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
Times are so tough for so many people across the US now and that struggle is greatly amplified on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I’ve been working with One Spirit, an organization that supports the residents of the Reservation in many ways. My most common interaction with them is through their service connecting donors to the needs lists of the families so that we can shop for them directly. They also support larger projects to help the people of the Reservation become more self sufficient. They reported that in the past few months, food prices have skyrocketed to the extent that the single full service grocery store in Pine Ridge is too expensive for locals to shop. They have to travel long distances off the reservation to purchase groceries instead which is, of course, also a high expense thanks to terribly high gas prices. One Spirit’s service provider for food, Feeding South Dakota Food Bank, previously offered many choices for their two food pantries – approximately 240 items. In the last few months they’ve only been able to offer 8% of that. They can now only choose from up to 20 items and there is no fresh food at all. The food crisis has become a food emergency, as opposed to a crisis. It’s bad.
In September, after fielding a worry from the reservation coordinator about the increasing food insecurity, picking 1-3 families to help felt very uncomfortable. Even though that’s how I normally make the most of our collective funds, it felt wrong to only help some families when the most fundamental basic needs were unmet.
I really wanted to buy in bulk to help all the families in need. With no way of knowing what would come of it, I sent out the call for help, and simultaneously asked our coordinator if she could find someone who would be able to take receipt of the shipments and distribute it to the community. Then I moved on to price-checking the essentials while hoping. Food, shampoo, toothpaste, feminine hygiene products, cleaning supplies, diapers and formula are ALWAYS needed.
My heart worried and worried over whether we’d be able to buy even a small fraction of the list I’d made up. Y’all really came through. We had folks contributing from all over, from $5 to $500, making it possible to help more than just 1 or 3 families in the very rural Red Shirt village.
I primarily shopped at Costco for the best price per unit, and stacked sales and coupons at other stores, to get as much as we could for our dollars. We sent food, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo and conditioner. Feeding people is important, as is basic healthcare and hygiene.
Sadly it couldn’t all be shipped in a single pallet, or several boxes. We had to track, and track down sometimes, more than 50 shipments to get the job done. On the other end, our community organizer had to keep up with the stream of shipments and organize it all so that the mobile neighbors could come get what they needed. He then ferried supplies out to the remote neighbors who have no way of getting over to his place. With the price of gas being so high, both I and One Spirit sent him cash to help with the cost of driving supplies to folks.
I compiled a complete list to share what we were able to send to our Lakota neighbors this harvest season though, lamentably, none of it is fresh food. That is a nut I’d like to crack at some point:
180 oz Dawn dishwashing liquid
9 bottles of shampoo and conditioner
228 ct Always pads
40 ct toothbrushes
32 ct toothpastes
4 ct 70% ethyl rubbing alcohol – 16.0 fl oz
60 bars soap
It’s hard to estimate how long this will last but we reached at least 20 families and I’m so grateful we were able to show these families that we cared.
If we continue to receive donations into the winter, I’ll be glad to keep working with One Spirit and locals on the reservation to help alleviate the ongoing food emergency.
As always: Every penny helps! Send a gift to any of the following with a note saying “Pine Ridge”:
Year 7, Day 188: After two, no three… no, four extremely hectic weekends in a row, while also winding down work, past me decided my body was going to need a massage today. Past me was right. It hurt like the dickens, of course, especially since it’s been months since my last one, but all those muscles needed help to unknot and it’s worth it. I didn’t get as much post-massage rest right after but I made up for it in the afternoon with a couple hours. Also my massage therapist’s spouse has been out of work for months and as long as I can, I want to support them too. She’s gotten me through a lot of hard years and pain.
Year 7, Day 189: We voted as soon as I could slog through all the ballot measures, and PiC dropped off our ballots in the ballot box last week or the week before.
Today I had a vaccine appointment and laser focused on reading and processing stickers all afternoon with SmolAc to block out election anxiety until a friend mentioned a particularly heated race in the afternoon and BOOM, the anxiety returned (and lasted all night). We did finish up all the production I had planned, and avoided 3-4 hours of anxiety, so I call that a win.
Year 7, Day 190: What amazing news to wake up to. Unfortunately I woke up to it at midnight and a half after a glorified nap. I suspect the melatonin is giving me nightmares, and then election news kept me riveted as the most effective distraction from the general pain and stress. Taking a second sleep aid in 6 hours seemed like a bad idea so I’m pretty punchy today. I scheduled myself for a long liedown in the morning in hopes of a nap, didn’t happen but the liedown was still good.
2026 midterms: absolutely astonishing results. Just amazing. The result of so much hard work by organizers on the ground in deep red states and powered by collective fury. I’m so proud of all the people who made this happen.
May Mamdani only be the first of many people who are good at their jobs, good at communicating their work, and dedicated to the lives and health of the people they work for.
To hell with this presidential administration and every single corrupt and complacent tool who helped him take power and grift from this country.
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 long term 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 $255.80 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Our last paychecks were paid out, the lump sum for October and my month of hoarded PTO landed. My calculations of the PTO hoard were accurate! The company’s was not. They shorted me some hours so I had to make them correct that. Of course I did. They are absolutely incapable of doing their jobs right in any instance, shape, or form. I can’t stand incompetent people that’s one thing I was more than ready to be done with by the time the job ended.
Year 7, Day 181: I had to carve up the giant pork shoulder (on sale from Costco) to freeze in manageable portions and to cook one chunk for dinner in a narrow 20 minute window before my morning calls started. The problem was that I also wanted to be doing the laundry, cleaning up the weekend mess, and managing my admin paperwork in those same 20 minutes. Too bad, had to pick one. I made it with about 8 minutes to spare, which was lovely. Then I got into the admin work and got the laundry going after my calls, so there to my Instant Gratification driven self. It is possible to get many of the things done even if it’s not all done between 8-9 am.
The weekend was taxing and the number of things on my to do list this week is staggering. Pacing is critical lest I PEMs myself right into the ground but it’s so hard to force myself to slow down. The kids have been given their chores and I’m laying down until we have to go to the next lesson.
I am pleased that I didn’t get the pickup dates and times wrong today, they keep changing on us because of conferences and other things. There’s one more change next week and then we should be stable until the spring conferences.
Year 7, Day 182: This week is WHOA. I still have 4 loads of laundry (I’ve already done 3 loads ).
A European friend is in town so we have to meet up sometime this week.
We have to take JB to two tutoring sessions right after school, and they still need to do homework, practice their instrument, and chores.
My friend needs us to mind their kid four days this week.
It’s our 1Nth wedding anniversary this week and we haven’t had a minute to even think about what we’d like to do to mark that.
We still have work to do on our inventory for the craft fair and signage.
We’ll make it through but I’m feeling it since I haven’t yet recovered from the weekend.
Year 7, Day 183: There’s a sale on Cheerios and Chex cereal at Safeway and PiC has picked up a dozen boxes. It’s ridiculous for normal people. However. He’s an inveterate snacker, and even more so when stressed, these won’t last the month. Given the disparity between our rates of eating, me – 1 serving from a box, him – the rest of the box, we need a dozen just for me to get a few servings. And of course the kids want some, too. So it’s possible we’re contemplating grabbing another half dozen boxes. 😆
The chill in the air seems here to stay. SmolAc usually runs so hot that they’re down to their skivvies by the morning. You know it’s really cold when they wear their cozy jammies and doesn’t strip them off an hour into sleep. We even had to run the heater today. Soon it will be time for me to live full time in my Oodie hoodie AND pants. *rubs hands*
Year 7, Day 184: TIL: My search for a replacement for Adobe petered out for lack of time but today I realized that one answer at least has been staring me in the face. When my PDFs automatically open in Firefox, there are tools available! I can sign and date a document! I don’t think I can combine documents or paste images, also functions I need, but this works for now until there’s time to figure out the rest.
Today was all about craft fair prep – all the admin stuff, all the pricing stuff, most of the signage. Then it was about ferrying children from one location to the next until we hit the final payoff: a Halloween party with rides, games, and goodies. We only made it for the last 45 minutes but it was still fun. Of course, I’m totally worn out now.
Year 7, Day 185: There’s the last last paycheck in the bank now.
I was really irritated at Amazon that I had to deal with them for the 4th or 5th time about a defective shipment that that they keep telling me to return, even though they told me NOT to return it at the time I reported it. Today chat says “no no, I took care of it don’t worry about it.” That’s what that last two people said, are you going to compensate me for my time now that I have had to come back AGAIN despite that? They promised to send me a $25 refund to my CC. We’ll see if it materializes (and by that I mean, I set myself a calendar alert to make sure it does.) It’s the principle of the matter, but also I need them to stop harassing me for the return of something they told me to dispose of!
Year 7, Day 174: Farnoosh of So Money has started using her email list again. Turns out that I signed up for it, must have been a decade ago?, and I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to unsubscribe or not but this bit happens to align with my current state of being.
If you’re questioning your next chapter, try asking:
What still interests me?
What keeps draining me?
What could I change or get help with?
Your answer might be to stop doing something. It might be to try a different version. Give yourself some room to find out.
I’m mulling over these questions in the back of my mind this week while I deal with collecting tax documents for our donations from the past few months. I’ve kept records but hadn’t kept up with downloading the receipts.
Year 7, Day 175: We’re rapidly coming up on the end now. After what has felt like an interminable wait, it’s right around the corner. We only have days left.
I’ve been tidying as I go and now trying to make sure I’ve checked all the boxes before the last sand grains trickle through the glass. I’ve done the personal thank you gifts; the thank you notes to external folks; offered recommendations to the external people who have worked with my department who have concerns about their futures; cleaned up historical documentation that doesn’t need to exist any longer; cleaned up personal communications that should stay personal. I’ve maxed out my 401k and claimed all my FSA money. I’ll be pulling everyone’s permissions on all our thingies next week.
I still have some grieving to do, certainly, but the length of this winding down has given me enough time and space to settle the big affairs. Small favors.
Year 7, Day 176: Multi-level shopping planning! There was a 100% rebate offer on at Office Depot so I used gift cards to pay for 2 packs of AA batteries. The purchase price, $59.98, in rewards rebates has landed. That will pay for the holiday cards in a few weeks or so when I get that together. Basically I got a cheap side of batteries to go with our holiday cards.
Also today’s project: collecting all the transaction records for my Rollover IRA. I’m almost sure I might have missed filing a form for it one year but I’m not positive. I definitely don’t know how the heck we tell which gains correlated to the taxed and untaxed contributions. But at least I’ll have a complete record of the transactions to start from.
This also probably answers my semi-eternal question (again) about whether it’s actually worth the trouble of contributing to the IRA solely so that it’s there for future Roth IRA conversions. Maybe not. This much admin work is a total pain and I’m not even positive that it’ll be worth the effort later. Meaning, I’m not sure if the math will make sense to do conversions, or when we should do it. We can’t this year, our income last year and this year will be high. Our income next year will be … er, right now, projected to be ~75% of this year’s. That’s assuming I don’t land a job (very likely) and don’t have another income stream develop (unsure). The year after that, who knows what the future holds. Speaking of the future, I have been up nights worrying about our final retirement number because of reading up on Long COVID (given its high overlap with ME/CFS), particularly about the kids. I am so worried that one of these days they’re going to catch an infection that they never recover from and how we’d bear the costs of that to support them long term. Heck, if any one of us gets hit that way, it’ll be really bad. It’s one of the futures that I fear. I’m already living a version of that life, with the good fortune of being at least half ablebodied enough to work well past my originally presumed expiration point. At 19, it seemed like my train would run out of steam by early 30s, and the stark reality of that existence is very clear. I don’t want it to hit one of us, any of us, and then also not have the money to pay for sufficient care and support.
Year 7, Day 177: Our ballots are filled out and dropped off in a ballot box! The research was, as usual, a total pain in the neck but it’s done done done.
I did one hour of yardwork and it put me flat on my back for the rest of the day. Not that I was able to stay there. Had to drag myself out to pick up kids twice and then to drive to lessons after that. I keep thinking if I could lay abed for a solid 12 hours, that would be sufficient to recover. But that’s not actually possible with parenting duties.
