The Second 100 Blog Posts

I am surprised and thrilled that I just finished by 200th post this week.

It feels a little narcissistic to go over them all, but what else is this blog but a place for me to write what I like, and hope someone else finds it helpful and/or entertaining?

And with that, here we go….

Post #101 in June 2019 was 100 Blog Posts. Making it easy to see where to start the next count.

Posts inspired by others

After that blow out post, I got tired and posted my Monday Melange #2, which linked to a number of posts (by others) I particularly liked. A few other link-filled posts followed: Monday Melange #3 with a focus on non-US viewpoints, and On Giving, part 1. In January I wrote Fun Vs Money, with links to posts about the burden of side hustles and encouragement to enjoy real hobbies.

I suppose I was reading and thinking about other peoples’ posts a lot this summer. In June, I wrote about What You Miss, inspired by someone else’s post on his Best Day Ever. I was very excited to see my first ever comment (by that author).

Summer thoughts

One of the first things I wrote in my notebook when I decided I would blog was a piece about starting internship. After nearly a year of blogging, I pulled it out and edited it heavily. This ended up as Thoughts For July 1.

In July I also wrote about my experience with financing college for a (step) child, in Oh No! You Didn’t Save For College. I found this rather difficult because I didn’t know about this expense until shortly before the bill was due. (To be fair, he was 18 when his dad and I got married.)

I forgot to bring my lunch one day, and was inspired by the high price of my cafeteria lunch to think about all the money we’ve saved by bringing lunch 99% of the time. Because Lunch Out Is a Treat, Not an Expectation.

Vacation dreams

My mood wasn’t great over the summer–long hours, lots of viruses going around the house–but a long weekend and a change in mindset was Just What the Doctor Ordered. Despite the improvement in mindset, I was still quite exhausted; I had another long weekend and a vacation coming up, and I dithered for a while on my plans. I considered the pros and cons of Going Away Or [Taking] A Staycation. We eventually compromised, going away for a long weekend–after which I posted 7 Lessons From Our Recent Road Trip— followed by an Errands Day, and staying home for a week-long staycation (from which I also drew some lessons, and then later wrote about a Hierarchy of Activities).

30 seconds of fame

While I was at home with extra time, I looked at the retirement account from my prior job. That inspired me to write Fees Always Matter, which a month later was included in the Physician on Fire’s Sunday Best (10/13/2019 edition). That was a total surprise, and it was an honor to be mentioned.

Before that feature, however, my long ago interview for Miss Bonnie MD appeared on her new site, Wealthy Mom MD. I was a bit surprised, and threw up a quick Welcome! post.

When life gets busy

Life gets busy. A few “posts” were really place holders. I feel a little bad counting them, but there were really only 8 silly posts.

I suppose they filled a role–keeping me on a roll, as far as posting three times a week–but there isn’t much there to read. I did this in early July (we had company) and early August (we went away). After skipping a number of posts in August, I got back in the groove for September. Re-entry was a bit tough, but I thankfully started my staycation soon after. When work got super-busy in October, I had to slow down my blogging for a bit. I had just a short post before Thanksgiving, and another one for Christmas, and a place holder for a February trip.

I had a very short post, pretty much a place-holder, to mark the 1-year anniversary of my very first post. I was a bit more excited about the date that I started to blog for real/regularly, which I called my Blogiversary.

Wednesday Woolgathering

When life was busy, but not too busy, I decided to post collections of not-totally-related thoughts, which mostly ended up as Wednesday Woolgathering posts. One appeared in July, another in August, another in November, and again in January. A walk home in a January weather event prompted a rambling post, Tempest Fugit. Last week I hit publish on the Procrastination Edition.

Money musings

During the summer, we had a big win: paying off the mortgage! I gave a nearly contemporaneous blow-by-blow account, with musical accompaniment.

I read somewhere to write about the really hard times in your journey, so I wrote about Becoming a Breadwinner.

Another tremendously difficult time: my dad’s illness in the spring of 2019, (from which he recovered, thankfully!) He and my mom share financial duties, but I’m not sure how much overlap they have as far as knowing what the other does. It inspired me to think about Who Pays Your Bills When You Are Sick?

I was struggling with the best way to handle a bonus once the mortgage was paid off (first world problems, I know), and tried writing a Financial SOAP note.

I was sort-of asked to talk to residents about financial matters, and wrote a few posts about investing, or preparing to do so. I thought about investing step -1 (you need some basics taken care of before you are ready to invest), step 1/2 (why someone should invest), step 1 (stocks), and the other step 1 (bonds). The invitation seems to have fallen through, but I think writing the posts was a good exercise to prepare for such a talk, in case it is suddenly on again.

I wrote a bit about my financial to-do list. In November, between benefits enrollment and dealing with the end-of-year tasks, I had to mind my financial P’s and Q’s. One listed take should have been a Money Date with my husband. That finally happened in February. I exploited my spouse shamelessly by interviewing him about the date afterwards.

Life isn’t all about money

I had a few entries in my series about Future Me, which is me stumbling around trying to build a better life outside of medicine. My real goal is to have a good life once I retire, whether that is sooner or later.

I had an update in September 2019, and another in January 2020.

I also wrote about 7 Good Things that made me happy, and wondered why I don’t do them more often (some lessons take a long time to stick, I guess).

Later I reflected on my one year anniversary of going to 0.9 FTE, which is sort of a stepping stone to… my life after medicine? A better life now?

I was a bit overwhelmed with goals in November, and rediscovered the benefits of a good walk. Later I considered which goals were important to me in What Do You Want?

New Year, new you?

In December I wrote two posts on giving, On Giving 1 and On Giving 2, and then turned to end of the year discussions:

2020 so far

In the New Year, we had visitors, detailed in A Weekend in Numbers.

Soon after, I surprised myself with how quickly our money melts away on “one time things,” in Credit Cards and My Budget.

It’s important to keep spending under control, but also important to live life well. I thought about this in Medicine and FI, Fast and Slow. I also thought about splurging on some precious metals in Buying My Own Bling.

January was a tough month, and in February I posted my lament regarding Grey Winter Days. Followed the next week by Springing Hope (a post more positive in nature).

The novel coronavirus, SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19) started affecting the US, and I wrote about its effect on our financial plans in My Goals vs COVID-19. Thanks to this virus, and the potential threat of quarantine, I had to cancel a trip I was particularly looking forward to. I wrote about the mental gymnastics I performed to deal with my decision-making in The Stories We Tell Ourselves.

Fitness Fridays

During this time, I posted Fitness Logs. Starting with number 35, going through number 72, these make up 1/3rd of my posts. Not surprising, given that I post M-W-F and every Friday is a fitness log.

At the end of 2019, I started using pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection (Open Access). They seem more high-falutin’ than my holiday photos. And the Met has many more free images, so I don’t need to repeat any unless I truly love them.

I don’t know if anyone (besides me) has any opinions on what they’d like to see on this blog. If you would like to comment on what you liked, or would like to see more of, I’d be very interested to hear it.