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This pretty much sums up life right now.  There's an element of "no idea where to begin," every time I have some peace and inclination to blog.  

I have mixed feelings about work.  At least I am not juggling craziness on top of the busy season.  But I don't know why everything has to implode every May 1.  It feels like I can never catch a break on the work front. 

We had to reschedule a few times, but finally circled back to that last hike we did.  I wanted to try it out with hiking boots.  With stretching and proper shoes, it was easy peasy.  

We left home on 8am Saturday and we were shocked how crowded it was already.  But because it was cooler and early enough, we did get the river bank to ourselves.  We hiked down to a swimming hole that had been more crowded on our last afternoon hike.  

This last one just happens to be called a monkey flower.

I wanted to note the time.  We might try 7:30 next time.  Just to play it safe.  I don't know if the holiday weekend was a factor.

When trying to figure out the archaic payment system last time, I saw that the library had stake (lol) state park passes to borrow.  I couldn't really find details about that either (like how long we could borrow the pass) and so I just reserved a park pass and tried it out.  It probably took about 10 days to get a pass.  We can borrow for 3 weeks, same as books.   I will just plan to keep a pass checked out all summer because the kids will also use. 

Money stuff has been pretty quiet but won't be quiet for long.  Just got a $2,000 MRI bill.  College expenses are just a 'second half of the year' thing.   At this point I guess, while most of MM(20)'s college savings are being pulled from other savings buckets.  & I think for DL(18) the timing worked out that I get a refund of first semester financial aid around the time the second semester is due. 

I expect MH and I have been way too relaxed and spending way too much money.  We have both been frittering money away on smaller things, which has never been our thing.  But that MRI bill is stressing me out and now I am realizing that college will be a big money outflow the second half of the year.  I've already told MH we will have to rein it in this summer when he is off work.  He is well aware of excess spending.  He seems kind of down on movie travel plans this year and has already seemed to decide he rather relax more and enjoy some smaller spending, and is willing to let go of some of the larger spending plans.  It's different, but it's interesting we both subconscionsly seem to have ended up in the same place. 

It just so happens that we have not had any 'big' expenses the first 4 months of the year.  (Other than travel plans, paid for with gift money).  I pulled money from savings the first time (this year) in May, when I purchased a new cell phone.   I expect this is why MH and I have been more relaxed about money. 

I need to add taxes to our expense tracking.  I have not bothered during these ~$0 tax years with kids.  But even just the payroll taxes, we are probably making $40K more than when I first took this job in 2018.  It's now $950/month payroll taxes.  & our income taxes will be about the same when kids are done with college (though we aren't paying much in the interim). Payroll and income taxes will suddenly become our two largest expenses.  

When looking how much we are in the black the past few months, I can see it's exaggerated without the taxes reducing income.  It's time to start tracking taxes and mentally preparing for when that is our #1 expense.   I may have also just left these off (payroll taxes specifically) so that I didn't have a heart attack during lowest one-income years.  But it's 22 years later now and things change.