February 17, 2023
1. Bethel Friends of Canines is a non-profit dog rescue based in the rural Alaskan village of Bethel.
2. Apparently I have taught Smol most of the alphabet? We trace the letters in a lot of books when we’re reading. The teacher was surprised and told PiC she thinks they know almost all the letters now.
3. Donors Choose projects for classrooms with a high ratio of low income students:
February 10, 2023
1. I thought the Mucinex wasn’t doing anything so I stopped taking it and my coughing and congestion spiked to horrifying levels so maybe it WAS helping. I’m still coughing and congested but I’m on Mucinex round the clock now and I can breathe mostly.
2. We supported:
February 3, 2023
1. Best thing I can say about this week is I’m still here. More in next week’s post.
Challenges this week: everything.
January 27, 2023
1. Last week I felt compelled to host our “usual” Lunar NY dinner. By Wednesday I realized I really didn’t want to host anything and instead got in touch with an old friend who’d been wanting to talk and they invited us over.
It was brilliant. The kids got to play with older cousins, there was no crying or whining, we had a lovely casual dinner without any pressure to do all the traditional stuff that maybe we don’t wanna do this year.
2. JB shared that they like their self defense partner and I just said I was glad for them. I was tempted to say they need to work harder at practice but you know what? I’m starting to remember how some of that felt when I was growing up. That’s a comment for another time, if ever.
Challenges this week: I’m sick again. Bah.
January 20, 2023
1. A handful of us PF folk threw together a bundle of money so I could buy a variety of snacks for Penny’s students before the holidays. It was gratifying just to know that hungry kids were getting some food, but this update made me so happy.
2. Then a handful of folks chimed in wanting to be part of the next round. This is great! There will be a next round! I hold the funds in a separate account and track it on a spreadsheet between rounds, then let people know once I shop what our collective funds bought. It’s great.
Also supporting:
Child and Family Relief Round: The “Child and Family Relief Fund” campaign aims to support families with children who are significantly impacted by the ongoing crisis and famine in Afghanistan.
January 13, 2023
1. I hope that by the time this goes live, the order will have shipped already. I bought a dear friend something from off their wish list that I normally don’t get to see. It’s a fun extra surprise because their birthday and Christmas are quite far off.
2. Our wonderful regular contributors to the Lakota Giving Project got us in gear to start this year off right. I’ve been working on our first family! Deeply grateful for this community. ❤️❤️❤️
3. I’ve discovered the ability to take long screenshots and to add them to WordPress so I’m sharing tweet threads that way to preserve them in case they go away.
Challenges this week:
January 6, 2023
1.Mutual aid needed: GoFundMe for a family whose home was destroyed by fire the week before Christmas.
2. I hope this doesn’t jinx us but Smol Acrobat has willingly and voluntarily (as in, ate it themselves instead of having to be coaxed) eaten full meals three nights this week: a starch, protein and veggie! This is big.
3. In scraping the silver stuff that covers the access code on a Target gift card, a whole chunk of the sticker with the numbers came off too. Unfortunately a chunk that I needed! I wrote down all the numbers I could see clearly and then manually tested every single permutation of numbers to find the access code. I found it!
4. I need to remember this more often. I frequently struggle with seeing my progress when it does happen:
Challenges this week: insomnia is a terrible foe.
This website and its content are copyright of A Gai Shan Life | © A Gai Shan Life 2026. All rights reserved.
Site design by 801red