March 6, 2017
On Money
Income
Our normal income is two full time day job salaries. We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property. The goal is to replace our day job income before my health gives out and prevents me from working.
Achievemint: I signed up on January 18th (sign up here and get a 250 point bonus!) but the app pulled data from Apple Health and retroactively rewarded me for activity done before I signed up for my account. Whee!! So I got credit for part of December and the full month of January. PiC pointed out a weird thing: he earned 7 points for running 6 miles. I earned 6 points for walking 2900 steps.
My guess was the app learns what your norm is and sets that as the baseline so that it’s not giving someone who usually runs 5-10 miles a week a vast number of points while giving people like me a quarter of a point per month. But it turns out these differentials were pulling from different apps so I am totally confused. (more…)
March 1, 2017
After this saddish but mostly bucking up post, I decided Mrs BITA was right.
After a long day on little sleep, instead of forcing another two hours of work as usual, I traded them for an hour of house hunting on Zillow and an hour of The View from the Cheap Seats. It’s been a long while since my last reading of a new thing by Neil Gaiman and it felt almost like that was punishment for not being productive enough. That’s hardly fair, is it? Just because my to do list was digested and horked up by Tribbles, doomed to forever respawn as a zillion Tribbles, I’m hardly being irresponsible in just managing to stay abreast of the troubling Tribbles.
I’ve slipped on a ring gifted to me as part of my “inheritance” by a dear friend. She has family by adoption via mentorship, having chosen never to raise biological children, instead mentoring, supporting, and teaching scores of them. That’s after having two long and successful careers. I suspect -no, I know- her way has touched and positively influenced the lives of now countless people. The ring doesn’t quite fit me, but I love it anyway. It slips and slides, reminding me of a friendship, unlooked for and cherished all the more for the surprise, and reminding me to keep a finger on the pulse of all the people I care most about. By text, by email, by handwritten letter, it doesn’t matter how, so long as they know they’re in my heart and not just when I’m asked to remember them in a eulogy or obituary. Hm, that took a dark turn.
Still, we do all have an expiration date. It may sound morbid but it’s true. We know we don’t know what time we have left, or how good that time will be. Rather than leaning in, or out, or whichever way, I’m standing up straight and stretching, reaching as far as I can to make a difference in the small ways that are most important.
I haven’t dropped anything, just taking a little breather. My responsibilities are still all here, but I’m pacing myself with things that aren’t work.
The next two weeks will be focused on taking care of our health: a massage for my several-weeks-long backache, long overdue exams with my doctors to see if there’s anything we can do about this new rib and chest pain, a check up for Seamus, more gym time for PiC.
And completely out of the blue, I received the most unexpected email from our friends over at the Rockstar Community Fund. J. Money started off with “please say yes!”, sharing that some lovely bloggers nominated me for an RCF award, and worked hard at persuading me that I really needed to say yes. As I read his email, complete with an abandoned plot to sneak the money to me so I couldn’t turn it down, it was embarrassingly clear that my stubborn streak has preceded me.
This was not just a lesson in how amazing the people are in our community, though they are.
It’s also my reminder to accept the goodness of others with grace and openness. That’s tough to do when you’ve internalized a script of independence, where helping others is a worthy cause, but you’re on your own. But how can I be part of a community if I don’t allow it to be a two-way street? Are we part of the ecosystem when it’s ok to give, but not receive?
Less philosophically, ‘twould be churlish to refuse the help. And so I did, with a most grateful heart again for Internet-born friendships and friends out there who care.
:: How are you taking care of yourself this season?