January 28, 2022
1. If you’re a direct aid giving type of person, Quiara is good people. Everything in life is getting increasingly expensive and it’s harder to make a very set income stretch.
2. I pulled a batch of Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars from the freezer, apparently I froze them back in 2020! 😬 They were still perfect though, and JB was Very Concerned that I didn’t remember where the recipe came from. Thank goodness I had blogged about it!
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January 21, 2022
1. Last month, we had stocked up on rapid test kits at a huge markup for our travel ($300 worth 😱) but for various reasons didn’t use them all up as I had expected. I felt a bit foolish for miscalculating so when someone I know peripherally on Twitter mentioned an inability to get any tests at all, I was glad we could offer a few of ours. This shouldn’t be an issue but of course this country in this pandemic….SMH. This was just before the announcement that we could order free kits in the mail but that’s a whole 4 kits per address if you can even get them (as of Tuesday, people in multi-household buildings like apartments could not).
2. I organized our coupons and menu drawer and PiC’s t-shirt drawer. One drawer/section at a time!
Challenges this week: We had to make the call to push childcare again. It feels a LOT less bad than going in the middle of a surge with no vaccines but it still feels … rough.
January 14, 2022
1. Tami at Disabled Girl on Fire started her Patreon for helping her to help people in her community. A darn good cause. If you can, it’d be great to support her!
2. I’m getting myself in order for the 2021 tax year thing. I always feel very anticipatory about this even though it’s possible we’ll owe money. Suppose that’s the anticipation talking: I want to see if my projections last year worked out as intended.
3. Delightful: We got a case of a variety of formulas from Enfamil for … I don’t know what reason that we couldn’t use. I couldn’t donate it anywhere here but was loathe to just throw them out. That’s perfectly good formula! I shipped them to Penny and she was able to distribute them in a day!
4. We took Smol Acrobat out to greet JB coming home from school one day and the squeals from the happy elder sibling were really something. We’d stopped halfway up the street, Smol had given up walking, and was leaning on my legs but was so happy to see their JB that they practically ran home with the renewed vigor. It’s very nice to see them adoring each other right now.
5. Our friend sent us an absolutely hilarious gift.
Challenges this week: I’m still exhausted every week. It’s frustrating that my health did improve with therapy and still only moved my baseline from untenable to moderately to severe misery depending on the day. I hope this isn’t the best time I have left.
January 7, 2022
1. There is something REALLY satisfying about sitting down to roll over to your next year’s spreadsheets and seeing all the numbers lined up properly for once. I usually have my totals a little off for one reason or another and have to spend time fixing that but this year’s final balance on my manual spreadsheet matches my bank account! Woot!
2. Related: This year I want to track my investing income separately but in the same spreadsheet that I track all my normal budgeting things. I’ve adjusted the formulas to see if that works as planned. I don’t do new year’s resolutions but I do love financial fresh starts so I especially love when the new year is on a weekend so I can spend some quality time with my numbers.
3. I finally got to try spaghetti squash that someone else made and I liked it! We will try it on our own now that we know we like it.
4. This was a really good comment from the Ask A Manager updates: “And a reminder that so many times the people/situations that are taking up enormous amounts of real estate in our brain, turn out to be no big deal.”
Challenges this week:
I’m three miles beyond tired.
December 31, 2021
1. JB and Smol Acrobat have had a lot of joy this week.
2. Sera has been unusually snuggly.
Challenges this week: Holidays are a lot.
December 24, 2021
1. I see that almost everyone is back on the holiday card wagon this year. I enjoyed seeing so many updates. Maybe we’ll do one in the new year. Maybe!
2. Happy to have run across this quote: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
-Anne Lamott
Challenges this week: Family Time is complicated. I appreciate my people and also have so little extra energy.
December 17, 2021
1. After much vaccine appointment stalking, we got lucky and found a site doing mass vaccines. And boy howdy do I mean mass. There were hundreds of people there. It was all outdoors, mostly masked except for Mr line cutter, and generally congenial. Minus that white woman (notable considering we were a sea of brown and black people of all ages who weren’t having hissy fits) who showed up and loudly decried having to wait in line. 🙄 The actual children didn’t act so childishly. After a long wait, we got our boosters, JB got their second vax, the admin and vax administrators were all very kind and patient in the face of the seemingly unrelenting hordes. Even the lady who was checking us in and confessed she had come several hours earlier to help with something else entirely and was pulled into this was patient even when I politely asked to switch manufacturers when I found out they had everything available. Even Smol, up for much longer than they were accustomed to, hung out with us amidst all the strangeness and was patient. This ate up half our day but was worth the peace of mind and I’m so grateful for so many parts that went smoothly: no traffic jams, we lucked into great parking at an immensely crowded site, my body was able to cope with the long wait, my just in case jacket for JB was gratefully received because of course they’d thought they didn’t need a jacket.
Challenges this week: Still fighting this dang cold.
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