Welcome 2026!

Even though we live in a New Year's Eve hotspot, we barely stayed awake until midnight to welcome the new year--safely and quietly--at home. On a happy note, it was pouring rain here all evening so our pyromaniac neighbors were unable to burn our house down, despite their best efforts, with their professional-grade fireworks (it literally sounded like bombs going off right outside our windows but the rain kept the landscaping and homes from going up in flames). So, we are off to a good start!

For the first time in...ever...I have decided that this year I will not set any new year's resolutions. Usually I set a list of resolutions then within days I blow most or all of them, so my resolution for this year is to make no resolutions!

Here are some useful links...

• 2026 Celestial Events
• 2026 Public Domain Day List
• 2026 Free Entry Days to the National Parks
• 300+ Birthday Freebies and Discounts for 2026
• July 4. 2026 will be America's 250th Birthday

Happy New Year...And Some Resolutions

Happy New Year to you all!  2022 was...a year.  Not much good or bad to say about the past year but it is nice we are moving on.  I am cautiously hopeful that 2023 will be an even better year than 2022.  Last night we stayed home as usual--once on the Las Vegas Strip for new year's eve was more than enough for us!--and watched the new year countdown on TV while also watching the fireworks on the Las Vegas Strip from our upstairs windows.  Lots of people in our neighborhood set off professional-grade fireworks which are huge and beautiful but it sounded like a war zone around here until well after midnight.  

My resolutions for the coming year are pretty basic and very few, just some things for self improvement and other projects that I really want to accomplish this year.  This should be more manageable, I think, than having a giant list of goals.  My resolutions this year are:

• Eat whole food, plant-based vegan for the entire year.  This will be difficult but my diet lately has been absolute crap so I started the day today with oatmeal and fruit...so far, so good!
  
• Walk every day and finish 100 volksmarches.  My walking club has a challenge to complete 100 10k walks during the year.  I always sign up for this challenge but never complete it so I figure that if I do two walks a week, this will be simple to complete (I always wait until like September when I would have to do a 10k everyday until the end of the year and, needless to say, never do this!).  I want to walk some distance everyday so hubby and I started this goal today by walking 1.5 miles to the grocery store and back where I bought some veggies and took the picture above.
• Renovate the house.  It has been more than ten years since we bought our house and at the time everything--paint, carpet, appliances, etc--were brand new.  I want to refresh the house with at least paint and new flooring, maybe new appliance and new countertops, and possibly a new AC unit since ours is more than 15 years old.
• Pay off the house.  We are making good progress on paying off the house but still have several more years left on the mortgage.  This goal is kind of wishful thinking at this point but maybe if I focus on this a la law of attraction thinking, we will miraculously get the house paid off ASAP.
• Take a photo everyday.  I've tried to do 90 day photo challenges in the past and didn't complete them because other stuff came up.  For now I will see how long I can keep this streak alive and post a daily photo on my other blog as well as Facebook.
• Do an activity every week.  We generally go out and go shopping or stop by and see friends or go out to eat somewhere every week but this year, at least once a week, I am going to plan an actual activity with hubby.  Our activity for this week will be going to the movies tomorrow (senior day with $4 movies).  When the weather gets warmer we will do more outdoor activities.
• Blog more consistently.  My blogging here and on my other blog has been kind of hit or miss this year so I want to set a consistent blogging schedule for this year.  Not sure if I will blog daily but at least a couple times a week will be good.
• Write daily.  I have more than a dozen fiction books in some state of completion.  I love to write and I get inspired and write like a mad woman then get bored and set the book project aside.  Rinse and repeat.  Maybe I will get a whole book finished this year!

That's it!  Eight goals that I will (hopefully) successfully complete this year!

New Year Resolutions for 2020

There's only five days left of this year and of this decade.  The 2010s have been quite the decade for us--we started the decade with an ordinary house, ordinary jobs, and ordinary (like many Americans) debt, then sold the house, paid off all the debt, put a few things in storage, and traveled for nearly two years before buying a house in Las Vegas and settling down again.  Since then we have had medical emergencies, cool vacations, interesting jobs, taken on some debt, met lots of interesting people, and learned all about living in the desert.  Hopefully the next year--and decade--will bring amazing new adventures and opportunities for us!  Here are my new year resolutions for 2020:

1. Walk 2020 miles during the year (that's about 5.5 miles per day).
2. Try to be as close to 100% whole-food, plant-based vegan as possible.
3. Be 100% debt free including the house.
4. Write and publish a series of books.
5. Learn to play the piano.
6. Aim to be more minimalist/zero-waste/simple living/anti-consumption as possible.
7. Do a different activity in the community every day.
8. Visit every Nevada State Park and complete their park passport challenge.
9. Do one preparedness activity a week.
10. Complete the following AVA (walking club) cards: 50 states, 51 capitals, A-Z cities, and Centurion. 

Planning a Fun, Free, and Frugal New Year

Fun, free, and frugal...that will be the theme of 2019 for us.  I have already started planning how to put more fun, free, and frugal things into our lives and I already have several things scheduled for the first month of the new year including...

• I signed up for a free Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training weekend.  These classes are held in many cities and teach people how to be better prepared for a disaster.  This should be both informative and fun.
• I also got us tickets for a lecture at the Mob Museum.  Every month the local police department holds a free lecture on a safety topic (this month it is on how not to become a victim of burglary or robbery) and if you attend the lecture you get free tickets to the Mob Museum (a savings of $35 for both of us!).
• I have several walks with my walking club planned.
• There are several clubs in the area that I want to check out and new people are always welcome to attend the first meeting to see if they like it before deciding to join so I'm looking at a HAM radio club, the LV RWA (romance writers club), and a new genealogy club.  Again, these should be both informative and fun.
• There are four local state parks which we can visit for free (and get our "passport" stamped; with enough stamps we will get a free parks pass for the following year).
• Also on the schedule is a visit to the Barrick Museum at UNLV; it's free and I pass it all the time when I walk the UNLV volksmarch but I've never stopped in so that should be fun too!

Do you have a theme for 2019 or a list of new year's resolutions?

Starting Our Frugal Year Early

We decided that 2019 will be the year of simplicity and frugality for us (except for one big project that I may or may not get to which includes doing a 10k walk in every state and in every state capital for our walking club challenge...it remains to be seen if we will be able to do that this year or not). 

So starting today we began our new year a little early and enjoyed our first frugal adventure--bowling.  Hubby had coupons for free bowling that he got through his league which needed to be used by the end of the year so we went and bowled two games each.  I am super lousy at bowling and hubby is super good at bowling so when I pulled off the feat shown in the picture above (me way above my normal 60 average and hubby way below his normal 200 average), I had to take a picture of it!

What Should I Do for 2019?

I'm trying to decide what to do for next year.  Kind of along the line of resolutions, I have pretty much decided to just go with a theme instead of a bunch of hard and fast list of things to accomplish.  Our 2018 theme was no travel and we met that resolution quite easily (hubby didn't even miss not traveling and if we would have been traveling, he would have had his heart attack in some far off location in the Philippines so there's that).

I think this year I will go with minimalism or something like that.  Also maybe work in some everyday adventures to keep us busy but no major vacations or trips (hubby didn't seem very enthusiastic about traveling in the upcoming year when his cousins invited us to go with them on some of their vacations they have scheduled for next year...Eastern Europe?  Hubby said no way).

And paying off my remaining debt will be a definite "to do" on my list.  How is the bigger question though.  I am starting the year with no job (but definitely looking forward to my temporary summer job at the WSOP) and starting a business seems like too big of a project.  Maybe picking up gigs as they come available?  It's definitely something to consider...

New Year's Resolutions Update

Today is the last day of January so I thought I would update my New Year's Resolution list.  Overall I have been pretty productive but of course I could have done better.

Daily Goals

• No spend--YES!  I have only been into grocery store this month.  I haven't been shopping, either in person or online all month.  My spending money for the month it right where I left it--in my wallet!
• Walk five miles--No.  I started out walking every day but got so involved in my writing that I totally stopped so I want to re-start doing this tomorrow.
• Activity--Meh.  We have done several activities but not daily as, again, I was so involved in writing that we would do some sort of activity a couple times a week instead of daily.
• Eat healthy--big fail.  Between dairy and caffeine in my favorite coffee drinks plus a lot of junk food, I need to make a massive effort month to get back on track with this.
• 3 Blog posts a day--YES!  I have bogged religiously, everyday this month, producing a post for each of my three blogs each day.  Some of the posts have reached more than 5000 readers so that was exciting. 
• Knit--No.  My yarn and needles are still waiting for me to start on some sort of project.
• Play piano--Not really.  I learned one song then, again, focused all of my attention on writing so my piano is still waiting for me to.
• Less than hour of social media--Yes.  I check Facebook for a few minutes every other day.  I have cut down on Reddit but could still cut back more which I will try to do next month.

Annual Goals

• Pay off car--making regular payment as this will be my last debt to pay off.
• Pay off credit card #1--paid off 1/5/2018!!!
• Pay off credit card #1--I am making huge payments towards this card and will pay it off next.
• Vegas book--still working on this.  I decided this will be part of a website due to the continually changing nature of the information.
• Non fiction book #1--no work on this.
• Non fiction book #2--no work on this.
• WA book--decided to not publish an updated version of this book so I retired the title.  Since the information in this book keeps changing (places close or go out of business or they change their name, etc. I decided to do this as part of a website.  I finished this page on 1 28/2018.  You can see it here.  I am hoping promotion and ad revenue will generate more income than book royalties).
• Fiction book--no work on this yet.
• New driver’s license--It doesn't expire for a few more months so as soon as I get the renewal I will go get it renewed.
• New military ID--It doesn't expire until summer so on track with this one.
• CCW permit--Didn't do this class yet but may schedule it for February or March.
• Family reunion--The date has been set and the restaurant reserved.
• LVHRS walks--None.  I need to meet up with the group starting this month.
• All Nevada parks--No progress this month, we will probably hit a few parks this month when the weather is better.
• Save $10,000--No progress towards this yet.

Overall I have been inching along with these goals.  I am happy that I stuck with at least some of these goals and didn't totally throw in the towel.  I plan to redouble my efforts to catch up with some of the goals I have been slacking on.

A New Year's Resolution Update

Eleven days into the new year and here is how my new year resolutions are fairing...

1. No spend year (food, toiletries, and the Goodwill are OK).   I haven't spent any money so far this year!!!
2. Walk five miles a day, eat better, and do some sort of activity every day.   These lasted for about a week.  Now I am back to my usual walk sometimes, eat whatever, and activities as we have time.  :/
3. Post to this blog and a couple other blogs every single day next year.  Yes, I have posted to all blogs, every day so far!  :)
4. Learn to knit and play the piano.  Not much activity on these goals yet.
5. Pay off my car and two credit cards.  Paid off one credit card so far, working on the second one.
6. Write five books.  I'm debating if book format or website format is better for four of these topics I want to write about.
7. Renew my driver's license, military ID, and concealed carry permit.  These won't happen until summer. 
8. Do every single one of the scheduled walks this year with my walking group.  The first walk of the year and I overslept my alarm so I didn't go.  :(
9. Do our family reunion.   This has been scheduled for early summer.
10. Visit all of the state parks in Nevada.  We haven't done this yet; need to wait until after winter due to snow.
11. Limit social media to less than an hour a day.   Meh, I've really cut back on Facebook, reddit not so much.
12. Save $10,000 by the end of the year.  I'm inching slowly towards this goal.  Very slowly.

Overall it would seem I suck and new year resolutions...

One Step Forward, One Step Back

I am happy to report that I accomplished one of my new year's resolutions already--I paid off one credit card!  Actually it had nothing to do with my efforts and everything to do with hubby hitting a small windfall while playing poker a couple of days ago.  He generously said 'take this money and use it on whatever you want' and I went immediately to the bank and paid off a credit card.  I guess the moral of this story is to write down your goals no matter how improbable they are because you never know what serendipitous event will happen to help you reach your goals!

On the other hand my resolution to lay off the coffee drinks ended in failure today.  I have only felt half-awake since the first day of the year when I swore off caffeine.  Today I got a Baskin Robbins Blast (kind of like a coffee milkshake) and I feel fully awake now!  You win some, you lose some I guess...

New Year's Resolutions

When I first made up a list of goals for the coming year it was long (408 to be exact), it would have been a challenge (basically traveling here, there and everywhere to complete each task), but the problem was that they were conflicting (pay off car was one yet another was travel to each of the 50 states; one was don't eat any junk food yet another was bake a crepe cake and a princess cake).  So after giving it more thought I decided to make a small list of resolutions that didn't conflict with each other yet when all were completed I will have made great strides in my life by the end of the year.  Here they are:

1. No spend year (food, toiletries, and the Goodwill are OK).  I have so much stuff.  When we sold everything to travel for a while some years ago I had very few things yet had everything I needed.  Since we settled down again we have acquired so much stuff!  This goal should keep my spending in check, help me stop buying stuff I don't need, and help me save money, yet assure I have the basics (food, clothing, soap, etc).  Plus when I told hubby we wouldn't be traveling anywhere next year he was supremely happy (after two months of travel this year he was exhausted).  The only caveat to this is that I can buy any really really necessary items (like printer ink if I run out during the year).
2. Walk five miles a day, eat better, and do some sort of activity every day.  I think it will be a challenge to walk five miles a day but it is quite possible between my walking group, my treadmill, and the nine months of perfect weather we have here so I just need to motivate myself to do this every day.  Eating better should work itself out since if I am not spending money I can't buy Starbucks and Baskin Robbins almost daily.  As for activities, there are so many free things to do in Las Vegas that we can entertain ourselves for the entire year without spending any money.
3. Post to this blog and a couple other blogs every single day next year.  I've always wondered if I had the discipline to write every single day, I guess I will find out!
4. Learn to knit and play the piano.  I have yarn and knitting needles and I have a piano keyboard but I have never learned how to do these things so I will hit up YouTube and learn some useful skills this year.
5. Pay off my car and two credit cards.  The credit cards should be easy to pay off (yeah tax return) but the car should be a bit of a challenge.  Getting back to debt free is THE premier goal of mine this year.
6. Write five books.  This may be the most impossible goal but if I work on this daily it may happen (it would also increase my income and help me with getting back to debt free).  I know some writers churn out 5000 words a day which would get this huge goal done but I don't know if I have the discipline to do this.  We'll see.
7. Renew my driver's license, military ID, and concealed carry permit.  All of these expire this year so I need to get them renewed.
8. Do every single one of the scheduled walks this year with my walking group.  My local walking group does about 20 group walks a year (basically every other Saturday except in the summer).  But I am usually so lazy on Saturday mornings that getting up at 7am to meet up with the group means I only make it maybe a third of the time.  This year I want to force myself to do these walks which will both improve my health, improve my participation with the group, and help me hit my walking goal (#2 above).
9. Do our family reunion.  For the last few years I have paid for our family reunion.  Usually about 40 to 50 people show up at a buffet in Portland to catch up with each other.  Most everyone is in my family is poor and even going to a buffet puts a strain on their finances so I am happy to pay for this event to get everyone together.  So while we may not show up this year (yeah Facetime), I still want to make it a point to organize and pay for this event.
10. Visit all of the state parks in Nevada.  There are 26 state parks in Nevada and our parks system offers a free yearly pass to anyone who visits all of the parks and gets their "parks passport" stamped at each park.  This will require a few day trips and a few overnight trips to hit all of the parks (yeah camping) but this is something I have wanted to do for a long time and since this may be our only vacation this year I think it is a good goal.
11. Limit social media to less than an hour a day.  Between Facebook and reddit I can kill HOURS each day.  And not only is social media a huge time suck, but I'm really tired of all of the politics, bad news, and arguing with random strangers on the internet that takes place on social media.  Plus if I am not on social media for hours each day I can use that time to accomplish my other goals listed above.
12. Save $10,000 by the end of the year.  I make money, I spend money, and have minimal savings.  I want a nice comfortable financial cushion of non-emergency fund savings so this is another big financial goal but I am hoping to reach it anyway.

Wrapping Up 2017

2017 was a pretty blah year.  Between the new president :( social media being an overwhelmingly negative downer for the most part :( and just the general blah-ness of the year overall, I will be happy to put this year behind me.

On a positive note, I was looking at all of my blogs and realized this blog which I pretty much wrapped up and set on the back burner a few years was still statistically active!  So with me needing to hop back on the cash only living train (more on that later) it will be my new year resolution to blog here every single day next year.

As for the rest of this year (a whole five days) I will be physically wrapping up the year by deep cleaning the house (carpets were shampooed yesterday by yours truly), doing a bit of landscaping (easy enough to do when the weather is 65 degrees out!), cleaning out my closets, and otherwise getting ready to start the new year with a clean slate.

10 Ways to Get 2013 Off To an Organized Start

The end of the year always gets me motivated to become super organized.  I have visions of creating the perfectly organized life which will help me waft effortlessly into my future, never mind that I pretty much suck at reaching any meticulously organized goals I set.  That being said, these are the things I am doing this week in order to start the new year off on a positive foot:

1. Write out the goals I want to achieve in 2013 (and post them publicly so there will be some kind of accountability...which I did here).
2. List all of the bills we pay (monthly bills, semi-monthly bills, bi-annual bills, and annual bills) then look for ways to reduce these bills.  Right now I am trying to get Cox to keep my internet bill at $20 a month for the next year.  They told me to call back next week but I already told them that if the bill goes up to $50 a month I am cancelling service (and saving $600 by doing this).
3. Go through all of the clothes in my closet.  My clothes have started to multiply thanks to numerous trips to the Goodwill so I need to purge stuff I don't love or wear regularly.  I will also be getting rid of an entire clothing category (bras and underwear) and replacing all of them.
4. Clean out the refrigerator and clean out the pantry.  Even though we have only been in the house for six months, stuff is starting to get pushed to the back of the pantry never to be seen again so everything will be cleaned out and reorganized and the stuff we probably won't eat soon will get donated to the food bank.
5. Clean out the garage.  Fortunately, since we haven't been in the house long, the garage still doesn't have much stuff in it but things are starting to get set aside in the garage and clutter is building up so we will clean and organize the garage and probably CraigsList a few things.
6. Purge my online stuff.  I keep a list of websites and usernames/passwords on my computer (there is no way I would remember all of these things without writing them down).  I am going to go through this list and delete accounts I no longer use (like Fiverr, Mechanical Turk, etc).
7. "Pre-stage" stuff for the upcoming year (like buy a year's worth of stamps before the price increases, buy a couple dozen birthday cards to have on hand for people's birthdays next year, etc).
8. Order my free credit report.  The dust should have settled from buying our house so now is a good time to order my free credit report just to make sure the information on it is correct.
9. Write out a strategy to reach my goals.  A lot of my goals for 2013 can be done with other goals which will save both time and money (like "walk a marathon" can be done in Canada the weekend before I leave Canada to ride my bike to Mexico in April since the Victoria volksmarchers are hosting a marathon-length walk then.  On my way up to the Victoria marathon walk, I can arrange the family reunion in Portland which knocks out another goal, then, on the bike ride down the coast I can stop in San Francisco (a goal and it is along the way) and arrange to attend a Jeff Probst show taping towards the end of my ride since this is along the way too.
10. Decide what things I want to change in the upcoming year (my webhost may be one thing, the work I do for clients may be another, etc) then set to work on changing these things.

My New Year's Resolutions and My New Monthly Budget

I have been thinking about New Year's Resolutions lately.  Actually I was wondering if I should make any at all because I am notoriously bad at keeping them but there is something about a new, bright and shiny year that makes one want to throw themselves full force into self improvement.  So in the interest of improving myself (for however short a span it lasts), here's my new year's resolutions and my new monthly budget:

1. Earn a black belt in karate.  I have dabbled in karate off and on over the years but I really want to focus on earning a black belt.  There is a karate school that I will check out tomorrow and while the price is around $100 per month, I noticed that their website is really old looking so maybe I can trade a few months of lessons for an updated website.
2. Finish writing a book and get it published.  This has been on my list for ages but this is the year that I actually have time to focus on and complete this goal so I am going to give it a shot (and should it be successful, will add some funds to my meager savings).
3. Add $100 to my emergency fund each month.  My emergency fund is currently on life support so any amount I can add each month would be helpful; hopefully with some freelance writing gigs I can deposit at least $100 a month.
4. Go to Asia in the fall.  Last fall's trip to Japan and the Philippines was amazing and I realized that everyone we know there is getting older so it seems like it is better to go there as often as possible now while the people we know are still around.  This is going to take some major savings/work effort because we spent a boatload of money on our last trip!
5. Work on our family genealogy, going directly back as far as possible.  Genealogy has only recently peaked my interest but it is so fascinating that I want to make time to do a complete and thorough research job so this will definitely be something I focus on during the upcoming year.
6. Go to Europe next fall.  For some reason we always go to Asia but never to Europe.  The bit of genealogy research I have done has highlighted a couple of places in the UK where there is a heavy concentration of my ancestors so going there would have two benefits, the first, being to add some research to my family tree, and the second, to be able to enjoy traveling there while the hubby is still able to easily get around.
7. Be fluent in Japanese.  Although I barely got to practice what Japanese I learned over last summer when I went to Japan, I still have two college textbooks on basic Japanese that I want to complete in full--mostly because I love learning new languages.
8. Be fluent in Spanish.  Again, I would like to brush up on my Spanish language skills although I don't speak it here nearly as much as I used to when I was working in my non profit.  I would like to complete the entire "Practice Makes Perfect" Spanish series.
9. Do some sort of physical challenge.  I haven't quite decided what that will be but the options I have been considering include biking from Canada to Mexico, doing the Warrior Challenge or Tough Mudder, or something to that affect.  I am stating the goal this way because I usually just put "be healthy and fit" on my list and that is too generic a thing to accomplish so with a specific physical fitness goal, I am hoping that it will make me concentrate on physical fitness enough to actually reach this goal.
10. Take the family on a reunion cruise.  We used to have family reunions somewhere in the US at some family member's house but with an extended family of more than 100 people and growing, the logistics of this were just too overwhelming.  About five years ago we decided to hold the family reunion on a cruise ship and it was wonderful.  There were people to cook and clean for us, everyone was free to go do what they wanted yet we all met up for dinner each night, and most importantly, the family still talks about the cruise to this day so the memories made were pretty impressive.  The way we do this is that each "parent" in the family (meaning hubby and his brother and sisters) usually pays for all of their kids and grand kids to go on the trip because the kids and grand kids are at a point in their lives where they don't have the money to spare to pull this off.  This means that for just the hubby and I, we will need to pay for 17(!) people to go.  Without me working this is going to be a super difficult thing to do because we are talking about nearly $10,000(!).  So while this is on the list, it is probably the lowest priority just because it seems so out of reach yet I will still keep it on the list because for some odd reason, nearly everything I put on my "wish list" seem to work out some how.

So with these goals in mind, my monthly budget starting January 1st is...

• Tithe $50 (I tithe every month to Unity)
• Cell phones $80 ($50 for mine and $30 for hubby's)
• Savings $100 (this will go into my emergency fund)
• Grandson's school $40 (I have paid for his school since kindergarten and want to do this through college)
• Electric bill $50+/- (hubby pays all of the bills but I would like to be able to help him out by paying at least one of our bills so that would be the electric bill.  In the winter the bill is low but I am a little afraid to see what the summer bills will be when we have the AC going 24/7)
• Karate $100 (I hope to offset this by bartering if possible)

With this budget in mind, I need to some how earn around $500 a month.  It seems like such a piddly amount but as my last month's money challenge showed me, even earning this little bit takes a lot of effort!