The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist

Fa La La or Nope Nope Nope: Christmas Songs I Love (and Don’t)

Other years, I’ve run an official poll or done a Top Five/Bottom Five summary about Christmas music. This year, I’m going to live on the wild side and get loosey-goosey and talk about music…

Christmas, Holidays, Personality Insights
Dec, 10, 2025
51 Comments

More Frugal Things Lately

Are these posts getting boring? (Don’t answer that question.) I seem to keep coming up with things to write about!

(Perhaps I also feel the need to counteract my recent post about frugal losses.)

FREE PARKING

When…

Frugality, Money
Dec, 09, 2025
29 Comments

Top Five/Bottom Five: Fruit

This is another Top Five/Bottom Five I must have done on my old blog? I was sure I’d done it here, but can’t find it.

Time to fix that!

In general, I like most types…

Happy Things Friday: 5 December

And just like that…it’s December.

We’ve had snow (and a snow day!) and it is very much beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Right now, everyone else is in bed and I’m starting this post…

Q & A: Our Family Trip to Europe

I’ve had some questions about our upcoming trip to Europe, so I thought I’d do a post to work through each of those!

In all honesty, I feel like I still have so many…

Life, Parenting, Travel
Dec, 04, 2025
40 Comments

Five Recent Frugal Fails

I love sharing a good thrifted find or money-saving wins. It’s fun! It’s satisfying! It feels like getting a metaphorical gold star.

But in the interest of transparency, here are a few recent frugal losses….

On My Shelf: Books I Read in November 2025

First, I have a free post over on my Patreon channel all about a particular four-letter word. (Yes, this is shameless click baiting). I’d love for you to pop over and weigh in.

In this…