions of the meat for our Outlander Kitchen bridies. And for anyone judging me for hitting up Whole Foods that has been dubbed “Whole Paycheck” by some people, please keep walking by. We picked up some things that span this month and the next–like my vegan chocolate cake I cannot wait to dig into on Monday!

I knew ahead of time a budget this lean was a huge trial and error endeavor. We’ve upped our intake of sparkling water as we’ve chosen to reduce alcohol consumption and I’ve never been a big soda fan. The water we normally pick up as opposed to the Liquid Death is below $4 for a total of 12 cans (12 oz. each), cheaper than the beers we would previously purchase around this time of year. The Liquid Death water costs $14.99 for a 12 pack (16.9 oz each). It will be a learning process to figure out how much sparkling water we like to keep on hand. Working from home, we’ve also increased our coffee intake. Purchasing directly from Stumpton is cheaper than buying smaller bags where we can find them and in a few months I’ll figure out how far the 5lb. bags actually take us.

While I’ve chosen mostly to outline personal benefits of trimming back our food budget, it is important to recognize there are a lot of larger benefits to an organization like Imperfect Foods. The concept of reducing food waste is a great cause on its own and Imperfect Foods is holding itself to treating its workers better than what we see currently with some large brand grocers. A quick look at their website and there are some transparent numbers. A customer care associate in Tucson, Arizona has a starting pay of $15 an hour whereas the employees who deliver groceries to people’s homes show between $17-$22 an hour based on locality and warehouse associates are $15 to $17 an hour. Fry’s Food is one of the brands under Kroger and it is hard as a working parent to just forgo dropping by one of the most convenient food retailers, but you can go to Kroger’s website and see the grocery clerk and retail clerk postings are not transparent about pay per hour, even a range based on experience. The Kroger brand is also making a poor impression on me due to their choice to close stores over additional pay. To take some of my purchasing power away from supporting them to support a better organization is an added bonus to reducing food waste and trimming my food budget. I also appreciate the food delivery/set up as an option for our most vulnerable. Imperfect Foods is not set up for EBT at this time but the company offers reduced food boxes (Yeah!!) to those that need them and I feel the delivery is all around a great option. Not everyone has access to a vehicle, is medically able to drive, and/or has the mobility to make it around a grocery store, even those that offer some scooter carts.

It’s been a great personal challenge for me this month to check out the company and whether you agree or disagree with me on the brand and its competitors, I welcome honest and respectful feedback. Again, just keep in mind, I received no compensation for my thoughts. I heard good things about the company and went out on a limb to try them as my primary grocery store for the month and it meet/exceeded some expectations that I will continue using them as our primary store unless other things arise that change my opinion.

-Cheryl

“Are you ready?”

She asked me the question. I feel it’s important to share given that so many women do not own homes outright in their own name. This decision was an important one my husband and I made together years ago. We wanted to move beyond years of renting into home ownership and the transition was possible because I purchased the home solely in my name. His student debt had become a challenge to this transition much like I had to overcome unemployment and build a solid two years of consistent employment for banks to even give me a chance.

A few short minutes ago my husband and I finished initialing and signing our future on a new property, one that I would visit after relinquishing my claim to the old home. I had already said goodbye, cleaning the house as best I could. I had some regrets about the aging carpet upstairs that held onto years of pet grim and the unfortunate team that had installed the new carpet downstairs a few weeks prior but overall I was ready. Selling the home would pay off the home loan and we were walking away with a profit.

For once, it seemed like I had the right timing for a financial goal.

After paying the commissions for the real estate agents, our profit exceeded my yearly income. The gamble to ignore some of Dave Ramsey’s financial advice paid off.

This is the time for a disclaimer. I am not sharing my story as financial advice for someone else to follow. I lack the financial certifications to guide someone to make her (or his) financial choices. Instead I am sharing my experiences to demonstrate how a life choice paid off and to inspire others to look critically at financial resources as a combination of tools to succeed.

One of the best ways to have this discussion is to take a step back and talk to you about the last rental we lived in before we took the leap into first time home ownership.

I was still repairing my employment history in 2015 when this home sold for $174,000. I would not have two stable years of employment under my belt again until October of that year so lenders wouldn’t look at me as financially capable for home ownership purposes. The monthly housing allowance I received as a veteran using Chapter 33 Post-9/11 benefits to pay for my graduate degree could not count as income which would have helped. Instead of having the freedom to apply the $1,461 monthly housing allowance to a mortgage, I was using it to pay $1,270.62 to the property management company utilized by the home investor.

Like other renters, we knew our rent price was not stable and home prices were also increasing. I had started looking at homes in Arizona in 2011 and here are some that I previously shared on another blog of mine.

We missed out on some really good contenders September 2011 due to how the housing bubble burst in Arizona such as the following:

We missed the mark in home buying in 2011-2012 due to not properly planning our move to Arizona and also not having a network that clued us in on how to best transition out of the Marine Corps for my husband. Granted, as I say this, I also think how best to transition from college graduate to newly hired employee. Reflecting back on our experiences, it would have been wise as well to cast a wider net than choosing Arizona specifically. When my husband turned away an unappealing offer from the Marine Corps for his next tour of duty, we were stuck in Wyoming a year longer than expected.

The time could have been better utilized. I think my concerns about getting out of debt were really in the way of viewing the situation with fresh eyes. We knew California was unaffordable, as was Rhode Island where my family lives, and we aren’t fans of the cold so Arizona seemed a reasonable place to land. I opted out of pursuing a career with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the place I interned, because signing a mobility agreement wasn’t as enticing after the Marine Corps landed us in Wyoming. (Still, I love my friends. I don’t like Wyoming.) When I plotted a different career path, I should have considered other federal agencies that offered me something similar to the enjoyment I felt during my internship in places with as reasonable a cost of living as was available in Arizona around the time of our move in 2012.

Can you tell I am still trying to forgive myself for not being a better planner?

Other things have fallen into place though so I’ll get back on track with today’s conversation.

This home that sold for $174,000, our old rental, was a source of inspiration to get off our butts and start figuring out what financial advice worked (and didn’t work) for our unique circumstances. At the time, it was as close to my budget minded “dream home”. It has a beautiful pie-shaped lot, perhaps the largest in the community, granite counters in the kitchen, and a guest bedroom downstairs. We rented it knowing very well there was probably no chance it would be back on the market for years. Just hazarding a guess here, but if the pandemic had not happened, I think it would still be owned by the investor.

As we came closer to a year in our rental, we began investigating our home opportunities. A handful of options quickly dwindled to almost none. A 1990’s home with a shared driveway in Gilbert’s Western Skies neighborhood fell off our list of potentials as did a townhouse in The Gardens and a one bedroom and a den described quite falsely as a two bedroom home in the Lakes at Annecy community which had a lakefront view. For me, Dave Ramsey’s teachings were the place to start, to understand I needed a budget. I had to tune out his voice and others that stated you should only buy property with cash or if you hold a mortgage it should be a fifteen year mortgage or you should only buy a house when you have no debt or (insert a small debt threshold here). We don’t live in as high a rent cost area as parts of New York City or the San Francisco area, but Gilbert was quickly becoming unaffordable and rising rent costs along with stagnant wages meant revisiting my views on money. I had to learn what others learned much earlier and that is that “Personal finance is personal.” Today, I even listened to a podcaster who stated something to the effect “You are a ‘You’ expert.” as a way to express why we shouldn’t let how others direct their financial wellbeing direct how we budget our money. If you want to listen to her guidance, check out Frugal Debt Free Life. The podcast episode is Episode 16: How to not feel like crap about your money.

To become a first time homeowner, I leveraged a situation that is not replicable to all persons at a time when I did not understand I was the “You” expert in my life. Here’s how it worked out. I used a VA home loan with zero down, trusting in what I saw in the market, our years removed from the 2008 recession. We still had closing costs to contend with, but each homeowner will have some things that will be their responsibility and some things that are the seller’s responsibility. Case in point, when I sold our home last year, the commissions came out of my pocket. Our home expenditure (excluding HOA) dropped from our rental price of $1,270.62 to a mortgage of $903.07. Not all Gilbert neighborhoods have HOA’s, but most do and we paid a separate additional $80 monthly for community maintenance and a handful of events. The scrimping for closing costs and movers was worth it. Knowing we had planned to stay in the area for a handful of years made it worth it to build more breathing room in our budget using our option of home ownership versus renting. Using our prior rental neighborhood for comparison since I cannot use the home as it is not currently on the market, our rent could have skyrocketed up to the $1,750 to $1,960 some 1400 to 1600 square ft. homes are renting for here in January. By comparison, even with some adjustments to our mortgage payment, our last mortgage payment for the first home was only $959.99.

Home ownership does not work well for all persons, so I am not here to preach it works for everyone. For us, over 44 months of mortgage payments put us in the ballpark of $39,735.08 to $42,239.56. I am using a range because I do not want to track all past payments to show where the mortgage payment increased. Even if the investor would have kept our monthly rate the same as our 2017 rate and we stayed in that rental, he would have received $55,907.28 minus the monthly expense for the property management costs over the same 44 time period. Why make that guy rich? Realistically, rent probably increased at least two times over the last few years putting additional money in his pocket plus the bulk of the $95,000 difference from the purchase price and sale last year during the pandemic.

Originally, I wanted to share the earlier parts of my story with the ChooseFi podcast and it was fortuitous I discovered our old rental sold helping to better flesh out my financial story comparing home ownership to renting in America. Last year, I sent in a short video to be part of their “The Real Households of FI.” When I wasn’t selected, I was let down but as the pandemic dragged on, I felt some relief. There was so much baggage from my deployment that made the pandemic more stressful I would have not presented my situation in the best way as a growing experience. I am taking more of a slow FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) approach like Michelle Jackson from michelleismoneyhungry but still listening to the ChooseFi hosts, Brad and Jonathan, reminds me people start on so many different levels and my advantages and disadvantages are not as unique as I once thought they were.

In the past few weeks, I’ve felt incredibly compelled to open up about my feelings on home ownership and the rent crisis going on in the United States. As unsteady as some homeowners have it during the pandemic, most are still starting off in a better spot than renters who are paying a higher cost for their accommodations prior to any job loss or reduction which leaves them more vulnerable. My past experience with unemployment after college, resulting in making me ineligible for unemployment compensation, and my second bout of unemployment in 2013 when Arizona was so far behind on unemployment compensation I was unpaid my three months of job searching are contributing factors to why I started to think “No Thank You.” to some of the gazelle intensity behind Dave Ramsey’s teaching and his generalized view on when individuals are best prepared to step into a new identity as homeowner.

Reflecting back, Dave Ramsey had a financial safety net in the form of bankruptcy although he does not call it that, but this choice allowed him to start over. My path to rebuild my financial wellbeing looked different but it was still challenging and humbling. I would not call my choices stupid as he so often calls consumption, to include his own, because there is so much learning that occurs in our lifetime. I did not grow up seeing employment as something precarious for most of my childhood until my dad was medically separated from the Navy. Instead, I saw civilian employment as steady because my mom worked for the same medical professionals our entire time in southern California and I saw the military as a precarious opportunity due to my dad’s experience. I was unaware if family friends lost their jobs and our neighborhood was never flooded with home foreclosures and short sales like what I witnessed in 2008. My parents taught me college would be an avenue to greater success and therefore I tackled that objective for a year before the Marine Corps, a little during, and completed two of my four degrees when life smacked me in the face in 2012.

I was left to burn through our modest savings during my 2012 unemployment before I was worthy of governmental assistance in the form of SNAP. The team also offered to help me with my unemployment problem were surprised when I indicated I didn’t need help with the job search process; I knew how to do that, but all told I applied for 89 jobs from what I can recall. The hunt, I could do; securing the interview and the job offer was where I was struggling. Almost no one was looking at me. (For all that work, I only ever landed three interview prospects and one job offer.) When confronted with my second stint of unemployment, I choose to empty out roughly six months of Arizona State Retirement contributions because my family could not wait for some money to come in when the state would make unemployment available to me and I had not yet rebuilt our emergency fund. I cannot even tell you what the amount of money from my 2013 retirement contributions would look like today if I had the ability back then to file for unemployment to stay afloat than to take out my money and pay a penalty tax on it.

SNAP was the springboard to reduce some burdens in my family life, but ultimately it took using my veteran benefits to return my family back to middle class. I started with my small portion of Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Bill, something like 13 days, which include the equivalent remaining portion of the Marine Corps College Fund and additional money by paying into the Buy-Up program. Exhausting my CH 30 benefits opened the door to use the 12 months of Post-9/11 GI Bill available to me for which I was rated at 100%. The housing allowance attached to this benefit is something I’ve discussed at length in the past so I won’t go into those details again. Just run a search for Chapter 33 and you’ll find I’m pretty transparent about the financial breakdown. This second step, being paid to attend school, helped further provide breathing room in my budget and that security along with hitting the right window of more recent employment history opened the most recent door to success: home ownership.

With all my struggles, it has been painful to watch our nation’s politicians bicker throughout 2020 and dole out $600 most recently to individuals as part of the stimulus package to provide relief as we continue to cope with the pandemic. I know for many people $600 is less than their monthly rent/mortgage or childcare costs, a topic I hope to speak on a bit more soon. Likely, it is also barely enough for a month’s worth of groceries depending on how many mouths you’re feeding and if anyone has food allergies, certain allergen free goods are more expensive, not allowing those families to extend their grocery dollars as far as others. As I’ve seen our different levels of government struggle to get our nation as safely as possible through the pandemic, I have become more convinced we did the right thing by ignoring many of Dave Ramsey’s teachings. I am not entirely confident if we had needed financial support it would have been made available to us given the high demand we’ve seen this past year and listening to my past was more important than listening to someone who accessed different tools in his time of need.

By flattening his concept of Baby Steps and consolidating Step 1 ($1,000 emergency fund) and Step 3 (the fully funded emergency fund) as our first priority for 2020 after the home sale, we put ourselves into a better situation when the pandemic started to affect our lives in March last year. Groceries started to become more expensive. For a little while, I picked up what I could just because I did not know when the shelves would be stocked again and that often meant picking up more expensive brands because bulk items were no longer available.

I also have no guilt about not tackling our debt with gazelle like intensity. Seriously, when the world feels like it’s failing apart and any one of us is a higher risk of dying, do I really want my family to remember me as ferociously attacking debt my last year of life? No. I maintained progress on certain debts and instead of using the debt snowball as we do look to reduce debt in our lives, I am comfortable taking the debt avalanche approach instead. Goodbye Baby Step 2. With the pause on student loan debt, I used the space in my budget at times to extend aid to friends in need who experienced a death in their family, an unexpected loss of housing, three family members coming down with COVID at the same time, and also increased how much I tipped for service at my favorite restaurants who were dealt a hard blow by the pandemic capacity restrictions placed on them.

I won’t go down the list through the remaining steps but they all lead to Step 7: Build Wealth and Give.

Selling my former home last year was a vital step in wealth building, but it is not a tool everyone needs to succeed. There are so many ways to diversify one’s income sources and I am happy to share how this avenue worked out for me. The other part of my success is affording the same opportunity to others. I can lift up my community in different ways than governmental support can. Using my experiences and understanding the difficult road to home ownership, I took it upon myself to think critically about the future owner of my former residence.

A veteran sold her home to me in 2016 and as a veteran, I also selected another veteran in 2020 who intended to occupy the property. In my opinion, I feel our community is overrun with investors. In fact, the woman who sold my first house to me turned down an investor for the same reasons I did. Neither of us wanted the house to fall into an investor’s hands knowing the struggle it took to rebuild our finances after experiencing difficult circumstances. The prospective investor who provided the first offer on our home had no emotional attachment to the property and provided a significantly lower offer. He was offering something in the ballpark of $30,000 less than list price. His incentive to make his offer appealing was a quick closing for us. Instead, I waited. Another scary decision but one I do not regret. I knew someone would love what we tried to do to make the builder grade property better. And he showed up.

This single dad with two kids. He didn’t need to show up with the best offer, but he did.

My old home found its next family and I entered 2020 with more financial security than my family has experienced in years. Like back to 2006-2007, dual income no kids, but even better.

This home sale was a big deal and I am glad I finally found the courage to speak out about what it means to me. It is a financial win I finally feel like I can celebrate.

The fireplace crackles. A beautiful, comforting sound. One that calls back childhood spent staring at well wrapped gifts and sitting up close to a Christmas tree, inhaling its fresh cut scent. The light casts a glow that does not extend too far, but I do not mind. The bustle of our household, one human child and two fuzzy ones engaged in full play mood, has sent me into crazy panic mood worrying someone will get hurt, knock down the tree, damage presents, or all of the above. To sit and gaze at the mesmerizing fire removes a sense of worry after the condensed and busy work week. There is no danger of leaving the fireplace unattended.

Let me present to you the 2020 Arendelle Castle Yule Log.

Apparently, this is Disney’s second foray with an Arendelle Castle Yule Log. We missed out last year while at my parents’ house but that’s ok.

This one looks great in our new home!

We are like many families spending the Christmas holiday clustered in our respective home. This year we’ve kept our social gatherings to a minimum and mostly hang out only with people we know regularly wear masks due to the nature of their work environment and who are willing to abide by the mask mandates that have become a regular part of life this year. Also, like numerous friends, I am not entirely upset to be staying home for the holiday. 2020 has layered on the stress. To unwind a little more by sleeping in my own bed, avoiding long lines in airports and on the roads, and eating my preferred meals and desserts sounds pretty appealing after the months and months of disruption to our routine.

To those who do not share my view, I respect your feelings on the matter. I realize not everyone wants to get through the end of the year by yet more “alone” time, away from friends and/or family. Many people want to be out shopping late, attending festivals and holiday parties, and soaking in all the nuanced ways one can celebrate the holiday season. I am choosing to state Christmas to reflect my own beliefs and holiday seasons to respect many others who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Boxing Day. I do my best to state “Happy Holidays” to people as we come upon days off from work unless someone has wished me a Christmas greeting first and then I recognize him or her in the same manner. My understanding that this holiday season looks very different from others is also why I did not mark this post “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.”

Instead, I want to focus on expressing gratitude for everyone who comes to visit my blog and for the good fortunes I’ve received this year that have allowed my husband and I to provide presents for friends, family, and one stranger this year plus some donations to a few key people. Bringing joy and relief to others has made me feel like I am doing my part to care for the many communities I belong to in a way that respects them and also protects my own resources should this year toss a few extra difficulties our way.

For anyone who is not used to spending Christmas in your own home away from a throng of friends and family, I hope my words bring comfort. I’ve spent a few holidays away serving in Iraq. I’ve spent a few holidays away due to being broke. I’ve spent a few holidays away due to conflicting time commitments. The pain of these moments hurt and you are allowed to be frustrated, maybe angry, sad, or even bitter. At the same time though, you can also recognize the situation as an opportunity for personal growth. Do you have some books you’ve been meaning to open that you wouldn’t have wanted to read on a plane crowded with strangers? How about that online fitness class that will allow you to build strength without you feeling self-conscious around strangers in the gym? Not that we need to finish out the year being ultra productive but sometimes around this time of year it can be hard to fit in time for one’s interests and hobbies when everyone else is asking us to attend holiday parties or we are expected to meet obligatory family gatherings. This year you don’t have that problem, so indulge in filling your cup and tending to your own self-care needs!

Our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have some tokens of our normal celebrations and then some ways of recognizing we are just a party of three this year (plus the fuzzy kids). Tonight, I am making a sheet pan dinner although it is called a tray bake as I pulled it from the BBC Food site. I originally doubled the recipe when we offered our home to a few friends but things did not work out and so we are enjoying the creamy chicken, bean, and leek tray bake tonight and enjoying leftovers this weekend. Tomorrow is where I really pared things down and reduced the prep and cook time for my part. We will be enjoying a smoked duck and pairing it with the potato, celery root, and pear gratin recipe I found in Clean Eating magazine. I am finding great comfort this year in purchasing frozen dinner rolls. I love bread and rolls, but I had zero interest this Christmas in making a recipe that required hours of my time. We also picked up a key lime pie for tonight and a yule log for tomorrow from The Great Gadsby Bakery here in Gilbert. Their website is currently being updated so I recommend also checking out their Instagram.

For anyone still struggling with a dessert idea and you do not have the option to purchase from a bakery and maybe lack the desire, the time, or resources to make a yule log of your own, I have you covered. One of my favorite desserts from years back was when I made the chocolate biscuit cake Prince William had as his groom’s cake. The cake is incredibly decadent, easy to make, and can be made gluten free. I used the Schar brand gluten free shortbread cookies when I made the cake but now I know where I can find tea biscuit cookies if I want to make this cake for someone who does not have issues with gluten. Here are some photos of my creation from a few years back. We popped our leftover slices in the freezer and I would gladly make the cake again next time I have a large gathering and most, if not all, are serious chocolate lovers.

So as I close out this entry, I wish you all good things as 2020 comes to an end and I look forward to catching up with you again in January.