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Monkey Mama
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Archive for November, 2025A Photo For TabsNovember 5th, 2025 at 04:21 pm
Seen at an EVGo charger near my parents' house: A self driving Chevy Bolt. I just noticed it looked like a Waymo, and so I took a picture of it. It was my second day off work, trying to make progress with helping my parents with legal things. We didn't get anywhere, but it was actually a very pleasant visit. With my mom's very slow mental decline and recent health problems, it's usually not pleasant. So I considered it a successful trip.
Weekend Photos Part IINovember 4th, 2025 at 03:34 pm
This one was technically MH's photo. He has more zoom on his camera. & he might have just been focused on the bird, but I like the way the photo came out.
Oh yeah, and we saw a Great Blue Heron. A little too far away to get a useful photo or a really good look at it. It was an unexpected surprise at the end of our walk. Weekend Photos Part INovember 4th, 2025 at 03:28 pmI did take pictures through the end of the month, but then time got away from me. Today I am going out of town and tomorrow I have an 8-hour class. So I don't expect much down time this week. My takeaway is that sharing a photo is a much smaller time commitment than blogging. & it was also enjoyable, so I will infuse my blog with more photos. Once a week is probably more realistic, though I don't have any reason to stick to that. Oh yeah, and October 2025 was the most calm month I remember in the past 8 years. Phew!! We did go to a local college arboretum this past weekend. I think it's a 4 mile loop when you walk the whole way through. We usually go in the spring, but figured we'd go during a different season.
$0 spent. Sometimes we also get lucky and get a free car charge. But no suck luck this time. Which means we probably spent about $1 on electric fuel. It was a bit of a drive. & then this website wouldn't support all my pictures in one post, so I broke this out into two posts. College Fund - October UpdateNovember 4th, 2025 at 04:27 amMM(22) Sep 2025 'Gifted College Fund': $14,897 (+$5K ROTH) MM(22) Oct 2025 'Gifted College Fund': $13,759 (+$5K ROTH) Rent is paid through 11/30. 🤯 I will blink, and the school year will be over. I suppose our biggest expense is rent, though school didn't start until mid-September. The rent part is about halfway done (July thru July). I pay all the bills the first of the month, so basically December rent is already taken care of (covered with my November income/expenses.) I might not transfer the money to MM(22) for a couple of weeks, but it's long gone as far as my accounting is concerned. I've moved on to December. & in December, I will be sending MM(22) his January rent money. I told MM(22) the other day that I will be celebrating that last tuition payment. That will be in March. Like I've said before, it's less about the actual cost of tuition (low). & more about moving on to the next chapter. But it will be nice to confirm he is *done* (after extending one year). & it's just this whole other mental load, remembering to pay tuition 3x per year. Extra so, with the quarter system. (& of course, was a lot more when sorting out constant financial aid refunds, wondering how on earth MM would find housing, etc.) The monthly rent is a little more *shrugs* as it is part of my monthly accounting cycle. & will likely just shift over to paying rent for DL(22), anyway. Note: I would have felt *shrugs* if we paid rent x2, re: money set aside to cover college living expenses. But I can appreciate the simplicity of only having one rent payment to keep track of. The timing worked out that I will only be paying college rent for one kid at a time. In other news, we have entirely replaced MM(22)'s $20K college fund (what we personally saved for college years). & so we will be moving on and working on replacing DL(20)'s $20K college fund. While we have not used any of DL's money, I did divert $5K into retirement in 2024. So we can start with replacing that $5K. It will be nice to have these funds when other things come up. |
Just a 48-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). 
