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My current student loan balance is $20,310,94.  
I was just able to pay $5210.94 on it. Of course my payment won’t hit until maybe Monday which means there will be an additional $10 or so applied to the unpaid interest balance. This annoys me. 
 
Friday is payday so I’ll be able to drop another $200 on it. I can finally see the end to this thing. God’s will I’ll be done by February 2026 
 
My estimated balance as of today after...
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Took a few minutes and balanced my checkbook.  I have $127.44.  I get paid Thursday, but after my husband's last minute dentist appointment and bills, I will be short ($261.60).  That is only with the necessities.  I am going to go through our pantry and see how many meals I can come up with.  Not that it will save me much....I only have $35 budgeted for the grocery store.
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So we bought our second EV last month before the tax credits expired.  We qualified for it based on our 2024 income and had been considering it since 2024, but decided in May 2024 to buy a used Tesla instead for $30k because paying $50k seemed a lot.  Anyway after we bought our 2021 Tesla DH really enjoyed the self-driving and foudn it useful.  So we made a plan to buy a new tesla end of 2025 right before we would lose the $7500 tax credit.  Since they moved...
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Oct 24

I went for a morning walk on Friday and at first I noticed some dew on the plants and thought I might get an interesting photo during a different time of day.  But then the birds were very loud and so I tried to snap a picture.  They were mostly too small and I was surprised this came out at all.  He stood still just long enough...
Oct 23

On Thursday I just got lucky.  I don't think I took any other pictures.  But happened to catch this sunset...
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Hi! I'm obviously new here and a little nervous.  From the looks of it, I may be in the worst shape on this platform.   I'm 44.  Married.  From the great state of Texas.  I work full time.  My husband runs a business.  Now the not so pleasant stuff.  At this very moment I don't know what is in my bank account.  I have zero in Savings.  We are behind on income from my husband.  We are behind on our bills.  And I have $14...
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Oops. Alas, I have no photo I took today so I'm cheating a little and posting a photo I took last week that made me laugh. A teeny tiny lock someone's using at my gym.

Today I made lentil soup.
In other news, Patient Saver has dipped her toe in the dating pool again and now she has not one but two suitors. I find it kind of stressful. I  never liked dating more than one man at a time (feels deceptive and gets complicated), but in this case, I met Bachelor #1 today and...
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Oct 22

I had some Kohl's cash and so I picked up some clothing for DL(20).  He definitely gets a 'free clothes' boost re: living at home.  
I had gone to Kohl's to return some shoes the prior week.  They already had Christmas stuff filling up the front of the store but I hadn't bothered to grab a picture at that time.  I snuck a pictue this time, but it was only a small fraction of the display.
I guess we are skipping Halloween and going straight to...
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MH's movie has been more widely released, and is now available to watch at no cost. 
Here is one of the links to watch on YouTube.  I presume that there will be ads on any free option.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrgwhFfXYjI
& it's also available on Fandango at Home.  Free, with ads.
 
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The IRS has released the income tax brackets for 2026 so I’ve begun planning our money management strategies for next year. I’m planning to aggressively execute Roth conversions in 2026 and that process will be new for me. The main learning that I took away from the recent free financial course that I attended was the risk that I’m taking by having most of my retirement savings in a tax deferred account.
Making big money moves always feels scary to me, but after...
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So we still havent found a new house to move into, hoping it will be soon because summer is approaching and I dont handle the heat with my chronic illness and same with hubby...but it is also nice to not just have to take anything because we have a move out date....rental are still so over priced here it is ridiculous.
I have given my daughter money for her surgery which is a week before christmas, we just have to pay the ansetheologist a week beforehand, so that is done. hubby...
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Near where I live....
What I'm reading: The Nature of Oaks, by Doug Tallamy.
Today started out as a good day but that was short-lived.  That's when I entered my father's apartment to see him attempting to attach a paper towel with scotch tape to his leg, which was bleeding. The elderly have very thin skin; he had a large scab that I guess he scratched, and his entire leg was bloody from the knee down.  There was blood on his bedsheets, the floor, the rug and him....
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Oct 20

Monday was a busy day.  So I just took a picture of my cat at the end of the day.  
 
Oct 21

This was the more exciting looking sports car I noticed before.  I hadn't seen it since.  But today...  Today I went for a mid day walk and there was the car.   Apparently it belongs to a veterinarian.
Google lens tells me that the car is a Corvette. 
 
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Once again I got super busy, this time going to DC (by way of Baltimore airport) and Northern Virginia (hence "DMV" which is a common abbreviation for the area--thank goodness I didn't spend 5 days in the Dept of Motor Vehicles!!). It was just the parents--the kids stayed home again (with their godfather in the lower part of the duplex, so not really "home alone").
We flew in Thursday and I didn't take many pics, but I did take one of a mezcal menu to text my friend who's a fan...
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So the reason we stayed in Hakone where we did was go to the once a month Geisha Event show.  We stayed at the Hakone Tenyu Kowaiken hotel and they had a special dinner and show.  It was fantastic.  We had a great time.  Got to interact and play games with the Geisha. I'm not sure the kids got it.  Perhaps one day we'll head to Kyoto and do Gion.  

From Kyoto to Nara we took a special sightseeing train called the aoniyoshi train. It was good...
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Oct 18

Another trip downtown.  This was just the best picture I got of the sunset.  The pyramid at night.
I went to a Halloween party at an art gallery, but this was the most interesting picture I took.
 
Oct 19

This is a Pacman frog that lives in MM(22)'s college house.  
I pretty much checked out for the day and didn't take any pictures.  I am sure I could have come up with something if I had more brain power.  But MM(22) was telling...
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Can't really tell from this, but this rally was bigger than the June one (which had a turnout of about 5,000).  Last time, the rally stopped at this intersection (the biggest intersection downtown, where my office is located); this time, they continued on to march another half mile to City Hall.  
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I can see the photos so hopefully you can too.  These were the photos that were supposed to go with a prior blog post--my big home improvement for the year.  I'm thte unit on the right.  I chose the all-aluminum stair railing and my neighbor went with PVC, which was cheaper.  Definitely an improvement!  The old stairs were not only falling apart, but were inappropriately sized.  There's an extra step added.  I have no idea how the old stairs...
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If you're wondering what this means, the phrase is a modern adaptation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote emphasizing that progress toward justice is not inevitable or automatic, and that we need active human effort to bring about change. It's meant to be a call to action urging people to work toward social change rather than waiting for justice to happen on its own. So appropros for 2025.
Even if trumpty-dumpty was not destroying the environment, selling off public lands,...
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The amazing thing is that the thousands of my photos that disappeared from my personal file folders have magically reappeared in those folders. I have no idea why, but I'm relieved, that's for sure.
All the Kiva loans I reviewed this week were from Phillippino borrowers, and all wanted money for a sanitary toilet. All of the borrower profiles showed the borrower standing next to a toilet inside a crude, cinderblock hut with a curtain for privacy. The toilet is never connected...
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I have a weak spot for craft fairs, church fairs and things of that sort. I love homemade knit items, which remind me of my dear grandmother, as well as homemade baked goods. I saw many things my grandmother would have liked.  It's a glorious fall day and I love this time of year.

That's a knit pumpkin at left with a real pumpkin stalk on it. So clever. Also a ceramic pumpkin for my kitchen window; I bought a similar pumpkin in a teal color last year. And, my first pair...
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