About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Year 7, Day 69: Welp, this might be me paying the price for thinking I could do two medical things in a row: a massage to loosen up the lumps that pass for muscles and a vaccine in the same week. It feels roughly like a giant jumped on me with two feet. After an extra 10 hours in bed on Sunday, I’m still feeling well below baseline. That’s a spanner in the works for this week. I’ve got a donation pickup scheduled for tomorrow but that presupposed that all of Sunday was going to be sorting community donations. That didn’t happen. Instead, SmolAc, still sick much more dramatically than I am, in both senses of the word has continued cosplaying a barnacle stuck to my side today. We did drop off together, then did a bit of light gardening for outdoor air, then snacked painfully and slowly. Lego time saved us both for an hour.
Year 7, Day 70: I cancelled the donation pickup for today and settled myself in for just chaffeur duties, puttering and nursing care. Not a lot of puttering happened but they seem to be at least less feverish today. Good thing I set my expectations really low for one, and my job no longer matters for two.
Told PiC not to bother trying to spell me, his job performance still matters (maybe, who knows how they decide who to lay off) and mine doesn’t. I’m only doing the barest of minimums now because they’ve squeezed the last blood they’re gonna get from this stone. For the next two months it’s all about my health and my family’s needs and anything I can do to help my staff get jobs.
Year 7, Day 71: Finally got my garden delivery! Soil acidifier, compost, and more soil since the potatoes are going to need hilling before I know it. The winds like to carry off a thin layer of soil every time we turn around, and last night happened to be especially gusty. I dug into the acidifier and compost first, spreading it around the blueberry and blackberry bushes. Fingers crossed that was done right / enough. I need help lugging out the 3 cubic foot bag of soil which – that sack and I barely made it into the garage so there it’s staying until I have a second big-enough pair of hands. SmolAc is currently in a mostly helpful phase so 70% chance they would pipe up “I can help you, Mommy!” and 100% chance they would be crushed under the bag.
Meanwhile I’m sprouting wee sugar snap peas in cotton out of pure curiosity and it’s neat to actually see the little sprout as it shows to come to the surface preparatory to emerging from the seed. No clue where they’re going to go. They can’t go in the bag that used to be dedicated to them, the mold spores are waiting to pounce. Could they thrive at the top of the potatoes soil mounds alongside the green beans that will be planted once the soil is heaped up? Worth a shot. My gardening is very haphazard.
Year 7, Day 72: Big medical mail day. I’ve been waiting on a reprint of a prescription receipt for 7 weeks for FSA redemption and last week had given up on it arriving. Even deleted it from my to so list so naturally here it is! The FSA would be maxed out eventually with or without it – therapy and medications add up. Next year I’ll be missing having two FSAs badly. My Ambien refill landed as did JB’s meds and the SPF 50 sunscreen we’re trying.
Speaking of Ambien, it’s a new as needed prescription. I haven’t had to use it too often, sheer fatigue has been enough many nights, but when I do it’s worked reasonably well. So far there haven’t been any weird sleep-calls or texts or purchases. That I know of. Hopefully Sleep Me is simply too uncoordinated to buy anything while on Ambien. My sleep set up has finally stabilized too. These days, I layer two shirts, plus a heating pad for the muscle aches, and layer 1 Oodie blanket and a beautiful gift quilt on top. That combination seems to ward off the cycle of temperature dysregulation of sweating a royal mess and then waking up shivering from having sweated through a shirt and hoodie (so gross).
Year 7, Day 73: My Bing point total isn’t high enough for a redemption but I do my research in advance of having enough points to redeem. Except that 3 for 3 redemption options are all out of stock and I AM NOW FORMING A CONSPIRACY THEORY. Something is wrong there??? Are my points going to disappear?? All my efforts gone for naught? I hope not. (A friend pointed out that it lines up with corporate shenanigans at the end of the quarter which actually makes a lot of sense – I recently learned that corporations will do crappy stuff like refuse to pay their freelancers for 2-4 weeks leading up to the end of the quarter or after. Just garbage behavior.)
*She was probably right. Once the quarterly earnings were reported, along with 4800 layoffs, the ability to redeem points was magically back.
I’ve squeezing every single earning opportunity big and tiny because, of course, every penny counts. It goes into the mental piggybank for after the severance comes out.
We got a big check this week reimbursing past out of network medical care which was a happy surprise. It was immediately chopped up to cover upcoming big bills: dental expenses for 2 (2026), auto and home insurance, the little left shores up the property tax account. That settles my stomach a little bit.
Year 7, Day 62: I’ve never wandered into the clothing section at Costco before but after seeing Maggie‘s excellent linen pants recently I figured it could be worth a meander, and it was! We lucked into $7 and $16 shorts. But I had to guesstimate my size and sadly I was off by a small but significant margin on the $7 shorts. Turns out I’m not a size 4 and if I’d been thinking straight I would have gotten two sizes to try and return the one that didn’t fit. Drat for that miss. I did like the fit of the other pair though, and now that I think about it, am more than a little miffed that I found shorts that fit my waist comfortably but none of my pants do, new or old. It’s so frustrating to constantly be adjusting the waist of my pants whether it’s my cargo pants with sufficient pockets that keep sliding down or the jeans that require a belt to keep them up except that makes them too tight or the newer fleece lined cuffed pants that are an inch or two too short. I’m about ready to give up on wearing clothes in public and just slouch around in sweats or fleece like a Yeti.
Microburst of stress cleaning: I vacuumed the air vents in the hair dryer, modem and hard drives, and all around them. They’d been clogged with dust.
Year 7, Day 63: I’m data collecting this week to pull the bigger and/or recurring bills that we currently cashflow in order to pinpoint our required spending vs optional spending. I’d been deliberately relaxing about that over the years to train myself down to a lower level of hypervigilance but it means there are gaps on my spreadsheets to fill in now while I can still do something about it (set aside extra cash). While I have a sense of how long our halved income and savings will last, it’s a birds-eye view and I want a firmer grip on our new disposable income number.
I downloaded the Chase app to do … something, I don’t remember what but it set off a little cascade of really annoying effects. First, Chase locked me out of my account telling me that they had detected unusual activity. Friend joked that it was my buying spree at Sephora, and I thought maybe it was too, but when I called it was because I was using the mobile app and that was unusual. Ok?? Feels like you could have texted asking if that was me using the app instead of going into instant lockdown. Then they unilaterally decided that my having the app meant I have to use the app IN ALL THINGS. They changed my 2-factor authentication to: log in with password, go and log into the mobile app (with the same credentials) to answer a question to verify my identity. (What does that prove?? I guess it proves I have possession of the credentials and the phone but humph.) Anyway, fine, I schlep off to do that and *crickets*. No question to answer. I try again, still no question. And again. On the seventh try I quit, exasperated and called them to get a code and also ask What the Hell? The CSR was no help on the latter but after she gave me a code to access my dratted accounts, I found it on my own under Security and Privacy: I manually elected to receive codes by email. Like I had ALWAYS done before, no one asked you to change this, Chase. Annoying.
Year 7, Day 64: I get to submit PiC’s claims for found money. On that note, my checklists are absolutely bananas right now. Today’s count, where 3 items were combo items, was 28 checked boxes of chores, paperwork, file backups, phone calls, texts, scheduling, purchase tracking, purchase-making. The rest of the week isn’t much different either. I have calls and appointments every day this week. It’s boggling. I mean, yes, we were offline for a week not doing any chores but is this all backlog from one week? Usually it’s a work backlog needing slogging through, not personal/household things. Some are work related. Because of the layoff, there are extra calls to take and farewell notes to write and personal gifts to be shipped. And yes, also because of the layoff, there’s 30-60 minutes of job hunting per day, on average.
But the vast majority of this week is household money stuff. Or household (stress) cleaning stuff. It’s weird but here’s hoping that it’s just one week of playing catch-up and then it settles down a bit. Rest time and hiding under the covers time needs to be scheduled in here somewhere.
This is the third night in a row that I’ve sat up working til 11. This trend can stop now, please and thank you.
Year 7, Day 65: One byproduct of the layoff, and my attitude towards the whole place (now doing the barest of minimums), is the space to make a conscious effort in my personal life. Focus on prioritizing the things that fill my bucket, notice good stuff around me, and be there for the kids even if that experience isn’t exactly filling my bucket.
To whit: how did it take me a year to realize the chairs at my bodywork place are incredibly soft and comfortable?? I’m not in frequently, but have sat in them a few times. ‘Tis a cloud for my posterior!
Or this weekend, my therapy appointment was rescheduled so I humored SmolAc wanting me to come watch their swim lesson. PiC is the swim parent but they still want my approval. Normally I’d use the free time to do more chores. This time we all went to swim and the library.
Year 7, Day 66: This is momentous – SmolAc was reminded to put away the clean utensils and they just did it without whining. A summer miracle.
There is a soy and tofu festival here and I didn’t know about it?! I missed my chance at a local chocolate festival, too. They changed their format in the last year or two from doing a really big gathering of chocolate vendors to making us schlep all over the Bay Area to visit the individual shops. Gas is too expensive for all that!
Planning (paralysis actually) for my next microburst of cleaning: I saved some dryer vent cleaning kit/recs somewhere but indecision has got hold of my ankle. Will I have to move the whole dryer? I really don’t want to – high risk of scratching up things or squashing my fingers. But I can’t imagine any kit will be good enough that I could clean the whole vent through the lint catcher opening, it’s so restricted. In which case, we come back to – what’s the best kit for my needs?
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $492 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
I finally had enough Fetch points to redeem for a $50 IKEA gift card. PiC has a notion about allowing JB to personalize their room a bit this summer so this will cover that and any Swedish meatballs we encounter. That gave me a baseline for calculating the average value of a receipt: 2.3 cents per 25 points. My last redemption was for $50 in November, 7 months ago.
Ibotta is a much slower earning site. My last redemption was August 2024 for $40; I just redeemed $35 in cash this month.
Litter watch: we picked up 6 receipts for a total of 14.2 cents at Fetch and 60 cents at Ibotta. Just a teeny bonus for getting trash off the street.
Year 7, Day 55: We’ve been doing a LOT of walking the past week, much more than normal for me, and my fatigue and pain are (mostly) only ratcheting up a couple notches rather than zipping straight to the top of the chart. This is novel! I’m curious whether this could be a potential new low baseline when I’m not working a huge horribly stressful job, but it’s too early to tell. There are also the variables of travel/vacation mode, a lot of family taking care of everything in ways that won’t be possible at home, being deprived of my laptop so being unable to attend to my usual schedule of household responsibilities and so on. Removing the job aspect is only one variable.
My hands have been swollen every day for the past two weeks. That’s an unusual reversion to the pain points of my youth. I’m used to working around the hand mitts (it’s awkward) but I’ve become accustomed to roving pain giving me a bit of relief by way of changing daily pain points rather than these stationary pain points.
There aren’t a lot of merchants that we use yet and the Newegg gift card hack was dead by the time I got there, only a week after the promotion was live! But we need more pimple patches and back pocket supplies (little sunscreens and hand sanitizers) for when we have to travel REALLY light, so I picked some up using the deal.
Microburst of stress cleaning: I tackled our medicine cabinet: discarding expired meds, recycling empty bottles, putting all our reusable baggies in a new clear box to get a better view of what we have on hand.
Year 7, Day 57: The kids have begun anticipating the COVID booster for our summer travel and that reminded me that I need to decide if we’re going to pay out of pocket for it since Kaiser has stopped paying for, or approving, more than one shot a year. Since I am functionally still (if not diagnostically / officially) immunocompromised this is a problem. I have access to antivirals for now but my immune system is still trash. Annoyingly, Costco used to list their COVID vax prices but don’t anymore. It used to be about $125 per person? I can’t find pricing for CVS or Walgreens. They all say something about accepting outside insurance but don’t list the price for uninsured patients.
Microburst of stress cleaning: The chaos drawer that’s never once been organized, full of reused storage, rubber bands, bag clips, etc, has been completely cleared out and set to rights. SmolAc was so confused when they opened that drawer, they closed and opened it a few times wondering if they were in the wrong room.
Year 7, Day 58: All of the ARGH. Delta Dental won’t cover part of JB’s recent procedure because their definition of requirements for coverage do not match the procedures. That’s another $600+ out of pocket I have to cover. That’s in addition to two sets of braces, another oral surgery, increased auto and home insurance policies…. the list isn’t endless but it feels like a wallop. We still have income through the end of the year but mild to moderate financial surprises make me very uncomfortable now.
On the bright side, I have found the documentation to submit my claims for some missing money. The really old address one 3 homes back was causing some consternation. This will result in maybe $12 if it comes through. I should find out in something like 2 months since these are very tiny cash-type claims.
“Unclaimed property law allows up to 180 days from the date that we receive a complete claim package to review all documentation and make a decision on whether or not the documentation supports the claim. Property owner claims that involve cash only may be processed in as little as 30 to 60 days. More complex claims, such as those filed by heirs, involving multiple owners, or involving businesses are generally processed within 180 days.”
Year 7, Day 59: I’ve been manually updating all my file backups. I maintain a networked and a non-networked backup. I’d like a third layer, honestly. This double layer backup system helped me with the claims. Some files were inexplicably missing from one system and I was able to retrieve them from the other. I do need to spend some time figuring out how to manually back up the photos though, they’re currently backed up automatically into the networked system and I can’t easily drag and drop from there.
Microburst of stress cleaning: I went through all the Halloween candy, discarding old candy so I could finally wash and put away the buckets that have taken up permanent residence on the counter in the past few years. The buckets were replaced with a nice basket to hold snacks and the fresh candy. Even the counter got scrubbed! I will not confess to how long it’s been since it’s had a proper scrub but the fact I can’t remember should tell you it’s been too long. This is the price of keeping two kids alive and working two jobs – we have let things slide around here.
1. Entirely by happenstance, we got to spend time with friends from the East Coast AND from Alaska, both passing through the Bay Area. That was great fun.
