Tiny Wins, Petty Woes (1)

This is the first post in what I hope becomes a regular series, a place for the little victories worth celebrating, the annoyances that deserve side-eye, and the random moments that somehow make up real life. Let's get to it... this week's collection of Tiny Wins, Petty Woes, and everything in between.

──── ❤️ Tiny Wins ────

❤️ Administrative Professionals Day made me feel genuinely appreciated at work.

Wednesday brought cards, kind emails, a plant, candy, lots of recognition, homemade coffee cake, and a lunch planned for next week. It’s always nice to see the people who keep everything moving get recognized. I know how rare it can be to find a healthy workplace, so I don’t take it for granted. I’m lucky to work with a great team where we all get along and the environment stays positive.

❤️ The monthly Bingo Squishmallow saga continued.

Last month, Holden won the monthly Squishmallow raffle. This month, my mom technically won, but Caleb immediately claimed the prize like a tiny hostile corporate takeover specialist.

❤️ I got completely pulled into Trust Me: The Lost Prophet.

I’ll watch almost anything involving cults, religious grifters, or spectacular delusion, and this documentary series delivered in spades. The self-proclaimed prophet was an absolute clown: white leather motorcycle jacket, dreams of convincing the Queen to move here via music video, and a strong desire to be filmed running over rocks and attempting motorcycle stunts. The filmmaker, Tolga, provided excellent commentary throughout that was completely hilarious.

❤️ Started The Dark Wizard on HBO Max and was instantly interested.

After finishing Trust Me, I needed another documentary series to fill the void. This one follows Dean Potter, a fearless and controversial climber whose record-setting stunts were matched by personal struggles behind the scenes. I was hooked right away and am already looking forward to the upcoming episodes. Always a good sign when I’m invested immediately instead of scrolling for 45 minutes first.

❤️ New snacks entered the chat.

Crumbl brownie dippers and Earth Day pudding dirt sundaes at Bingo both made an appearance this week, which feels like the kind of nonsense dessert innovation I fully support.

❤️ Kindle Unlimited is back in my life... for now.

I only subscribe when I can get a good deal, and I found a two-month offer worth taking.

❤️ I finally set up my hands-free reading system.

I’d had a tablet holder and remote page turner for quite a while, and finally got everything set up for reading in bed with both arms safely under the blanket. Peak comfort technology.

❤️ The scale is moving again.

After a couple of stalled weeks, my weight loss has started kicking back into gear. Always nice when patience finally pays off. And bonus: I finally hit 30 pounds lost since November!

❤️ Another musical with my aunt.

We saw A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond musical. It probably won’t crack my all-time favorites list, but I had a really good time and enjoyed it more than I expected.

❤️ Spring is trying.

Not every day. Not consistently. But there have been moments where it remembers what season it’s supposed to be.

❤️ My weekly brownie mix testing has a current champion.

I’ve been trying a new brownie mix every week, purely in the name of public service. So far, the clear winner is the Ghirardelli Ultimate Chocolate mix. It costs a couple dollars more than the basic cheap boxes (just under $4 a box), but the difference is noticeable. Richer, better texture, worth it. More contenders are still ahead, and I’ll report back if anything manages to dethrone it. And also, why is this my second mention of brownies in one week?! Priorities.

 

❤️A Buy Nothing score I was genuinely excited about... free books!

I picked up a free boxed set of Jenny Han's To All the Boys series through a local Buy Nothing Facebook group. I already love the series and had actually been considering buying it for my collection, so this felt like a very satisfying little win.

 

❤️ My McDonald’s app glory days have returned.

All last year, I was living the dream with a free fries of any size deal when I bought a drink, which meant I could get a large fry and Diet Coke for around $1.50 like the budget queen I was born to be. The deal disappeared at the start of the year and I took it personally. But recently? It returned to my app. We are so back.

❤️ A music rabbit hole in the best way.

I’ve been really enjoying Smithfield lately, a country duo I discovered a couple of years ago. They just released a new song, Giving Up on Us, that I’m mildly obsessed with. I’ve also been revisiting older songs and finding new favorites all over again. They deserve to be far more well-known than they are. Incredible voices, and they’re refreshingly interactive with fans too.

──── 👎 Petty Woes ────

👎 I somehow lost my brand new enhanced license.

Yes. My three month old, nearly $200 enhanced license went missing. A couple of hours of panic later, I discovered a replacement was only $17.50. Honestly shocking. I ordered a new one immediately and considered that a partial emotional refund. Sidenote: the DMV website SUCKS and I had to wrestle with that for a bit before finally placing my order.

👎 Holden discovered the 4 a.m. hour.

Twice this week so far. I am operating on fumes and vague determination.

👎 The cold made its rounds.

Holden had a cold, which likely contributed to one of the early wake-ups, because illness loves to arrive with bonus inconvenience.

👎 I’ve been dealing with a belly button infection.

Yes, it is exactly as weird as it sounds. Antibiotics have helped, but it still isn’t fully healed, which feels rude at this point. I'm hoping I won't have to go back to the doctor again, but I messaged her an update. We'll see what she says!

👎 A hopeful opportunity didn’t pan out.

I spent most of the week anxiously waiting to hear back about something I really wanted, so it was a real letdown when the answer wasn’t what I’d hoped for. Disappointing, yes, but not the end of the story.

👎 Spring is still unreliable.

See also: false hope, cold wind, seasonal gaslighting. And yes, I know this also appears in my wins for the week. April weather giving us straight whiplash over here!

👎 My daily McDonald’s Diet Coke got more expensive. Again.

Once upon a time it was $1. Then it became $1.39. Now it’s $1.49. Is this still affordable? Yes. Will I survive? Also yes. But I reserve the right to be dramatically offended. And also, I clearly have a McDonald's problem. Two shout-outs in one week, SMH.

──── ➡️ Next Week ────

Hoping for more sleep, steadier weather, healed body parts, continued momentum, and better news where it counts. Until then, we keep moving.

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Room For One More

 On Solitude, Small Invitations, and Finding Your Place at the Table

When I walk into a room full of tables, I never know where to sit.

You know the kind of room: round tables, groups already forming, conversations halfway started. There’s a small window of time when you have to decide whether to join a group already gathered or sit somewhere else. Both options feel awkward.

Joining a table can feel presumptuous, like you’re inserting yourself into something already in progress. But sitting alone carries its own discomfort. It announces something you didn’t necessarily mean to announce.

So I usually choose the second option. A quiet table. A seat on the edge of the room. Then I pull out my phone or a book so it looks intentional.

At work, I often sit by myself during lunch and read. There’s another table nearby where several women sit together most days. They talk and laugh and carry on overlapping conversations. They’ve invited me to join them more than once. Sometimes I do. But most days I stay where I am. The noise feels like a lot. The quiet table works better for me.

From the outside, it probably looks like I prefer being alone. Most of the time, that’s true.

But every once in a while, something small happens that reminds me there’s another side to it.

A couple of years ago, when I worked at the college, they held an ice cream social outside one afternoon. People scattered around picnic tables with bowls and cones and paper napkins. I sat down at a table by myself.

A few minutes later, a group of women from another department walked over and asked if they could sit with me. They introduced themselves, asked my name, and we talked for a few minutes while we finished our ice cream.

After that day, one of those women would say hello whenever we passed in the hallway. Nothing dramatic came from it. No deep friendship or life-changing connection. Just a familiar face where there hadn’t been one before.

Something similar happened at the work Christmas party here last year. I arrived and did what I usually do: picked a table where no one else was sitting yet.

Eventually trivia started, and a group of women farther down the table waved me over so I could join their team. We introduced ourselves, laughed at the questions, and guessed at answers. Later, another coworker I knew asked if she could sit next to me. Then another joined beside her.

Before long, the table that started with one person had turned into a small group.

Moments like that always surprise me a little. Because the truth is, I do like solitude. I like quiet tables, reading during lunch, evenings where the television stays off and a book stays open for hours.

But every once in a while, it’s nice when someone looks over, waves you closer, and pulls up another chair. 

Not because you asked.

Because they saw you sitting there and decided there was room for one more.

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The Shoulder Throw (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir of Packed Lanes, Constant Fouls, and Winning Without Rolling the Ball

Setting: March 2026 — The month Holden proved form was overrated.

We went bowling with two of Holden’s friends last weekend.

His first real playdate. Not a birthday party. Not school. Just… meeting up somewhere and hoping it went well.

One of the boys’ dads had texted earlier in the week to set it up, and I said yes, even though I was already a little nervous about it.

When we got there, the place was packed, which I wasn’t expecting on a random Sunday afternoon. His two friends were waiting just inside the door with the dad, and the boys immediately took off toward the arcade like none of the rest of it mattered.

I stayed back for a second, doing that awkward introduction, trying to figure out what to say to someone I didn’t know while also pretending I wasn’t out of my element.

We had to wait for a lane, so they ran between games while I ordered a pizza and kept an eye on them. It all felt slightly chaotic already.

Once we finally got a lane, it got worse.

One of the boys had a score of four by the fifth frame. Not because he couldn’t hit pins, but because he kept getting fouls. I pointed out that he was stepping over the line. He did it again immediately. And then again. And then again.

The family next to us, including what looked like at least two senior citizens, spent most of the time dodging kids running back and forth, sliding across the floor, and coming way too close to crashing into them.

I stayed close to Holden, repeating some version of “walk,” “slow down,” and “please don’t run in bowling shoes” on a loop.

At one point, he nearly ran straight into them and I felt that full-body cringe of knowing I was about to have to apologize to strangers.

His technique didn’t help.

He didn’t roll the ball. He threw it. From his shoulder. Every time.

It would hit the lane with a loud clunk, bounce slightly, and then slowly make its way down like it had no real plan. At one point, even with bumpers on, he somehow managed to throw it straight into the gutter hard enough that it got stuck. An employee had to come get it.

The best part of it was that the kids would throw the ball and then not even watch. They’d turn around immediately and run back to grab another one, completely uninterested in what actually happened. No follow-through. No reaction. Just chaos.

And somehow...

Holden won all three games.

High 80s at one point. Two spares.

All of it with the shoulder throw.

No technique. No patience. Just results.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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