What Ana Does

As in the last few years, I'm always aiming for 100 books (including audiobooks) read each year. I like having a goal to strive for while doing something I enjoy (reading!). And, as my latest post details, I read most nights before bed, and listen to audiobooks during mindless tasks at work or when I'm driving, so the number is achievable with my daily routine.   My 2024 TOTAL books read is ... 104 books and audiobooks! This was the year of cowboy rancher books, more historical romance (some rereads of longtime favorites) and some fun, very-light mysteries. It's hard to pick my favorite by  Swift and Saddled by Lyla Sage book, Folk Around and Find Out by Penny Reid and The Riley Thorne Series were standouts with characters I still think about. Honorable mention to Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey and Bride by Ally Hazelwood for being the spiciest but also the most heartstrings-pulling of the group.  Also to note: Not listed in my annual total is my Kindle Reading To...

When we last saw the back hallway (AKA boot room) it looked pretty good. Lots of hooks, new floor, fun gallery art. But the issues were many: I wanted a wood element to warm up the space. The new shelf was the wrong color ... but really it was the walls that were the wrong. They were just "off" the blue cabinet color.  So, obviously something had to be done. And with Leah off to college, I needed a 1-weekend doable DIY project that I could focus on.  Off to Lowes for $200 worth of shiplap and new pine boards for the hook rails.  Demo started! All the rails came down easily. The wall to the right of the garage door (on the left side of this photo) needed to go white, so I primed that a few times to cover over the erroneous blue.  Shiplap install time! Went up pretty quickly once I started chopping. I wish those half pieces/cuts were on the bottom of the wall, instead of the top, but I'll know better for next time!  I put three coats of the ("SW: Denim") blue pain...

I'll just admit it: I get a great night sleep.  Even as a upper-40ish perimenopausal lady, I sleep well most nights and I know this is special because most of my friends complain about their poor sleep. I suspect it's mostly on them, because, when asked, they're clearly not prioritizing the habits that will help them. And with just a few tweaks and some focus, they'd sleep better. But do you ever notice some people make "I'm a poor sleeper" just part of their personality and they don't really care to change?  Anyway, I'm documenting all my sleep secrets here because maybe you're doing it wrong. And maybe you want to sleep better.    First, do the stuff everyone says to do, because these habits are  obvious and they work.  Stop eating after 8pm (or 7pm, if I'm really paying attention). Go to bed just a teeny bit hungry. If your body is digesting, it might be hard to fall asleep and stay asleep, too.  Stop drinking anything after 8pm, too. ...

Off We Go! This summer I was introduced to the concept of Travel Hacking! And it's fascinating!  What is Travel Hacking? So, you open a (for example) Chase United card and they'll give you a 65,000 points bonus after reaching the "minimum spend." Meaning, you have to put (eg) $4,000 on the card in the first 3 months. (They very.) To reach that minimum spend, travel/points hackers use these credit cards for all their usual household expenses and pay off the balance at the end of each month (carrying a balance would defeat the purpose!). And they open multiple cards a year to gather more points/miles.  In case you don't know, 65k points is two round trip economy flights in the US. And 1 round-trip to Europe. So, just that alone is a pretty sweet deal.   I'm so intrigued by this. Travel is my favorite thing. And making it cheaper for us to do more often, in any way, is exciting.  Just think, in five years we're going to be empty nesters. I'll have kids t...

Alice is our huge Swiftie. And we tried but failed to get Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets when she rolled through the USA last summer. And the secondary market ticket prices were absolutely ridiculous. $5,000 a ticket? Even the $2,000 was out of the question. So when she released dates for her European tour, it made sense to try for tickets. We had planned to go to Europe this summer for Leah's graduation trip and we knew we would spend less than $2000/ticket, even with the flights and hotel.  It was a very stressful experience, but I got GREAT tickets in Milan for the three of us to last summer for less than $500/ticket. We just had to wait 12 months before the big night.  We watched the Eras Tour movie on Disney, watched all the videos on social media from other fans at the concert. I studied the lyrics all year and ran on the treadmill so I was in fit for the 3.5 hour show. We picked out outfits and made 60 friendship bracelets to exchange at the show. We needed those 12 mon...

What a trip! As it was Leah's graduation trip (in leu of a big party), she choose to go to Ireland years ago, inspired by the show "Derry Girls" but also by recommendations from some close friends. Then, we got into the lottery to buy tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in Milan a year ago. So we joined the two destinations and created the itinerary for our Family Summer 2024 Vacation! Here's the breakdown and some helpful links.  Milan, Italy Hotel: Hotel Tocq   (Our Rating: 9/10)!   We started our trip with three hot and humid days in Milan, thanks to Taylor Swift tickets we were lucky enough to buy last year. Putting aside the life-changing, extraordinary concert experience that is the Eras Tour (future post), our time in Milan was super. I booked and rebooked three hotels and finally settled on this hotel on the north side of the city. Let me tell you ... I can't talk enough about how awesome the location of this hotel was. First, it's next to the Metr...

 After years of homework, tests, presentations, reports and bus rides ... Leah is a high school graduate!!Wohoo!!  I remember, all those years ago when Leah started kindergarten, she was put into the "Class of 2024" and thinking how far away that is. So far into the future it was crazy. I might have even turned to Dave and said "can you imagine? I wonder where we'll be?"  And here we are. Just a blink later.  At first, I thought of it as an ENDING. It's ending. No more first day of school, waiting for the bus, buying school supplies, picking up backpacks, packing lunches, going to teacher conferences (not that I really ever went), checking on homework -- 12 years of being in this schedule and it's over. I'll never hear that door open and shut at 3pm and hear whatever crazy thing happened at school today. And that made me really sad. I really liked that chapter of our lives and it's closed.   So I mourned that for a while.  Then I started thinkin...

This Spring, I got a chance to tag along with David back to Europe. May is an excellent time to be in Europe, the weather is Spring-like and the crowds are manageable. The itinerary was based on Dave's meeting schedule, so it was: Copenhagen, Skordsborg, Amsterdam and Utrecht.  Copenhagen and Skordsborg We started in Copenhagen , our favorite city. We arrived on a holiday Monday where a big "Royal Run" was taking place, so the streets in central part of the city were packed and roads were closed. We had the afternoon free, so we rented bikes, which we've never done, and explored a bit. Biking along the canal was such a "goal achieving" moment. Just awesome fun. Impossible to take a photo, though. After the first day, we headed to Skordsborg, a seaside town north of Copenhagen where Dave's three-day training was taking place. I spent a day enjoying the spa but otherwise, there wasn't much of a town to explore. So the second day, I took the train back ...