This post is part of a series of updates (reference: Q2, Q1) where I summarize progress towards goals and milestone moments of the year. We’re 74.8% of the way through 2025. Let’s check in!

Hustle house

In a strange turn of events, Alan has gone full cracked engineer working with a friend on a stealth mode app that has serious potential to become a viable business. He’s in the back room learning all the latest frameworks and blowing through Claude tokens.

On my side of the house, contracting is keeping me occupied. I’m learning a lot about AI and social media. I’ve also joined the community Advisor program at Atlanta Tech Village.

It’s been a big transition going from two full-time tech jobs with benefits to this less structured work setup. Self-employment taxes are wild, and we’re paying 36% more for health insurance than we spend on our mortgage.

But I think we’ve both successfully made it to the other side of burnout and we’re having fun with work again!

House projects

Building on top of the paint and repairs last quarter, this quarter we:

• Got a new fence!
• Bought some rugs
• Made our parlor cozier with a coffee table and standing lamp
• Switched out the mirror in our dining room
• Had a janky leg on the farmhouse table repaired
• Fixed the built-in china cabinet after I accidentally cracked a pane of century-old glass
• Installed a new bathroom vanity with tons of storage
• Commissioned a portrait of Piper

So sweet by Victoria Dael! We had this printed and framed

There have been a few bumps along the way. Lampshades keep arriving busted in the mail. International Etsy sellers keep cancelling my orders because import taxes make it untenable to ship to the states. Mineral oil didn’t cut it when I tried to scrub the paint off the hinges…if you know a good trick to get paint off antique hardware, please let me know!

On the flip side, it’s been awesome working with some real pros.

We’re having custom storage units built because our house footprint is so small—it’s not easy to find anything better than IKEA grade in the dimensions we need.

We’ll also be swapping out a couple of pieces of furniture and getting our favorite chairs re-upholstered.

The anticipated grand finale is curtains all around, assuming I can find some fabrics that don’t totally bust the already busted budget.

I’m eager to get everything settled in place with art back on the walls.

Cookbooks on Sundays

Cooking at home is something I love to do, but it’s easy to get in a rut. Alan was the MVP this summer, grilling out for us almost every Friday, which relieved a lot of pressure and gave me more room to play.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve started pulling recipes from the physical cookbooks in my house instead of searching for recipes online based on what we have in the pantry.

From Edna Lewis to Ina Garten, from I Am From Here to Jubilee, I’ve been expanding my skills and my spice cabinet.

My proudest accomplishment by far has been a pie crust from the Mosquito Supper Club cookbook which called for freshly milled flour. Sure enough, the Nature’s Pick Market in my neighborhood has a flour mill. I headed over there, poured a pound of Einkorn into the machine, and walked out with a loose bag of wheat dust.

The sweet potato pie never made it to my supper club but I’ve got two more discs of dough ready to go in the freezer.

An imperfect slice

Books / TV / movies

• Meditations for Mortals – recommended by Becca Block
• Frankenstein — re-reading ahead of the del Toro release!
• The Gilded Age
• Dexter: Resurrection
• King of the Hill revival
• South Park Season 27
• Alien: Earth
• Task
• Superman
• Weapons — the real villain is the suburbs

Joy

Despite the horrors, the following good and beautiful things also happened:

• Saw a heron!
• Saw a barred owl!
• Saw a lot of neighborhood deer
• Celebrated Alan’s birthday
• Joined a parade for Rachel’s birthday
• Got involved with the local mayoral campaign
• Installed a hummingbird feeder and saw so many hummingbirds
• Completed a “20 classes in 30 days” yoga challenge in September
• Took more watercolor classes, kept up my streak of painting every day
• Celebrated 12th wedding anniversary with Alan!

And, most recently, I had what can only be described as a perfect weekend.

On Friday night, I checked into a hotel in the city. I ordered an espresso cocktail with an orange twist and a cheese board for dinner.

Then I met up with two of my college girlfriends who I haven’t seen in forever for the Rilo Kiley concert at The Eastern. We danced and held hands and shout-sang song lyrics at Jenny Lewis for three hours.

Like a time capsule

After the show, we caught up on life over Cheerwines and unevenly cooked truffle fries. Then I went back and slept for 8 hours straight in a king bed with no stinky little dog shoving her entire body into my side.

The next morning, I ordered Comfy Chicken for breakfast and walked from Home Grown to the other side of Oakland Cemetery through a cloud of gentle rain and fog.

A view of downtown

The rest of the weekend was nothing but good food, arranging flowers, visiting family, hiking, painting, yin yoga, running errands, and catching up on chores. A light sprinkling of work here and there. Only the good stuff.

When I look at the goals I set for myself for this year, I’m on track to hit six out of seven.

Gotta stay focused. Gotta keep moving. Gotta keep following the fun.