About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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August 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, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. We discovered that not only does Gott’s Roadside have gluten free buns that are pretty good, I seem to be tolerating that carb content well enough that I can enjoy a burger WITH a bun!! WOOOOO. Of course that feels like lifestyle inflation because, my goodness, it’s a $9+tax burger. But it was a burger on a bun which I haven’t had in ages so I’m still happy. *happy burger dance*
2. Our friends sent JB a lovely Comic Con in a box gift and that was just so thoughtful and lovely.
Challenges this week: Technology has been kicking my behind. All week, Wi-Fi has mostly been working for everyone BUT me, and I’m right next to the router. My old laptop that JB is using for lessons is a touchscreen and the touchscreen function just quit. My phone’s necessary basic apps just quit and I spent many many hours fixing it to no avail. We mirror computer screens to the TV so we can oversee lessons from afar and that keeps disconnecting but refusing to let me change it. On a very minor note, I had to cancel our Highlights subscription for High Five Espanol, the bilingual magazine, it was nowhere near the beginner level I was hoping to share with JB. I had a few years of high school Spanish and a little workplace Spanish under my belt, and this was above my level. So that was a disappointment.
3. I had another fraught nightmare about fighting with my dad over some life news and in the dream I absolutely told him off for all the selfish manipulative hurtful things he did. For the first time in two decades of these nightmares, I didn’t wake up feeling upset by the fight. Instead, I felt mentally and emotionally unburdened. Working with my therapist has let me open up to the idea that it’s actually ok for me to be mad at a parent and say so. Culturally, the very idea has been anathema and I think I’ve even subconsciously not allowed myself to feel that anger in a real way, I’ve just been making myself feel guilty for even feeling it because that’s a “betrayal” of my family values. As if his actions that caused the valid anger were not the much worse betrayal of our supposedly shared values! It’s interesting that I intellectually knew that but very clearly did not feel that deep down. It wasn’t my fault that he made the choices that he did and I am allowed to have feelings about how he harmed me and my family. I don’t have to feel guilty about those feelings. This is some progress!
:: How was your week?
August 6, 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, $1,713.62;Rural libraries, $321.62.
I’m a long time Angry Little Asian Girls fan and I need this “I hate people” design in pretty much everything – this is 2020 in a nutshell.
MIXED + PASSING – LET’S TALK ABOUT RACE
You Don’t Batch Cook When You’re Suicidal (formerly: The Price Of Potatoes & The Value Of Compassion)
This cat puts up with so much scruffing.
Fiction: Grandmother Beetroot
Indian Matchmaker: Two of my most profound decisions in life made a lot of sense: first, to exit my community in search of companionship, and second, to exit marital companionship, to not marry at all. When the game itself is dirty, why yell at a mirror pointed at it, reflecting the moves for all to see?
This gorgeous blanket octopus!
Sounds of a sleeping seal
August 3, 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, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (which is all saved for maintenance) and investing in dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $193.60 in dividends in July.
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July 31, 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, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. We tried roast beef for my sandwiches and I’ve discovered that a good cheese and roast beef sandwich on the keto bagels that PiC makes for me is kind of like a keto friendly cheeseburger! Such a happy food discovery.
2. Two, wait three more, great discoveries: our local dumpling shop set up their own online ordering system so I know the money we pay goes entirely to them, we got 10% off an order over $25, AND they sell frozen bags of their dumplings so we can just stock up on those to avoid too many take out runs for when I’m not up to making our own dumplings.
3. I keep nickel and diming myself on every single purchase to control budget creep but finally said florf it! and bought myself a few much-wanted e-books on Kobo. They were all great. My brain is happy. And of course it wants more. Because I gave it a cookie, so now it wants milk, and a straw and and and…! I am so predictable.
Challenges this week: I caught a one-two punch with the rental and had to sacrifice half a work day to figure things out. It was not fun. We are two weeks out from the supposed start date for school and we still have zero information to go on. We also just found out that PiC’s company has a large number of layoffs planned and we have no information other than “a large number by the fall”. Of course that news has put us on edge.
4. Weirdly enough, after starting the process of making decisions based on what I want and need instead of what I “should” do financially, even though nothing is resolved yet, I feel a hundred pounds lighter. I’m less moody and grouchy overall and I have an extra half bucket of patience. It’s a much missed, now unfamiliar feeling. I don’t know how long it’ll last but I really like it and hope it’s here to stay. I’m going to need every ounce of patience I can get!
:: How was your week?
July 30, 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, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
K. Wright’s right: The Privilege of ‘Always Negotiate’ I have always advocated for myself and negotiated for more money, but it doesn’t always work, it doesn’t always work to the degree that I hope or want or deserve, and I know that more than a few people would penalize me for even asking. I’ve had a strange combination of luck where the workplaces are incredibly toxic but either I had the backing of a strong advocate or they felt like their hands were tied so they had to give me more but they also punished me for it.
I’m not at all surprised that Courtney Milan’s white doctor husband gets no pushback when he stands up for patients’ rights to refuse an exam vs Michele Harper’s experience but I am utterly and completely disgusted with law enforcement and her trainee and her former colleagues who obviously did not have an issue with violating patients’ rights.
Related: I also think that the officer and watch commander should have been personally liable for their actions in arresting Utah nurse Alex Wubbels when she refused to comply with their illegal demands, not just fired and demoted. Maybe that’s what it takes to get officers of the law to actually respect the law they’re supposed to uphold.
Also related: I am so incredibly tired of terrible people.
I hope white people stay out there screaming this truth until it finally breaks the police and federal government brutality.
Brave Saver: “This is the core of what enrages me about traditional financial advice: it actively harms people. There are so many of us who read or hear personal finance advice that leaves us feeling ashamed, worthless, hopeless, and filled with despair. And how can we move forward when the solutions we seek all turn into emotional and mental blocks?” Note – I didn’t have this problem when I was using blogs as a resource 12-10 years ago but the PF world I delved into and loved was incredibly different then. It was almost all stories about people working through their struggles, it wasn’t all this making money off their platform How To and pushing an agenda.
Purple was surprised that she hit her FIRE number this year after all.
Yay for Kitty and paying off her mortgage! I wistfully think: gosh that’d sure be nice and also: gosh but I’m not willing to dump all our cash into the black hole of our mortgage because it needs so much to make it happy.
BABY RED PANDA AT OREGON ZOO!!!!
Bloodlines: short fiction by @etwurth
I cannot carry a tune in a bucket so I admire those who can. I don’t enjoy talent shows and reality shows as a rule but happened across ten year old Souparknika Nair’s Britain’s Got Talent audition and her voice just blew me away.
I hope this bear is doing this for fun
July 27, 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, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 17 and 18 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 17, Day 115: I stepped out of the house for exactly 45 seconds today. My butt was alternately numb and aching from the number of hours logged at my desk. Mondays are the worst of the worst. Compounded by post-holiday weekends :/
I had a rough evening feeling like a bad friend. I was practicing, though it was uncomfortable, naming my guilt, understanding that it was foundless and knowing I still felt it, and trying not to shame myself for feeling the guilt OR into believing that I deserved the guilt. It was a complicated and conflicted feeling. But it ultimately felt better afterward.
I then reconnected with another dear friend who was feeling bad about her own rough life situation so we talked late into the night and I think we both felt better afterwards.
Week 17, Day 116: JB finally had a good lesson without any balking, whining, delaying, or wasting time. Freaking finally! It’s been a bumpy couple of weeks and their teacher and I were discussing minors adjustments along the way to get here. I’m not sure if they worked or if it was just a phase but I’m crossing my fingers that changing locations and physical set up helped them get back on track. (I suspect it was also because they felt well rested, got to read with Dad when they woke up, AND got to play with their cards for a while in the morning.) Hamilton has been a great incentive for us to get through dinner and bath quickly at night, they get to watch a couple songs before bed. Probably not the best to induce actual sleep but it gets them through the nighttime routine so fast. (more…)
July 24, 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, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. JB asked for chicken noodle soup at the perfect time. I had a half carton of chicken broth to use up and I used that for a starter base plus water, onions, salt, pepper, and a dash of cumin and garam masala. Odd but it worked!
2. I made a Thai (ish) chicken curry on Sunday and it was a hit! It was chock full of goodies: tofu, straw mushrooms, chicken, bamboo shoots, and bell peppers. My hand still hurt too much to cut up an onion this time but it still turned out well.
3. This was such a lovely note to wake up to one morning.
4. Sir Patrick Stewart with Sonnet 91.
Challenges this week: My pain flared up again, this time in alternating wrists and hands and arms. I worked through it during the week which was alternatively good and then bad for it but then made it a real point to rest on the weekends and maybe most importantly, not feel guilty and horrible about my body’s failings. We should be at SDCC right now and I’m feeling so sad we’re not.
5. After lots and lots and lots and lots of medication, and an equal amount of passive resistance on his part and grumpy insistence on my part, Seamus is better!!!
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?