Goodtimeswithjess is still here! Wherever here is. She has no time to blog, but she’ll get you a trip proposal ASAP

Posted on October 31, 2026 by Good Times with Jess

This blog is still alive! It hasn’t sputtered into complete oblivion just yet.

I missed the entire month of September and I’m VERY close to missing the entire month of October. The good news is it’s because I GOT SO BUSY with work! Not to be mistaken with wiping-my-kid’s-butt work, travel work.

I’m less busy with kid work because who has the time? RB turned 7 and 7-year-old butts can fend for themselves, despite protestations to the contrary.

I kept thinking I was coming up for air and then more trips appeared. Plus tag on two weeks of travel to Morocco and the Bahamas (for work), meant the only writing I was doing was email.

It’s been so long, my blog suggested I re-blog. No thank you.

I am at a loss on how to proceed. Do I tell you about Morocco?

The hotel that hosted me, put me in a gorgeous family suite with a private pool. BB was so mad I was going there without my family she made me a paper version so I could relax by my pool with my two-dimensional, perfectly behaved children.

Then I was home for a minute to do my laundry, put it back in my suitcase and off to the Bahamas.

I regret I had zero time for water slides. I met with one travel supplier who went to the water park during our lunch break. He recommended I do the same.

I don’t know how to go to a water park and return to business casual with presentable hair in 1.75 hours.

In the middle of all that, BB started middle school. BIG relief, I’ve never seen her come home from school happier. There’s dancing, singing and self-motivation to do her homework.

BB’s only issue was when I left. Twice. So many tears. So many prolonged hugs. When I leave for two weeks in February it may be the end of her.

On the other hand, when I popped into RB’s room to say goodbye before I left on my second trip, she gave me a perfunctory hug and said,

“Bye! I love you! I hope your plane doesn’t crash!”

Thanks. ME TOO.

RB turned 7! We were very tempted to repeat an NYC weekend again, but she desperately wanted a trampoline party with 30 of her closest friends, so that’s what we did. AND I scored VIP meet & greet tickets to the show you may or may not have heard of – Wild Kratts!

It’s RB’s all-time favorite show and Captain may be leading a double life as a Martin Kratt doppelgänger:

Then it was on to Halloween! RB needed a jack-o-lantern over a week ago for her school’s pumpkin stroll. It’s the year of the cat for us, so she declared her desire for a cat jack-o-lantern and went to bed.

Captain is a MASTER pumpkin carver. I don’t know when the awards happen for that, but maybe he’ll get some extra candy for his trouble. First he carved this:

RB saw it in the morning and BURST into tears,

“It’s not FUNNY Halloween! It’s SPOOKY Halloween!!!”

So the next night, I went to bed and Captain tried again:

He won!

Now today is the real deal, so last night he was at it again. I tried to say RB does NOT need a third cat jack-o-lantern. No one else agreed with me. We all went to bed and Captain accomplished:

The only thing challenging our obsession with cats is BB’s obsession with swimming and when you carve FOUR jack-o-lantern masterpieces, you can do it all.

Back to work. I must keep working. I hope to talk to you before 2027, but if you need to hear from me sooner, send me a new-trip inquiry!

Cowboy themed Halloween party for RB. I joined the 5% of dressed-up adults, because when else am I going to wear the giant unicorn onesie in my closet?

Throwback to Halloween 2020!

He thinks he can do whatever he wants because he’s related to the Backstreet Boys.

The joy of candy and decorating for EVERY holiday. P.S. Harris/Walz

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Good Times with Jess

Working has got the best of me. More on that soon. But first… The holidays!

RB asked me,

“Do you like Halloween?”

“Yes!”

“But not as much as me.”

“That might be true.”

There are many people in our neighborhood who decorate heavily for ALL holidays. That requires a level of stamina, commitment, organization, storage, money, and caring that I’m not ready for.

Mid-September I put out Star-of-David hand towels for the high holidays. After Yom Kippur, I put them away and took out our Halloween towels.

I spent the rest of the month defending my decorating choices to a five-year-old.

Every morning and every afternoon as we drove the ten minutes to and from school, she observed the neighbors and recited the catalog of possible Halloween swag.

Then she whined,

“When are we going to decorate?!!”

“We already did.”

“We did?”

“Yup. We have kitchen towels, three pumpkins and a sign on the door that says ‘Happy Halloween.”

“NOOOOOOOOO. That doesn’t count.”

The thing is, we do have a small, cackling witch, but anytime I try to hang it up, RB is too scared to walk by it.

EVERY drive she complained. I blasted Taylor Swift and threatened to remove the hand towels.

Every year, Captain gets closer and closer to buying some gigantic animatronic atrocity for the front lawn. And if he caves, no hard feelings, but it won’t be me.

RB tried again. She asked me,

“Why don’t we decorate?”

“We did.”

“Like lots of stuff in our yard.”

“Before you know it, we’re going to be decorating for Hanukkah and Christmas and we have SO MUCH.”

“It’s Hanukkah time?!?!?!?”

Nooo.

So that may have backfired. But to save myself trips in and out of the attic, I may just swap out the Halloween stuff for the holiday stuff. Once the bins are out, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long a Hanukkah gnome can stay in a bin.

I’m not sure when trick-or-treating turned into a sprint…

Other people aren’t decorating for Halloween either…

I don’t know what it is about this pumpkin stack, but I wouldn’t say no to it

Harris/Walz all the way! HERE WE GO

I’ve been too busy being a rockstar to get any writing done

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Good Times with Jess

There appears to be a max number of words I’m able to write a week. My current writing course requires 1,000-1,500 words, 3-5 pages double spaced, per week.

My blog posts average 500-600 words every two weeks ish. To say I’m struggling to do both, for a total of 2,000 words per week, more than my total previous word count for the entire month, is generous.

I’m not struggling to do it. I’m not getting it done. I would love to get it done. Just not sure which other thing to not get done.

I already stopped keeping up with the laundry and I was already doing the bare minimum food wise, so there’s no time to be saved there, unless we just live on Halloween candy for a couple weeks. That should get rid of it.

This past weekend I could’ve been writing, but I was following a shirtless Captain around.

We went to our first adult-only, Halloween party since we had kids. That’s six years of dressing up in family-friendly outfits.

So maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that the minute we got the invite this past summer, Captain went the no clothes route.

He had his heart set on being a hairband rocker. We were going for generic 80’s rockstars. We got mistaken for Tommy and Pamela. I did NOT stuff my dress. The only way I could’ve had a smaller chest was if I had no chest, but the size of my hair made up for it.

What I didn’t realize through all the months of costume planning our trophy-winning ensemble, was that the party was outside.

That’s right. I have a trophy in my kitchen. It has made me happier than I ever thought a jack-o-lantern trophy could.

We drove the half mile to the party. It was 50 degrees and dropping and Captain was determined to make a topless entry.

He didn’t shave his arms and apply temporary tattoos for nothing.

As we walk up the driveway, music and party sounds are unmistakable.

Captain turns to me,

“Is this party outside?!?”

“Nooooo. Couldn’t be.”

It could. It was. Captain stayed committed, stayed by the fire and pounded beers.

I attribute our trophy to his cold-blooded rockstar status.

We showed up with a case of Budweiser because I was committed to drinking in character, even if the taste of that first beer was tough.

Nobody believed we were really drinking Bud. Multiple times I was accused of pouring something else in the can. Forced to choose, I’d much rather drink a Bud than a hard seltzer.

A minion pointed out that if we really wanted to be in character we would’ve finished the Bud and switched to whiskey ages ago. But I’m not sure that applies to wannabe rockstars in their forties.

We went to bed as rockstars and woke up as hung-over parents home alone. I can’t say enough good things about being home alone after a party.

Two days later, on Halloween morning, 3-year-old RB, who’s been planning her mermaid costume as long as we’ve been planning our hairband duo, decided a crown was not going to suffice. She NEEDED mermaid hair.

And if that “NEEDED” didn’t sound like a throw-down tantrum on the kitchen floor, it was. I showed her my hairband wig. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind and shouted,

“It needs green and pink and rainbow colors!!”

She went down for her nap screaming about mermaid hair, but she slept and I created a masterpiece. I delivered the rockstar turned rainbow, mermaid hair to her and she sighed,

“It’s so beautiful!”

If there’s a trophy for parenting through a crisis, I’d like to be considered.

An Ode to Coffee and Electricity

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Good Times with Jess

WHAT A WEEK. Electricity? Very under appreciated until it’s gone.

No matter how many times I forgot and flipped a light switch, it was to no avail.

I get annoyed when storms are over hyped, but the zero hype that there was for this storm meant I’ve been feeling bamboozled.

The first injustice hit quick. With only one of three nightlights working, BB joined me on the couch at 6:30am Wednesday morning.

My solo mornings, watching the sunrise, with the lights voluntarily turned off are one of the most pleasant, self-sustaining moments of my day.

Wednesday morning, as BB whined about no school, 30 minutes before anyone is allowed to whine at me, I realized that I was DESPERATE for a coffee. The giant, widow maker dangling by a tree thread over our front door wasn’t going to stop me.

I gathered both children and left a note for Captain:

“Gone for 2 coffees.”

And gone we were. As soon as I saw the first traffic light was out, I knew we needed to head out of town. Drive-thru after drive thru was closed. Road after road impassible. Next town over I saw people emerging from Whole Foods, to-go cups in hand.

Heavenly bells chimed. I looked down at myself: pajamas, random shoes, rain coat. It’s a drive-thru outfit. It’s not something I’d wear in public even in the depths of the pandemic loungewear movement.

Who am I kidding? I’m going in. The line was long, but not nearly as long as when I left 20 minutes later with 2 cups of coffee in my hands.

As BB whined and RB said “Coffee? Coffee? Coffee?”, I navigated our way home. I saw people drive underneath trees resting on wires. I stopped there.

We returned to find Captain searching the house for us, lost without the ability to text me. No one reads hand-written notes left on countertops anymore, even when there’s no electricity OR cell service.

I gave him a cup of coffee. As hard as it was to relinquish, he obviously needed one as much as I did.

We made a plan to evacuate to my mom’s. She mentioned not driving until later when it wouldn’t be so dangerous.

I spared her the coffee adventure for the time being.

In the meantime BB had her eye on Halloween and all things related. We were on notice for the school parade. Would it happen? Would it be canceled?

BB has started making her own social plans. She tells me,

“I’m going to A’s to go trick-or-treating.”

I explain that parents need to be part of the planning or she has no plans and I haven’t heard boo from A’s parents. BB throws up her hands,

“What am I going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go trick-or-treating with you and dad?”

I’m not sure when spending time with us became a nuisance.

Halloween feels magical. It’s warm. We have electricity. The school parade was rescheduled for today. We join trick-or-treating forces with BB’s friend and BB seems unfazed by the parental oversight.

RB insisted on walking despite lagging behind. And if you’ve ever wondered what will happen to a full-size Hershey’s bar if you clutch it in your hand and refuse to put it in your bucket all night. You get to smear it everywhere when you get home. Just ask RB.

So did I risk my family’s life for 2 cups of coffee? Maybe. But we’ll never know what would’ve happened to them if I’d gone without.