Year 7, Day 104: I’m doing the math for next week and with the kindergarten class letting out at 12:30 for a month, I’m only going to have roughly 4 hours of kid-free time per weekday once school starts. After that month, they add one hour.
That’s a mere half of the solo silent hours I need to stay sane generally. 😭
And if PiC chooses to flex work more, to help out with kid stuff, that further cuts down on my solo silent time. It’ll help with the kid errands but I’m going to struggle with so little quiet time to recharge.
(Cautiously) I think I’ve finally kicked the most recent set of viruses and my mouth has also healed from the three canker sores that sprouted around the same time (could have been related). Rude, body, very rude. But finally I can take a bite of food and not be in pain all the way until the food gets past the esophagus! 🎉
Year 7, Day 105: Both in an attempt to keep my mind busy, and to stack a few more bricks of cash against the rapidly approaching last day, I’ve been working a number of deals these past few weeks.
We opened Wells Fargo accounts for the bonus and reaped $800 for both. I’m working the Chase Ink Business card bonus now that all the approval rigamarole is done with. I saved T-Mobile Tuesday deals four weeks in a row on both our phones to earn a $5 gift card for each of us.
I’ve submitted all FSA receipts to date and my reimbursements for work expenses have been paid so I’m very nearly done with all the work related things I’ll need to wrap up.
I’m kinda drawing a blank on what I can be doing next so best to focus on hitting the minimum on the Chase card in a smart way before picking up another money project.
Year 7, Day 106: I’m using the library’s MakerSpace a lot this month: learning how to use the 3D printer, using their sewing machine while mine is in the shop, etc. I’m hoping to learn how to use their Cricut soon but that has to wait until my hands are under control. They’ve been so swollen this week that I’m up a full ring size and it’s been hard to do basic things like bend my fingers. This is like a reversion to my hands 30 years ago when my fibro first started.
We’re borrowing a lot more books and DVDs these days. Well, I am. PiC has always kept the kids stocked to the borrowing limit but we’ve only just started finding shows that we can all enjoy that isn’t just Bluey. Right now, it’s Robotech which I spotted fortuitously. We’ve finished the Mscross Saga, and have the Masters Saga and The New Generation (10? Discs). Then we’ll be on the hunt for something else. Remember a few months or so ago, SmolAc hated everything we screened because they decided all antagonists were bad and made the show bad. It’s made finding something to watch a lot more challenging.
I’d like to try Doctor Who but maybe that’s only possible if we can get the really old doctors. My theory is that the fighting in Robotech is only acceptable (to SmolAc) because it’s robots and very old graphics/ technology. Perhaps very old Doctor Who might maybe slide under their radar? If not, maybe it’s time for anime – One Piece might be acceptable. Open to suggestions for favorite anime appropriate for a 5+ year old and the rest of us!
Year 7, Day 107: My little Janome is home! It’s been serviced for $150 and is home home home. I’m hoping that the service means I won’t run into tension issues with the thread seizing up under the sewing plate again any time soon. I’ve got several bags in various stages of completion, I’d love to finish them off.
Today is a SmolAc and me day so we’ve planned for them to do some coloring, some drawing, and then we’re going to pick up our neighbor and their two big dogs for a session of ball throwing. It’ll be good for everyone. I desperately need dog time, SmolAc has been more and more interested in dogs, the dogs need the exercise, and our neighbor kid is bored so we’ll be rescuing them for a little while.
Year 7, Day 108: A discussion about blood donations in a Discord led to a mention of plasma donations (paid) and that roused my curiosity so I did a bit of searching. It looks like you can make a decent amount of money a month doing 5-8 donations but none of the many locations they have in California, across three companies, are anywhere near us. Darn. Not that I know if I COULD donate plasma but September is for learning new things!
Had an online chat with Comcast because they are no longer showing the relevant details of the promotional rate I wangled out of their last chat agent AND they double charged me. It looks like the double charge will be offset by next month’s billing negative $1 but I still don’t like how the site no longer shows the correct promotional rate with discount AND when the discount ends. It SHOULD be $50/month for 60 months, but their site is just blithely showing a $100 monthly rate. The chat agent kept telling me to “trust me”, that the rate is correct in the system but a) I don’t and b) there’s no reason Comcast itself would ever take “trust me” instead of cold hard proof of the agreement. So for now, I have to settle for screenshots of the chat agent assuring me that my monthly rate is $50. Doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth but if this buys me peace for another 4.5 years on the internet front, that is good enough.
Year 7, Day 97: It’s possible that mistakes were made. There was a free Gundum build and take workshop. I power walked the kids to it and we each received kits. Now they are really enjoying building little Gundam robots. SmolAc is fairly well obsessed. This is an expensive hobby! Perhaps we don’t need additional expensive hobbies right now? Buuuuut, counterpoint, despite the occasional frustrating bits where they give you microscopic stickers or plastic bits to attach to other bits, it IS a lot of fun. Which is why I wanted to go in the first place. It’s not as straightforward as LEGO, but it’s fun to have a little robot model at the end. I’ll look into getting a few more inexpensive sets. For motivation.
Year 7, Day 98: I’m resenting the hell out of the physical experience of being a woman in her mid-40s. I’m constantly sweating in temps that used to be perfectly fine, literally dripping sweat and doing that cliched mopping of my forehead. I’m a lumpy potato and despite my best efforts, nothing is comfortable. Pants, tees, skirts, nothing. Grumpy.
Also, it’s come to my attention that my older rings cannot fit my super swollen fingers anymore. They used to go through semi-regular swelling / not-swelling cycles. They’re now stuck in the swollen state.
I now have more rings I can’t wear than I can: my pretty little ring from my teen years (I only had the one), engagement ring, and two hand me down / heirloom (? I can’t tell what it’s called when an elder friend gives me stuff from their collection that they don’t use anymore). I don’t own a lot of rings but the ones I do are precious to me and this makes me sad.
Year 7, Day 99: Suddenly I have three families in my life expecting all at the same time. It’ll be their, third, second, and first, respectively, which makes part of my brain chuckle. I am a little overwhelmed thinking of all the (book and clothes) gifts I’ll need to prep. But I got to cuddle a newborn this week and omigosh that was so healing. I adore babies. Fresh little baby loaves, so tiny and squishy and cuddly and, in this case, hardly screamy at all.
I’m mentally putting together a list of all the remaining baby stuff that I should send to the expecting mothers. I’ve sent the (hopefully effective anti-nausea) ginger beer out to one of them.
SmolAc took ill this week again and I’m nursing them along again. Feels like we just did this cycle. (We did.)
Year 7, Day 100: I HAVE FINALLY DONE IT. I’ve found a shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t set off my brain’s ick! I’m putting it away for now, I’ll need to use up the other experiments first (unless I give them to everyone else whose noses are not at all sensitive) and then I can settle into using the inoffensive Dove pairing. 🎉🎉
Also my sewing machine has gone into the shop for a tuneup and diagnostic ($150+). It’s started doing that KERTHUNK and then buzzzzzz instead of sewing again. The good thing is they’re not nearly as far away from us as the shop that it came from, so I won’t have to drive 100 miles round trip to get it back. I will have to drive 60 instead. 😵💫 Well outside my usual acceptable distance for errands but we’re familiar with the shop for other appliance work and they’re good. Luckily, since I’m on a bit of a sewing deadline, I should be able to book time on the library’s sewing machines and keep working on my little projects. I’m also exploring the 3D printer and Cura and Thingiverse (we have about 6 print jobs I want to try already). And I’m learning how to use a Cricut. Welcome to a month of learning too many new things.
Year 7, Day 101: Well, this is crap. I’m still taking my antivirals diligently but SmolAc’s germs still got me. The throat pain is so bad that it’s referring pain right into my ear, and neither set of painkillers is doing a whole lot to reduce it. For once the acetaminophen is a little more effective at blunting the pain than the ibuprofen but that’s not saying a whole lot. Doing my best to rest between creative projects.
Sigh.
Also it’s time to start creeping up bedtimes and waking times because getting these kids up and out the door on time is going to be PAINFUL. (ESPECIALLY when I don’t want to be up myself.)
Year 7, Day 90: Hm. It’s possible the depression-like feeling of the past weeks was the physical and emotional fatigue. I’ve had both kids sick, one after the other. I’m trying to fight off some virus myself, anxiety nightmares have been coming back. Particularly with the relatives we’re going to be seeing soon, I had a night of remembering all the mean petty things they said that stuck in my craw over the years and that sucked.
I’ve been worn down to a nub and it took a while to realize it.
I’m spending a few days with Mama and it’s starting to heal me inside and out. The exhaustion sore throat finally resolved after being with her two days and my pain levels plummeted after that.
Year 7, Day 91: We took the kids for a pool day that ran a bit long. As we get older I’m much more mindful of sun damage and skin cancer risks for all so I’ve been putting the kids in long sleeve rash guards for an extra layer of protection. No one is good at reapplying sunblock after the initial round, sometimes we lose track of time. I’d bought my first UPF long sleeve rash guard on clearance last year when I needed to hit a free shipping minimum at Lands End and quietly wondered if I was wasting my $20.
SmolAc was unexpectedly enthusiastic about “swimming” (paddling in a life vest) laps so we let them go til we needed to stop them before they crashed. They’ve never done this much in the water and tend to run until all steam is gone and then have an emotional crash. After the few extra hours, the kids are fine and not burned. My neck and legs are a little bit burned and PiC’s torso is lobster red. I didn’t sunbathe, I only laid in the sun for a bit to dry off after toweling off but that was enough to toast my legs. Rash guard – definitely not a waste of money.
Year 7, Day 92: It’s been months plural since I slammed on the brakes at work, giving it my least effort for weeks. I’m just now starting to feel what might be little bits of my brain come back.
A couple months ago, I started trying to learn Morse code to make my brain do something fun and interesting but there simply wasn’t enough operating power left. I never got past learning E / I / S / H. I didn’t want to move to the next set of letters until I could successfully record a full lesson without mistakes. But today I’ve picked out a few letters to memorize and it’s feeling like they’re sticking in a way that I could not force before. I won’t say my brain is back but I’d forgotten what it felt like to encode and access new information. This much (little) is a win.
Year 7, Day 93: I only became aware of Descendants in the past 3 years but it baffles me. It’s massively overwrought, the costuming, the characters, the make up, but it’s very popular with a lot of kids and adults. Meanwhile dozens of genuinely good shows (like Julie and the Phantoms for that age group) are cancelled after one season. Netflix frustrates me!
Ok in hindsight I think it’s because I missed the obsession with High School Musical and the like back in the 2010s that I don’t get it.
And I had given up on the Chase Ink Business card so of course it’s NOW been approved (after far too much time and energy and after I needed it for large purchases) 🤦🏻♀️. They are so annoying.
Year 7, Day 94: Here’s me up at 2 am needing to strategize whether we may have enough stock to offer in our craft fair application and needing to make a spreadsheet about it.
Out of the 11 different craft categories I’m envisioning, we have some stock for 5. The other 6 are question marks whether we’ll be able to make them in time and in sufficient quantities to sell for a 6 hour show. We’ve only ever tabled at small 2 hour community affairs. This is much bigger and if we don’t have enough to offer, our application won’t be approved.
I’m also considering inviting a friend to join us, in inventory if not in person, they could supply one of the 11 crafts that we don’t have time to master and make ourselves.
This could be fun if I wasn’t so stressed about all the moving parts and the application and running out of time to get the pieces together for the moving parts!
Year 7, Day 83: Some stranger on LinkedIn asked my laid off friend for a meeting about their former role ahead of their interview with former bosses. For the job they were laid off from. That struck me as weird but I can’t tell if it feels weird because I know their company and about the layoff or if it really is weird. Probably it just feels weird because from the perspective of knowing why so many roles are open these days. It’s fraught and people have non-disparagement clause to worry about.
I suppose they could be clueless or so centered on their own needs and wants they aren’t thinking about that. Or they could be smart enough to try sussing out if this is a red flag situation by seeing if the former employee had anything good to say about the company. Since they “couldn’t” speak about the company, that could point the applicant to this being a red flag situation. Or, it could be something entirely unrelated. You can’t really pull a lot of info from that short an interaction from the outside looking in. Ah well.
Year 7, Day 84: Every few weeks, Walgreens runs a loss leader on small Arm & Hammer laundry detergents: 3 for $7.50. I did the math and the per ounce price on the sale is better than the Costco price by just a smidge. Usually I wouldn’t bother with it on that basis alone but since it does beat the Costco price, I need saline solution, and I could also combine them with another BOGO50% off and a $4 off coupon on pads, they all added up to an order just big enough to qualify for $10 Walgreens cash back. I’ve got the $10 WG cash from the last one of those, so I’m out of pocket $30 for a $54 order with another $10 WG cash. That reward may have to be manually applied, for some reason their system is bad at applying all rewards, but luckily chat takes care of it so it hasn’t been a big time sink. We won’t need to buy more detergent for a good stretch after this so I can go back to ignoring the loss leaders for now unless I decide to add some of these to the donations box.
Year 7, Day 85: Something (viral) got both me and JB. It’s feeling cold-like since there’s no fever, just a sore throat and congestion for them and a sore throat and massive aches for me. More massive than the usual anyway. I am quietly resenting this. Every week I try so hard to get back on the fitness horse and I manage about three days worth of workout and then bam! Something like this derails me again. It’s so frustrating! But for once I made the smart call and put myself back to bed once I’d gotten everyone out the door.
Year 7, Day 86: Another day of enforced rest in hopes that this won’t get much worse. It’s messed up my sleep though. Resting during the day mostly means working from bed but there’s always a point where I feel like I’m too tired to live. Usually I force myself through but these past two days, I’ve curled up into a ball instead. Probably contributing to recovery but almost definitely contributing to unrestful sleep later.
I saved enough energy to try my chef friend’s suggestion for pork chops for dinner and they weren’t quite right but we’re getting closer to the juicy and not bone dry pork chop. Not quite there. Need to cut them thinner (from the Costco log) and try cooking through pan frying next time. These were thick chunks because I was exhausted when cutting up the log.
Year 7, Day 87: Frustration with my alternate income efforts. I applied to the Chase Ink Business card – Chase has been flashing signs at me that I’m preapproved! for this card! for months.
Ok fine, I have some brain available to do this. I did all my math, confirmed that I could hit the required spend for the bonus and thawed all my credit card freezes for the day to apply. Only to get the “thanks for applying we’ll be in touch” message. WHAT. I’ve been a Chase customer for … so many years. Have a Chase checking account and actively use my Chase Freedom card all the damn time. What’s the problem? If the bonus weren’t so good and we didn’t have such a big lump of expenses on the horizon, I’d have taken the hint and moved on. I really wish I had abandoned it. But no, I’ve been stupidly stubbornly trying to follow this through and so far this is what I’ve achieved with my efforts:
1) A secure letter stating “they are worried this application was fraudulent so call us”;
2) I’ve called them, had an automated message ask did you make this application? Yes? Ok then all set! You’ll hear from us in 7-10 business days!
3) But I don’t.
4) So called them again to get a status update to which Chase said what? what status? what application??
5) ARGH.
6) Got transferred to an agent to find out what the heck, and they told me I had to provide identification information – as if I haven’t been paying you people every month for the past 20 years and you don’t know where to find me or how to bill me – through the secure system by clicking on the link in the email.
7) The link in the email triggered a slow creeping feeling of “is this a long con of some kind”. Think about this one a lot. Reviewed my security measures: I logged into my Chase site using my password keeper, so I wasn’t going from a search site to a fake site (I’ve caught that a few times so I’m much more careful now about what sites I click on from a search page). I found the phone number to call from that site so I was talking to someone from Chase – unless they managed to steal and redirect the calls going to that number. I have no way to defeat that. My credit reports are all locked down again. I guess it’s not a scam? There hasn’t been any weird activity on our accounts.
8) Went to the email and supplied my DL which includes my DOB and address. But again, I reason, all my accounts are locked down. Am told to call back 24 hours later to finalize the application.
9) Call 24 hours later, they verify my identity again, and ok “you’ll hear back in 7-10 business days”.
10) 3 hours later, I get the SAME secure letter stating “they are worried this application was fraudulent so call us” again! WHAT. THE. FUCK.
11) I wait a day to call back and ask what in the name of this cursed reality is going on, please, what is the problem? They insist there is no problem, it’s just standard processing. Y’all are wasting my time because nothing is wrong??? I assured her that I know it’s not her fault and I’m not mad at her but if I have to spin around this vortex again, you can forget the application, I will be moving all my accounts somewhere else because I have Had It.
“I totally understand,” she says, “you can check your email every couple of days for an answer, but it should be complete now and the secondary team is processing it so you will receive a card in the mail in 1-2 weeks.”
The card that you still can’t tell me is approved or not. That card.
Year 7, Day 76: Microburst cleaning: I bought a bulk pack of customizable compartment bead organizers and used one of them to organize my desk supplies. I’ve been using an old desk drawer organizer to hold odds and ends: binder clips, paper clips, rulers, calculator, staplers, tape measures, post it notepads, etc for the past 15 years but it’s very inefficient because it sits on a medium height shelf and I can’t see into it. Mostly I grabbed things by feel and memory.
This was a terrible way to inadvertently encourage detritus build-up, and a really ineffective use of vertical space. All the small items fit into two closed boxes after I extracted small supplies from another medium bin and organized them together. That emptied 90% of the tray and freed up 1/3 of the medium bin. The remaining larger items were rehomed into the free space in the medium bin, and voila! Neatness! This freed up some shelf space with better accessibility. It’d be even better if I could have it set up as a mini shelving system so they’re not sitting atop each other and could be pulled out but this is good for now.
I might tackle the kids’ Legos with the remaining boxes. I got into the beads briefly on the weekend but it turns out while JB has a vast variety of beads, they aren’t in the quantities I’d thought. They have wide variety but not deep supplies. We’ll need pivot to more shallow boxes. It’s possible we didn’t need all 8 of these deep storage bins but we’ll see.
Year 7, Day 77: Sticker shock at the produce shop we used to frequent: Corn on the cob was TWO DOLLARS AN EAR. Nectarines were $4 per pound. Asparagus was $6 per pound. If we didn’t need to bring produce to our friends’ BBQ, I would have fled empty-handed.
Five of my colleagues are gone now with another 15 of us scheduled to go in a bit over a month. I continue to harbor both deep resentment along with that weird layer of relief, but the bitter is stronger right now.
Year 7, Day 78: The ten bags and giant box of cousin hand me downs and community donations are sorted! I plopped on a stool and went through everything quick as I could, picking out a few things to keep, discarding anything that wasn’t good enough to share, and packing everything else. Four out of five pairs of sneakers went to recycling, one pair is in good shape. A stack of what might have been cloth napkins are quite yellowed, I might try to wash them before donating instead of sending to fabric recycling.
I kept a stack of undershirts for JB; a couple books in perfect condition; a set of heavy duty kids cups in rainbow colors which deeply pleased SmolAc – they hand washed them immediately. I kept a small crossbody bag with so many zippers to test. It seemed much too small at first glance but in the trial run so far it’s been quite nice to have all the separate pockets for keys, phones, wallets, masks and more for a quick outing like a dropoff and return home. If I keep this, I need to cover up the weird logo on the front. A cute nerdy patch would do the trick. I also kept a pair of squishy house slippers. The terrycloth doesn’t feel pleasant, but they’re free and squishy so good enough!
What’s left for donation fills two enormous boxes. I would fit in them comfortably with room for a kid to squish in with me. And I’m not tiny like I once was! Lots of clothes in good condition that have just been sitting closets, backpacks with plenty of wear left in them, that sort of thing. Once I do a sweep of our kids’ outgrown clothes to add, two more ~ 40 lb boxes will head to the reservation. That’ll make 7 moving boxes this year woo!
Year 7, Day 79: I just got the paper bill in the mail for a procedure a few months back. Delta Dental won’t cover part of the procedure so I thought we’d owe another $600 but they wrote off more than half of the remaining balance as a courtesy (proactively even, this is the first bill I’ve seen since getting the denial letter) so that trimmed it down to $200 we have to pay now. Whew, I appreciate that!
All phone calls this morning trying to get my CalABLE account problems squared away and to get Kaiser scheduling settled. Three hours of attempted phone calls (they kept saying we’re too busy, call later) or waiting on hold whisked away the last of my energy and I put myself to bed for a few hours of much-needed rest.
Year 7, Day 80: It’s July so of course the weather is All Gloomy. It’s so foggy that it feels like a light misting rain. I suspect this means the green beans I tried to start outside are not coming out of their shells. Maybe I need to bring them in to attempt inside germination.
I think my cleaning energy ran out for the week. I’m feeling deflated and depressed (not necessarily in the clinical sense, more in the metaphysical sense of feeling soul-crushed) and ever so tired.
Year 7, Day 69: Welp, this might be me paying the price for thinking I could do two medical things in a row: a massage to loosen up the lumps that pass for muscles and a vaccine in the same week. It feels roughly like a giant jumped on me with two feet. After an extra 10 hours in bed on Sunday, I’m still feeling well below baseline. That’s a spanner in the works for this week. I’ve got a donation pickup scheduled for tomorrow but that presupposed that all of Sunday was going to be sorting community donations. That didn’t happen. Instead, SmolAc, still sick much more dramatically than I am, in both senses of the word has continued cosplaying a barnacle stuck to my side today. We did drop off together, then did a bit of light gardening for outdoor air, then snacked painfully and slowly. Lego time saved us both for an hour.
Year 7, Day 70: I cancelled the donation pickup for today and settled myself in for just chaffeur duties, puttering and nursing care. Not a lot of puttering happened but they seem to be at least less feverish today. Good thing I set my expectations really low for one, and my job no longer matters for two.
Told PiC not to bother trying to spell me, his job performance still matters (maybe, who knows how they decide who to lay off) and mine doesn’t. I’m only doing the barest of minimums now because they’ve squeezed the last blood they’re gonna get from this stone. For the next two months it’s all about my health and my family’s needs and anything I can do to help my staff get jobs.
Year 7, Day 71: Finally got my garden delivery! Soil acidifier, compost, and more soil since the potatoes are going to need hilling before I know it. The winds like to carry off a thin layer of soil every time we turn around, and last night happened to be especially gusty. I dug into the acidifier and compost first, spreading it around the blueberry and blackberry bushes. Fingers crossed that was done right / enough. I need help lugging out the 3 cubic foot bag of soil which – that sack and I barely made it into the garage so there it’s staying until I have a second big-enough pair of hands. SmolAc is currently in a mostly helpful phase so 70% chance they would pipe up “I can help you, Mommy!” and 100% chance they would be crushed under the bag.
Meanwhile I’m sprouting wee sugar snap peas in cotton out of pure curiosity and it’s neat to actually see the little sprout as it shows to come to the surface preparatory to emerging from the seed. No clue where they’re going to go. They can’t go in the bag that used to be dedicated to them, the mold spores are waiting to pounce. Could they thrive at the top of the potatoes soil mounds alongside the green beans that will be planted once the soil is heaped up? Worth a shot. My gardening is very haphazard.
Year 7, Day 72: Big medical mail day. I’ve been waiting on a reprint of a prescription receipt for 7 weeks for FSA redemption and last week had given up on it arriving. Even deleted it from my to so list so naturally here it is! The FSA would be maxed out eventually with or without it – therapy and medications add up. Next year I’ll be missing having two FSAs badly. My Ambien refill landed as did JB’s meds and the SPF 50 sunscreen we’re trying.
Speaking of Ambien, it’s a new as needed prescription. I haven’t had to use it too often, sheer fatigue has been enough many nights, but when I do it’s worked reasonably well. So far there haven’t been any weird sleep-calls or texts or purchases. That I know of. Hopefully Sleep Me is simply too uncoordinated to buy anything while on Ambien. My sleep set up has finally stabilized too. These days, I layer two shirts, plus a heating pad for the muscle aches, and layer 1 Oodie blanket and a beautiful gift quilt on top. That combination seems to ward off the cycle of temperature dysregulation of sweating a royal mess and then waking up shivering from having sweated through a shirt and hoodie (so gross).
Year 7, Day 73: My Bing point total isn’t high enough for a redemption but I do my research in advance of having enough points to redeem. Except that 3 for 3 redemption options are all out of stock and I AM NOW FORMING A CONSPIRACY THEORY. Something is wrong there??? Are my points going to disappear?? All my efforts gone for naught? I hope not. (A friend pointed out that it lines up with corporate shenanigans at the end of the quarter which actually makes a lot of sense – I recently learned that corporations will do crappy stuff like refuse to pay their freelancers for 2-4 weeks leading up to the end of the quarter or after. Just garbage behavior.)
*She was probably right. Once the quarterly earnings were reported, along with 4800 layoffs, the ability to redeem points was magically back.
I’ve squeezing every single earning opportunity big and tiny because, of course, every penny counts. It goes into the mental piggybank for after the severance comes out.
We got a big check this week reimbursing past out of network medical care which was a happy surprise. It was immediately chopped up to cover upcoming big bills: dental expenses for 2 (2026), auto and home insurance, the little left shores up the property tax account. That settles my stomach a little bit.
Year 7, Day 62: I’ve never wandered into the clothing section at Costco before but after seeing Maggie‘s excellent linen pants recently I figured it could be worth a meander, and it was! We lucked into $7 and $16 shorts. But I had to guesstimate my size and sadly I was off by a small but significant margin on the $7 shorts. Turns out I’m not a size 4 and if I’d been thinking straight I would have gotten two sizes to try and return the one that didn’t fit. Drat for that miss. I did like the fit of the other pair though, and now that I think about it, am more than a little miffed that I found shorts that fit my waist comfortably but none of my pants do, new or old. It’s so frustrating to constantly be adjusting the waist of my pants whether it’s my cargo pants with sufficient pockets that keep sliding down or the jeans that require a belt to keep them up except that makes them too tight or the newer fleece lined cuffed pants that are an inch or two too short. I’m about ready to give up on wearing clothes in public and just slouch around in sweats or fleece like a Yeti.
Microburst of stress cleaning: I vacuumed the air vents in the hair dryer, modem and hard drives, and all around them. They’d been clogged with dust.
Year 7, Day 63: I’m data collecting this week to pull the bigger and/or recurring bills that we currently cashflow in order to pinpoint our required spending vs optional spending. I’d been deliberately relaxing about that over the years to train myself down to a lower level of hypervigilance but it means there are gaps on my spreadsheets to fill in now while I can still do something about it (set aside extra cash). While I have a sense of how long our halved income and savings will last, it’s a birds-eye view and I want a firmer grip on our new disposable income number.
I downloaded the Chase app to do … something, I don’t remember what but it set off a little cascade of really annoying effects. First, Chase locked me out of my account telling me that they had detected unusual activity. Friend joked that it was my buying spree at Sephora, and I thought maybe it was too, but when I called it was because I was using the mobile app and that was unusual. Ok?? Feels like you could have texted asking if that was me using the app instead of going into instant lockdown. Then they unilaterally decided that my having the app meant I have to use the app IN ALL THINGS. They changed my 2-factor authentication to: log in with password, go and log into the mobile app (with the same credentials) to answer a question to verify my identity. (What does that prove?? I guess it proves I have possession of the credentials and the phone but humph.) Anyway, fine, I schlep off to do that and *crickets*. No question to answer. I try again, still no question. And again. On the seventh try I quit, exasperated and called them to get a code and also ask What the Hell? The CSR was no help on the latter but after she gave me a code to access my dratted accounts, I found it on my own under Security and Privacy: I manually elected to receive codes by email. Like I had ALWAYS done before, no one asked you to change this, Chase. Annoying.
Year 7, Day 64: I get to submit PiC’s claims for found money. On that note, my checklists are absolutely bananas right now. Today’s count, where 3 items were combo items, was 28 checked boxes of chores, paperwork, file backups, phone calls, texts, scheduling, purchase tracking, purchase-making. The rest of the week isn’t much different either. I have calls and appointments every day this week. It’s boggling. I mean, yes, we were offline for a week not doing any chores but is this all backlog from one week? Usually it’s a work backlog needing slogging through, not personal/household things. Some are work related. Because of the layoff, there are extra calls to take and farewell notes to write and personal gifts to be shipped. And yes, also because of the layoff, there’s 30-60 minutes of job hunting per day, on average.
But the vast majority of this week is household money stuff. Or household (stress) cleaning stuff. It’s weird but here’s hoping that it’s just one week of playing catch-up and then it settles down a bit. Rest time and hiding under the covers time needs to be scheduled in here somewhere.
This is the third night in a row that I’ve sat up working til 11. This trend can stop now, please and thank you.
Year 7, Day 65: One byproduct of the layoff, and my attitude towards the whole place (now doing the barest of minimums), is the space to make a conscious effort in my personal life. Focus on prioritizing the things that fill my bucket, notice good stuff around me, and be there for the kids even if that experience isn’t exactly filling my bucket.
To whit: how did it take me a year to realize the chairs at my bodywork place are incredibly soft and comfortable?? I’m not in frequently, but have sat in them a few times. ‘Tis a cloud for my posterior!
Or this weekend, my therapy appointment was rescheduled so I humored SmolAc wanting me to come watch their swim lesson. PiC is the swim parent but they still want my approval. Normally I’d use the free time to do more chores. This time we all went to swim and the library.
Year 7, Day 66: This is momentous – SmolAc was reminded to put away the clean utensils and they just did it without whining. A summer miracle.
There is a soy and tofu festival here and I didn’t know about it?! I missed my chance at a local chocolate festival, too. They changed their format in the last year or two from doing a really big gathering of chocolate vendors to making us schlep all over the Bay Area to visit the individual shops. Gas is too expensive for all that!
Planning (paralysis actually) for my next microburst of cleaning: I saved some dryer vent cleaning kit/recs somewhere but indecision has got hold of my ankle. Will I have to move the whole dryer? I really don’t want to – high risk of scratching up things or squashing my fingers. But I can’t imagine any kit will be good enough that I could clean the whole vent through the lint catcher opening, it’s so restricted. In which case, we come back to – what’s the best kit for my needs?