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 125: We’re still figuring out the rhythms of drop off and pick up. When PiC has an 8 am meeting, he can’t do drop off. Since we have an excessively narrow window for dropping off SmolAc, this gets extra complicated. We managed it this time by having SmolAc go early and get school breakfast. Their grade is escorted to class by teachers when it’s time. It’s not a great solution because SmolAc feels pressured by the very short block of eating time and don’t like it, but they also aren’t allowed to go to breakfast and NOT eat. I understand why but it’s a dilemma when we have multiple kids to get to different campuses. The next morning we have like this, we’ll ask the neighbors to drop JB with their kid. They leave much earlier but that’ll give JB time to hang out with their friend.
Year 7, Day 126: I’m so tickled about our creative reuse store visit.
We found all the notebooks ($2 new on sale) and poly folders ($23 new) for the kids for school. We found the big envelopes (~$12) and page protectors (~$20) I need for mailing things and saving their art. We found useful odds and ends in the free section and wrapping paper and a puzzle in the tubs. We walked out of there for $5! I only have to buy a calculator for JB new on sale now. They had used calculators for $1 but they didn’t meet PiC’s standards.
My body is far less tickled by the outing. Entirely too much walking and socializing for this bag o’ bones. The pain has been quite high this week even if the swelling has stayed under control. I’m hoping that we’re past the hump of this flare.
Year 7, Day 127: I’ve been craving brownies for ages. A slightly fudgy but also kind of cakey (but not too much because that’s dry) brownie chock full of walnuts. After a friend mentioned their kid loves the Ghirardelli brownie mix, it stuck in the card catalog of my cravings section of the brain and I finally grabbed a box recently. Mixing it up was incredibly fast, melting the butter is what took ages, and then it went into the toaster oven for an hour while I took myself off to bed. It was a really good treat for being in the middleish of a multi-day pain and fatigue flareup.
Year 7, Day 128: Alright after N months of NOT looking or finding a repair person, I texted a friend to confess my cowardice over the possibility of delving in and making things worse. We decided that I probably wouldn’t break it more and well, if it does, I needed a repairperson anyway. I took apart the oven, cleaned it because we’re already in here why not, replaced the battery and put it all back together minus that one screw that’s been put into timeout because there’s absolutely no way to put it back in flush and it’s not critical. I’m still not telling PiC where the screw should be though, the perfectionist.
Voila, I fixed it! I have saved myself at least a $100 callout fee and embarrassment over wasting that time on a callout for something so simple.
Year 7, Day 129: PiC is looking into aftercare programs since the most desirable one waitlisted us, again. I’m betting we never get off their waitlist. We never got off their preschool waitlist and had to pay for THAT privilege, too, blech. But he asked for some recs and checked out one of them. He came home bearing printouts and brochure type information and would you believe that for a 5 day program with pickup, they’re charging basically $10k and change per year? Probably that price lands differently when you have two full incomes, we certainly were paying twice that for daycare (for full days with 3 meals though), but with mine soon to end, that doesn’t sit comfortably. I need a happy medium between SmolAc being bored at home with me and paying through the nose for a few hours of care a day.
This school year feels like a more benign version of 2020 where it’s a whole lot harder and people are home a lot more. It’s a lot. It’s also temporary. Kindergarten can’t/won’t last forever. But I don’t love how tired I am every single day.
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 $1,221.50 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Litter watch. 4 stray litter receipts this month resulted in 9.2 cents in Fetch and $0.05 in ibotta.
Year 7, Day 118: The first week of school, which was all of two days last week, trounced me. I was exhausted in body and spirit by the time retrieval of both children was accomplished. Taking to my bed was all I could think of by the time we fed everyone. JB was still fairly overwhelmed by Day 2, SmolAc was fine and jonesing for more. They’re going from a full day to a partial day so it’s a downward adjustment.
I’m a little bit better prepared for this week with my own schedule but have accepted the responsibility of on-call dog care for my friend who is going through family drama and managing an elder’s healthcare due to a massive sudden decline. Very much hoping the scheduled nurse visit for which they need the dogs out of the house happens at a manageable time for me and the kids.
I’m so glad I’ve been holding firm against bringing home a new dog before this period. I’m having enough trouble with the changes/transitions of 2 human dependent, a third might well have broken me.
Year 7, Day 119: It is a dark day today, losing Dolly Parton. So few people could measure up to the example she set, much less people in the public eye. She was always so genuine, and she cared enough about people she’d never meet to do all kinds of good for them from the Imagination Library, to Dollywood, to the Moderna vaccine, to the direct aid she did for schools and marching bands, to helping out the folks affected by the fires in Tennessee. That’s probably just scratching the surface of the list of all the good she’s done over the years. What a loss for the world. I hope that everyone whose lives she ever touched is moved to do as she did in whatever way that they can. I’ve always tried to follow her example in my own small ways.
Year 7, Day 120: I’ve been diligently digging out roly polies of all sizes from the potato bag and watering with the cold shower water catch buckets. The potato plants are coming up strong and the one green bean plant that survived the isopod depredations seems hidden among them. I’ve got another green bean seedling sheltering in a tiny pot, waiting for the right time to transplant it. If I transfer it too early, the isopod families will converge on the weak baby and devour it. They’ve wiped out two seedlings and four germinating seeds already and I refuse to sacrifice any more to them.
The blackberry bush came back strong with branches and leaves after being cut down to the ground, but only produced one flower that just withered away. I suppose they’re all primocanes this year. Both that and the blueberry bush seem to be responding a little bit to the acid amendments added to the soil a couple months ago but it’s too early to anticipate fruit, that’s for sure.
The sole sugar snap pea plant that managed to germinate seems pretty happy among the other potato plants, grabbing hold of its neighbors and growing a bit more sideways than vertically. But so far it seems free of the powdery mildew blight, crossing my fingers that it continues to stay healthy. Might I risk germinating another few? Maybe in a week or two. This week I’m full to the brim with responsibilities, and I’m dropping the ball on something if I add more to my plate.
Year 7, Day 121: Human guinea pig time? I’m exploring the possibility that a GLP-1 med might possibly help reduce my inflammation (which is at an all time long term high) and immune system failure (which is also high despite my diligently taking antivirals). It might not be a HIGH chance of success but any hope is better than nothing.
Update: Nope, Kaiser won’t dispense tirzepatide off-label and it’s apparently VERY expensive. I’ve checked Costco Pharmacy and Cost Plus Drugs and they don’t carry it at all. Rats. I’m pondering whether I should continue digging for other pharmacy options.
Year 7, Day 122: Doing my usual clear my public data off the internet dance. Going through and removing my data scraped from public records is tedious but I feel better for having done it. This week’s targets were Radaris and Truthfinder.
One of them lists an address that I have never been at — my brother and dad’s address since their last residence. I don’t know if they associated it just because I’m related to them OR if it’s because my dad used my personal information to apply for housing behind my back. 😒 My credit reports have been locked down for several years to prevent his using them, though, so I hope this is inaccurate data scraping and linking.
Year 7, Day 111: Not to be all about the confirmation bias but I’ve been harboring a not-at-all-secret fear that this layoff will be as bad or worse than the last one. In length at least if not misery. My therapist is being all hope and sunshine about how this represents an opportunity. I’m not denying that it could be that, eventually. I’m not denying that I needed to leave this job and that it would have been unbelievably hard for me to leave to take a real break like I needed to without a layoff. I’m even doing my best to consciously be open to optimism and to making the most of this time so that it’s not all stress and doom. But it’s way too soon to feel hopeful – especially now before a job search begins in earnest. Mostly the open mind and keeping busy, between kids scheduling, chores and new crafts, has been working to keep me out of the dumps this month. And it’s been nice to discover new things while the clock ticks down on the “I still have an income” status.
The worry is still ever-presently lurking in my daily subconsciousness, though, and a recent discussion of how long some folks have been job-hunting (several months to a year and still counting) brought it bubbling back up to the surface. I know we can hang for a year, I’ve been doing the more detailed math, but then what? What’s my Phase 2 plan if this goes longer than a year? 18 months? 24 months??
Sigh. As I half-joked to my coworker, I have until PiC gets laid off, then I REALLY have to get a job. That’s not a time so much as a floating limit. I continue to hope that sometime in Months 6-10, I discover a hidden talent of something I actually want to do, physically CAN do and do well, and is lucrative. Go on universe, show me what good stuff you can come up with.
Year 7, Day 112: Hm. PiC’s employer is changing retirement plan providers from Fidelity to Empower. I’ve never heard of Empower before but they claim to be the second largest retirement plan recordkeeper in the US. Materially, we’ll see a decrease in the annual admin fee from $36 to $19. I don’t see any other differences that matter to us – the plans and funds available to us all remain the same. I won’t expend more brainpower on this until I really have nothing better to do since there’s nothing I can do about it but have an opinion (or not).
A funny coincidence: I have been on a cleaning binge and, last night, found one of the kids’ old sports uniforms that was never worn tucked in a tote bag. That made me sigh. It’s been listed on Poshmark for weeks without any interest, I wonder if I need to do something to bump it a little… then I forgot all about it. Today, I got a notification that there was a counteroffer on that very listed item. Counter? Where was the first offer? I opened the app to see that the little automation they had that sends an offer to anyone who likes an item had been triggered by a like, the buyer immediately countered the lower offer, and then accepted the app’s counter offer. Sold! That’s a pretty easy automation (if I were coding it with my dev, I’d describe it as: if an item is liked, send an offer with Price-$3) and effective too, it seems. I’ve packaged it up and it’s ready to go.
Year 7, Day 113: After four weeks of positively dismal workouts or weeks without working out at all for various reasons, I’m finally doing my workouts this week as written and may actually (knock salt, throw salt, all the things) get through more than half of them for the first time in over a month. It’s been demoralizing how many weeks I’d missed because I couldn’t squeeze it in and it’s clear that stamina has gone walkabout without me. But back on the metaphorical horse I go. I’d be more enthused if it was a real horse.
I’ve mostly got a pharmacy organization system down for travel but Hawaii Planner had me contemplating if it’s the best that it could be. I have a set of meds that I have to take daily – that’s easy and goes in the 7-day am/pm medication organizer. But there’s also a set of meds that I take as needed in the evenings and those are dependent on how I feel so the fixed week organizer doesn’t work for that.
Year 7, Day 114: Ooh I’m mad at Kobo. I have spent hours painstakingly organizing my Seanan McGuire short stories that I’d uploaded manually to the app into the right collections. Today, I opened the app and it ambushed me with an update and migration that I didn’t agree to and in doing so, it changed the author name for all the manually uploaded stories to Unread and deleted all the collection tags. WTAF!! I don’t have the mental energy to fix this right now.
Year 7, Day 115: We’ve tried really hard to get the kids back on an early rising schedule before school starts. It’s painful and largely unsuccessful. They will get up early on the day of, there’s no way to fake the adrenaline from when school actually starts ahead of The Day. Admittedly I’m also dragging from fatigue so much that without the true pressure, the dry runs have been dry fumble stumbles. It’s very irritating because best intentions! But no, says the body.
All that to say, they did finally get up early as needed, just in time. And now we have to be really strict about bedtimes because their bodies need a lot of sleep normally, which is why they tend to sleep in (mostly JB but SmolAc’s also been laying abed a little later than their norm) and if they’re cutting it short at the morning end, we have to make it up at the night end.
