July 10, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. Taking a real three day weekend with only the bare minimum of work rarely happens at the best of times but I did it this holiday weekend and it was positively restorative to have three whole days of not frantically juggling work, parenting, dog-momming, cleaning, and household management and and and and … but there was still some stress over the not working part because I knew I’d be hit hard on Monday.
2. We carefully explored a nearby trail, JB hit the road on their bike with great enthusiasm, and I was foolish enough to push myself to a greater distance than my body was ready for. Fresh air yay, feeling decrepit afterwards boo. JB wore themselves out so thoroughly they even took an afternoon nap which hasn’t happened in months.
3. We had take out this weekend just because I wanted it. That’s unusual. I rarely (never?) let myself have a treat like that solely because I wanted it and without a whole lot of justification. It was delicious! We enjoyed it with the first act of Hamilton. JB watching it at age 5 is very different from JB rocking out to the tunes at age 2. There were so many questions.
4. A friend’s child is turning two this month and I already had some clothes set aside so, though we really don’t typically do birthday gifts, I had something on hand to surprise them with a little mail… at some point. I have to make a decision
Challenges this week: Seamus is going through yet another health crisis and it requires my attention four times a day. We received notice that our tenants may have to relocate for their jobs soon which would be a bit of a blow right now. We only just got them in and started filling in the massive financial hole created by the last tenants. Fingers crossed they aren’t going to leave soon.
I’ve been hanging on by the skin of my teeth at work for a few weeks now and that feeling has bled into my personal life. I haven’t been present mentally for an important milestone for a dear friend and I feel like an absolute heel about it. I don’t have the energy to check in and talk at length with our loved one going through health challenges, I feel like a heel about that. I can just about keep up with the goings on with the loved one struggling to escape abuse and I feel like a heel about THAT. Intellectually I know it’s not reasonable to expect to be able to give fully of myself to everyone at all times but I still feel like a terrible friend right now.
5. JB wrote out a wedding card message all on their own for a friend who is going to tie the knot in less than ideal circumstances. I liked that initiative.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
July 3, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. While I was grumpy that I’d miscalculated the sizes of the storage bins I should use for my office, I’m taking it as a win that I actually finally started up my organization project in a real way.
The wrong size bins were repurposed as underbed storage for JB now, which has been solely needed as their games and puzzles have undergone a population boom, and that was a really nice secondary effect.
2. I took a first stab at making my own gluten free fish sticks. They were just average, but they weren’t terrible either.
3. My massive cleaning effort unearthed my ancient Nintendo DS and eventually the charging cord too. SCORE.
Challenges this week: My pain decided to flare up big time again after going quiescent for about a minute.
4. The four perpetual box-occupants of my office have been an embarrassment for the past two years. I finally emptied one out!
5. Our local donations charity has begun pick-ups again so I’m going to start pulling together a big box for them. I have this feeling I should have already had this ready, considering all the time we’ve had since they last did pickups, but that’s ignoring, ohhh everything ELSE about life during this period. Getting a pick up together for next week would be plenty.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
June 26, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I muttered a bit about JB stealing my intended napping nest on the sofa. They came to apologize and offered me a consolation pig stuffy to cuddle instead. I notice they didn’t offer to trade back but this was good too.
2. I think JB’s most motivated to do chores when I’m down and out. I was hurting pretty bad and needed to lay down, and I heard them clinking around in the kitchen. They were setting the table for dinner without being asked.
The best hilarious part was that we had run out of clean plates so they carefully selected the cleanest of the dirty plates in matching sizes from the dishwasher to reuse. They do know how to wash dishes but I normally don’t let them wash the bigger plates since they get so slippery so this was the best compromise they could come up with.
3. I sorted out a work tangle that’s been bothering me for weeks! It was a headache and stressful but I have a good grip on it now so I think it’ll be ok once I smooth out the rough edges.
4. In a burst of motivation, I plotted some organizing for my office. It does involve buying some storage which I’ve been avoiding but I think I have a handle on how to do it without spending a lot. And of course, cashback from Mr. Rebates.
Challenges this week: We nearly lost a very dear family member this week. I’m so glad the doctors were able to save them but it was incredibly scary. Things on the cancer and abusive spouse fronts have also been very bad so it’s been a hell of a lot of support or attempts at support from afar.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
June 19, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I redeemed $10 in PayPal money from Achievement and $25 from Bing search rewards. Still waiting, Achievement!
2. We reached my increased savings goal of one year of basic expenses for both our home and the rental. Woo! Previously I would have just made myself be patient and let the rental income cover itself but those reserves were more than wiped out during the refresh and with COVID, it just made sense to put up our own cash as a buffer just in case. If we don’t need it later, great, but I’d rather have it to cover the mortgage in case the tenants need assistance than not. I can breathe a little easier financially after I do a final accounting of how much the rental owes me and how much it needs to build up its own buffer.
3. For the first time since this pandemic started, I felt like a halfway decent parent with the energy and the desire to take JB on a little mom-kid adventure on the weekend. Nothing fancy, we just walked to a safe empty space for them to play. But that much has been beyond me for months. The burden has been entirely on PiC to do all the outdoorsing and I had begun to despair that I would ever feel even close to normal again. I know it won’t stick for long but I’m very glad for the moment.
Challenges this week: In a seemingly endless game of “Pandemic Stress vs Diet?”, my joints flared up so badly I couldn’t raise my arms or use my wrist for a couple days. Friend’s cancer diagnosis is on the Very Not Good end of the spectrum.
4. I cooked a tofu and ground turkey scramble that got two thumbs up from everyone. I even got to enjoy it twice before stress appetite shut that down.
5. PiC has had some great luck with picking out tasty fruit on his re-supply adventures. Except for that one mealy peach. Yuck. But mostly we’ve been fortunate to eat lots of fresh fruit.
:: How was your week?
June 12, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. While my personal diet has been terrible, stress tummies are a thing, PiC and JB have been eating a whole lot more fruit than before. PiC continues to do all the grocery shopping and is doing a lot more food prep now that our time commitments are balanced differently.
2. I haven’t been able to cook lately for weird appetite reasons, they come in waves, so it was really nice to be able to make a dinner this week. Bonus: JB called it a super special dinner. Double bonus but also a normal one: PiC cleaned the whole kitchen after. He always does clean up whether or not he cooks but it’s just something I appreciate every time.
Challenges this week: We can’t let the protests just fall by the wayside. There is a lot more fighting to do before we have accomplished anything real. A dear friend has cancer and it is advanced enough for us to be SERIOUSLY concerned. I keep overcommitting to causes I care about and then wondering why I feel stretched too thin. Well, duh. It’s mostly fundraising related organizing but it’s more than time to be sensible when there’s a lot to complete on my current commitments. I have resolved for the umpteenth time that I’m not allowed to pick up or start ANY new projects at all until the end of summer. You’d think a planner personality would know when they were taking on too much.
3. Some spreadsheet mistakes rankled but I tracked down most of them and reconciled the final missing $5 out of pocket and considered that a worthwhile trade for not spending the time tracking it down. It’s all for a good cause anyway.
4. A wonderful story about Highlights reminded me how much I loved the magazine growing up and how I would have loved getting a subscription. We can afford it (especially during a sale) so I’m ordering a one year subscription for JB to see if they enjoy it too. If you wanted to order a magazine subscription from them today, use this code for 10% off: Flash10
5. On a day when neither of us knew WTF to make for dinner, we manage to heat up a frozen GF pizza, make GF pasta Alfredo from scratch (the three ingredient kind, not the heavy cream kind) and a summer salad of spinach, strawberries, green apples and toasted walnuts. It was nowhere near low carb but I’m just too tired to be coming up with palatable GF low carb no sugar meals these days. We need to eat something. Turns out brown rice pasta Alfredo pretty much seems like….Mac and cheese. It earned two thumbs up from the Mac and cheese aficionado.
6. I figured out that I don’t need to set up a meal train for friends dealing with radiation and chemo, I can just order food for them from us and call it a day. We’re testing out Goldbelly which is more of a splurgey type site but it gives us access to a lot more options than I’ve been able to find in single meal format rather than a commitment to multiple deliveries weekly. I’ve sent these friends plenty of meals in the past for convalescence and it was always a lot of work coordinating with those healthy food delivery places. Healthy options are harder to find here but it’s the happier medium between delicious food they’ll have to cook (Zingermans) and delivery services that may be overwhelming with frequency and coordination requirements. I had to know when they’d be home three times a week for several weeks last time. Not as easy as you’d think.
June 5, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Challenges this week: The world is on fire, quite literally, and here I thought that COVID would be our biggest issue for the next several months. The racism in our country, and the systemic refusal to change, is breathtaking, devastating, heartbreaking.
Protests and riots were inevitable given how little this country has done to move away from murdering black people and then blaming them for their own deaths. I will never understand why our government prefers to arrest thousands and murder more people instead of arresting the police officers who murdered a man in cold blood. Never. My heart keeps getting heavier for our friends and family who are hurting and living through traumas we should not be putting them through.
It feels wrong to even be thinking of utterly mundane, petty, good things when this is happening to our fellow citizens, to our friends, to our neighbors. When my dearest friends and mentors know they can’t even be safe in their own beds, in their own homes.
But as I was thinking when Ursula Vernon said something similar – we also need good too. We can’t stay steeped in the anger continuously, indefinitely. We need to act and support people who are being hurt but we also need to recharge. I hate it, though.
More people need to listen to Jane Elliott and think on why they are so quick to find ways to excuse how 
we treat our Black citizens: “That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you, I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or allow it to happen for others.” Another interview about her exercise with her brown eyed and blue eyed third grade students where she found that bigotry is a learned behavior.
The mundane challenges: PiC’s job changes started a couple weeks ago and as predicted, have been increasingly difficult to manage with no childcare. We will figure it out, we’re working on it, but time is tighter, tempers are a bit more fragile, and we’re all even more tired.
The mundane good things
1. I’ve been hoarding quite a few gift cards for pricey stores that we don’t frequent for years. I finally pulled them out to solve some of my problems around the house: I need a really heavy duty knife for cutting through bones (my catfish has to be cut into steaks) – time for a cleaver! We could also really some placemats but
2. AH HA. I don’t love buying from Houzz but PiC picked out a couple things he needed for a house project several weeks ago. By the time I got around to ordering them, the prices had gone up. But I noticed that there was a sale in another department entirely so my suspicion was that they had increased the prices elsewhere to make up for their sale in case they had people there for the sale and also picking up other things at more than full price. I backburnered the order until that sale was over and voila! The prices came back down the day after that sale ended.
3. I’ve been fighting with my phone that keeps making files available offline FOREVER. I would turn off “available offline” and then they would pop up with the dratted notification the “5 files are available offline” again! It was maddening! I finally found the solution. I only actively use the Sheets app, so forgot all about the other apps that I never use. I went through the Docs app and the Drive app to turn off all the files available offline there too, and I think … that has solved the problem. *Spoke too soon? Another file started coming up as available online even though I didn’t have it marked to be. Sigh. Restarting the phone helped. I might have to cave and update the phone system.
:: How are you doing?
May 29, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I finally figured out our dishwasher problem! I’ve been cleaning the filter after every two wash cycles and STILL kept having grit and residue on our bowls. It turns out that my first question was the right one: was it to do with placement? For whatever reason, our square bowls can’t be loaded up front. They fall on each other or something and block the water flow so they don’t get rinsed properly. That means if we load round bowls up front top rack and square bowls in back top rack, I don’t have to yell and fume at the dishwasher. (Of course it then immediately left some sediment on a bowl in a totally different area so that’s a new problem for another day.)
2. I was able to trim most of Seamus’s nails without a fight and struggle, and then managed to trim 4 of Sera’s claws. I had to pin her down after the first one, though. They both got treats after. The pet dremel has been amazing! I wish the pet attachment (the plastic guard) had been available when I bought mine, though, I keep accidentally getting myself. (It’s fine though, nothing serious.)
3. I finally organized our financial spreadsheets into one place for PiC. I’ll have to teach him how I use each of them, and he’s not allowed to change things in there without telling me or else I’ll start thinking I’ve lost chunks of memory, but he needs to know how to get in there and work on money things if I’m unable to. I also need to consolidate more of our emergency information but this was a good step.
4. JB and I cleaned their room together. I rearranged their closet, and cleared out an entire dresser drawer of outgrown clothing, and sorted it all into size specific hand me down bags. I’ve been needing to do that for ages and it felt so good to get that done. Bonus: JB does chores better when it’s alongside one of us so I asked them to tackle the rest of the room and they put away all the books and toys and reorganized the toy stand without complaint because they felt it was a team effort. It just looked that way. Really it’s just me needing to corral the clothing explosion, organize things the way I want to, and winnow out the outgrown clothes without clawbacks. If I let (made) them sort the clothes, they’d mourn every item and end up crying in a pile of outgrown wardrobe, swathed in at least two shirts but still have a belly hanging out. They did try to keep one sweater. Out of two large bags of clothes, just one sweater is pretty good so I allowed it for two more wears. We had a few fraught sad moments and I advised them to thank their favorites for being such great pieces and bid them farewell. Surprisingly, that worked. Thanks for the idea, Marie Kondo!
Challenges this week: I am starting to miss little things. Going to the library. Going to stare at all the crafts at Michael’s. Recipes for lemon flavor baked goods need to come with an intensity level so I know to triple the lemon juice and lemon extract.
5. We enjoyed a Zoom picnic lunch with family on the weekend and they all did art time together for a while after we ate. Everyone was sleepy and content.
6. I even took most of Monday off! I worked in the morning but resolved strongly to break off for the rest of the day and I followed through. Go me!
7. JB interpretive danced to my singing of JoDee Messina’s “Heads Carolina, Tails California”.
:: How was your week? Have you been scorched by this heat wave?