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.
***
Dividend income. We received $464.00 in dividends in from the stocks portfolio.
Year 4, Day 363: Yesterday was exhausting. We had to entertain people in three shifts, PiC took the middle one so I could get Smol down for a nap. This morning, I swore off Sunday activities for the foreseeable future. Then PiC reminded me we have a commitment next Sunday. Booo! Boo, past me agreeing to that! Shame! It’s not something I can get out of, or I would immediately.
Ah well. On our walk today, I saw one of our neighborhood crows attacking the local hawk, driving it out of their territory. I’m torn. I love the blackbirds I’m trying to befriend but I also love raptors. It was a surprise that it only took one of them, though.
I was wrong about DST not affecting the humans. We’ve been slugs every morning since the time change. We’ve also had several late nights for various reasons which doesn’t help anyone.
My fingers have been like balloons for the past ten days, swelling up and deflating at random intervals. When they’re swollen, the skin gets extra tight and overstretched, the joints are tender, and my fingers can’t bear weight well. This is very annoying.
Year 4, Day 364: My cup boileth over sort of day.
Get up, medicate Sera 🐶, take her out for a walk immediately. Give her just a little water to start her day or else she’ll retch it up.
Get the kids out the door.
Sit down to inhale breakfast with one hand and work with the other.
Answer questions, triage emails.
Walk Sera, get her bloodwork results, see that they suck. Have feelings. Write to the vet about her poor appetite and incontinence.
Answer more emails, start digging through HR documentation for answers and find more questions.
Walk Sera, grab a salad for lunch, clean the robot vacuum so it can run while I work and try to untangle another mess. Add urine collection and a run to the vet (45 minutes) to the calendar for tomorrow.
Ask JB to start the rice or take Sera out to the yard for a pee before we left the house. They wanted to do the rice, then fussed about getting their jacket sleeves wet. Exasperated, I swap chores with them only now Sera refuses to pee for JB so I have to deal with that myself too as soon as I get done with the rice. But Sera refuses to pee for me too, so then we have to rush out the door while I worry worry worry if she’s having kidney problems between her random incontinence and now refusal to pee when she normally would need to. 🤯
Work frantically through JB’s class, when I would normally be paying attention to the skills they’re practicing so I can help JB later (#guilt), stopping five minutes before class ends.
Head directly home post-haste hoping that Sera didn’t have an accident while we were gone. Immediately walk her so she doesn’t have an accident while I’m prepping dinner. Reheat leftovers for dinner, make Sera’s dinner and serve it up. Work for ten minutes before PiC and Smol Acrobat get home. Check Sera’s weird scab that was torn off last night and bleeding profusely to make sure the bandage didn’t stick and irritate the wound. It didn’t, whew. Smol Acrobat has taken JB’s role of my faithful assistant taking the old bandaging to the trash and asked to cut the bandages and generally were helpful instead of trying to be helpful but only getting in the way.
Underlying it all are issues at work that I’m still working through, processing, and not loving.
Feelings right now
Year 4, Day 365: I was on my own with all 3 critters this morning for the first 45 minutes and boy, getting a toddler to get ready to walk the dog who needs to go out ASAP is not an easy juggle.
Most of yesterday’s checklist rolled over to today, swapping out JB’s lesson for an extra run to the vet to drop off a specimen for testing ($300) and pick up an appetite stimulant ($90). GACK.
That hurts but we’re lucky that we can take care of her to the best of our abilities, I remember a time when I could only afford good care for my dogs when I worked for a vet.
Sera’s added to her list: a wound I’m managing, plus incontinence, this week. Can we apply for a cap on the number of problems per dependent at a time? One or two at a time per critter, please?
My bright spot for the day: the neighborhood corgi was in a good mood and gave me a nose boop and kiss.
Home stuff: PiC thinks we’ll need to do our roof sooner than later because our gutters are a mess and there’s no sense in doing the gutters first and then messing them up when we have to do the roof. Given this year’s uncertainty, I’m going to define “sooner” as maybe in the next five years. I don’t even want to think about how much it’ll cost. But of course that gets my brain thinking about how much it’ll cost. $30k? $40k? 😶🌫️ I’m NOT ready to pay out that cash.
Year 5, Day 1: Sera’s incontinence isn’t due to a bacterial infection so whoop here we go on a third possible long term medication. *pulls face*
Bits and bobs: A raven visited the neighborhood this morning. Wasn’t one of my semi-regulars, those two know me enough to come hop-hop-hopping over to nab the treats I leave before I get five feet away. This one waited for me to get at least twenty feet away before coming to inspect the treats.
JB: “I’ve never been in the snow before!”
Yes you have, you just don’t remember it. Existential question: Did it happen if you don’t remember it? That sent me down a darkish path of remembering dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Smol Acrobat: “Mommy, Sewa is worried inside. Can you check to see if Sewa is ok?”
Yes, I can. I will be spending my entire day checking if Sewa is ok, like I have been doing for the past 80 days.
It’s very annoying to know I was reading a book somewhere on my phone but not remember which book and which app.
It’s also very annoying that I still have lil smokies for fingers. Two solid weeks now of swollen fingers. I’ve done my time, haven’t I?
Year 5, Day 2: My crow duo, the town crier and the scout, came by this morning. I set out dog treats for them and stepped way back to watch their sideways hippity hop approach. They could just divebomb in to fetch them but they’re clearly not ready for that yet. One day, though!
Spreadsheet day! I’m torn between wow that’s grown a lot (over 3-4 years), and ALSO dang that’s still so far away (not sure how long it’ll take to get to the “enough” point). The double giant stressors of a possible layoff and the huge shifts at my work are pushing hard on the latter button because I want to feel like I can walk away if things continue to deteriorate and we can’t turn it around. I keep telling myself to wait it out 2-3 years, let’s get Smol Acrobat into public school, and / but it turns out my patience in my 40s is nearly non-existent compared to my patience in my 20s. I don’t want to live like that any longer. I’m very much over the grind of being overworked, underpaid, and constantly fighting political battles. We don’t know for sure if it’ll go that way with the latest changes but it is possible and that possibility makes me very cranky. I want an escape hatch that isn’t “start over at a new workplace”. I want the option of being able to just walk away from all that stress and just deal with the stress at home but not trading it for the stress of being unemployed without sufficient income. It reminds me of PiC’s friend who had his multi-millions in the bank. When confronted with the hiring of a terrible manager from a previous job that he advised against, he just said that’s ok, I don’t need this job and retired.
1. PiC and I were sunk deep into logistics at 7 pm Saturday night, and JB took it upon themselves to secretly make a simple dinner for everyone: sandwiches and salad.
I think they’re mostly organizational and social anxieties.
Forgetting to pick up JB from school (Again grateful that Noemi mentioned phone alarms ages ago which gave me a tool to snap me out of my focused fugue)
Booking a flight for the wrong day and/or time (am vs pm or vice versa)
Running out of diapers for Smol Acrobat when we’re out and about (also related to are we ever getting them potty trained???)
Saying something really stupid and/or too true to another parent at school in a moment of unbridled honesty
Forgetting the stove on and causing a fire (PiC has actually forgotten it twice and I haven’t but it haunts me.)
Oversleeping and missing another staff meeting (this has happened once in my entire career)
When once-close friends stop talking to me, I wonder if I’m too much work as a friend. (at least once)
I can’t start or finish certain types of projects or commitments. I can’t identify in words what the pattern is but I shy away from taking on certain things because I know I can’t finish them. It’s not a rational weighing up of commitments and choosing not to overcommit. I overcommit all the time. It’s something more visceral than that.
The sight of dishes piled high in our sink, in between emptying and reloading the dishwasher, reminds me of how I felt when I used to see that in the family sink. And that always brings on embarrassment and regret for not being more proactively helpful to my mom when I was growing up, and particularly not in my early teen years. I had more of an excuse as a late teen. I started working full time at 17, supporting the household, so I’m less guilt-ridden over not keeping up with the dishes from 17 on. But that math struck me today. I’m still punishing myself for not being a better kid between the ages of 13-17. Why do I feel so bad that, for a short span of teen years, I wasn’t as responsible as I am now? Maybe I’m now old enough to fully empathize with how my mom must have felt as a more than full time working mom with a spouse who was (self described as) useless as a co-parent. She died when I was 27. It feels like I didn’t get enough time with her as an adult (9 years) to atone for how shitty a kid I had been (since birth I guess, I was a tough kid). Or at least I hadn’t gotten enough time with her to repair our relationship so that I didn’t feel like I had to atone for being a crap kid. Or maybe while I knew I was loved by one parent, I don’t think I ever felt liked except by a very few people. No wonder I don’t feel likeable.
Not being loved or part of a family beyond the little unit that PiC and I created here. The teen years, if they do that whole rebellion and hate your parents thing, will be hard.
Year 4, Day 356: Nothing like avoiding any Sunday scaries by being so completely exhausted that you can’t even think ahead to Monday. We overdid it on the weekend and today we need a secondary weekend for recovery. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
A very small part of it was I finally had the werewithal to pick two Lakota families to help. One family is grieving the loss of a son and have been on the list since January without much help. They were in need of propane, formula, clothes, and diapers for the baby, and clothes for the surviving family. I requested to tackle the propane, formula, diapers and wipes. The second family was almost out of food, and they’re also the home where people keep dropping off dogs that need feeding and care. I put together a giant grocery shop for them while I waited for the information I needed to complete the orders.
I’m annoyed with Costco Pharmacy. They save us a bit of money but I called in a prescription on Saturday and they gave me a choice of picking it up Saturday after 2 pm or Monday after 2 pm. Every time I called for an update, it was “scheduled to be filled”. They didn’t bother to fill it until today after 2 pm. So why offer that option if it wasn’t really an option?? Huff. Thankfully I had enough brainspace to figure out the refills while we still had a week left. I wanted the Saturday pickup because weekday pickups are so much harder for us to squeeze in.
Dinner: Frozen lasagna + yesterday’s leftover meat sauce +plain pasta for Smol Acrobat because the frozen lasagna is a little too spicy for them + 4 leftover ravioli + frozen green beans. Both kids were intensely irritating about eating their green beans but they ate them all in the end and Smol Acrobat even ate all of their pasta and the meat sauce under their own steam. Yesterday the meat sauce was a big frickin’ deal. Today they kept telling me “I am eating my pwotein. Are you happppyyyy?”
Year 4, Day 357: Day 2 of weekend recovery.
My Big Task is mostly completed! I should have done this a long time ago. I knew that I should and had started the process, so I shouldn’t complain, buuuut it’s no fun and I’m going to complain. I’m finally separating my work and personal digital lives from the one computer. It’s just so much more convenient for them to be on the same machine, I could multitask so much more easily, but it’s better to keep them separate so I bought a laptop for household use last year. Several months later, I set up logins for ourselves and the kids. Another several months have now passed and now push has come to shove, changes in our systems mean it’s time for me to fully remove the personal from the professional. The process took hours: moving bookmarks over, backing up the files to our external hard drive and our cloud system to transfer them to the new laptop, and THEN to remove them completely from the work machine. HOURS. So many hours. And errors. And disconnections. And one mysterious failure where the power to the modem and our server both failed even though it was plugged into the Yeti to prevent exactly this loss of power that interrupts file transfers. I’d be tempted to say that I SHOULD have done this in stages but that wouldn’t work so well either because the point is to transfer the full contents of the hard drive at this specific moment in time and carry on working on personal stuff from that date forward entirely in the personal computer. A multi-stage transfer would mean I’d miss files that were changed in the interim period because I’m always doing something.
My personal files are all transferred to the home computer. Now I am practicing typing, the keyboard is just different enough to throw off my typing, and get in the work groove so I can make some decisions about critical software. I despise the Microsoft subscription model so I went looking for and found that we can get an older Word product key from Costco for $150 (plus a $25 Visa back). Or other places, I haven’t looked at them yet. That’s probably the software I’ll need the most.
Year 4, Day 358: Day 3, I think the PEM is finally starting to fade after 2.5 really tough days and nights. My bones still have lava for marrow but the deep and full-ton fatigue has lightened a bit to a more normal load when I’m trying to walk Sera. It’s not quite over yet, though, and this is probably where I accidentally overdo it because I think “I’m ok now!” Reminder to self: not quite yet.
I did one very slow walking set of karaokes on our morning walk and we went on one slightly longer walk midday but that’s it. I’m pacing myself!
Well that and I did the other half of a massive food prep. We got takeout yesterday so with some of my time saved, I cut up 6 lbs of meat and made the nuoc mau for the thit kho. Today the stock pot came out to play. I boiled the meat to clean it, set it to simmering for 3 hours, adding things periodically to end up with a large entree for dinner, two freezer portions for other non cooking weeks, and sent a large portion to our friends for their dinner. I’m satisfied with my performance in the kitchen for once, though I cooked it a little longer than intended and the meat is literally falling apart. Whoops! I really need more childhood recipes that can be frozen for later eating. Most of our recipes weren’t that sort of meal, they were all meant to be enjoyed fresh.
Feeling: So glad it’s not Monday anymore, so glad it’s not Thursday yet.
Year 4, Day 359: Taxes are in process. Will update is in process. Which genius thought it was a good idea to do those at the same time??
I thought my diet needed to be adjusted a bit to get to a shape I felt more comfortable in. It was a theory, attempting to lose weight has never been a thing in my life. It wasn’t about the number on the scale, I just hate(d) how my body has changed and feels after two pregnancies. The feet changing sizes is annoying, one changing to be a half size larger than the other is annoying, the stretch marks are intermittently annoying. All annoying but ultimately ignorable. My belly shape isn’t ignorable. Last month, my jeans were intensely uncomfortable after 2-3 hours. So I thought I’d have to figure this out.
I never even tried my lower carb trial since 2024 has been terrible, I didn’t want to give up one gram of carb or sugar. I did add in salads for lunch courtesy of PiC. (I’m terrible at feeding myself when it’s just me during working hours. I’m even worse at eating my vegetables these days so these were a neat fix for both problems.) What’s changed?
I’ve been going out on 5-6 walks a day with Sera since January, that’s the same.
I threw in those karaokes a few days a week recently. I noticed I’m just less hungry during the day but always hungry late at night when I’m too tired to do anything about it. I haven’t put actual effort in but it seems like maybe I’ve gone from a 4.5 month belly to a 3.5 month belly. Soft pants are still the best but the jeans aren’t awful anymore. I’d like to shed another couple inches to feel more myself but we’ll have to see if it happens with my current routine. I’m just trying to keep up with life and Sera’s 🐶 needs and I don’t have the energy to experiment with more.
Year 4, Day 360: Sera had more bloodwork. I’m crossing everything that the results come back looking better. She’s getting balky about these visits, she doesn’t want to go at all anymore. It’s a poke every time and she hates it. And I feel terrible but it’s gotta be done.
PiC usually makes time to do that during the week but couldn’t make it happen so we all went tonight. (I have a Pavlovian need for hot dogs anytime I even think about going to Costco. Anyone else?)
Somehow I managed to get through all my work and a little of my backlog today, so that was good but I was also totally wiped out by the end of the night. I should have reconsidered…well, no. It’s hard for PiC to do Costco with both kids in tow. One or the other is doable but both is just an exhausting combination, plus I needed to run a specific Costco errand as well. So it’s good that I went, I’m just knackered.
*****
I notice that some neighbors never cover their windows. Not even their front facing windows, so people can see into their home day and night. What is that about? It creeps me out on their behalf even though it’s their own privacy they’re giving up.
*****
I grew up loving Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car without ever knowing the name of the song. It came on that radio today with the wrong name: Luke Combs, and JB’s friend started singing it. That was all kinds of confusing so I had to go down the rabbithole. Oh, he’s covering the song. And then I found this and it pulled up all kinds of feelings. What a world we live in.
Turns out, if I lower my standards to just “do the chores when told without whining (much)”, they’re able to meet that. Progress!
They’ve made a new friend who is much more available than their longtime bestie and equally interested in meeting up for playdates constantly and this combination is explosive.
They have had 4 5 playdates since October, two back to back, and they’re jonesing for as many more as they can possibly manage. I recognize this impulse from when I was younger and oh so lonely and wanted desperately to have a best friend. JB has many more friends than I ever did but is naturally limited in their ability to socialize all day every single day by their fuddy dud parents who have to work and sleep and such.
It’s a weird dynamic for me. We have met the parents and even the grandparent over the past year as we run into each other regularly but we don’t know each other very well. I miss the ease of knowing and liking their longtime bestie’s family. This is new territory in a few ways. We’ve never let JB go off with anyone else’s parents driving. We’ve never let JB go to a playdate without one of us around. Recently, their new friend’s parents allowed New Friend to come play at our house solo one day, and to go on a field trip with us another day. They’ve got more kids than we do and thanked us for the invitations because New Friend doesn’t get out much. They’re quite nice about it which makes me feel like a bit of a jerk wondering but, but why do you trust us? You don’t really know us! And I don’t know you! Not really. We need to give New Friend a nickname. We’ll call them Jay. The kids are getting to an age where it’s more normal for them to go play without their parents but I don’t know what I need to be comfortable with that with new folks. We’d be fine with that sort of playdate at Longtime Bestie’s. We know their family, we know they don’t have weapons in the home, we know they have boundaries and can make the kids mind. But they’re so busy now, we have to let JB branch out and make new friends and socialize. That makes me sad about not being able to hang out with the easy established friends and anxious about having to establish new relationships and rules with new people and navigating all that. For example, Jay asked their mom in front of us: next time can JB come over to our house??? And the look on their mom’s face as she murmured “oh our house is so messy…” I quickly said “look, you’re always welcome here, and this is probably easier to play without your siblings, right? We can keep Smol Acrobat out of your hair.” Jay acknowledged the truth in that. And I sighed inside with relief that I wouldn’t have to navigate THAT for a little longer. But probably will have to figure it out sooner than later. And they’ll keep pressing the issue.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol Acrobat is obsessed with transit vehicles which is perfect for their auntie who is also obsessed with transit vehicles. They bond over transit and cats. They’re so obsessed with cats they walk around pretending to be a cat every day. Basically this is the cat I can have so long as I’m living with an allergic PiC.
They’re still toilet training resistant. Sigh.
They’re talking a whole lot more. They’re starting to tell us short stories about their time at daycare, and it’s really cute to finally hear their point of view.
Oh, baby, no:
“Dis a fire hydrant. I open dis and fire coming out! You need to move, it will burn you!”
“S! S is in my name!” (no, it isn’t)
“T! for zipper!”
“L! for mommy!”
Pupdate 🐶
Sera has a new Pavlovian response. Every time I take the lid off a new pot of rice, she starts drooling. She’s right, though, most of the time it’s for her.
Her bloodwork is currently the most frustrating teeter totter. One set of values goes down like we want, another set shoots up. We adjust meds, they flip flop. We’re on our fourth panel this week, and they are NOT cheap, and everything is crossed that we finally get a set of readings that show she’s responding to the medication without compromsing her liver. (Please please please.)
Evenings are tough. She’s relatively happy to do her own wandering and sleep routine while I’m working and JB is doing homework but she really doesn’t like it when I’m too mobile getting the kids to bed and all that nighttime stuff.
She follows me from room to room with an increasingly put-upon expression because she can’t lay down, not if I’m going to keep moving. More often than not, I hustle to get all my things in one place just so she can settle in for her snooze, even if it confines me to my desk or my bed. Anything not to disrupt the old and ailing dog. 😅
Precious Moments
Smol Acrobat, squirming under blanket: Can I sit wif youuuuu?
JB: Siiiiiigh. Stop it, make your own nest.
SA: *continues squirming
JB: Sttttttoooooppp squirming!
SA: Can I SIT WIF YOU!
JB: No, make your own nest. Why are you invading MY nest?
SA: But I wan’ sit NEX to you!
JB: *sigh* Do you want me to make you a nest next to mine?
SA: YES
I wondered if they were going to make it through that without intervention.
SA: Mommy, I want to read Team Spidey.
Me: Ok, go ahead.
SA: Da one wif Trac-E.
Me: … yes…. go ahead?
SA: I can’ find it.
Me: Go check your room, that’s where we read it last.
SA: *Leaves, comes back a few minutes later with a Bluey book* I will read dis instead.
Me: Can you get me the little booklet?
Smol Acrobat: *Blank stare*
Me: Can you get me the book we used yesterday?
Smol Acrobat: *Blank stare*
Me: The little book with the instructions?
*Blank stare*
Me: The one made of paper?
Smol Acrobat: OH YES! I gon get it fast-uh and fast-uh, ok? I go FAS. You stay dere! Stay WIGHT dere, ok?
SA: I’m putting my shoes away but I don’t want to put my socks away.
Me: Ok you can keep your socks on if you want to.
SA: Yah! Dat happens sometimes.
SA: Do you like potato?
Me: Yes
SA: I SAID do you like potato?
Me: I said yes!
SA: Do you hear me? I SAID DO YOU LIKE POTATO!
Me: I already answered you…!
SA: What are you saying to me? Do you like potato yes or NO?
Me: Maybe they’re talking to a ghost ….
JB: No offense to Luigi but he’s kind of a chicken. He cried soooo much when he was in the (unintelligible) lands. Mario is braver.
Me: You think Mario is actually braver or was he hiding that he was afraid?
Smol’s non sequiturs:
– I’m getting so many owanges. I’m not big, I’m smol. I’m not big anymo’!
– A monologue while playing by my feet: I have so many cards so we can go to the store. I will dwive you. I will drive you to Dr. Awin, ok? Vwoom vwoom vwoom vwoom vwoom. Ok, we here! Ok now I take you to anudder doctor. Vwoom vwoom vwoom. I take you to the nurse. I’m a doctor. I will put you down and put a shot on you. Ok waay downnn. Put a shot on you! Ok, all done. We go to our home now. I will dwive you. I have so many cards now. Wemme put dese cards away. I will p’ay different toys.
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
