August 9, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 141: What a day. We had all kinds of cleaning up to do. PiC and JB worked on three loads of laundry, I worked on reconciling a bunch of bills, filing a tax amendment, contacting the school because two weeks out we still have zero information beyond “everyone will be required to mask”. The planner in me hates this school district. I cleared away some time critical work, and sent important personal emails.
Then as a soul cleanser, I tackled our next Lakota family’s list. I didn’t mean to dive in already but I spotted, buried in the requests, a mom with a newborn and no car seat. We had to get on that!
Naturally I then had to go on and take care of the rest of the family too while I was at it. It took a few hours to sort out an order that would actually ship to Pine Ridge. I completed half the categories of the list: car seat for baby and clothes for the older kids. I added some household things for mom because she didn’t ask for anything for herself and I’m sure that she could use a basic hygiene kit. I’m trying to remember what I’d wanted in those postpartum days. The other half of the list, baby clothes and school supplies for the older kids, will go out later this week.
Year 2, Day 142: Another heavy work day with exponential stress. Lots of scheduling conflicts and people having bad personal stuff going on which require accommodations and trying to make sure enough gears keep turning at partial staffing. The only good thing out of this moment is the timing is good to make a push for a staffing change I’ve been wanting for a long time that will help us long term.
I assigned the rest of the laundry to JB for the afternoon, they were allowed to take reading breaks as they wanted, and so by the early evening all the laundry was put away with minimal fuss.
I was happy to finish up the school supplies order for the kids and then while I organized a new basket to hold books for the kids and organized Smol’s clothes, I pulled out armloads of their outgrown clothes to ship a bundle for the new baby. I need to replenish my flat rate boxes stash!
BUMMER. The car seat I ordered yesterday from Target has been cancelled. They say there’s a problem with the shipping address, and they can’t charge my credit card. Um, since you have charged it 16 times today, and shipped 11 packages there already, I would say both those objections are bunk. I reordered it.
Year 2, Day 143: Would you believe that the second car seat has been cancelled?? I finally went to Amazon to order it because it’s a time critical item and they’re taking TWO WEEKS to ship it even with Prime. What is this nonsense? So amid my fight with the school district, my inbox, and my towering to do list at work, I am on chat with Target demanding an explanation for why on earth this item cannot be shipped. It’s really really annoying. (more…)
August 2, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 134: I woke myself up shouting at a neighbor for dismissing her kid’s attempt to murder my baby as “that’s just what kids do” and that really set the tone for my day. I won’t say it exactly went downhill from there, it just kept circling the drain as Smol struggled to nap, JB’s class started unexpectedly late and I had to scramble to get some Spanish activities together so they weren’t just wasting time, then JB couldn’t get themselves together enough to knock off 2 minutes of chores in under 20 minutes. I definitely lost my temper at the 15th distraction and shouted. I normally don’t shout but zero of the firm non shouting reminders or stern warnings worked.
I just want the house to myself for two hours. Just two hours that’s all I’m asking. Instead we’re getting ready to attend a far away funeral and it’s going to be time for me to be trapped in a car with a severely undersocialized extrovert for 9 hours and I think I will truly lose my mind. Bye-bye mind. Bye-bye.
*****
Over the weekend, I finally downloaded the last pictures up to the present time from our phones and cleared out the Google Drives so they’re no longer threatening to shut down. That’s Phase 1.
Phase 2 is renaming a whole hell of a lot of files and editing their metadata so they’re as correct as possible. That’s going to suck where I have old files that have been through multiple programs and lost the right file metadata. Phase 3 is deleting the 2 years worth of files I already uploaded to the NAS. Phase 4 is uploading all the completed files that have all the corrected file metadata to our NAS.
I’m giving myself a small break before I start Phase 2.
Actually, a small break and an interim task. I’m going to create the private shared file where I will be saving copies of our estate plan to share that and the action plan in case something happens to us. We’re going to need to change the executors of our will, and once that’s done, our executors will need easy access to the paperwork. I also want to make sure they have access to it sooner than later so we can have a conversation about what we want.
The point of this is to say: holy crap I’m doing my work so much faster when I’m JUST doing my work and not also juggling the two data streams. Also: man, I still got through all my work last week even while juggling multiple major personal projects. I’m pretty awesome.
***** (more…)
July 26, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 127: At first, I thought this was a GET THEE OUT OF THE KITCHEN kind of day.
I boiled 6 eggs to make deviled eggs. They were all boiled the same amount of time and yet 3 were soft boiled, 1 was fine, the last 2 were put back on to boil because I didn’t even want to risk it. I added three more eggs to a new pot to boil and forgot about it and burned the eggs and the pot. Then I got into a fight with the formula dispenser and spilled half a pod of formula all over the counter and the floor. By midday, point, I was just grateful that no living beings were hurt.
It turns out my ill luck was more widespread than that. Everything I touched went wrong in some way. I made bulgogi, roasted broccoli, and roasted potatoes. The bulgogi was sort of watery, the broccoli cold, the potatoes slightly underdone.
I’ve been fighting to reclaim data on Google Photos with zero luck, it won’t budge despite my having downloaded and permanently deleted several GBs of files and photos since last week. I found a folder of 2017-2019 photos in Drive taking up space so I dumped that too. Somehow, a spreadsheet I use daily to store project notes, financial research, and other important stuff was caught up in that, and permanently deleted. I had to sit with some pretty nasty feelings for a while when I saw that “file was deleted” note. So much work, gone.
And given the number of times I saw warnings about “are you sure? Deleting these files permanently means they cannot be retrieved” I know they’re gone gone.
I’ll have to recreate it from memory as best I can over time. I’ll also need to look into how to sync my Google Drive files to our NAS because if I lose any even more important spreadsheets, I really will throw up.
*****
Money things, my phone. I’m running up against a serious lack of storage again. I only took the 64 GB phone when I upgraded to the Pixel and gave PiC my iPhone a couple years back. That was foolish of me. I’m on this mega mission to move all the photos off our devices and backing them up elsewhere so if I can get that done, I will reclaim that storage. I really don’t want to have to replace my phone until next year. I just bought a new phone for PiC last year, I’d like to go a year in between phone purchases if possible.
Year 2, Day 128: Maureen’s tweets (below) very much encapsulates how I feel about the world right now and travel. I still don’t want to because THE NUMBER OF DECISIONS we have to make with every single thing we do is overwhelming. (more…)
July 19, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 120: PiC graciously took the 6 am wake up period with Smol, so I took the 8:30 am-12 pm shift with the kids. JB had tutoring for a big block of that time so it was me and Smol for most of that time. JB was predictably furious that Smol had to go down for their nap by the time their lesson was done, though, so I soothed their grudge with letting them do the bedtime routine of reading and singing. Their mood visibly improved with the wrangling of a sleepy, adoring, but also very grumpy (because sleepy) Smol Acrobat. After we completed the nap putdown, JB danced out to tell PiC: It’s your turn with the kids! Clearly, we have been doing the swappity-de-do for a while.
PiC took the next four hours after that and then we split the remaining evening chores.
*****
At lunch (I was working) JB asked PiC to text me: “Mommy I hope you don’t have too much work to do.”
Me too, kiddo. But I do.
Happily they decided to unload the entire dishwasher on their own though their primary assignment is only to do the utensils. That was nice.
*****
Money things, the coffeemaker: PiC’s french press was dropped and shattered so I had to order an immediate replacement. He says he’s not addicted to coffee but tell him he’s not going to have a coffeemaker for a day and see what happens, I dare you! 😉
Money things, my mouse: I have been fighting with my mouse for weeks and weeks and weeks. It keeps disconnecting. I finally went through all my old peripherals in the Computer Box and found one that does work but I hate the scrolling action on it. I’ve already adjusted the responsiveness up as far as it’ll go in the settings but it still lags and I hate it. I use it 8 hours a day, but am having trouble justifying the purchase of a new mouse just because I don’t like it. But then again it’s a lot of hours of use a day…. JB has been wanting to use a mouse with their set up but I was going to give them my Oldest Mouse that is much smaller and would fit their hand better. If I do that, I could retire this Second Oldest as a back up for them.
(more…)
July 13, 2021
Contemplating the smooth surface of a two year old foam mattress transported me back to the days of my aged spring mattress that had been flipped and turned so many times there was no side that didn’t have deep permanent grooves. I lived with that old one so long I never once considered it might be one major cause of my persistent back pain.
Man, I sank into that soft mattress for all the wrong reasons. It was nothing like the luxurious pillowy softness of pillow top mattresses at fancy hotels, it was the boneless sagging of a decrepit structure. Such a big difference. I’m so grateful for good mattresses now.
Seeing little baby eyes peering through the crib slats, and Sera curled up nearby waiting for us to take her out, flashes me back to the older, bigger dog that used to be there. All the times Seamus took up the guard position at the bedroom door when JB was crying in their crib, fighting their naptime so many years ago. His head canted to one side, and nestled on his front paws. He settled in for however long it took to show them how to sleep, and protecting them in the meantime.
A well-meaning friend’s repeated jokes about how my priorities (being ultra responsible, for example) influenced their choice not to offer a helping hand dunks me back into the vat of all the times I felt unloved and unwanted and not a priority. To take the sting away, I’d tell myself that I wasn’t important, that I didn’t deserve anything, that I don’t matter enough. I’m trying not to do that again. It reminds me of all the times I see people remind us on Twitter: check on your “strong” friends. Too often “strong” is misunderstood as “unbreakable” and nothing could be further from the truth.
The mention of a friend’s parent’s decline into dementia grips my throat and turns my stomach. I remember this.
When I’m bone tired and simply cannot exist any longer, I roll up into a blanket burrito. This now-tatty blanket was gifted to me when my mom passed and it still keeps me warm and cozy today. It was a moment in time when I felt like my pain was cared for.
:: What brings on a strong memory for you?
July 12, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 113: Well, I forgot today was Monday 16 times even though I put in about 6 hours of work today. Holiday weekends always throw me for a loop. We had a conference call lunch with family for funsies so that was one bit of relaxing we did, and then we also took everyone for a looooong walk later in the afternoon. I needed to try to walk off some back aches and that didn’t quite work as planned but it was still good to stretch my legs. I did not get out for a walk more than twice last week. That’s pretty bad and it was even more obvious by how much I huffed and puffed my way back up the hill.
*****
Some days I am starting to see a tiny bit of the more normal parent me peek out. Sometimes I have patience again, kind of like before the pandemic. Not a lot, and not for long but I thought that part of me had died, crawled out of the grave, gotten bludgeoned, and died again.
Year 2, Day 114: For once, my decision to go to bed instead of working late the night before worked out. Usually I lay there futilely trying to fall asleep, get frustrated, and then feel like it was all a wasted effort by 2 or 3 am.
This time, I still didn’t fall asleep when I wanted to but I did get enough rest that after Smol Acrobat started their 6 am round of thumping, babbling, and hawk cries, I was just about able to get up and prep their bottle. PiC changed and fed them while I took care of my toilette, and then he passed out with the baby happily remonstrating next to his prone body. Smol and I hung out for the next hour and a half, playing, walking the dog, eating again, me trying to work a little bit in two minute spurts.
*****
I’m covering for people on the team being out again this week, this is the fourth or fifth time in five weeks, because everyone’s doing some kind of travel now that CA is opened up again. I’m DROWNING in work and my brain can hardly keep up. Well, it will. But I hate this feeling of being behind on everything.
*****
We made a rookie mistake and miscalculated both how long it would take us to run two errands and underestimated how much formula to bring with us for those errands for Smol. So underfed and tired Smol was very unhappy. We skipped their last nap and put them straight to bed after feeding but it was still too little too late, they were up multiple times in the night just miserable. Sigh.
Year 2, Day 115: My body’s all out of whack this week for other reasons but that lack of sleep really loosens up my joints. This is not great. On top of a doubled workload, I also need to schedule two sets of activities and lessons for JB for the rest of the month so at some point. One teacher won’t be available for weekly lessons anymore and the other one isn’t teaching anymore so I have to pick a replacement. I’ve got to find the time for that. Thank goodness PiC is on lunch prep today.
My pain was so high by the end of the day, between sleep-deprivation fatigue, stress multiplying my aches, and overdoing the walk in the afternoon that when I got up from bed, having forgotten my bedside water, I could only hobble. Hello, geriatric me.
Year 2, Day 116: We were supposed to do pizza night last night! We forgot. My brain is maxed out. All I could think this morning was I hate work, I want to retire.
I ran a load of laundry last night, the dishwasher this morning, and the robot vacuum this afternoon. Thank goodness for robot helpers! JB suffered a great disappointment when an Auntie had to cancel their call this afternoon, they instead spent their afternoon doing a consolation puzzle (100-200 piece puzzles are too easy for them now, we need to level up. What’s next, 300?), reading, racing on NitroType, and watching the Hello Kitty and Friends Adventure shorts that I had picked out for their viewing. I really shouldn’t share so much Hello Kitty stuff with JB. Passing along my personal obsession to the next generation is Not Good for our pocketbooks. (But it’s so CUTE.)
Year 2, Day 117: Thinking of my CPA and how she still owes me a few amendments that would result in refunds and how I can’t pay her until she tells me how much I owe. I’d like to pay her. I already sent a reminder saying I’d like to pay her, please tell me how much but she just said she would get back to me. Still waiting….
*****
Smol woke up, and laid back down to nap several times over the course of an hour. I can’t tell if I should count that as awake time or asleep time for the purpose of calculating their next nap time!
*****
We’re starting to see school related information and it’s giving me whiplash. The CDC says vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to mask. I want to know why this country thinks I’ll believe anyone who is maskless without solid proof of vaccination given the behaviors we’ve seen to date. The tantrums, the lying, the people who spoiled vaccines, the person who was caught selling blank vaccine cards. And even if I wasn’t completely mistrustful of the general public, kids under 12 still can’t be vaccinated so are we going to only expect them to mask? Personally, though we’re both vaccinated, PiC and I stay masked to keep JB company. They have been really good about it but I know it helps with their compliance to have us masked. Our friends with under-12 do the same.
*****
We’ve been having medium range planning conversations about the next car. We need to decide 1. what we need 2. when we need it and 3. when what we need will be available. Ideally this purchase will be somewhere 2-5 years down the line, if we can push it out that far, because I want to save for this incrementally over a long time. Also because we aren’t convinced the technology is mature enough for what we’re looking for. We don’t want to get into a new tech money and time pit.
He’s done some initial research and for the size of hybrid vehicle we need for four humans plus an additional guest at times, a large dog, and luggage, we’re looking at $30-50k. That’s a staggering sum. The high end is almost laughable and it’s really truly unlikely we’d ever be willing to make that happen. That’s huge. HUGE. It’s far too large a proportion of our income.
Heck, the low end of the range is the total cost of what I’ve paid for the two cars I’ve purchased for myself in the past twenty years: one new and one used. I know that’s a meaningless stat but it’s still true. My first car served me well until I had to let my dad keep it ten years ago. I eventually gave it up permanently in the Going No Contact process. My second car is over 15 years old and I fully expected to hit 20 years in it. I’m not sure if it’ll be my car or the dog car that gets replaced but they’re both quite old and the maintenance costs are real.
:: How old are your vehicles? Do you have timelines for replacing them?
July 5, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 106: An unexpected boon of Smol’s early morning wakings is that if I can get up too, PiC and I have time to talk for a few minutes like adult humans with interests in the world and live together. This morning we talked about the photos of our dear recently deceased friend that I found over the weekend while doing data backup. We couldn’t decide at first the best way to share with their widow but landed on making a photo book. So that’ll be my thing this and next week.
*****
I read The Pout-Pout Fish (Bookshop, Amazon) to Smol. They’re not quite old enough to appreciate it yet but it nailed my feelings today. I feel sick (Blub), achy (Bluuuub), and tired. . . (Bluuuuuuuuub).
*****
PiC cooked all weekend and I’m so grateful to him.
*****
Smol slept through the night most nights last week but come Friday, that went out the window. They just had this burst of development and they had to wake up the first night because HANGRY! The second night because … I’m not sure why but just needed to be held and sung to for a few minutes. The third night was to babble and raspberry to themselves a few times. Weird, but funny!
One less funny side effect of the development is their mood swings. So many swings. Happy sad happy sad.
*****
There’s a chance we might have daycare in October so I inputted the cost into my spreadsheet for the last three months of the year. O_O This upended my delicately balanced cashflow and budget. Daycare is so expensive, even part-time. I don’t want to reduce our savings but we’re going to have to. Better to know now. At least I already funded our brokerage for our planned weekly investments for the next quarter. We’d sold some investments to shift our allocation so that helps soothe my nerves. (more…)