Financial Fridays: What Happens After the Credit Cards Are Paid Off

Paying off my credit cards felt like something that should come with a bigger moment than it did.

I expected a shift I could feel immediately. Something obvious. A sense that I had crossed into a completely different version of my life.

And it was good. There was relief in it. The kind that’s quiet but real, where you stop bracing for something and realize you don’t have to anymore. No more interest building in the background. No more trying to calculate how long it would take if I just kept throwing money at it.

But it didn’t feel like an ending, the way I expected. It felt more like the point where the structure holding everything together disappeared, and I had to decide what to build next.

When I was paying off my credit cards, the strategy was simple. There was a right answer every time. Extra money went to the same place. Progress was easy to measure. The balance went down, and that was enough to keep going.

Now there isn’t a single clear target.

I still have a retirement loan sitting around $13,000, courtesy of divorce. I have a car loan just under $17,000. I have a significant amount in savings that I worked hard to build and don’t want to drain, but also don’t want to protect so much that everything else slows down.

And every paycheck now requires a decision instead of following a plan I already set.

That part is harder than I expected.

Not because it’s worse, but because it’s less defined. I can make a case for putting extra money toward the retirement loan and trying to knock it out quickly. I can make a case for building my savings up more aggressively so I have a stronger cushion. I can split it and do both, knowing it means slower progress across the board.

All of those options make sense. None of them feel as clear as “put everything here until it’s gone.”

Getting out of credit card debt was straightforward. This part isn’t.

Before, progress was visible. It was numbers dropping, statements changing, accounts closing out. It felt active and obvious.

Now progress is quieter. It’s consistency. It’s making the same kinds of decisions over and over again without the immediate payoff. It’s knowing I’m in a better position than I was, even if it doesn’t feel dramatically different day to day.

I don’t feel stuck anymore, but I also don’t feel finished. I’m somewhere in the middle of it, where things are more stable but still not settled.

Paying off the cards didn’t solve everything. It just took away the most obvious problem and left me with the ones that take longer to figure out.

There’s no single right move now. Just a series of choices that matter a little more than they used to.

And I have to decide, every time, what I want those choices to add up to.

Read More

In the Meantime

On the quiet stretches between the big changes

Life has a way of dividing itself into chapters.

There are the moments that clearly change things. The events that redraw the map. Divorce papers. New jobs. Moving boxes. Decisions that feel big enough to split time into before and after.

Those are the moments people tend to talk about.

But most of life doesn’t happen there.

Most of life happens in the meantime.

It happens on quiet Tuesdays at work, when I sit in the break room eating lunch while other people talk around me. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I scroll through something on my phone. Conversations float across the room, easy and casual, the kind of rhythm I’ve never quite known how to join.

It happens in the evenings after the boys are settled, when the house finally grows quiet. I open my laptop and work on the blog for a while, adjusting a sentence, moving an image, building something small and personal that no one asked for but somehow still matters to me.

Some nights I read instead. A few pages turn into a few chapters, and suddenly the clock has moved farther than I expected.

Life moves forward in small, almost invisible ways during these stretches.

Often you only notice it when you look up.

Sometimes it’s something as small as quietly cheering in the kitchen when Caleb and I finally figure out why the filament on the 3D printer kept tangling.

Sometimes it’s sitting in my car in the parking lot before work, sipping my Diet Coke with my playlist turned up louder than most people would probably prefer. For a few minutes it’s just me, the music, and the quiet space before the day starts. Eventually someone pulls in next to me and I turn the volume down and head inside.

But life isn’t only unfolding in those quiet pockets of time.

It’s happening all around me too.

The boys grow older.

Caleb disappears into technology projects the way I disappear into ideas. Holden fills the house with motion and questions and noise. Their childhood continues unfolding in the background while I try to keep up with it.

Some mornings it’s just Caleb sitting quietly in the backseat while I drive him to school early for band or chorus. I sing along with whatever song is playing. He doesn’t say much. He just listens.

Other days it’s a quick McDonald’s run for fries. The bag barely makes it into the car before they start negotiating.

“How many do I get?”

“That one was bigger!”

“You already had three!”

By the time we pull into the driveway, the fries are usually gone and someone is insisting the other one got more.

And sometimes it’s dinner at Texas Roadhouse, Caleb’s steak cooked medium and already cut up because he still asks me to do it that way. Holden reaches across the table and helps himself to my mac and cheese and rice without even asking.

By the time we leave, the table is a mess of napkins and half-empty baskets, and the boys are already arguing about something else.

And then the night ends, the house settles again, and the ordinary rhythm of life continues.

Grocery orders. School dances. Workdays. Bedtimes. Library books stacked on the counter waiting to be returned.

I track things. Organize things. Build spreadsheets that make sense of the small pieces of daily life. It’s a way of holding onto order while everything else slowly shifts around me.

These aren’t the dramatic moments. They’re not the scenes that feel like turning points. But they’re where most of the living actually happens.

The quiet afternoons.

The evenings spent writing essays no one asked for.

The routines that carry us forward while we wait for the next big change.

It’s easy to think of these stretches as temporary. As something you’re simply passing through on the way to whatever comes next. But the older I get, the more I realize that these quiet stretches aren’t just filler between the important parts.

They are the important parts.

Because life isn’t only made of the moments that change everything. Most of life happens in the meantime. 

And sometimes, the meantime turns out to be the best part of the story.

Read More

Glow Sticks and Other Priorities (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir of Ignored Limits, Floor Finds, and a Very Uneven Spotlight

Setting: March 2026

Caleb had a glow night dance at school. Holden doesn’t even go there yet. Different school, different building, different everything. But we all went.

At the entrance, each kid could take two glow stick bracelets. Holden took his two like it was a personal inconvenience, as if he already suspected they wouldn’t be enough. Caleb took his and moved on.

The second we walked into the gym, Caleb was gone, straight to the dance floor, jumping, spinning, fully committed to the moment. Holden stepped inside, looked around, and immediately found something else to focus on.

He started picking glow sticks up off the floor. One by one. Quiet. Methodical. Like a man on a mission.

I asked what he was doing. “I’m finding the owners.”

That lasted maybe five minutes.

After that, he just kept collecting: from the floor, from chairs, from anywhere a glow stick had been abandoned for even a second. He moved through the gym like a tiny, determined scavenger. At one point, he came and sat next to me.

“Count them.”

I did. 

Twenty.

Across the gym, Caleb was still dancing. No breaks, no hesitation, just music and movement and sweat and joy. Holden sat beside me like a very satisfied businessman.

Then the DJ played "Bye Bye Bye," which felt wildly out of place at an elementary school dance in 2026 and also completely correct. Suddenly I was ten again. Or thirteen. Somewhere in that *NSYNC era where this song was everything and you knew the hand motions whether you admitted it or not.

I lit up. “THIS is my music.”

Caleb kept dancing. Holden did not.

The dance was exactly one hour long. At 7:30 on the dot, the DJ cut a song off halfway through and turned everything off. Lights up. Done.

The next day, the school posted photos on Facebook. There was one of Holden, standing there with his pile of glow sticks like he’d just won something. Caleb wasn’t in any of them.

It was his school. His dance. He spent the whole night exactly where you’d expect him to be: in the middle of it, moving, laughing, not thinking about anything except the music. Holden spent it differently. Drifting, noticing, gathering things no one else cared about, until somehow he was the one with something to show for it.

It wasn’t even his dance, but Holden made it his own.

Caleb was just happy to be there.

This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.

Read More

2026 Goals: Q1 Check-In

Q1 Check-In: Fewer Lists, Clearer Focus

At the beginning of the year, I stepped away from monthly goal posts and narrowed my focus to a smaller set of priorities in a few broad categories. The goal was to stop constantly resetting and give a few things enough time to actually work. 

 

Now that the first quarter is over (January 1 – March 31), I wanted to check in on how that’s going. Some areas moved quickly. Some didn’t move at all. But overall, this already feels steadier than the constant cycle of starting over.

Health Goals

Goal:

• Lose 78 pounds

Q1 Progress

• Lose 78 pounds: 18.2/78 (23.3%)
  Status: In Progress

This is the category where the “fewer, better habits” approach worked the most. I lost 18.2 pounds in three months, and while it means I'm slightly behind on where I need to be for this goal, I'm proud of what I've done and how I've done it. I didn’t overhaul everything. I stuck with smaller portions, cut back on sugar, and let consistency build over time.

 

It hasn’t felt dramatic day to day, but the results are real. That matters more than doing something extreme for a few weeks and burning out.

Running Goals

Goals:

• Go for 80 runs
• Complete 3 races

Q1 Progress

• Go for 80 runs: 0/80 (0%)
  Status: Not Started
• Complete 3 races: 0/3 (0%)
  Status: Not Started

This one hasn’t started yet. I didn’t force it, but I also didn’t prioritize it. If I want this to become part of the year, it needs to actually start in Q2.

Money Goals

Goals:

• Pay off credit cards completely (3 total)
• Increase savings by $2,000
• Raise my credit score from 736 to 760

Q1 Progress

• Pay off credit cards: 3/3 (100%) ✔️
  Status: Complete
• Increase savings: $3,960 / $2,000 (198%) ✔️
  Status: Complete
• Raise credit score: 740/760 (+4)
  Status: In Progress

This was the biggest shift of the quarter. Paying off all three credit cards completely changed where my money goes each month, and my savings still increased more than expected while I was focused on debt. The credit score goal isn’t there yet, but it’s moving in the right direction. I also can't influence it a whole lot, which I suppose I should have thought of earlier. 

 

More than anything, this category feels different now. It’s less about fixing problems and more about deciding what to do next.

Reading Goals

Goals:

• Read 100 books
• Complete at least 3 series (Hunger Games, Dread Nation, Birthright)
• Finish Freida McFadden's backlist
• Finish Noelle Ihli's backlist

Q1 Progress

• Read 100 books: 9/100 (9%)
  Status: In Progress
• Complete 3 series: 0/3 (0%)
  Status: Not Started
• Freida backlist: 19/30 (63.3%) ◦ Q1: +1
  Status: In Progress
• Noelle backlist: 3/8 (37.5%) ◦ Q1: +1
  Status: In Progress

This category is slower than I expected. I’ve made some progress, but not enough to feel real momentum yet, especially on series.

Both authors have new releases coming out this year, but I’m keeping the original totals as my goal and treating anything new as extra afterward so the finish line doesn’t keep moving. 

 

Backlist Trackers

Listed in publication order.
✔️ = read prior to 2026
✔️ bold = read in 2026
• = not yet read

Noelle Ihli (3/8 • publication order)

• The Thicket (2021)
✔️ Ask for Andrea (2022)
✔️ Run on Red (2022)
✔️ Room For Rent (2023)
• Gray After Dark (2024)
• None Left to Tell (2024)
• Such Quiet Girls (2025)
• Forget You Saw Her (2025)

Upcoming, not included in goal: The Last to Drown (July 2026)

Freida McFadden (19/30 • publication order)

✔️ The Devil Wears Scrubs (2013)
✔️ Dead Med (2014)
✔️ Baby City (2015)
✔️ Brain Damage (2016)
• The Devil You Know (2017)
✔️ The Surrogate Mother (2018)
✔️ The Ex (2019)
• The Perfect Son (2019)
✔️ The Wife Upstairs (2020)
✔️ One By One (2020)
✔️ Want to Know a Secret? (2021)
• The Locked Door (2021)
✔️ Do Not Disturb (2021)
✔️ Do You Remember? (2022)
✔️ The Housemaid (2022)
• The Inmate (2022)
✔️ Never Lie (2022)
✔️ The Housemaid’s Secret (2023)
✔️ Ward D (2023)
• The Coworker (2023)
✔️ The Gift (2023)
✔️ The Teacher (2024)
• The Housemaid is Watching (2024)
• The Boyfriend (2024)
✔️ The Housemaid’s Wedding (2024)
• The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie (2024)
• The Crash (2025)
✔️ The Tenant (2025)
• The Intruder (2025)
• Death Row (2025)

2026 releases, not included in goal: Dear Debbie, The Dinner Party, The Divorce, The Witch

Series Tracker

✔️ = read
• = not yet read

The Hunger Games

• The Hunger Games
• Catching Fire
• Mockingjay
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
• Sunrise on the Reaping

Dread Nation

• Dread Nation
• Deathless Divide

Birthright

• All These Things I’ve Done
• Because It Is My Blood
• In the Age of Love and Chocolate

If I want this category to look different by midyear, I need to be much more deliberate about what I pick up next instead of defaulting to whatever sounds good in the moment.

Blogging Goals

Goals:

• Publish 100 new posts
• Publish 50 One Minute Memoirs

Q1 Progress

• Publish 100 posts: 35/100 (35%)
  Status: In Progress
• Publish 50 OMM: 13/50 (26%)
  Status: In Progress

This is the most consistent I’ve been with blogging in a long time. More than the numbers, it feels structured now. I’m writing regularly, posting consistently, and getting clearer on what I want this space to be.

Q1 Summary

• Lose 78 pounds: In Progress
• Go for 80 runs: Not Started
• Complete 3 races: Not Started
• Pay off credit cards: Complete ✔️
• Increase savings: Complete ✔️
• Raise credit score: In Progress
• Read 100 books: In Progress
• Complete 3 series: Not Started
• Freida backlist: In Progress
• Noelle backlist: In Progress
• Publish 100 posts: In Progress
• Publish 50 OMM: In Progress

Q2 Focus (April 1 – June 30)

• Health: Continue steady weight loss without changing what’s already working. Focus on consistency over speed. In Q2, I’d like to lose 15 pounds.
• Running: Start running regularly, even if it’s only 1–2 times per week to begin building the habit. In Q2, I’d like to hit 20–25 runs and sign up for at least one race.
• Money: Maintain momentum by continuing to build savings while making steady progress on my retirement loan. Focus on consistency rather than trying to force outcomes like credit score changes.
• Reading: Make visible progress on at least one series and continue moving through both author backlists more intentionally. I need to increase my pace in Q2, with a goal of 25–30 books, including one completed series and consistent backlist progress.
• Blogging: Maintain three posts per week while refining the balance between essays, memoirs, and lighter posts. I'd been intentionally focusing on more serious "writerly" pieces since my return to blogging in 2025, but I think it's time to shift slightly and bring some lighter, more "daily life" type content back in as well. 

Three months in, everything isn’t where I want it to be.  But nothing has been reset, either. I’m still working from the same list, still building on what’s already there instead of replacing it every few weeks.

That alone feels different from how I usually do this, and it’s enough to keep going. 

Read More

Not Nothing

On slow progress, quiet moments, and the things I still like

I’ve been in a cynical mood lately.

Not in a dramatic, everything-is-falling-apart way. Just tired, and not even in a way that feels worth explaining. Things just feel flat more often than not, like I’m putting in effort and it’s not really going anywhere fast enough to matter.

There’s always something.

My weight loss is slower than I hoped. The migraines are still there. The balances are going down, just not fast enough. It’s all effort, and the return on it feels pretty minimal lately.

I’m not trying to spin that into something positive.

This isn’t a “find the joy” phase or whatever people call it. I’m not waking up grateful. I’m not reframing anything. I’m not sitting here thinking this is all part of some bigger meaningful process.

But there are still things I like.

Not big things. Just small ones that happen anyway.

The first sip of my McDonald’s Diet Coke in the morning. It’s always the same. Cold in a way that feels sharper than anything else. Crisp and reliable. It hits exactly the way I expect it to, every single time.

Finishing a book is another one. Turning the last page, closing it and sitting there for a second. Updating my reading tracker, my counters, seeing the numbers move. It’s small, but it feels like progress. Like something I can point to and say I actually finished it. And then there’s that brief flicker of excitement, figuring out what I’ll read next, knowing I’m about to step into a completely different story.

At night, when the kids are asleep and nothing else is being asked of me, I get into bed and turn something on. Lately it’s been true crime, documentaries, or going back to Grey’s when I don’t feel like thinking too much. It’s not productive. It’s not important. It just feels like mine for a little while.

And then there are the moments that don’t make any sense at all.

The other night, Holden looked at me, completely out of nowhere, and said, “Mom, when you turn 40, you should be a beekeeper.”

No context. No buildup. Just said it like it was obvious, even though I hate insects. And it made me laugh. Not in a big, meaningful way. It just caught me off guard enough to break through everything else for a minute.

None of this fixes anything. The bigger stuff is still there. The frustration, the waiting, the feeling of being stuck in a version of life I didn’t plan on staying in this long.

It’s not a transformation. It’s not a turning point. I don’t feel different. I don’t feel better. But I also can’t say there’s nothing good at all.

These small moments keep showing up. Not enough to change anything. Not enough to fix it. But they’re still there. Even when everything else feels like it isn’t moving.

And right now, that’s what I have.

Not happy.

But not nothing.

Read More

Play it Again, Mom (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir of Flutes, Feelings, and Coming Full Circle

Setting: August 2023 — The summer Holden fell for Celine and I relived 1997.

My parents always said they spent hundreds of dollars for me to learn to play “My Heart Will Go On” on the piano. It was my big recital song, months of lessons leading up to one minute on the church stage.

I never practiced. Not once.

So imagine my surprise when Holden, at five, took a sudden interest in the Titanic. He couldn’t pronounce it quite right, but he could rattle off facts like a tiny tour guide. He even had a captain’s hat and a shirt that proudly declared: Just a Boy Who Loves the Titanic.

Then he discovered the song.

“Can you play the Titanic song?” he’d ask. And then again. And again. Every day for weeks.

And I, a millennial mom who lived through the 1997 Titanic obsession in real time, complied. Naturally. Because who am I to deny Celine Dion?

So I’d cue it up.

The opening flute. The tragic yearning. The ocean of childhood feelings that floods in like the iceberg itself. Instantly, I’m back on my bedroom floor, surrounded by notebooks and folders, carefully writing "I ❤️ Leo" in the margins like it meant something, like I was part of it somehow.

The song would end, and Holden’s voice would follow, right on cue:

“Can you play it again?”

I’d sigh. I’d hit play. Again.

And again.

Eventually, the phase passed. But every now and then, when I hear that familiar flute, I still think of him — a little boy in a captain’s hat, the ghost of my own childhood looping softly behind him while he asks for it on repeat.

Some things, it seems, really do go on… and on.

This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.

Read More