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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July 12, 2017
Books, books, everywhere
Did you know that some daycares let kids take books with them to their napping cots? Ours does and now JuggerBaby has to take a book, or five, to bed with zir every night.
We’ve had to set a hard limit of 2 small books for the bed lest ze fall asleep perched atop a mountain of all the books ze can carry.
Helper monkey
Amidst a really hard weekend of meltdowns, JuggerBaby turned into a most helpful creature. Once summer rolls in, Seamus’s allergies flare up, every single year and he requires twice daily feet wraps to ward off infection, calm his hot spots, and relieve his itching. It’s pathetic. This summer, though, his human sibling didn’t just try to horn in on the foot wrapping “fun” like last year when ze demanded I “yap feet!” for zir to look just like Brother. This year, ze is more advanced and less self centered. When ze spotted me closely examining his feet, ze loudly announced that Brother had “ows!” and ran to bring me the first aid kit, his treats, and generally made zirself useful by hovering closely and giving him treats as I worked.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say he appreciated it but he didn’t hate the treats.
Just one bite
JuggerBaby still has terrible table manners – frequently trying to steal off PiC’s plate; depositing rinds, peels and cobs on my plate like it’s zir mobile compost bin; randomly overstuffing zir mouth with one food only to chew it and spit it out because you stupidly offered zir something else to eat next. Next can’t come too soon for this toddler. We’ve learned our lesson – never ever offer zir anything new when that mouth is full.
The one thing that’s gone well is ze is still open to new foods and tastes. Even if ze doesn’t think ze will like it at first, occasionally refusing foods on the basis of I don’t wanna, ze is still willing to give anything a single bite trial. We tell zir often: just try one bite. If you don’t like it, then swallow that bite but you don’t have to eat any more.
I’m positive that wouldn’t have worked on me, but it’s perfect for zir. Ze has often rejected food out of hand, mostly out of pique. The dawning realization that this pancake/salmon/pickle is awesome is followed by a delighted “I LIKE it!!!”
Success.
Perhaps my proudest moment was serving a totally new dinner of grilled salmon, rice with mixed veggies, and broccolini the other night. Ze has eaten all these food types before but I’ve never served this meal. With zero fuss over the food, ze cleaned zir plate and asked to try the arugula quinoa salad too. Though ze returned a half chewed arugula leaf to me, “I don’t like it”, I can’t blame zir. Peppery leaves? Why??
Ze has come around on the notion of cake, too. Last year, cake was strange and distasteful. This year, we can’t get enough of it!
I wonder if this will be consistent into zir older years. I recall being very adventurous when I didn’t know better, eating fertilized eggs and jellyfish and other interesting native culture foods. Never durian, though, that stuff is a taunt from hell. As an adult, though, I’ve had to actively push myself to try new things like beets and kale and parsnips, or give previously despised foods a chance like yogurt and tomatoes.
Precious #parenting moments
- JB: I want yoom.
Me: Broom?
JB: Ya. Yooom.
- Me: Did you just suck the butter off the green bean, then give it back???
JB: Yes!
Me: …… just … go.
JB: JUST GOOOOO!!!
- From across the room: *thunk* Ow. *thunk* Ow. *thunk* Ow. *thunk* Ow. *thunk* Ow. *thunk* Ow.
Me: JB?
JB: Mama?
Me: Stop hitting yourself?
JB: *thunk*
- PiC: Want to share a banana?
JB: Yes!
PiC: Here. Have a bite.
JB: My ‘nana. Dadda get own ‘nana.
- Me: Go wash your hands.
JB: I wait my toon.
Me: ? It is your turn.
JB: MAMA WASH, I WAIT TURN!
:: How was your palate as a kid? Is it better or worse in adulthood?
July 10, 2017
On Money
Income
Our normal income comes from two full time day jobs.
We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks.
Some side income comes from Swagbucks, selling clothes on Poshmark which is hit or miss, and tracking activity through Achievement (my introduction to it).
The long term goal is to replace our day job income before my health declines and prevents me from working.
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July 5, 2017
What I watched
Man to Man
A Netflix exclusive described as: “Disguised as a bodyguard, a special agent must complete his national secret tasks while pandering to the whims of his ill-tempered world star.”
I really didn’t know what it expect but in my flu-weakened state, I was willing to give almost anything diverting a try to distract from my aches, fever and chills, and swollen throat. The fact that it was entirely in Korean with subtitles was a bonus for once – it forced me to stop working and actually rest. It started out as a light silly comedic take on a spy story, the actors’ expressiveness, or lack thereof, tickling my funny bone every few minutes but the plot thickened and the characters started to develop surprisingly quickly. Quite quickly, actors I’d taken for one-turn guests had become characters with a bit of depth and interest.
It’s fascinating to see the peeks into Korean culture, both as its portrayed on the screen (chicken and beer!) and also in how the actors act. It’s so different from American acting in subtle ways. It plays to the ridiculous, it uses shades of overacting, and yet employs so much stillness to convey thoughts, reactions, and meaning. These may be unique to this particular Korean genre, rather than Korean acting, but it’s effective and I love watching it.
Kano
I’d never heard of this movie before, we happened across it totally randomly. A story set in the time when Taiwan was still occupied by the Japanese, it’s a baseball movie but also a redemption movie, and a love story, and an interesting perspective on the Japanese occupation where the war wasn’t the focus. (more…)
July 3, 2017
Shopping, man alive I hate shopping.
We’ve been doing a lot of it for the new place but it simply isn’t growing on me. Obviously it’s still a necessity, even if my budget and energy reserves prefer MacGyvering a way out of the need to buy, but every so often, I reconsider whether we’ve been making good choices. Going through our belongings to winnow them down reignites that feeling that the less (trivial) stuff we have, the better, though we don’t have as many regrets as I thought we might.
I’m glad we didn’t buy ….
- Custom blackout curtains for JuggerBaby’s room: $300. We bought cheap paper accordion blackout shades to see if it would help zir sleep better for about $10. They’re inconvenient, being cheap paper with absolutely no frills whatsoever, but they’ve done the job and we won’t have to regret leaving them behind.
- A bigger car. None of the garages that we’re seeing in our region are big enough to handle both of our current cars without a squeeze, much less a massive SUV.
- An address stamp and embosser. The stationery lover in me desperately wanted one of each – so pretty – but the commitment phobe in me kept saying don’t do it. Turns out the commitment phobe was right.
- Custom designed checks. When my first 50 checks ran out, there was a $5-20 upgrade available for some awfully cute checks. But I’ve learned my lesson. In 2002, I paid $12.95 for 1200 adorable baby animals checks and by 2012 I still hadn’t used them all. It broke my heart to shred them when I closed that checking account. Because once in a while I’m achingly softhearted.
I’m annoyed that we bought ….
- All hair accessories that aren’t the standard clip-free hair tie, or tiny claw clips. I can use absolutely nothing else successfully but yet I still wasted money on a really nice and soft Blom headband that I never use, these nice black thin headbands to hold back hair that don’t fit my tiny head, and these cool spin pin things that would have held up masses of beautiful hair if I were Jean of Extra Petite, but I’m really not.If you noticed a pattern here, it’s that I foolishly fall into the pit of thinking that my hair and I are meant to coexist peacefully. We’re not and it’s well past time I learned that.
- A dozen undercabinet replacement light bulbs. Now that we’re moving, we have no use for this particular type since we’re designing our lighting to be as energy efficient as possible. I suppose we’ll leave them as a little gift for the incoming buyers if they pay top dollar.
I’m glad that we bought …
- My new cell phone. I’ve been able to download some money-making apps (Achievemint and Poshmark), take a ton of great pictures and video of my family, work while on the road.
- Two tank tops from Target. They cost a grand total of $12 but they fit just perfectly and look great. They won’t last forever so it’s sad that they immediately went out of stock.
- This simply perfect, though slightly pricey, Barefoot Dreams cardigan
. I used a gift card to reduce the sting. It was my plane sweater for our most recent big trip, and it was perfect! It was warm and cozy, but not too heavy, snuggly enough to wrap around myself and JuggerBaby who allowed it, and it has pockets which is a lifesaver as for a mom with only two hands. After our trip, it was exactly right for wrapping up when I was down with the flu, or when the weather turned unexpectedly chilly. This probably doesn’t seem like much but I don’t have any clothing that’s both ultra comfortable and suitable to be worn out doors in the presence of other people.
- Our recliner before JuggerBaby was born. It was expensive, and new, but it was the only way we managed to get zir to sleep some nights as an infant. It’s now a cuddle spot when we have visiting infants, and when JuggerBaby needs a comforting rocking.
- Comic-Con badges for this year. It’s a combined family visit and cherished tradition.
I’m still on the fence about whether I’m happy about buying a new home – it’s the source of quite a lot of stress right now!
There’s a theme here, of course there is. I tend to appreciate very utilitarian things over time, and fail to appreciate things that are mostly for form, and less about function. Here’s a conundrum: my need to have a stockpile of supplies that we’ll use versus my need to have less stuff and not waste money on stuff we don’t end up using.
:: What are some of the best things you’ve ever bought? Worst?
June 28, 2017
Over lunch with friends, my fortune cookie said: you will never need to worry about a steady income.
What’s your first reaction?
A) SCORE
B) Why, will I be too dead to worry?
My second fortune cookie said: You will always take on the hardest possible tasks in life.
That’s not a fortune, that’s a character indictment. So judgmental.
My third fortune cookie: You will live many years in material comfort.
Could they be the last years? I am happy to keep working to earn my way while I’m relatively young, it’d be nice not to have the “many years” dry up before I do.
It’s possible that I take fortune cookies far too seriously. It’s not at all possible that I eat too many fortune cookies per meal.
Ok, but big picture, here.
I’m not a risk-taker. I make highly conservative decisions at the best of times because I’ve known some of the worst times. Since I was 18, no job could be considered on the merits alone: challenges, opportunity, compensation. They had to be weighed with respect to the kind of sacrifices it would require from me, the impact they would have on my quality of life after I subtracted the time and energy required to do the job well.
Chatting with a friend who came to chronic pain late in life this week, they’re becoming burdened with the same uncertainty and reluctant awareness of their startling new physical and mental limitations. They’re taking steps back from intriguing job offers that they would have leapt at ten years before, declining opportunities that sound amazing and challenging with the queasy awareness that it’s amazing but very likely just too much for the new them.
Being a saver is definitely me, but it’s hard to tell whether I would always have been this conservative if a chronic pain disease hadn’t taken over my life. It’s also hard to tell if I can train myself to see past my limitations to find opportunities that won’t seriously negatively impact our lives even as they expand our horizons. Do such opportunities exist? I don’t know, but the first step is asking the question, right?
:: Are you an optimist or pessimist, a saver or spender? Do you save anything for the return trip, or do you put all your energy into your outbound journey, like the guys in Gattaca?
June 26, 2017
After spending an astronomical amount on my phone replacement last year, and PiC’s third replacement trying to crap out, it was way past time to recoup any of our cost possible.
Note: this review is months after my actual sale experience so it’s a little dusty, but you’ll see the reason for that below!
I first signed up for Gazelle but they offered a whole $8 for one of our old phones which is absurd. The phone works well enough if you’re not a power user, which I am.
After poking around good ole Google for a while, Swappa looked promising, so I gave it a try with one of our Androids.
This process is a little bit less straightforward than selling on Poshmark, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Useful tips
- The buyer pays for shipping – you have to build into your selling price.
- The buyer pays the Swappa fee – you don’t need to build in your price.
- Sellers are expected to ship within two business days of receiving payment.
- Swappa’s return policy: Sellers define their own return policies on their listing pages.
All seller return policies are based on the pre-condition that the device is received as advertised and in accordance with Swappa policies. No seller may deny a return / refund when a device is not as advertised.
To list and sell your phone
- Factory reset your phone. You could do this later, but it’s best to do it before you take the photos so buyers can see that it’s reset and turns on.
- Supply photos of your phone that show it can turn on, along with the sale code they provide you.
- Supply the ESN (which was incredibly hard to read on our phones because it was printed so tiny) so that the Swappa staff can verify that your phone is in good order.
- Write an accurate description of your phone and what it comes with. I’m still using my charging cord and wall plug for the Kindle, so I only listed the phone for sale with the protective screen cover and the phone case.
- Set your price. I used the current listing prices of the other equivalent phones as a baseline, plus a fee for shipping.
After several weeks of renewing my listing, I had a buyer!
I was notified first of the Paypal payment, then the instructions to ship arrived. I gave the phone one last going over to shine it up nicely, wrapped it securely, and took myself off to the post office where I decided to send it USPS flat rate for the tracking and the confirmation.
The buyer was a bit weird though.
I updated the sale when I shipped and provided the tracking number but there was no reply. Swappa sent him a comment asking him to confirm receipt and formally complete the sale – still no response. The buyer had a week to do so, but didn’t, and didn’t leave feedback either, so Swappa formally completed the sale for me.
A MONTH later, he emailed saying that the phone didn’t work, even though it was in working order when I shipped it.
Since it’d been 5 weeks since I sent him the phone and it was in good condition when it left my hands, as advertised, I offered some basic troubleshooting options and left it at that. He could have attempted to charge it back through Paypal, so I kept the money on the side to wait and see. It’s now been six months with no further communication so it might be safe to say that this one has been put to bed. I think.
Final verdict: My listing sold for $63 less the $7 paid for shipping flat rate with insurance. $56 blows the Gazelle offer out of the water, even with the minor inconveniences and irritations.
:: Do you sell your old tech or recycle it? Do you have a favorite site or store for resale or buying used?
June 21, 2017
I recently visited an overwhelmed friend to help with her laundry and play sounding board. Over towels and bath sheets, she confided in me. She and her spouse had been arguing over everything, she said, stressed by bad decisions, work, kids, work, kids, more stressful decisions. You name it, it was a fight.
In my world, most fights can be resolved by taking a deep breath and letting it out, several times, then figuring out what’s really getting your goat and dealing with that.
Sometimes it takes several hours, or even days, for both parties to cool down and start resolving the issue. That’s fine. What I don’t have time for is endless rounds of fighting over the same thing when the real issue at hand tends to boil down to both partners need to be respectful and/or considerate and/or more direct in some way that they’re not currently being.
That’s a simplification of course, but in general, that’s been a common theme among friends who complain about their marriages. There’s a big difference between complaining about a tricky situation in your marriage, and consistently complaining about the quality of your marriage.
In any case, I’m not a marriage counselor and I don’t offer advice unless asked. What I will do is help with the mountain range of laundry.
Y’all.
89 pairs and 6 stray socks, later? I was ready to fight someone. Leaving aside who needs this many pairs of socks? Leaving aside, also, “who needs 15 different sock styles??”, for the first time, my favorite task felt like an awful chore and no wonder. I wasted 45 minutes of brainpower on socks. I felt like climbing atop that mountain of socks and bellowing: take it all away! Simply your laundry, simplify your life, save your brain!
Reduce decision fatigue, stop wasting brain function on unimportant decisions. Make routines, give your brain the space it needs to be creative and productive.
I keep seeing this message.
Why is this at all a surprise? My best writing thoughts come to me in the shower, or when I’m laying in bed trying not to think. If I’m hung up on a work problem, the dishes get washed or the table gets picked up. In my better days, I’d go for a run. Now, Seamus gets an extra walk to shake the cobwebs. The mundane stroll through the neighborhood clears my assumptions or moves them aside so I can see the solution. Daydreaming and meandering is good for our problem solving.
The key to success is clear, isn’t it? Set routines! Set them for everything!
As a newish mom, I’ve lost the luxury of deciding that starting right now, like in my single and driven days, that from now on, I get up at 5 am, shower, work out, write write write, work work work, eat, work some more. Exhaustion would destroy whatever brain cells I had left, even if I wasn’t dealing with a baby that insisted on changing zir sleep/non-sleep routine every time I relaxed.
But I’m not doomed to suffer, ambition-free and listless, until JuggerBaby becomes a fully actualized human. I’m not doomed because I’m not a martyr, nor am I stupid.
I am going to set myself up for brain freedom and success by minimizing the mental and physical clutter. As much as I quirk an eyebrow at quoting Thoreau’s “Simplify, simplify” for the sheer weight of privilege behind the fact that he could easily simplify by choice (and see Cait’s post on the privileges of choosing to be a minimalist), it does apply here.
Begone, home clutter!
Streamline the closet.
Good-bye to my weird organization system of past jobs. Professional clothes were once separated from lounging / casual clothes to prevent me from sleepily wearing a geeky tee and jeans to the business casual office. Now that it’s all casual, all the shirts /pants / sweaters are now reunited, organized by color, so that I can see everything at once. That’s step one. Step two is making sure that only the ideal wardrobe lives in my closet.
The goal: Mornings, I can grab a clean top, add pants, and voila! Dressed!
Subcategory: Color matching: weeding out most colors. I don’t want to think about whether this clashes with that. Well, not that I do much now but let’s never waste another synapse firing on that again.
Baskets, baskets, everywhere!
Between the dog meds to accompany meals, needing to walk Seamus and JB together, JuggerBaby trying to steal the dog’s leash, phones, keys, and poo bags, and and and … we have instituted a Basket Rule. Everything has a basket. No need to wonder where Thing is, it’s in the Thing Basket. Done.
Subcategory: Nix the (unnecessary) containers. We are battling my love of containers, great and small, and cutting the clutter. Less clutter = less to clean! Win win.
Make gifts easy (and the same)
I found myself asking Twitter for birthday suggestions for a three year old boy and what a load of brainspace that burned! I fell down a black hole of looking at action figures, educational toys, and costumes. Then a friend reminded me, duh, I give money and I give books. Done!
Same with wedding invitations. We have to travel almost every wedding to some remote place that is half impossible to get to without driving for hours and spending serious cash. There’s a trend for child-free events, and we can’t leave JuggerBaby in anyone’s care over a weekend, so we’re declining most invitations. Before JuggerBaby, we couldn’t fit in more than 2 weddings per year, and now it’s even less than that. I send a lovely Nidhi Chandani Everyday Love Art card with a check. Done.
Begone, professional clutter!
Ease up on the side hustle
I have a tendency to take on way more projects in the chase for extra income than there are hours in the day, or energy points in the universe. Instead of flailing about with 20 different projects, doing them all badly, I’ve made it a point to give myself a specific window of time to test out side money projects, and then permission to just stop if it doesn’t pan out, like with mTurk.
A project needs to slot in organically with my life now, and grow organically with the efforts that I put in, because I’m not about to replace my professional job with its many perks with a job that takes even more out of me than I can give, and jeopardize the balance of the rest of my life.
Delegate appropriately, then Back Off!
My bones were made in my professional career by taking on everything in the workplace, big or small, and knocking home runs out of the park with all of them.
There comes a time, especially when you’re managing a staff, to hand stuff over and only monitor progress, not do it all myself. I’ve been managing staff for over ten years now, and it’s still hard to fight the tendency to just quickly do something simple because I know it like the back of my hand with the intention of “helping”, but instead wasting my valuable time, and getting in my team’s way.
What else can I do?
I’m evaluating what I do as I go along, without spending vast stretches of time that I don’t have mulling it over, testing my theories and changing on the fly so the list above is just a start. This ignores the social capital aspects of our lives where we choose to spend time with our loved ones for fun and support.
There are definitely more ways to streamline how we do life and work, and I’d love to hear what you do in your lives.
:: How do you juggle your responsibilities? What’s essential and non-essential?