The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist

Chapter Twelve: December + 2024 Book Title

I’m back! It’s a rare two-post day on the blog. For reasons that will soon be revealed, this space will be (mostly) silent on Monday and Tuesday next week. Also, we’re well into 2025…

Creativity, Life
Jan, 09, 2025
23 Comments

It’s Time To Talk 2024 Finances (Yes, There Is a Pie Chart)

Hot on the heels of discussing Christmas gifts, I figured I might as well do a budget roundup from 2024. I find posts of this ilk are either deeply fascinating or horrifically boring depending…

Budget, Home, Money, Personality Insights, Thrifting
Jan, 09, 2025
49 Comments

Christmas Treasure Hunt 2024

Today marks my final Christmas Gifts of 2024 post. (I promise!)

Years ago we came up with the idea to create a Christmas morning treasure hunt for the kiddos with a series of clues leading…

Bible Verse Clues: A Christmas Tradition

We celebrated Belle’s first Christmas with dear friends. And that was the year they introduced us to one of their beloved family traditions. A few years later we had adopted it as our own!

On…

Christmas Recap 2024: Gift Edition

The gifts are unwrapped and most are already in various states of use and play. As previously noted, we exchange a lot of gifts at Christmas (I explained more about that here) and there…