Month in Review: February 2026

February 2026 in Review

February felt steadier than January. Not necessarily quieter, just more productive. There were proud parent moments, real financial progress, strong reading momentum, and a heavy dose of true crime on my screens. Winter is still winter, but this month felt like tangible forward movement.

📊 Month by the Numbers

• Weight: ⬇️ 4.0 lbs (YTD: ⬇️ 12.2 lbs)
• Books Read: 5 (YTD: 7)
• Runs: 0
• Blog Posts: 8 (YTD: 22)
• One Minute Memoirs: 4 (YTD: 8)
• Savings: ⬆️ $3,230
• Debt: ⬇️ $3,981.45

Highlights

• Wicked (again): My aunt and I saw Wicked for the third or fourth time. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows and OMG “Defying Gravity”...  straight chills every single time! Caleb went on a class field trip to see it the same night, and he liked it. Maybe not as enthusiastically as I do, but I'm glad he had the experience!
• Leadership Award: Caleb won a leadership award at school. His teacher invited us to the assembly and we had to keep it a secret. When he walked in and saw us sitting there, he was genuinely surprised. I left work early on a Friday to be there, signed him out of school early afterward, and let him pick a celebratory treat: McDonald’s fries, just the two of us.
• 3D printer redemption: Caleb’s replacement 3D printer arrived and we’re officially up and running. Holden has already put him in business. 
• Another Bingo night: We signed up again. Caleb was frustrated when he didn’t win within the first five minutes. Holden was loud. The nacho bar, however, delivered. I keep registering us monthly — glutton for punishment?
• Tax refund day: I anxiously awaited this one. I used it to finish paying off my credit cards and significantly boost my savings. A major milestone.
• Health progress: This was my first full month on my new migraine regimen, specifically targeting hormonal migraines this time. I'm now on two additional migraine meds (I have an entire arsenal), and I was down to four migraines in February... not perfect, but noticeably better than January.

📚 What I Read

A strong reading month! Five books, mostly thrillers, and one clear favorite.

• His & Hers by Alice Feeney ★★★★☆
• What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan ★★★★☆
• Deep Cuts by Sera Elly ★★★☆☆
• Revelation by Carter Wilson ★★★★☆
• You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose ★★☆☆☆

🏅 Favorite Book of the Month: Revelation
Books Read: 5
Yearly Progress: 7 / 100

🎬 What I Watched

• TV Shows
• The Pitt (HBO Max): I stay caught up week to week. It’s so good. (current)
• Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix): Still deep in my rewatch era. Season one is pure MAGIC. (rewatch • s:1 e:4–9)
• ER (HBO Max): Slowly making my way through season one. (s:1 e:12)
• His & Hers (Netflix): Limited series adaptation of the book. (s:1 e:1–2)
• Full House (Hulu): Another slow rewatch. (rewatch • s:1 e:1–2)
• Documentaries & Docuseries
• Dave Not Coming Back (Tubi, 2020): A documentary about a deep cave diving expedition that turns tragic when a diver becomes trapped underwater. Interesting in parts, but not a favorite. 2 stars
• The Investigation of Lucy Letby (Netflix, 2026): Examines the British nurse accused of murdering infants in her care. Gripping and well done, though I’m still undecided on guilt vs. innocence. 4 stars
• Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart (Netflix, 2026): Revisits the 2002 abduction and investigation. Solid but not exceptional. I did learn a lot more about this case, so that was a plus. 3 stars
• Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert (Peacock, 2023): Explores the case that led to the Amber Alert system. Interesting and informative. I had no idea where the Amber Alert came from prior to watching this. 3 stars
• Wild Boys: Strangers in Town (Paramount+, 2026, 2 eps.): Follows two mysterious brothers who suddenly appear in a small town. I was excited for this one, but it ended up feeling odd and underwhelming. It was compelling enough, but there was just something so uncomfortable and unsettling about both of the brothers. 2 stars

Extras

• Loved: Seeing Caleb win his award, finishing off my credit cards, and hearing “Defying Gravity” live again.
• Sucked: Still having migraines... fewer, but not gone.
• On the Menu: Texas Roadhouse twice (the boys love it and I can never turn down their rolls) and discovering Drizzilicious mini rice cakes.
• Made Me Laugh: Holden confidently calling the Seahawks the “Seahorses” during the Super Bowl — and coming home from school wearing a random gold chain like he’d joined a middle school rap collective. A full saga. One Minute Memoir incoming!

Coming Up in March

March looks surprisingly quiet on my calendar, which feels rare. We have our monthly town Bingo night (yes, we’re still going), and I’ll be traveling at the end of the month for a work conference. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to a few calmer weeks. If the weather cooperates and we finally thaw out, I’d love to attempt a return to running.

What I Learned

Big milestones rarely happen all at once. They’re built in ordinary weeks: in spreadsheets, in small habits, in saying no to things you used to say yes to. February felt like proof that quiet consistency eventually turns into very visible progress.

So that’s it for me! See you next month!

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The Manufacturing Department (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on Accidental Entrepreneurship, Unsolicited Demand, and Brotherly Obligation

Setting: February 2026

Caleb got a 3D printer for his birthday.

This is a child who already owns more technology than some small businesses. Multiple laptops. External monitors. A phone. A growing collection of cables whose purposes I do not understand and am afraid to touch.

So he didn’t ask for a printer, per se. I had just run out of increasingly advanced tech gift ideas and decided to raise the stakes myself. 

So we bought one.

We set it up together, watching instructional videos like we were assembling medical equipment. I used a screwdriver. I felt qualified and useful for approximately eleven minutes... until it jammed.

Nothing worked. Not adjusting the settings. Not turning it off and on again. Not my extremely confident belief that I knew what I was doing.

After more research, we returned it and switched to a better brand. That one worked... once we realized the filament had been feeding backward the entire time.

Suddenly, Caleb was operational.

He began taking requests.

A fidget toy for me. Doll shoes for Mimi. An axolotl, a boat, and a dog for Holden. Small plastic objects, materializing out of nothing but time and patience and melted filament. It felt like watching magic... if magic made quiet robotic noises and lived on his desk.

Then Holden asked him to print an axolotl for a friend at school.

Reasonable.

But then, on a random Monday, I came home from work and heard the printer running upstairs.

“Caleb! Are you printing something?”

He came running toward me, laughing, holding a yellow Post-it note.

It was a list.

Seven kids’ names. Plus the teacher. All written in Holden’s handwriting. All requesting their own bright blue animal — the only filament color we currently have.

MORE axolotls. Fish. A bear. A dragon for the teacher.

He had volunteered Caleb. Not asked. Not suggested. Volunteered.

He had quietly launched an entire manufacturing operation without consulting management.

Caleb stood there smiling, equal parts proud and doomed, while Holden beamed beside him, thrilled with his own efficiency.

At eleven years old, Caleb is now the sole supplier of custom blue animals for a second-grade classroom.

And Holden, apparently, is in sales.

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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I Track Everything

 

It usually starts small.

 

I open a spreadsheet to check one number: a debt balance, my yearly reading total, the number on the scale that morning. Then I click another tab. And another. Before I know it, I’m reviewing dashboards of my own making... color-coded, neatly labeled, quietly waiting to tell me where I stand.

 

I track everything.

 

What I Track

I track a few main categories, and then I track the details inside them, because “the details” are the part my brain actually trusts.

 

Finances

• Income
• Savings
• Debt balances
• Weekly budgets  

 

Reading Life

• Number of books read
• Genres
• Source (library, Kindle, NetGalley, etc.)
• Ratings
• Format
• Days to finish 

 

Health

• Weight
• Migraines (frequency, patterns)
• Miles run

 

Media & Projects

• Christmas movies watched
• TV watchlists
• Blog posts (drafted, scheduled, published)
• Yearly goals 

  

Some of it is practical. Some of it is preference. Some of it probably looks excessive from the outside. But none of it feels accidental.

 

I don’t just track progress. I track patterns. I track proof.

 

Why I Track

I like knowing where I stand. I don’t like vague numbers or “around” estimates. I don’t like guessing. Numbers are clean. They don’t soften things and they don’t dramatize them. They just exist.

 

If I can see it, I can understand it. If I can understand it, I can adjust it. Tracking turns “I think I’m doing okay” into something concrete.

 

But there’s more to it than clarity.

 

Tracking gives me a sense of control when I don’t always feel like I have much. Life fluctuates. Timelines shift. Progress stalls. Plans change. The spreadsheet doesn’t. It responds to input. It recalculates. It reflects reality without commentary.

 

I have a plethora of spreadsheets. I built them all from scratch. I tweak formulas, adjust columns, move categories around until everything makes sense in my brain. The structure matters. The layout matters. The logic matters.

 

I am particular. Rigid. Categories need to fit. Totals need to reconcile. If something feels even slightly off, it stays with me until I fix it. When everything aligns, something in my brain settles.

 

What It Gives Me... and What It Costs

Tracking gives me clarity. When a balance drops, I see it. When a goal inches forward, I see it. When a migraine pattern emerges, I see it. Progress feels fragile when it’s only in your head. It feels sturdier when it’s documented.

 

It also keeps me honest. I can’t round down totals or inflate effort. The numbers don’t care about my mood.

 

But there’s a thin line between awareness and evaluation. Checking a total can feel productive. Refreshing it can feel urgent. When everything is measured, everything is visible... including the days when nothing moves.

 

And sometimes my tracking crosses into obsessive territory. A number that hasn’t been updated. A category that no longer fits cleanly. Something unfinished. It lingers in the back of my mind until I resolve it. What starts as a quick check can stretch longer than I intended — not because I want it to, but because my brain doesn’t like leaving loose ends.

 

Tracking gives me clarity, but it also gives my brain something to hold onto. Something to revisit, refine, and recheck. Sometimes I open a spreadsheet without meaning to change anything, just to confirm that it still makes sense. That it still reflects reality. That nothing has slipped outside the structure.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I track progress, or if I track reassurance.

 

What It Comes Down To

I don’t track because I’m chasing perfection. I track because visibility feels safer than uncertainty.

 

The spreadsheets won’t solve anything for me. They won’t speed up timelines or guarantee outcomes. But they will tell me exactly where I stand.

 

And for someone who thinks more clearly with columns and totals than with vague feelings, that matters.

 

Control might be temporary. Progress might be uneven. But clarity? That’s something I can build. And rebuild. And tweak until everything aligns.

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The Tooth That Took Its Time (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir About the Spaces That Fill When We're Not Looking

Setting: Summer 2025

One day last summer, Holden lost another tooth. A top one, on the left — the kind that creates the classic gap-toothed grin we all had once upon a time.

Every time they lose a tooth, it’s a scramble. I never have cash. I dig through my wallet, text my mom for singles, sometimes make a late-night run just to get cash back. We slide the tooth into a sandwich bag and tuck it under the pillow like it’s something sacred.

By morning, there’s money where the tooth used to be, and a small, bright space in his smile where something used to live.

At first, it looked strange. Different. His mouth rearranged. 

 

But then it didn’t.

I started to love it, that wide, goofy gap that made him look both older and younger at the same time. It gave his smile character. It felt like a season.

We waited for the new tooth. And waited. For weeks, nothing. Eventually, we stopped checking. The gap stopped feeling temporary and just became part of him.

Then one evening at dinner, mid-laugh, I saw it: a thin white edge breaking through the gum. He hadn’t noticed. I had him tilt his head back, mouth open, so I could take a picture. Proof that it was coming.

We thought he’d be gap-toothed forever. For weeks, nothing changed. The space just stayed there, familiar.

And then one day, it wasn’t empty anymore. Somewhere in the waiting, I'd forgotten that not every version of him would stay. I had gotten used to seeing that gap-toothed version of his smile.

I didn't realize it was already changing.

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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Return to Self (New Chapters, Ch.3)

New Chapters ◦ Chapter Three: Return to Self ◦ Entry 1

This essay is part of my New Chapters series — a collection of personal essays organized into themed chapters that trace different seasons of rebuilding and becoming.

← Previous: Published 

On finding my way back through running and writing. 🌿  

After I finally let myself be seen again, after I hit publish and stopped hiding, I expected the shift to feel external. More feedback. More movement. Some visible sign that I had crossed into a new chapter.

But what changed first wasn’t the outside of my life. It was the inside of it.

Somewhere in the weeks that followed, I started to notice myself returning in quieter ways. Not as a performance or a reinvention, but as a reclaiming. A settling back into my own body, my own preferences, my own instincts. The parts of me that had gone dormant during survival began to wake up again, almost without my permission.

It felt less like becoming someone new, and more like finding my way back to myself.

Once I stopped standing still again, I kept thinking about the things that used to make me feel like myself. The first was writing. The second was running.

The first time I went back to the track last September, it felt strange. Familiar, but distant, like walking into a memory that didn’t quite fit anymore. My shoes were new, but the air, the curve of the lanes, even the sound of my footsteps brought something back I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.

But I kept going back. Not every day. Not perfectly. Some weeks I only made it once. Some days I told myself I’d go and didn’t. But it was enough that it started to become part of my week again.

Running had once been the thing that steadied me: the rhythm that quieted my thoughts, the place where I proved to myself I could keep going. Then life unraveled, and I stopped running. I stopped trying. I stopped showing up.

Coming back was humbling. My muscles ached sooner than I expected. My lungs burned in a way I didn’t remember. I wasn’t chasing personal bests anymore; I was chasing a feeling… the one where my body and mind used to move in sync, where I could hear my thoughts clearly, where I still felt like me.

This time, starting over felt different. It wasn’t a race to rebuild what I’d lost, but a quiet reunion with the parts of me I’d missed. With movement. With rhythm. With the part of me that had gone quiet but never disappeared.

Each lap became proof that I could still commit to something. Still build stamina instead of just surviving the day.

The same thing happened when I opened my blog again. The blank page felt like a track too, stretching out before me, equal parts daunting and familiar. I’d open the document, type a sentence, delete it, and sit there longer than I wanted to admit. The words used to come easily; now they stumbled. But there was comfort in the act of trying: of typing through the silence, of hearing my own voice find its footing again.

Running and writing have always mirrored each other for me, though I didn’t realize how much until I had lost both. Both are a kind of motion. Both a way of listening inward. Neither requires perfection. Both ask the same thing: show up, move forward, trust that the rhythm will return.

And once I began to show up there — on the page, on the track — I started to feel myself return in other ways too.

My days gained shape again. My body had a rhythm. My weeks had something I was moving toward instead of just getting through.

I began to care again. To leave the house. To text people back, even when part of me still wanted to stay quiet. To plan things, no matter how small. I had forgotten what it felt like to do things simply because I wanted to, not because I had to. I had forgotten that I could still do hard things, and that I was still capable of building a life that felt like mine.

Maybe that’s the real work. Not rebuilding from nothing, but finding what’s still here. The strength. The voice. The foundation I thought I’d lost, but hadn’t.

Not rewriting what’s already been told, but instead, learning how to keep writing forward.

I used to laugh easily. To find joy in small things: a good song on the radio, a Diet Coke at the end of a long day, the way my boys’ voices filled a room. Somewhere along the way, I lost that version of myself. But little by little, she’s coming back too. The one who feels, who laughs, who notices. The one who believes she still deserves a life that feels like her own.

So I’ll keep showing up, awkward and out of rhythm, still learning the pace of this version of me. The words will come back. The strength will too. And with it, so will I.

And maybe that’s what this really is: a slow return to self. Not a reinvention, but a remembering. A coming home to who I’ve always been, while slowly learning who I might still become. 

Next: COMING SOON →  

Visit the New Chapters landing page to explore each chapter and read the story in order.

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The Screen Time Sheriff (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir of Sibling Surveillance, House Rules, and the Sheriff Who Runs This Town

Setting: Summer 2025

Caleb recently discovered the time-limit feature on Holden’s computer. And instead of, you know, telling an adult, he decided to take matters into his own preteen hands.

Now, whenever Holden hits his limit — which he treats more like a suggestion — Caleb flips into full dad mode.

One morning they were bickering about screen time again when Caleb announced, with authority:

“I’ll be checking your time limit EVERY DAY. And if you’re ignoring it, I’ll be unplugging your computer.”

He still needs reminders to brush his teeth.

But he’s ready to regulate screen time like a middle manager.

And truly, this is on brand for him.

He’s the same kid who panics that we’ll get arrested for sneaking candy into a movie theater, drafts official household rule lists for Holden, and once created an entire ticket-based reward system to enforce them.

At this rate, I expect him to laminate a chore chart and start threatening to cut the Wi-Fi if bedtime isn’t respected.

Honestly, Holden doesn’t stand a chance.

The sheriff runs this town.

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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