January 2021 Book Reflections

One thing I'm noticing - in light of my recent goal to not shop as much for my closet for the next several months, in order to focus on finishing my student loan repayment - is that this goal is... not very good for my blog writing inspiration. After all, the main focus of my blog is arguably clothes and shopping - even if I also discuss other topics - so when I'm not very interested in either thing, I have far less to write about! This is on top of the general difficulty of blogging since March 2020, after COVID-19 shutdowns began in the US and dramatically changed our day-to-day lives. 

Separately, I felt somewhat... not sad, exactly, but maybe wistful...  about how difficult it was for me to consistently read for fun for most of 2020, even with all the additional time I spent at home. Not long before, from around September 2019 through March 2020 - when work was especially hard and my billable hours particularly many - books and reading were a major source of comfort, just about the only thing that could take my mind away from work-related stress for a while. So it was surprising to me that reading couldn't fill that role for me again, or provide quite that same comfort and distraction, after March 2020. 

For 2021, I'm going to try blogging each month about the books I've read, and I'll maybe also mention the ones I couldn't finish if I think they're also worthy of some comment. Maybe it'll help encourage me to read more for fun this year. I also generally enjoy talking about, or writing about, the books I've read. It'll be a very low-pressure or no-pressure kind of project, I definitely don't have a goal to read a particular number of books this year or anything like that. 

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As you'll see, I enjoy books from a fairly wide range of genres. I would say that page-turners like horror novels, thrillers, or murder mystery police procedural-type series form the backbone of my overall volume of reading. Though there are many other genres I enjoy and that might also feature regularly. That's definitely all reflected in this month's selection. These books are listed in the order in which I finished reading them: 

• The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter - Over the years, I've mentioned my fondness for Karin Slaughter books a few times. I find her a very reliable author for murder mystery or police procedural-type thrillers, I've read through almost her entire catalog and enjoyed every single book. But be warned that many of the crimes described in her books tend to involve sexual assault or extremely violent murders, and while Slaughter doesn't write about these acts in a gratuitous way -  it's a very small portion of any given book - the matter-of-fact descriptions might still be off-putting to some. 
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue - This is my third Emma Donoghue novel (I've also read Room and The Wonder), and I've enjoyed her work a lot. Out of these books, I think Room is the most famous, and it's also stylistically quite unlike the other two, which are both more straightforward historical fiction. This book focuses on a nurse and her work over a few days during the 1918 flu pandemic, so it felt like a fitting novel for these times. 
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins - I enjoyed reading The Hunger Games trilogy, so I was curious about this prequel. This book is nowhere near as engaging or fast-paced as the original series - and the future President Snow is a far less pleasant narrator than Katniss, not just in terms of his moral compass but also in terms of being more passive and less self-aware - but I must say, it still grabbed my attention and I couldn't put it down. There's a lot of not-so-nice things one could say about this book: I found the world-building clunky and I don't think the story makes that much sense. I also absolutely detest main characters or narrators who are in near-full denial about or almost completely lack self-awareness about the fact they're actively choosing to do bad things. (I don't mind an objectively unpleasant main character who does terrible things - longtime readers here may recall my somewhat... unusual fondness for Gone Girl's Amy Dunne - and it's fine if they have some fatal flaws or blind spots they don't fully acknowledge, but that's not what's going on in this novel.) But these days, not many books can hold my attention as well as this one did, so it may still be worth picking up for someone who enjoyed The Hunger Games. 
• The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor - This is my second C.J. Tudor novel, after The Hiding Place. Both books initially appear to straddle the line between the horror and murder mystery genres, it was not immediately clear whether there was a supernatural explanation for what was happening. I find these to be fairly quick, light reads, not the best thing ever, but readable and entertaining. It's worth giving it a try from the library if one is already interested in horror or thrillers. (There's a moderate amount of murder or other violent acts in these stories, but there's not much detail provided about those events.) 
• Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker - This is, hands down, my favorite of this month's books. It's just a very well-written deep dive into the story of a large family profoundly affected by schizophrenia, with six of 12 children diagnosed. It's such a good book, but also incredibly sad, as the disease brought considerable pain and tragedy into all their lives over several decades. This book reminded me somewhat of Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree, which is also extremely well-written and also addressed the theme of families grappling with the difficulties of caring for children who are indelibly different from their parents, including when the children's differences sometimes cause harm or grief to other family members. 

I also picked up one book this month I ultimately couldn't finish: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. I really enjoy Sittenfeld's writing, I've read three of her other books to date (American Wife, Eligible, and the short story collection You Think It, I'll Say It) and enjoyed them all greatly. But the premise of this novel - about Hilary Rodham in an alternate universe where she didn't marry Bill Clinton, and yes, they're referred to by their real names - was just too weird for me, essentially fanfiction about real people. The book is well-written, tasteful, and definitely not trying to be overly salacious, but the concept was just too strange for me to stick with. 

Have you read anything good recently? If you've read any of the books I mentioned, what did you think?

January 2021 Shopping Reflections

I stuck to my goal this month of not shopping very much for my closet. Only one purchase for January, which I already previewed a few weeks ago. Admittedly, it is a few days early to declare this, but I'm pretty sure. 

My certainty that this is it for the month comes, in part, from how I haven't been in the mood to mindlessly browse or window shop online for clothes, shoes, or accessories, even though there have been some significant stressors in terms of both current events and some of my work-related tasks. So, for now, I think the chances are looking reasonably good that I'll be able to continue buying relatively little for my closet in the next few months, as I focus my attention and extra dollars on finishing off my student loan repayment. 

Maybe this is just because I'm specifically trying to avoid shopping for fashion-related things right now, but I feel like the post-New Year's sales haven't been that good this year? At least for the very short and specific list of clothes I would maybe have been interested in buying only if an unusually good discount came along, none of them have really been significantly on sale since Christmas or New Year's. It's starting to look like Black Friday was the better time to buy, which isn't consistent with my experience from past years. Anyway, this is definitely not important because it's so much better for me that I'm not tempted, but I'm just a bit surprised. 

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The clothing I've been checking the post-New Year's sales for is not that interesting. There's an all-cotton white and gray melange lounge set (joggers and a turtleneck) from J.Crew that I find overpriced at the intermittently available sale price of ~$90 to $100 for the set. On paper, I think this would be a fair price for an all-cotton lounge set, except that I - like many other customers out there - have long found the quality of J.Crew items and materials especially inconsistent. And there are quite a few reviews on J.Crew's website stating that these specific items are prone to noticeable shrinkage, even when the customer follows the care instructions on the label.

If the Vince boiled cashmere funnel neck sweater in this season's medium blue shade was discounted by a significant percentage, I might consider getting it even though I already have another perfectly nice and very similar-looking cashmere sweater in a nearly-identical color. In the event of such a sale, I suspect I'd ultimately still be able to resist because, even after a large discount, it'd still be an expensive sweater, plus it really is just too similar to the one I already have. Regardless, I've been saved from needing to make a decision because I haven't actually seen the Vince sweater in this color on sale anywhere since Christmas. 

In other words, it's been easy to stick to just buying one item this month!

Fashion - (TOTAL: $70.00) 

• Ugg "Scuffette II" Slipper - $70.00 - (also on sale here and here, limited sizes remain) These sequined shearling-lined slippers are so fun to look at. I sort of had my eye on these specific Ugg slippers since last November, but was waiting for the post-Christmas sales. On top of getting these for the discounted $70 price, I'm also getting an additional 10% cash back, or $7, from this purchase via Ebates a.k.a. Rakuten. Before I bought these slippers, I was a little concerned they might be too warm to wear in my sort-of-stuffy, sometimes overly warm apartment - we don't fully control the heat, the heaters automatically turn on when it's cold enough outside in the winter - but they've actually been just fine and comfortable. These only come in full sizes, so I sized up from my usual 7.5 to an 8. 

Have you been able to find anything good in the post-New Year's sales this year? Is it just me thinking that this year's post-holiday sales aren't that great? I'm admittedly not the most able to actually analyze whether this year's sales are of typical quality or not because I've only really looked at the specific clothing items I mentioned. 

How I Approach Investing

Kate Spade Polly Wallet (affiliate link)

How I approach my investments is a topic I've alluded to a few times over the years - see for instance here and here - although I don't think I've ever discussed it in great detail. Accordingly, I thought I might as well write a full post about it. Though, spoiler alert, nothing here will be at all new or novel to anyone familiar with what many Financial Independence, Retire Early ("FIRE") related internet forums and bloggers generally recommend! It's also mostly consistent with the recommendations in the two beginners' personal finance books I've mentioned over the years. 

One quick and important disclaimer before I continue: I'm definitely not a qualified investment professional. Please do your own research elsewhere before making any investment decisions.

Investing History

Because I didn't really start investing - whether in tax-advantaged retirement accounts or anything else - until I graduated law school, I got my start on the later side of early adulthood, at age 27. Before then, I briefly had up to ~$2,000 in a Mandatory Provident Fund ("MPF") retirement account in Hong Kong, but didn't even really know I needed to proactively select my own investments - not just let them sit in the settlement fund - much less how to actually select said investments. So my money in my MPF only really ever stayed in their equivalent of a money market account, until I eventually cashed out and used it all to help pay my living expenses in law school. (Given what I've explained, the money obviously didn't grow much. It was the equivalent of roughly two months' rent in my law school student housing.) 

My first contribution to a tax-advantaged retirement account in the US was at the tail end of December 2015, when I first became eligible to contribute to a 401(k) - with no employer match, as is somewhat standard in the industry - at my first biglaw job. And then because of the timing of my clerkship and the pay cut I took that year, I still wasn't able to invest much in the beginning. I never even got remotely close to maxing out my 401(k) or backdoor Roth IRA for any year until 2018, once I'd returned to the private sector for a while. 

Since 2018, though, I've been maxing out on contributions to my 401(k) - still no employer match, because my workplace takes many of its benefits-related cues from biglaw - and backdoor Roth IRA each year. These are the only types of tax-advantaged investment accounts I currently invest through. (Because my workplace doesn't offer a High Deductible Health Plan or "HDHP", I cannot invest through a Health Savings Account or "HSA".) On top of that, I also started investing a bit in a post-tax brokerage account beginning in early 2019. Since then, I've also budgeted to continue adding more to those post-tax investments every month. 

Skincare Update: Two Months of Curology

via Unsplash

Here's a quick update about my skincare routine, even though it may still be too early to do a full review of my Curology experience. I've now been using Curology for a little over 60 days, or two months. 

Because my Curology formula includes some fairly powerful, potentially irritating active ingredients - the tretinoin and possibly also the azelaic acid as well - I use it with a fairly light hand. As with prescription Retin-A Micro, a roughly pea-sized amount should be plenty to cover the entire face in a thin layer. In practice, because of how much the Curology pump bottle dispenses with each push of the pump, I often end up using slightly less than the typical pea-sized amount each night. (One full pump is generally just shy of the right amount, but two full pumps would be way too much and result in some wasted product.) 

Accordingly, even though it's been a little more than 60 days now since I started, I'm actually still using my first supposedly one month-sized, just-pay-shipping trial bottle of my Curology formula. (Which means that the $19.99/month price of Curology may work out to be more like $10/month for me in practice, at least with my current formula.)  Because of the opaque bottle, I also can't tell how much more is left in there! 

I've mentioned that K and I spent the year-end holidays staying over with his parents at their home, after a strict 16 days of quarantine for both households before they picked us up and drove us there. We stayed with them for nearly two weeks total, and my skin reacted somewhat oddly to the change in setting.

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In general, the air felt slightly more dry at K's parents house than it usually is at our apartment, maybe from running the heater more. They don't buy or eat as much in the way of dairy products as we do, a change, however temporary, in diet that past experience suggests should improve my acne. And while we were staying with them, I switched back to using Cerave foaming face wash - a trusted part of my routine for several years, though I recently switched to and now prefer the Vanicream gentle facial cleanser because it's less drying - because that was what they had on hand. 

I was a bit mystified that my acne got noticeably worse all of a sudden while we were staying over for the holidays, especially with the diet change that should be helpful. Any new blemishes got significantly more inflamed and healed more slowly than they had been since I started using Curology. I found it very odd, since I thought the change in my skin's condition was so significant that it couldn't be fully explained by the drier air or the switch back to a face cleanser I'd used with no problems for such a long time in the past. 

Now that I've been back home for a while, however, my skin's back to improving noticeably on Curology. Back when I was around three or four weeks in, I'd already started noticing that new blemishes were smaller and healed more quickly, and that trend has continued. My skin is still a little dry and dull-looking some days, but is also still free of the extreme flakiness and irritation that I had back when I was a first-time topical tretinoin user. I might potentially inquire about increasing the potency of either the azelaic acid or tretinoin in my Curology formula for my next refill - which I may not need for four months, since I just received a two-month sized refill bottle, but haven't opened it yet due to still working my way through the first bottle - though I'm also not sure it's necessary to change my formula.