February 21, 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, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. Actually my first challenge was also a good thing. The success of the thing I was organizing was why it became a little too much, but that’s still a good thing!
2. PiC and I split the work on registration for kindergarten. I am not ready.
3. I found Ann Leckie e-books at the library – woot!
Challenges: I was working nonstop last week organizing support for a loved one. I most definitely bit off a little more than I could chew and I most definitely pretended that I didn’t. My checking account was a total mess so I opened a new checking account at Ally just for their funds so that my neurotic money managing self could clear things up and that was helpful. Then I ordered a gift without actually reviewing the order and that was a bit of a mess, I had to frantically message the seller to tell them not to send ME the gift. *FACEPALM* Work was a mess of many messes to clean up.
4. Watching that episode of Psych where Juliet’s dad comes in and tries to reconcile with her at the same time as pulling another con, I found myself curiously ok. For the past two years, seeing fictional characters clashing with their fathers (and especially this where her father also conned her) hurt. Why didn’t my dad love me as a father should? Why didn’t my dad care enough as much about our well-being as his? Not this week. I had just told a beloved mentor of our estrangement. An excerpt of what I shared:
“I have needed all this time and careful intentional revisiting of the facts to help my heart adjust to the reality that was painful for a long time. I usually make painful decisions with my head and then let me heart catch up, this was no different! Even though it is a sad and regretful situation, I am slowly healing.
I’ve done what he should have done – protected my family – and I will heal from the less obvious wounds he inflicted, like feeling doubts that anyone can love me if my own parent didn’t. I am slowly accepting that his choices and actions don’t make me a lesser person. Even if he couldn’t love me the way a parent should, others do, and even if I have moments of doubt, I will grow away from them.
Not that I don’t still get angry at him. I do. Every single time I have a flare-up that’s incapacitating, and feel too painful and fatigued to exist, and I have to keep working because I spent so much money caring for him instead of saving for my future when he was much more able than I, that he was a selfish liar knowing he was hurting my health. THAT part still makes me angry.
For all that anger that’s left, I am lucky and I can see that. I got to choose to walk away before he drained us dry and ruined my marriage and future. We aren’t in the place we could have been, but not even he could destroy the fruits of my careful money management and that gives me a redemptive feeling of control. I think that choice I took when I did made a big difference in my healing.
The thing I now work on is how I feel about the future. I do not want to feel obligated to again endanger that recently saved financial foundation for either of them. As a daughter in this family, it’s very hard to say that. Taking care of your elders in their old age is ingrained in your mental and emotional self down to the cellular level! But he abused my sense of duty for 20 years, he would have let me die of the pain and despair, for his own benefit. I had told him how severe and debilitating the pain was, to the point of suicidal ideation, and that didn’t change his behavior other than to stop him insisting that we have the 14 hour wedding ceremony and reception that he said was necessary. (Because that’s just what everyone does and he wanted to look like everyone else.) But he still demanded his prerogatives like a bottle of the finest ($$$) liquor so he could share with his friends and pretend he had money. So I am working on weaning myself off that gut level sense of obligation.
I don’t want it. If I keep saying that, it too will slowly become ok.”
5. The refresh work at the rental is nearly done! Details to come.
6. I’d forgotten, it’s been so many weeks since I’ve felt up to it, how fulfilled I feel when I get to go to a store, pick out a new food to cook, AND get to cook it in the same weekend. It did entirely wipe me out but the fact is, I haven’t been close to feeling up to doing that much in so long. I loved the feeling of anticipation and it renewed my sense of wanting to cook and eat. I hate that dull feeling when I don’t have the energy to think or cook anything new. I love the zing of chasing down new recipes I might be able to make.
7. It “only” took me six weeks to take our new robot vacuum out of the box, charge it, and install the app. I finally ran it! It’s been kind of fascinating to watch and also it makes me very self conscious about all the stuff cluttering our floors. I’m in yet another period of transition in my office where lots of boxes and bags are strewn about. We’re in yet another cycle of: organizing, decluttering, package up things meant to go to new homes, and donating. None of this makes it easy for a hard-working robot vacuum just trying to clean up these floors! It was pretty distracting at first as I figured out how to get myself and my towers of STUFF out of the way. JB was fascinated by it too. The only one who thought the robot vacuum was nothing special was Sera. Go figure. She’s normally a basket case about anything too new.
:: It has been A WEEK. How was your week? How do you say “no” to a sense of obligation that will only harm you? What makes cooking fun for you?
February 14, 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, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I’ve scheduled an increase in our auto-savings! A small one, sure, but an increase nonetheless.
2. I shipped our first box of items for our first Lakota family this week. It was a rare instance when it was cheaper to buy direct and ship flat rate.
3. I took the morning shift of JB time on Saturday to let PiC have time with his friends. He took JB in the afternoon to a playdate. The divide and conquer gave us both a little time. I spent my time watching two episodes of Good Omens, petting Seamus who slept on foot, reading Thief of Time, and pondering how I feel about turning 40. (Not yet but soonish.)
Challenges this week: It’s frustrating how little time I get for doing things. I stood for 40 minutes watching over JB at the pool and after 30 minutes of sitting, my body was DONE. That’s all I get: 15 minutes of driving, less than an hour of standing. I may have to up the frequency of my massages while dealing with this loved one’s abuser’s demands in their court case. Every single customer service rep I dealt with this week for Amazon and Target orders were incredibly frustrating. Not one of them understood the problems I explained, it took about 3 to 5 repetitions with them misunderstanding every time to get to the point.
4. A loved one is in town and our small family dinner turned into a group gathering accidentally. But that also turned it into a free dinner, unexpectedly, from another member of the group that I don’t think I’ve even ever met before. While it wasn’t the catch-up we had meant it to be, I’ll happily take free yummy dinner, especially if it means giving our guest-loved one what they were jonesing for. They ask for so little, it pleases us to be able to give them the experiences they want. 🙂
5. I’m so grateful that we are generally financially stable right now and that I’ve built a family that isn’t perfect but is one I can rely on. It means I have the luxury of helping loved ones through their tough times both with some money and mostly using my superpower of organizing people to help someone they care about and feel helpless to help otherwise. I hate that feeling. My job is to learn to care for them while still living my life and being present in my own life as well. My job is also not to take on one iota more of work because the organization I just took on is a 7 month commitment and there’s a lot to do. It’s a juggle.
6. I got myself a little treat this week: a word search book. I think it’ll relax my brain in that way it needs – when it needs something to do but I’m supposed to be resting instead of working. (Is that a hobby?)
:: How was your week? Did you treat yourself to anything?
February 7, 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, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. My massage therapist made me feel 80% human again (20% remains a self zapping electric eel). I was feeling a third round of a flare-up coming on, the day of my appointment, and I could not be more grateful for the appointment pulling me back from the edge. I reminded myself a few times that feeling “not like death” is not the same as feeling “good” or actually being well, so don’t overdo it again over the weekend.
Challenges this week: Documenting a decade of verbal and emotional abuse of a loved one for a legal document: 12 more hours of emotional turmoil. Another friend is having a horrible time in a toxic workplace. Mr. PIE has gone into hospice. We had a terrifying incident over the weekend where PiC could have been killed if one of any number of things had gone a little bit more wrong than it did. He was ok after the whole ordeal but it was scary for him in the moment, and horrifying for me after the fact, when we realized how lucky we were that he was ok. A friend is waiting for a possibly very scary diagnosis and I am hoping so much that it won’t be bad news. Insomnia ate my brain at least three nights this week, leaving me a zombie the next day. Sera is limping for some unknown reason.
2. I finally hit a “good enough” draft to stop writing and start editing my documentation. I celebrated by running to the pharmacy to fetch Seamus his medication. I know how to party. (more…)
January 31, 2020
If you’d like to join us 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, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. To combat my restlessness, born of brain fog and moderate pain, I tried to get a lot of money things done. It makes me feel a little better on tough days. A stock purchase I’d set a limit order for finally went through, woo! Then I transferred some cash to our brokerage to prepare for our February index funds purchase, setting the stage for a good feeling in a couple of weeks.
2. I compared our 2019 withholding against our 2018 tax bill. We had a $5000+ bill in 2019 thanks to the tax changes so we increased our withholdings to try to close that gap for this year’s filing. If 2019’s tax bill is the same as or close to last year’s tax bill, we should be ok. I won’t lie – there’s a part of me that would appreciate a refund. That feeling of a windfall, even a fake one, isn’t one to scoff at. It’s certainly better than the sinking feeling of having a four figure bill.
3. I’d made an error in how I was thinking about our mortgage – until we refinance or make greater payments to principal, I can’t actually expect the timeline to be shortened. It’s still a 30 year loan on the current monthly payments, we only reduced the interest we’d pay over the same lifetime. Whoops. Brain fog really sucks but it’s sometimes when I’m most likely to notice I’m missing something and catch my mistakes. And getting my head accurately around our future numbers is important. I greatly appreciate having money-savvy friends to bounce around these numbers with.
4. The Little Bra Company was doing a Lunar New Year sale on Friday and I stepped out of my comfort zone to buy a $50 grab bag of 3 bras. Their picks. Never done that before. Having done the math, even if I only like one of them, I’d still be coming out ahead because a normal priced bra from them in my size starts around $54. As usual my size never shows up on the discounter sites, I’ve looked. My last new bra was purchased 6 years ago so I think it’s ok to add a few new ones now. Here’s hoping I like more than one of them!
The bad stuff I can’t ignore: Too many loved ones are going through tough times right now and I’m serving as emotional support as best I can. One is fighting through a contentious divorce from a covertly abusive spouse who has the support of their church and the spouse only cares about “winning” at all costs, regardless of the well being of their children, but dresses it up as caring about the kids. I’ve been writing up documentation for them of the abuse over the years and that is taking a special unexpected toll on me – I didn’t live that abuse, why is it hitting me so hard? Another friend is getting caught in the sandwich with an elderly parent who is a shopaholic, a bad communicator, doesn’t have the funds to live on their own and is super demanding while juggling their own kids. Another friend has recently lost their beloved pet. DEEP. BREATHS.
5. I think we’ve received half our tax forms. I will be so happy to be done with the slog of filing taxes.
6. PiC and I are totally imperfect and have our own issues of course but we are grateful that we prioritize each other and care about each other.
7. Did you know that Leverage is on Amazon Prime right now? That show is great.
8. I might have found a good first dogwalker for Sera to give her extra exercise and training support! We did a first trial this week and the first outing sounds like they did great together and the walker did a great job with proactively checking in with us whenever she had issues with the schedule, and giving us a detailed summary afterwards. I am hopeful.
:: How was your week? Have you started organizing your taxes? What’s your favorite comfort show to watch on Prime or Netflix?
January 24, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Current total: $313.24
1. After my seventh day of too much pain, and six nights of not sleeping because of the too much pain, I got more than 6 hours of sleep!! Hallelujah! Breaking that vicious cycle is really tough.
2. I truly dislike Fidelity’s contributions interface. It did a weird thing with our IRA contribution last year and then again this year, and I had to chat with them twice to straighten it out because the first CSR was dismissive and also wrong with his advice. BUT it’s done now!
3. I asked Jay a question that I realized applies to me too: What gives me the same rush as spending money? For me, spending money doesn’t make me happy, but buying things makes me think things are getting done. I’m the Family Quartermaster, buying supplies is half my job around here: dog treats, dog food, canned veggies for the dogs, medications for Seamus, groceries, stuff for the house, the list feels endless. But that tricks my brain into thinking that buying things = productivity. So what else gives me the “rush” of productivity that isn’t buying frivolously?
Today’s answer: I think I have to create things to feed that appetite.
Brief interruption to say: Whew. So many bad things happening this week. Family is going through some really rough stuff and I’m doing everything I can to help. It requires research and consulting with people who know better than me and more work. The rental is a whole $$$$ THING, so much work, thankfully I have someone to consult with for that as well. I’m doing all this work to get our taxes in order. JB is due to start kindergarten this year and we’re getting all the information needed for that and I can’t pretend that I’m not freaking out about that a bit. My checking account looks like it’s going to be running about $2000 short and that’s coming out of savings. ARGH.Â
4. Sera did well with major distractions on a few of her walks: a kid running up to pet her, a small dog running by (running dogs seem to freak her out for some reason).
5. I resolved to get a dog walker to help with Sera’s continued training and to relieve PiC’s tasks up to a few times a week.
6. Thanks to a supporter who wanted to do monthly donations, I figured out how to set up a donate button! This was intended mostly for our Giving but hey if someone wants to support my labor of love that is this blog, I have no objections.
7. I created! I made a thing! I’m so proud of this one. It’s particularly good for the Very Organized Gift Giver, or the aspiring organized gift giver. The look inside feature should be live (not on mobile, alas) so you can see the cool pages I designed. Whee!
8. Achievement stopped syncing with Google Health a year ago and I’ve wasted a whole year of walking by not getting my act together and getting a new app to track my step. FINALLY found an app to use and created an account and synced it. That shouldn’t have taken me a year. But it’s done.
:: How was your week?
January 17, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families this year, please read this post.
1. I made a curry and got all KINDS of accolades from JB. They must have been in a really good mood because they declared “everything about it was good: the mushrooms, the bell peppers, the bamboo shoots, everything!” *waves expansive hands*
Want the recipe? Pop on down to the bottom there. Speaking of recipes, I REALLY want to try making this seafood stew.
2. I had to get a filling repaired at the dentist, apparently I’m still gritting my teeth in my sleep enough to grind it down. Oops. Luckily we caught it early and the fix was painless. I also got some good advice on better flossing technique.
3. It’s SO COLD. It is partly the winter chill and partly the dampness that gets right into you marrow. Thank goodness for space heaters, working furnaces, warm socks, and rice packs.
4. I was gifted a tool from my wish list that should have been really useful except I picked badly and it wasn’t the right quality for my needs. Luckily I was able to return it in store for merchandise credit.
5. You know that feeling you get when you’ve run too far too fast, your muscles are full of lactic acid and it seems like there’s no mercy in sight? This flare up on Sunday was something like that but swapping lactic acid for molten lava. I couldn’t sleep a wink at night, almost gasping for air from the pain, and could hardly move the next day, thoroughly nauseated all day.
The hardest part of these flare-ups is surviving from moment to moment. The second hardest part is seeing past my bitterness that all those years wasted being conned by biofather, all that wasted money I could have saved if he hadn’t lied to me for years full well knowing I was sick and in pain, means we can’t afford for me to retire or go work part time when I’m this wrecked.
I try not to let that drag me too far into the spiral of anger. I’m bitter that early retirement could have been in my/our grasp if it weren’t for his lies but I vent about it and then open myself up to seeing the small good ways I can improve our finances now, today. Thanks to Maggie‘s guidance and encouragement, I have one tiny entrepreneurial income stream to nurture, and the creative aspect of that project is good for my brain as well. Every time I feel like it’s just too little to make a difference, I remind myself that the entire foundation for my financial success is being willing to take every tiny incremental step and every single penny for paying off debt, then building up an emergency fund, then building our investments.
6. That moment that Carol / Captain Marvel responds to Yon-Rog’s emotional manipulation.
I loved the Kelly Sue Captain Marvel comics and the film adaptation was fun, even if there were the usual liberties taken with comics canon that maybe I’ve finally gotten used to.
7. This continues to be a rough week: high pain, lots of work, and needing to keep moving even though it’s exhausting and feels halfway to impossible. But we’re still here, still moving.
COCONUT CURRY RECIPE
This started out life as as a coconut chicken lime curry because I had 6 amazing juicy limes and I had to do them justice. Then I kept tweaking it because I can’t help myself. It turns out that it’s such a flexible mixture, you can do a whole lot of any of the ingredients or leave many out, and it’s still good. Quantities pretty much don’t matter, I just use whatever I have on hand omgoodness I am turning into my mother she used to say quantities don’t matter too and it used to make me bananas!
Ingredients:
Cubed chicken (I have replaced this or supplemented with cubed tofu or cubed roasted pork)
Bell peppers and crimini mushrooms
Tofu cubes
Bamboo shoots
1 can of coconut cream
Seasoning:
Fish sauce, to taste
Tamarind paste, to taste
Lime or lemon juice, to taste
Garam masala, to taste
Garlic
Directions:
In a Dutch oven or large pot, saute the garlic and vegetables. If the protein is raw, take out the vegetables and saute the meat next. If it’s already cooked, just add them into the pot with the vegetables. Add the coconut cream, tofu, bamboo shoots, and then start seasoning. Add the fish sauce, tamarind paste, lime juice, and garam masala. It’s perfectly fine with just fish sauce and/or tamarind paste but the more of the seasonings you add, the deeper and more complex the curry will be.
January 13, 2020
Annual Lakota drive
Working on this project earlier in the year (scroll down to the Giving paragraph) worked out so well last year!
I wrote my update before the November 17th collection deadline. Donations had trickled to a stop, I’d ordered everything and confirmed the recipients all received them, we were pretty set. It seemed like a good time to wrap up the project and share how much good we’d done!
Then I was surprised with a couple healthy donations that same week. I happily went back to the drawing board and immediately bit off more than I could chew with the donated $250 and putting in another $50 out of pocket.
A big family with two parents, 9 children, and 2 grandchildren was in need of winter coats, diapers, and wipes for the grandkids. Yes, of course, that pick absolutely made sense with the $300 we had. Quite the bargain hunter am I!
I mused over the challenge with a visiting friend, still thinking I could outsmart the prices. They slipped me some extra cash. Not because they didn’t have faith in me but because they remain in touch with reality. It turns out they were right, I needed more than just $300 for 13 coats. I mentioned this on Twitter, and y’all seriously stepped up. Some folks sent a second donation, others sent their first, and we had soon enough to fill our biggest family’s needs!
Family 6 received: 13 winter coats – one for each member of the family. 2 giant packs of diapers and 2 cases of wipes for the babies. 2 shirts, a pair of jeans and a pair of waterproof work boots for the working parent in the family.
My heart swelled three sizes. Thank you all so much for caring and giving!
Bonus: One of the things I asked them to do when we figure out the matching funds is to create a “Warmth Fund” – a fund that can be drawn on to help families stay warm in whatever way is most suitable for their circumstances. This can be used to purchase blankets, firewood, space heaters, and so on.
For 2020:
I’d like to try something new this year: start collecting early, throughout the year, and make purchases for the Lakota-Okini families in the fall in the hopes that this would be helpful for a variety of budgets. I know that cash flow throughout the year often dictates what and when I can give. I do wonder if collecting throughout the year means it’ll mostly come at the last minute.
I am opening up contributions now through November 1st, 2020. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in contributing and have an opinion about collecting all year vs just in a 6-week period like I did last year.
Edit to edit! Originally, I was going to shop in the fall but it’s still winter, the forecast is Bitterly Cold for some time yet, and people are hungry now. So as contributions roll in, it makes sense to help those who are cold and hungry right now, and through the year, instead of waiting until year-end. This will also distribute the work better!:
Edit to add: Last year we raised $2669.94 to touch a total of 27 lives. I would love to see if we can match that or do more in 2020.
Libraries, literacy and love of reading
I devoured library books as a child and was wretchedly grateful for every single book I could borrow because our family was too poor to buy books and Little Libraries weren’t really a thing back then. I used to stare at other people’s bookshelves like I was starving. We’d visit family and the people would simply disappear from my vision – all I could see was their books.
To this day I remain a voracious reader, and my birthday gift tradition has become a gift of money to our local library. My library allows directed donations and I support their ebook collection instead of buying books for myself. Accessible books for more people!
I’ve long dreamed of becoming rich and supporting rural libraries in a significant way but in 2020, I feel called to do what I can even if it’s just on a really small scale. I’ve known that rural counties simply don’t have funds for books, much less the kinds of extras I could not even have dreamed of as a child.
For example: tool libraries and health electronics that can be checked out, puzzles for kids, a massive selection of tv shows and movies! That’s just for starters. By contrast, rural libraries might maybe have bestsellers and discarded books from other libraries.
I’d like to help them out.
The best way to help them at this level is donations of cash. While I certainly have thoughts on the kinds of books and offerings that would be great, the person who knows best what their library patrons need and what they can actually manage to process and make available is the person who works in the library. They may need more of a specific category of books, e-books, new chairs, computers, keyboards or any number of things we don’t know about.
This year, I’d love to gift some money directly to two rural libraries: Culpeper County in Virginia and Chatham County in North Carolina.
Would anyone be interested in contributing to rural libraries as well? Like with the Lakota families, I will be allocating some of our annual giving budget to each library regardless of interest but if there’s interest, I’m happy to do any coordinating necessary to streamline it for the recipients. As y’all have shown me two years in a row now, we can do so much more together!
You can make contributions to ….
1. My Ko-Fi page (note: Ko-Fi flows through Paypal so they take fees out there since that’s my blog’s account)
2. You can send as a gift (otherwise PayPal will take fees out) to admin [at] agaishanlife.com. If you’re sending via PayPal on mobile, make sure to click on the arrow next to “paying for goods and services” to select “send as a gift” because that’s tripped up more than one person!
Edited to add: If you’d like to donate monthly (this has fees), you can use this donate link.
Whichever way you go, please A) specify what it’s for and B) if you want email updates.
Bonus: We can also get employer company matching for some of our donations though I am still trying to untangle the weirdness of their matching administration.
:: I’d love to hear your thoughts!