Month in Review: July 2026

July 2026 in Review

July wasn't nearly as busy as June. My calendar finally slowed down, but life certainly didn't. It became one of the biggest turning points I've had in years. I started a new job, was approved for a USDA home loan, began house hunting, and closed one chapter while quietly stepping into another. It wasn't a loud month, but it was one I'll remember for a very long time.

Month by the Numbers

Weight: ↔ 0 lbs	|	Migraines: 2
Runs / Walks: 0	|	Books: 1
Blog Posts: 12	|	OMMs: 3
Savings: ↓ $305	|	Debt: ↓ $245.37

OMM = One Minute Memoir

The numbers were a mixed bag this month. Savings dipped after replacing my iPhone, but debt continued moving in the right direction while life took a few exciting new turns.

July, As It Happened

A month of interviews: Even before July began, I knew something might be changing. I went on three interviews this month for two different positions, including one second-round interview. As far as I know, neither ultimately worked out, but interviewing is always good practice, and every conversation helped clarify what I wanted in the next step of my career.

A new chapter at work: Then came the surprise. A position I had applied for back in April and interviewed for in June called with an offer. At the end of the month, I said goodbye to the job and coworkers I'd grown to love over the last (almost) two years and started a new position with another New York State agency the very next day. Leaving was far more emotional than I expected. I truly loved the people I worked with, but this opportunity is a promotion and an important step forward in my career. Some goodbyes are bittersweet because they're leading you exactly where you hoped to go, even when it breaks your heart a little.

Approved for a home loan: July also brought one of the proudest moments of my adult life. After completing what felt like endless paperwork, I was approved for a USDA Direct home loan, a program that helps eligible buyers purchase homes in rural communities. I remember opening the approval email at my desk and immediately getting teary-eyed. Two years ago, after my divorce, I never imagined I'd be in a position to buy a home on my own. Since then, I've quietly paid off debt, built savings, increased my credit score by more than 200 points into the "excellent" range, and kept moving forward one decision at a time. That approval wasn't just about buying a house. It felt like proof that all those little choices had been adding up to something.

The house hunt begins: With my Certificate of Eligibility in hand, the boys and I officially started looking at houses. Equal parts exciting and terrifying. Every listing feels like a possibility, every showing comes with a dozen questions, and every decision suddenly feels much bigger than it used to. It's exciting to finally be here, even if it's also a little overwhelming.

An unavoidable upgrade: My savings took a hit this month because I had to replace my iPhone due to overheating and battery issues. It was not the most exciting way to spend money, but it was a necessary purchase. After so many months of watching my savings climb, seeing the number move backward was frustrating, even when I knew exactly why it happened.

Debt Diaries returns: I also relaunched my Debt Diaries series after a long hiatus (8 years!). My finances have changed so much since I last wrote it regularly, and it felt like the right time to bring it back. Between paying off credit cards, rebuilding my savings, improving my credit, restarting retirement loan payments, and now preparing to buy a home, there is a lot more of the story to tell.

A quieter kind of month: Unlike June, July did not have many scheduled events or outings. There was more open space on the calendar, but not necessarily more calm in my head. Starting a new job and beginning the home-buying process both came with plenty of excitement, nerves, paperwork, and uncertainty. July was quieter on paper, but life-changing underneath.

What I Read

Another light reading month, with one dystopian survival story.

• The Fallout Kids by Jordan Weir ★★★☆☆
  Six strangers enter an underground bunker for a government study, only to become trapped when communication with the outside world suddenly disappears. I enjoyed it overall, but it was a somewhat slow read.

Favorite Read: The Fallout Kids
Yearly Progress: 17 / 100

What I Watched

July was a light viewing month, but one show completely took over.

TV Shows

The Pitt ★★★★★
HBO Max · 2026 · Season 2 · Episodes 1–9
What can I say? This show is addictive, and its format is so unique. The entire season follows a single day and shift inside a Pittsburgh emergency department, which makes every episode feel immediate and intense.

Documentaries & Docuseries

The Elephant in the Living Room ★★★☆☆
Amazon Prime · 2010 · Documentary film
A fascinating look at people who keep exotic animals as pets and the risks that come with bringing wild animals into ordinary homes. The people and premise were compelling, but it moved a little slowly and felt somewhat dated.

Favorite Watch: The Pitt

What I Wrote

Even with a job change and the beginning of the home-buying process, I published twelve posts, including three One Minute Memoirs. I also relaunched my Debt Diaries series after a long hiatus, giving my financial progress a regular place on the blog again.

Favorite Essay: The Time Machine
This one began with my reluctance to chaperone Caleb’s band trip to an amusement park because I was worried about how my POTS would handle the heat and walking. I went anyway, and somewhere between the rides, laughter, and watching him be brave, the difficult parts faded into the background. Sometimes the memories outlast the discomfort.

Favorite One Minute Memoir: Dinner, and Then Yours Too
Holden has a long-standing habit of studying everyone else’s food as though they may have ordered something better than he did. This Taco Bell outing captured that familiar dinner ritual perfectly.

Coming Up in August

August still looks fairly light on the calendar, though the home search is likely to fill plenty of the open space.

• The boys are going on a short trip with their dad. The house will be quiet and peaceful without them, but probably a little too quiet.
• Our monthly Bingo night at the community center.
• More house searching, more open houses, more showings... and maybe finding the one.

I am trying not to rush the process, even though every new listing makes me wonder whether it could be ours. August may be the month we find a house, or it may simply be another step closer. Either way, the possibility feels very real now.

♥

See you next month.

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The Last Thing on My Calendar

On busy months, quiet dread, and the joy that sometimes arrives anyway

By the end of June, my calendar wasn’t exciting. It was exhausting.

The month had filled itself with end-of-school activities, field trips, a wedding, a musical, Bingo, doctor’s appointments, and enough time away from work that I felt like I was constantly trying to catch up somewhere else. None of these were bad things. Most were things I’d chosen or genuinely wanted to do. But one after another, they stopped feeling like experiences and started feeling like commitments.

At the very bottom of my calendar sat one final event: seeing Joe Gatto perform stand-up.

My aunt and I had wanted to see him for years. I’d watched him on television for more than a decade. If you’d asked me a month earlier what I was most looking forward to in June, that probably would have been my answer.

Instead, when the day finally arrived, I mostly felt relieved.

Not because I didn’t want to see Joe. I did.

I was relieved because after this, there was nothing left on my calendar.

That realization bothered me. How had I reached the point where I was looking forward to an empty schedule more than something my aunt and I had talked about doing for years?

We found our seats and watched the opening acts. My aunt and I chatted. It was pleasant enough, but I still felt… flat. I remember thinking maybe this was just how I experienced things now. Maybe I’d simply stopped getting excited.

Then Joe walked into the room.

Before I even realized it, I was smiling. Not just because everyone else was, but because I genuinely couldn’t help it. I found myself clapping enthusiastically as he walked toward the stage, thrilled to see someone whose face had been part of my life for so many years. For a moment, everything else disappeared.

It caught me completely off guard.

I’d spent the entire day convinced I wasn’t excited.

Turns out, I was.

The strange thing is, it isn’t just comedy shows.

It’s almost everything.

Social plans. A trip to the grocery store. A weekend away. A family gathering. Even something I’ve genuinely wanted to do for months somehow starts feeling like another obligation as the day gets closer. Before I’ve even left the house, I’ve already spent the energy thinking about it.

Then I go anyway.

Sometimes it’s as simple as going to the movies. All day, staying home sounds easier. The couch sounds more appealing. Going out feels like one more thing on the calendar.

Then the lights dim.

The previews end.

The movie begins.

Somewhere along the way, I stop thinking about the effort it took to get there. I get pulled into the story. Twenty minutes earlier, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to leave the house. Now I’m invested. I’m laughing, holding my breath, wondering what’s going to happen next.

It’s never some dramatic transformation. It’s just a quiet realization that sneaks up on me.

I’m actually glad I came.

I’ve started noticing that this is how so many of my experiences unfold. The event itself is rarely the problem. It’s everything leading up to it. The obligation. The anticipation. The feeling of having somewhere to be.

Then, somewhere along the way, the joy quietly creeps in anyway.

Not every time.

Not dramatically.

But often enough that I wonder why I keep believing my own predictions.

I’m still the person who buys the tickets. I still make the plans.

And maybe that’s because, more often than not, I end up exactly where I wanted to be. Laughing harder than I expected. Enjoying myself more than I thought I would. Driving home grateful that I went after all.

Maybe I haven't stopped looking forward.

Maybe joy just doesn't announce itself the way it used to.

It waits until the lights go down. Until the movie starts. Until the laughter comes easier than I expected.

And every now and then, it quietly reminds me that it's still there.

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The Place That Became My Steady

On leaving the job that helped hold me together while everything else changed

At the end of 2024, my life as I knew it was winding down.

After a year-and-a-half battle, my divorce was finalized, and we sold our home. Everything was in upheaval. I was starting over from square one.

At the very same time, I took a new job with a state agency.

Today, almost two years later, is my last day there. Tomorrow, I will begin a new job, a promotion with another state agency.

It is an opportunity I worked hard to find. For months, I searched job postings, filled out applications (nearly 40), rewrote cover letters, prepared for interviews, and waited for calls that sometimes came and often didn’t. The process was slow and frustrating. There were jobs I wanted that went nowhere, interviews that left me hopeful, and long stretches when it felt as though I might never find the right next step.

Eventually, I did.

But getting what I had been working toward has turned out to be more emotional than I expected, because I am not leaving a place I disliked. I am leaving a place that became incredibly important to me.

When I first started, I had no real experience in this particular field, but I desperately needed a change. After working with the public for so long, I was ready to leave that behind. This was an office job with no public contact and normal weekday hours, something I had never really had before.

Despite my job background coming somewhat out of left field, they decided they liked me and took a chance on me.

I remember my first few days and how foreign everything felt. Sitting in my new cubicle, I distinctly remember the pit in my stomach as I thought, Maybe this was a mistake.

But time went on.

I found the bathrooms. I learned the shape of the building. I discovered that the office was ice cold and brought in a jacket. I decorated my cubicle. Slowly, the unfamiliar started becoming familiar.

The work itself was incredibly overwhelming at first. I thought I would never learn who was who or what was what. I had a counterpart in one of our other offices, though, and she helped me make sense of it all. We worked on a team of seven women, doing the same job from two different locations. We met frequently to go over things and spent plenty of time on Teams chat in between as she explained how everything worked, often more than once.

Eventually, things began to click. I stopped feeling quite so lost. I started to learn, and then one day I realized I actually knew what I was doing.

From the very beginning, I also felt valued and respected.

I joke that nearly every workplace has at least one toxic person, and somehow, ours didn’t. When they asked what I would miss most, that was my answer.

We respected one another. We laughed together. We worked through things together. I had never experienced a work environment that felt so consistently positive.

They gave us gifts and lunch for Administrative Professionals Day, including a McDonald’s gift card for my daily Diet Coke. They celebrated birthdays. When I accepted my new position, they held another little party to celebrate the promotion and say goodbye.

When my entire world was falling apart, I had thrown a new job into the mix too. At first, it only seemed to add another layer of stress. Before long, though, it became something else.

It became my steady.

I went to the same place at the same time every day, even when nothing else in my life felt steady or consistent. I knew where I was supposed to be. I knew who would be there. During a period when nearly everything familiar had disappeared, this job quietly became one of the safest parts of my life.

That is what makes leaving so difficult.

But I also knew I could not stay simply because staying felt comfortable. As a single mom, opportunities to earn more are necessary. I needed room to advance, even though part of me would have preferred to remain exactly where I was, surrounded by people I already knew and trusted.

Still, searching for something better was exhausting. Each application carried a tiny amount of hope, and each silence or rejection chipped away at it. There were moments when I wondered whether I should stop looking altogether and simply be grateful for the good job I already had.

Then this opportunity came along.

I was scared to tell my boss that I had accepted it. Instead of being disappointed or making me feel guilty, she was thrilled for me. She supported me completely and had even given them a reference on my behalf.

That reaction says almost everything about the kind of place I am leaving.

The Words I’m Taking With Me

Over the last week, my coworkers sent messages that made leaving even harder, but also reminded me how lucky I was to have landed among these people.

“Thank you for being part of our team. I hope your new team appreciates you as much as we do.”

“You were an amazing asset to our team and will be missed. They are lucky to get you.”

“Your presence will be deeply missed, but I’m excited to see what you’ll achieve next.”

“It was such a pleasure to have you on the team. Wishing you continued success in your next chapter. I will miss your adorable laugh.”

“You will be missed, and I will especially miss you helping with reminders to keep me on track.”

“Her greatest strengths are willingness to help, approachable demeanor and readiness to assist, attention to detail and quick response. She excels at answering my common questions: Where is…? How do you…? Can you find…? No matter how we define her skills and abilities, we can’t express enough thanks to her for being an amazing teammate.”

Reading those words was emotional. I had spent so much of the past year feeling as though I was rebuilding my life from the ground up. I did not always stop to consider that, while I was doing that, I had also become someone other people relied on, appreciated and would genuinely miss.

Today, I packed up the cubicle that once felt so strange. I took down the decorations, gathered my Diet Coke supplies, and said goodbye to the people who helped make an unstable time in my life feel manageable.

Tomorrow, I will walk into another unfamiliar building. I will find the bathrooms, learn the shape of the place, and probably spend at least a little time wondering whether I have made a mistake.

But this time, I know that unfamiliar does not always mean wrong.

I know that sometimes a place slowly becomes yours. Sometimes people who began as strangers become the people you talk to every day. Sometimes a job you accepted because you needed something different becomes an anchor you never expected to need.

I will miss this place. I will miss the work that became familiar and the people who made it feel safe. Most of all, I will miss being part of a team where I felt genuinely valued, respected, and wanted.

I am nervous about what comes next. But even still, I am proud that I kept looking, even when the search was discouraging. I know accepting this promotion was the right decision for me and for my family.

But the right decision can still hurt.

During one of the hardest chapters of my life, this job gave me somewhere steady to land. Now, I have to trust myself enough to step into what comes next.

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Just the Bucket (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on Amusement Park Economics, Parental Exhaustion, and the Only Size Available

Setting: June 2026 — Seabreeze Amusement Park

When Caleb’s band qualified for a music competition at a local amusement park, I volunteered to chaperone. The kids performed in the morning. Then they spent the rest of the day riding rides, visiting the water park, and generally operating with the limitless energy that seems to come standard with adolescence.

By two o’clock, I had been walking around in the sun for hours. I was carrying a backpack. My feet hurt. My patience was running low.

That’s when Caleb spotted the popcorn stand.

He wanted popcorn.

I walked up to the counter and studied the menu. Popcorn was $11 with one-dollar refills. There were no sizes listed.

Assuming I was missing something, I asked what sizes they had.

The cashier pointed behind her.

“Just the bucket.”

I looked.

Sure enough, there was only one option: the bucket.

Then Caleb decided he wanted a slushie.

The choices were an $11 refillable cup... or a slightly larger $13 refillable cup. Not many options available at this stand.

A more rested version of me might have questioned all of this. She might have searched for a different stand. She might have investigated whether regular-sized snacks still existed anywhere in the park.

But by two o’clock, that woman was gone. I sighed and handed over my debit card.

Twenty-two dollars later, Caleb was carrying a giant popcorn bucket and a giant blue slushie cup. About ten minutes later, we were already back for the promised one-dollar popcorn refill.

By then, the bucket no longer seemed ridiculous. Common sense had quietly left the park hours earlier.

 

And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Some days aren't for practical decisions. They're for giving your kid the day they'll remember.

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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The Debt Diaries (10): A New Chapter

💸 The Debt Diaries (10): A New Chapter

On second chances, quieter victories, and the debt that still remains.

Nine years ago, I started a series called The Debt Diaries.

Every month, I documented our debt down to the penny. Credit cards. Personal loans. Student loans. Mortgages. Car loans. I tracked payments, interest, principal, and every tiny bit of progress. Some months felt encouraging. Others felt defeating. But the series became a record of what financial life really looked like behind the scenes.

Then life changed.

The series quietly disappeared after 2018, but the journey didn’t.

A lot can happen in nine years.

🗓️ Money Milestones Since We Last Met

February 2024
Approximately $50,000 of my remaining federal student loans were forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program after ten years of qualifying public service and payments.

September 2024
I got a divorce and sold my house, bringing my mortgage journey to an end (for now!).

February 2026
I paid off every remaining credit card balance.

July 2026
The Debt Diaries returns with just two loans remaining.

The last time I published a Debt Diaries update, I was tracking a mortgage, student loans, personal loans, two auto loans, and credit cards. Today, only two loans remain.

That does not mean the path from there to here was tidy. There was a divorce, the sale of my home, a damaged credit score, expensive car problems, new debt, and a lot of rebuilding. Some debts disappeared exactly as planned. Others were replaced by obligations I never expected.

But I am in a very different financial position than I was when this series began.

📊 Debt Snapshot

The numbers below reflect my debt starting point as of July 1, 2026.

Beginning next month, each Debt Diaries update will summarize the previous month's financial progress using balances from the first day of the following month.

The progress bars below represent the percentage of each loan that has been repaid based on the original amount borrowed.

NYS Retirement Loan

Borrowed: August 2023
Original Amount Borrowed: $13,702.00
Balance as of July 1, 2026: $13,389.80
Interest Rate: 5.00%
Minimum Payment: $125 per paycheck every two weeks ($250–$375/month)
Payment Frequency: Every two weeks through automatic payroll deductions.
Scheduled Payoff: None
Repayment Deadline: Anytime before retirement

Loan Progress

2.3% Paid Off

Auto Loan

Borrowed: September 3, 2025
Original Amount Borrowed: $17,895.93
Balance as of July 1, 2026: $16,037.36
Interest Rate: 7.89%
Minimum Payment: $316/month
Scheduled Payoff: September 2031

Loan Progress

10.4% Paid Off

Total Remaining Debt

$29,427.16

As of July 1, 2026

🏛️ The Retirement Loan

The retirement loan is a little unusual because I borrowed the money against my own New York State retirement pension. It is not a traditional bank loan, and it does not appear on my credit report.

I borrowed $13,702 in August 2023 to help fund my divorce. The loan was originally set up as a five-year repayment through automatic payroll deductions, with a scheduled payoff date of August 2028.

For a while, those deductions worked exactly as intended. By early 2024, I had reduced the balance to $12,266.62, more than $1,400 below where it began.

Then I changed employers, and the deductions stopped.

At the time, I was trying to survive the financial destruction of the divorce and rebuild the basic pieces of my life. My remaining credit card balances carried much higher interest rates, so those became the priority. The retirement loan gradually faded into the background, and I did not make any payments on it for nearly two years.

Eventually, it defaulted.

Because the money came from my own pension, the default did not damage my credit score. It did, however, create a taxable distribution, which meant I took a tax hit on the loan amount that year.

The default eliminated the original August 2028 repayment deadline, which felt like a massive relief and gave me some freedom and flexibility. I no longer have a fixed payoff date. The loan simply needs to be repaid in full before I retire. If a balance remains at that point, my pension benefit will be reduced to account for it. Obviously, I do not want that to happen. Even though I now technically have more than 20 years to repay it, I want it gone as soon as possible.

I am now employed by a participating public employer again, which means automatic payroll deductions have resumed. That is both a relief and a frustration, because restarting those payments became a bit of its own journey.

In February 2026, after paying off my final credit card balances, I immediately turned my attention back to the retirement loan. I enrolled to have payroll deductions taken out again.

Then I waited.

And waited.

The deductions never started. Meanwhile, the loan continued adding approximately $50 to $55 in interest every month, quietly erasing more of the progress I had previously made.

By June, I was tired of watching the balance grow. I decided to begin making small manual payments on my own, with a goal of paying at least $100 per month while continuing to manage my auto loan and rebuild my savings. 

On June 23, I made my first manual payment. It was my first payment in more than two years. The balance at the time was $13,394.12, meaning it had ballooned back to nearly the amount I had originally borrowed in 2023. Still, I felt really positive that I was taking back control of the loan and finally paying on it again.

Then, in July, after I had already made my first two manual payments, the payroll deductions finally began.

A total of $125 is now deducted from every paycheck, and I am paid every two weeks. That means the loan will receive $250 in most months and $375 during the two months each year that include a third paycheck.

That is considerably more than I had planned to pay each month, and it changes my debt-payoff strategy. The retirement loan has now become my main debt-payoff priority. Anytime I have extra money to put toward debt, it'll be thrown at this loan. 

Since the payroll deductions are already taking a significant amount from every paycheck, I want to eliminate this loan as quickly as reasonably possible and free that money back up in my budget.

🚗 The Auto Loan

I had not had a car payment since I paid off my beloved Jeep Liberty in 2020.

When I made the final payment on it, the plan was simple: drive it for many more years, save money, and eventually upgrade to the Wrangler I had always wanted. My goal was to stay without a car payment for as long as possible.

That plan ended in December 2023, when another driver rear-ended me and totaled the Liberty.

Insurance paid me approximately $8,000. I was determined not to take on another loan, so I used the payout to buy an older Jeep Compass with cash.

It looked like the financially responsible choice.

It was not.

I never trusted the Compass. It felt shaky, unreliable, and smaller than the Liberty I had loved. Then the repairs began. In January 2025, it needed approximately $2,600 in work just to pass inspection. A few months later, I paid another $420 for brakes and rotors. By August, the grinding had started again.

My savings account had already absorbed the repairs, and I refused to keep pouring money into a vehicle I hated and did not trust. I really, really didn't want another car payment. Staying payment-free had been the goal ever since I paid off my Liberty in 2020. But eventually I realized I wasn't saving money anymore. I was simply paying for uncertainty in a different way.

In August 2025, I bought a 2022 Chevy Trailblazer. It was my first major purchase after the divorce and the nicest, newest vehicle I had ever owned.

The original amount financed was $17,895.93 at 7.89% interest. My minimum payment is $316 per month, and the loan is scheduled to end in September 2031.

I hope it does not make it anywhere near that date, but for now, I will be making only the minimum payment. Once the retirement loan is gone, I will begin paying extra on this one.

Having to take this loan out last year slowed down some of my other financial goals, but reliable transportation has its own value. After the Compass, peace of mind was worth putting back into the budget.

💰 Savings and Credit

My savings account took several significant hits between the divorce, repeated repairs on the Compass, and the down payment on my Trailblazer.

Since then, I have worked hard to build it back into five figures.

I do not plan to publish the full balance every month. Instead, I will share how much I am able to add, or occasionally how much I need to withdraw when life happens. That lets me track the progress without turning the exact amount sitting in my account into public information.

My credit score is currently 757.

During the divorce in 2024, it dipped into the 500s. Rebuilding it has become one of my favorite measures of financial recovery because it represents hundreds of small decisions made consistently over time.

🎯 My Financial Priorities

These priorities will guide my financial decisions over the coming months and years. They may change as life and my finances change, but this is where my focus stands today.

• Continue growing my savings as I work toward buying a home again.
• Pay down my retirement loan through the required $125 biweekly payroll deductions, making it my primary debt-payoff focus. Whenever I have extra money to throw at debt, it'll go toward this loan. I would like to get this paid off as soon as possible so I no longer have payroll deductions. It always feels like a big hit on my paycheck.
• Continue making the required $316 monthly auto-loan payment and begin accelerating that loan once the retirement loan is paid off.
• Stay free of revolving credit card debt and avoid taking on unnecessary new debt.
• Continue improving and maintaining my credit score as I prepare for a future home purchase.

📖 What I’ll Be Tracking

The original Debt Diaries were about surviving debt. This version is about building long-term financial stability.

Each month, I’ll continue tracking the numbers, but I’ll also be documenting the decisions behind them.

• Original loan amounts and current balances
• Monthly balance changes
• Progress toward paying off each loan
• Total remaining debt
• Total paid during the month
• How much went toward principal
• How much went toward interest
• The percentage of each payment that actually reduced debt
• Savings added or withdrawn
• Credit score updates
• Financial wins, setbacks, and lessons learned

A quick note about the dates: Beginning with The Debt Diaries: July 2026, to be published in early August, each post will summarize the previous month’s financial progress. The updated balances will come from the first day of the following month, giving me one consistent checkpoint for comparison.

💭 A Different Kind of Freedom

Nine years ago, financial freedom mostly meant eliminating debt.

Today, it means something a little different.

It means having choices. A growing savings account. A healthy credit score. Reliable transportation. No revolving credit card debt. And eventually, no debt at all.

I’m not there yet.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m headed in the right direction.

Welcome back to The Debt Diaries.

← Previous: July 2018 | Next: July 2026 →

This post is part of my Debt Diaries series, where I share the numbers, setbacks, wins, and lessons from my journey toward financial freedom.

Explore the full series on the Debt Diaries landing page.

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Things Kids Ruin (in the Best Possible Way)

On the everyday chaos that somehow becomes the good stuff

Kids ruin a lot of things.

Sleep. Quiet houses. Snacks you were planning to eat by yourself.

They ruin movies, game nights, car rides, and the basic concept of sitting down peacefully for five minutes. Some of it is accidental. Some of it feels almost strategic. Either way, life with kids has a way of turning ordinary moments into something louder, messier, and a lot less predictable.

Take sleep, for example.

Most mornings, Holden wakes me up at the crack of dawn to ask if he has school that day. Usually it's still dark outside. He doesn't really understand calendars yet, so the question remains urgent every single morning.

"Do I have school today?"

It doesn't matter if the answer was yes yesterday and the day before that. Apparently, the possibility must be investigated every single morning.

Dinner is another thing kids ruin.

The adults might be having something normal. Pasta. Chicken. Something that requires effort.

The kids want ramen noodles.

Or cereal.

Or some other combination of junk that bears no resemblance to the meal anyone else is eating. Negotiations begin. Bargaining takes place. In the end, someone is eating ramen anyway.

Car rides also suffer.

They're usually fighting about something no one can fully explain. At one point they even went through a phase where they unbuckled each other's seatbelts in the back seat. Now they mostly argue, smack each other, or request the same song multiple times in a row.

Movies don't survive either.

Holden talks through them like he's providing live commentary. He stands up. Walks around. Narrates what's happening on screen. If we're sitting on the couch watching something together, there is approximately a zero percent chance it will happen quietly.

Snacks are another casualty.

Holden can detect a snack from remarkable distances. I've tried sneaking into the room with a candy bar or something small, hoping to eat it unnoticed.

It has never worked.

Within seconds he appears and asks, "What are you eating? Can I have some?"

The couch has also suffered.

Holden launches himself onto it like he's entering a wrestling ring, despite daily reminders that couches are not WWE arenas. The result is that the couch is constantly shifting across the room like it's slowly trying to escape.

And occasionally it gets baptized with spilled ginger ale.

Reading is another thing kids ruin.

Reading used to be quiet. Now it's more of a signal to the rest of the house that I'm temporarily available for interruption. The moment I sit down with a book, someone suddenly needs their tenth beverage of the day. Someone else is starving despite having eaten fifteen minutes ago. And if neither of those things are happening, Holden will appear with a video I absolutely must watch.

If I look away for even a second, he immediately says, "Keep looking!"

He monitors my eyeballs like a security guard.

Game night has also been compromised.

Caleb likes to make trivia games. Blookets and quizzes we can all play together on the TV. In theory, this is wholesome family fun.

In practice, Caleb writes all the questions. And the questions are about operating systems. Or computers. Or obscure technical facts that only Caleb understands. None of us know the answers.

We suggest adding normal questions next time. Movies. Animals. Anything human. Something we might actually know.

He refuses. Absolutely will not relent.

And then, most unbelievably, he competes in the game against us. Even though he made it. He stands there, answering the questions instantly, waving his arms and laughing while we get every question wrong, completely delighted by the chaos he created.

Meanwhile, Holden cheats at every other game we play. Extra turns in Trouble. Extra cards in Uno. Bold, obvious cheating. He doesn't even try to hide it.

Game night ends up being less about winning and more about surviving.

So yes, kids ruin a lot of things.

Sleep. Movies. Reading. Snacks. Peace and quiet.

But they also fill those moments with something else.

One day there won't be a little voice asking if there's school before the sun comes up. Nobody will demand I stop reading to watch a thirty-second video. The back seat will be quiet. The couch won't inch across the living room. Game night probably won't end with impossible trivia questions about operating systems.

Those things feel exhausting while you're living them. They're interruptions. They're inconveniences. They're tiny little invasions of ordinary life.

But they're also childhood.

And childhood has a way of disappearing while you're still busy asking everyone to stop yelling, stop jumping on the couch, and please let you finish just one page of your book.

Even when I'm exhausted...

I'm going to miss every single thing they ruined.

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