Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (335)
November 2, 2026
Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.
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!
Feelings? I dunno. Mixed!