It was awesome and even my MIL loved it. Not to mention the little one. He had a blast.

It cost huge amount of money, as we stayed in a house right on the trail for half of it, and slope-side most of the time.














Back to reality now. Vacation makes you think all sorts of things about changing your life, and having that kind of freedom more often.

I was willing to risk our entire vacation fund, and transferred it in to put the bid for the IPO tomorrow. But, turns out my discount brokerage firm was not invited to participate, so I'm out of luck.

It was a risky thing, of course, but with good potential.

Maybe I'll buy a beaten down GOOGL or BIDU option instead. I'm upside down in a few right now, but I think they are close to bottoming out. I do not see a solid reason why they are going down now.

First contributions - Suddenly, we started receiving coupons for our favorite grocery store. DH got email for the $15 of $75. We split our shopping into 2 orders (one me and one him), and both used it, saving $30 on our trip. Plus, $4.80 for returned cans.

That starts out the year at $34.80.

Other 2 things I'm not sure I want to count

-- DH's side teaching income. He just got last check from last year.

-- We price matched equinox resort to Hotels.com and got a lower rate plus 10% off, for a very very awesome rate on the best hotel in that skiing area.

It was non stop eating up to now. Parties at work, than of course eating on NYE eve and day. Friday deep fried pizza with friends (ate the whole personal pie, as always). And yesterday, a massive Malaysian meal in Flushing with a big group of friends. And alcohol involved in most of those meals.

Today we did not have any company, so I ate reasonably and ran 5.5 miles. Weather was absolutely gorgeous for running. So even if I have a glass of Malbec with a little St. Andre with honey and toasted pecans, I'll still be ok.

Every time I'm in a nail salon, I can't help but think of that.

Doing your nails is a social requirement for a professional woman. Just the way it is. Keeping your nails clean and trimmed is not sufficient anymore. They have to be painted. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that did not exist before and now there are more nail salons than grocery stores.

Yes, you can do your own (I can't do that nearly as well though), but it is still a waste of time and money (more time, less money if you DIY). How much time is wasted collectively on something that stupid?

But as a society we don't see that from the inside. Just as people did not see giant powdered wigs as unnecessary and ridiculous. Or, we look at the culture that puts ring coils on a woman's neck to stretch it as crazy, but don't think that ripping your hair out in a Brazilian wax as something crazy or weird at all, and comply with whatever society tells us is the new norm. And we create whole industries around it. I know if we lived in that society, we'd be piling on those brass rings like no tomorrow.