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
Anyone watch the Grammys last night? I didn’t get to watch in real time but my heart thrilled knowing it was happening – our beloved Hamilton was playing the Grammys! #Gram4Ham – We Won!
Then I kicked rocks because their performance reached an even wider audience, thus making it 10,000 times harder to get tickets. And I’m about to do my own plug to make it that much harder for me to get that #Hamiltunes #Ham4Ham love. Because I’m selfless like that.
If you’re a money nerd, this is for you.
If you know the hustle and grind, this is for you.
If you’re an immigrant’s kid relate to the immigrant experience, this is for you.
If you love the spirit of freedom and independence, this is for you.
If you just plain love catchy music, this is absolutely for you.
How does a bastard, orphan son of a whore
And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean
By providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
The 10 dollar
Founding father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder,
by being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
I’ve said it before, I think Hamilton is sensational. It’s not just clever, it’s smart. It’s funny without sacrificing gravitas; it’s culturally present; it’s engaging and, though there is obviously some creative license taken, it’s American history on the stage.
I’ll call Lin-Manuel Miranda the genius that he is in my tone-deaf world where my own baby reacted to lullabies with a “ehhh maybe don’t sing me to sleep momma” face. Let’s just not forget all the craftsmanship that went into bringing Alexander Hamilton to life.
Hamilton was an immigrant (“…bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman…”) with vision, ambition, drive. He served as Washington’s military aide, then became our first Secretary of the Treasury, facing down detractors in Washington’s Cabinet to create a strong centralized banking system, making enemies as fast as he made friends. He fought for the US Mint, and he made the repayment of the national debt his first priority. (That’s for us money nerds.)
Thomas. That was a real nice declaration
Welcome to the present, we’re running a real nation
Would you like to join us, or stay mellow
Doin’ whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello?
If we assume the debts, the union gets
A new line of credit, a financial diuretic
How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive
The union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative? – Cabinet Battle #1
For the hustlers and the grinders, those who work their butts off, not for fame or glory but to get the job DONE? Hamilton was your guy.
Alexander joins forces with James Madison and John Jay to write a series of essays defending the new United States Constitution, entitled The Federalist Papers. The plan was to write a total of twenty-five essays, the work divided evenly among the three men. In the end, they wrote eighty-five essays, in the span of six months. John Jay got sick after writing five. James Madison wrote twenty-nine. Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one!
Alexander Hamilton was far from perfect and Lin-Manuel’s portrayal is honest, highlighting his flaws alongside his gifts. Arrogant, reckless, idealistic, visionary? He was all those things.
But as much as I adore the music, the lyrics, the beats, the way my kid will stand up to clap, laugh, and dance to it, my heart is most drawn to how this all happened. There’s something magical about how unmagical this was.
Miranda, having written the Tony-winning musical In the Heights, picked up the 600+ page Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow for some light vacation reading. Some 50 pages into the book, he was incredibly excited by the notion that this would make a great musical, set to hip-hop lyrics. Miranda couldn’t believe this wasn’t already a musical! Granted, this was his day job but I think it takes a rare mind to see a musical in a several hundred page biography.
This didn’t happen in a vacuum, mind. Miranda’s been in the business, he’s been part of the comedy/improv rap troupe Freestyle Love Supreme for years, and he worked on this while he was also still working on In the Heights.
I repeat: writing Hamilton was his side hustle while performing in the Tony-winning musical that he wrote.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and persistence
Here’s that tumblr link: http://lemonyandbeatrice.tumblr.com/post/139444582196
He was hooked in 2008 and by 2009, he was testing his audience, rapping out what would become the first song of the whole musical at the White House, no less.
Compare, if you will, the differences between his early draft here, and the eventual final opening number.
The show opened at The Public Theatre in February 2015 and was such a resounding hit that the run was extended, then extended again. By July 2015, it opened in the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway and it’s apparently a nearly impossible ticket to get. That’s only the start.
In 2017, they’ll be playing in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. There’s already a cast recording, and there’s talk of an original cast movie. (Please make it so!)
Sidebar: I REALLY want to see the original New York cast. I’ve fallen head over heels for them, between their Ham4Ham shows for the Hamilton ticket lottery, their work together as a diverse cast that feels much more like the America I know, and truly dear to my heart, their good work in the community.
Immigrants, we get the job done!
Miranda’s a veteran in the business but his excitement at the success and opportunities are heartwarming for a fellow hard-working immigrant’s kid. I don’t need to know critical acclaim to remember feeling the wonder of success.
I’m smitten and inspiration-struck when the words and the music that he wrote are brought to life by the incredible talent of men and women of the Hamilton cast.
He translated the life and times from Revolutionary War-era America in a way that echoes in everyday life and I am earwormed forever.
I hear the Hamiltons comforting their dying son, Philip, when I soothe my sick child, “I know, I know.”
I hear Angelica Schuyler when confronted with sexism still alive and well today:
“’We hold these truths to be self-evident
That all men are created equal’
And when I meet Thomas Jefferson
I’m ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel! – The Schuyler Sisters”
Dear Theodosia rips my heart out, voicing my worries, fears, and hopes for an infant LB’s future:
You will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you
And you’ll blow us all away…
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday – Dear Theodosia
And at the end of our days, a reminder we can only do our best to leave a legacy worthy of being remembered.
My words can hardly do it justice, but enjoy the music if you haven’t already and tell me if “Right Hand Man” and “Nonstop” doesn’t get your toes tapping and your blood moving to get out there and conquer your ambitions. Tell me if Eliza’s soaring vocals don’t make your heart sing, whether she’s falling in love, or reeling from betrayal.
If you can get tickets – more importantly, if you can get me tickets 😉 – TELL ME THAT too. In the meantime, you know where to find me! Right here, listening to the soundtrack and writing like I’m running out of time.
Sleep-crying is a thing. It’s as pitiful as sleepbarking (by Seamus, not LB) is cute: real baby cries but you can’t comfort them because they’ll actually wake up and then you’ll regret everything.
I used to hold my breath a lot: would these snorks and soft sobs wake hir or would ze shuffle off to sleep? Don’t know why I bothered. Oxygen deprivation for me wasn’t going to affect the outcome for hir. Wakefulness was either a need for a cuddle, or a full bore scream and arched back of misery that meant FEED ME. Which, in my sleep deprived haze, would often be misinterpreted as “I’m sad, soothe me”. Less than 1% of the time is the latter, why do I always forget?? Oh right. Sleep deprivation.
But it got easier
Ze cried all the time. For months, it was a constant cycle of crying baby, change hir diaper, soothe soothe soothe, feed the baby, soothe soothe soothe, crying baby, try again.
We walked hir, we rocked hir, we patted hir, we sang, we shushed, we passed out sitting up with a baby cradled in our arms.
Not a single thing made hir sleep better or more.
Then ze stopped. Either ze got older and less anxious or hir needs were being met. Who the hell knows? All I know is ze wouldn’t sleep through the night for months. Some nights, we’d be up with the dawn because we’d hardly gotten back in bed much before that.
There was that odd night back in Month 4 ze slept through for a solid 9 hours like a horrible, torturous carrot ze was dangling in front of us. It would be 3 months later before it happened again for a few nights and then it’d stop.
Suddenly, 4 or so months after that ze did. No warning. Just started sleeping through and waking at 5 am. Then started sleeping until 6 am. Once, ze slept til 730.
Lesson learned? It can get better. But nothing we did had any influence over it. I used to be terrible at dealing with uncertainty and after a hard year of training find that while it may not be comfortable, it won’t keep me up nights.
But not easy-easy
That’s not to say we don’t still have our moments of frustration. As ze grows and explores, ze will confuse and frustrate us. We forget, every so often, that ze is just a baby still because ze has grown so fast and is so amazingly interactive.
My favorite age
A friend said that whatever age you’re at, you’ll revise that to be your favorite age. I used to love babies best at Months 3-6. But now I think he was right, I adore LB at this age even more than I did when ze was fresh-baked, or when ze was just learning to lift hir head, or when ze finally learned to hold hir own bottle.
I miss those earlier days with that sort of wistful nostalgia when I realize ze is no longer willing to cuddle. Once ze became mobile, that was the end of baby+mom liedowns together. Ze simply cannot stay still, period. But despite all the exhaustion running after hir now, I love it.
Now is: climbing onto furniture without help, proudly showing off “gentle pets” for Seamus, mischievously crawling and poking at sleeping Dad’s face, industriously pulling down books and folded laundry faster than I can put them up, mad dash crawls with top of the range squeals as ze tries to beat me to the Forbidden Anything Zones, curiously tasting anything ze touches and pulling faces, then sticking out hir tongue for me to remove tasted and rejected item.
Now is a busy time. There’s the nonstop exploration of all the same things, repeatedly. The thrill of discovering new things in the recycling to bang around and share with Seamus. The excitement of pulling out Legos to share with me. Discovering how to put things back where they came from. That last is a much coveted skill but as I understand it, it’s going to take some time. Ze’s working against muscle memory and instinct when putting things back in the box, you can see this when ze places a Lego back in the box, ponders for a second and grabs it back out.
The first step is the hardest
LB took five steps in a row, racing toward hir teacher with delight. Ze has been trying hir sealegs since, taking a step or three here and there, aiming hirself for a relatively soft landing or hurling hirself the rest of the way at us.
I adore hir face
Even when ze is crawling right over my throat to get to the toy on the other side of me, across me being the straightest line from Point Baby to Point Toy, I adore hir.
Ze might be in danger of being spoiled if I thought love was money or love was indulgence, but I think love is support and boundaries and equipping hir with as much skill, knowledge, and confidence to take on the world.
Therefore, no, I will not pick hir up every three minutes just because ze would like to hitch a ride and they always pick me up at daycare! They surely do but I am not a mule-momma and I need to conserve my strength for the most important things.
Oh, right, more importantly, as my parents always said: we say no, and we tell you the hard truths because we love you. Someone who didn’t love you would have no interest in doing the difficult jobs that help you be a better person.
May I always have the strength and clarity to love and guide LB as I was loved and guided in the early years.
Here’s a question for you
It’s been fun putting together monthly updates but now that ze has achieved a full year, we’ve stopped counting in months. Would anyone still like to see monthly updates or have you had enough?
For those of us in the latter category, if and when we escape, we often vow to ourselves never to go through that again. It was one of my strongest motivators to get the hell out of Dodge (debt, that industry, that job), build a career where I could write my ticket, and never again be subject to the unsavory whims, or drunken flirtations and grabby hands, of a petty tyrant.
People think that Michael Scott from The Office is funny, and I think I can see the hint of “but he means well” that makes it possible to laugh at him.
Y’all, take Michael Scott, take away any good intentions, replace them with pure solid selfishness and disregard for humanity, and that’s the level of bad we’re talking about. The shenanigans that people can laugh at, I suspect, are because most people think that’s a parody. An exaggeration. They don’t imagine there are people for whom that’s a reality. I could never really sit through much of The Office without feeling the urge to vomit because that, minus any funny, was three of my former managers.
Is it any wonder that the friends from those former jobs that I keep in touch with feel like friends made in foxholes?
Over the summer, my old friend and ex-colleague, C, told me that our former Toxic Manager (I’ve had a few) from 12 years ago started texting her. That TM was fired years ago for incompetence, but out of the blue, sent a mass text to a handful of former employees with a personal life update, ending with “if anyone still cares about me”. Friend who is far too kind for her own good, sent a nice reply back with a congratulations and “hope you’re well”, and worried to me that she was being uncivil in not extending a hand of friendship to someone clearly in pain. Perhaps I shed my humanity a long time ago but I pointed out that TM was piling guilt on a former employee who was never a friend, and if she’d been any good at her job, she wouldn’t have expected it. A true friend wouldn’t have, for example, have welcomed C back to work after bereavement leave with massive guilt trips about how hurt she was that C didn’t confide in her about her father’s death and her feelings. C was then forced in the awkward position of having to try to comfort TM and her hurt feelings over C’s loss. True story. But like I said, C is too kind and attributes her kindness to others who are wholly devoid of consideration for others.
Well, it’s happened again. Except this twist is magnificent.
A friend, Z, left the company specifically because of a TM, without another gig lined up, and eventually found a job at a start-up. He was far from the first. TM had driven out at least 4 other people before this, and if TM hadn’t left, Z would soon have.
He was so much happier, and he soon proudly welcomed into the world his new baby. Everything was coming up Z.
A few months ago, he said that TM was interviewing at his company! This was after TM had been fired for incompetence at a company that doesn’t easily fire. Of course, I felt strongly that he should speak up. He has strong and valid concerns about TM from personal experience, and TM’s work history is consistent. Warning: contains bullying and petulance.
Apparently, Z did. And his company went and hired that terrible TM again.
So Z quit.
And invited us to his retirement party.
Z and I weren’t close, we just kept in touch over the years, but I am ready to throw on a dress, make some sparkling confetti and pop a champagne bottle. And that’s before we even get to the retirement party!
Because, y’all. Z is maybe 40 years old and even with a new family, they can afford for him to quit instead of sacrificing his health and sanity working alongside someone whose track record for the past 20 years has been to torment colleagues and underlings like you wouldn’t couldn’t believe.
This is why we save.
*wipes away a happy tear* I entertain the notion of early retirement a lot, for many reasons, but this is a favorite. The freedom to walk away from any bad situation because you can and you want to is amazing.
Our 2016 financial goals are pretty normal. How about some personal goals this year? Setting quarterly goals last year was a good format, even if I missed the target on several of them. This year, I’m taking a different approach to the goals because, as it turns out, I don’t need motivation to work more or harder but I do need some motivation to do things that are just good for me.
In that vein, these won’t be assigned specific dates since they’re more fluid.
Reading
I have missed reading so much. 2015 was not my year for reading books. It was my year for reading comics on the phone app, but only once in a while, when breastfeeding or so tired I couldn’t sleep. This year, I have a stack of books on my shelf, by my bedside, and a subscription to Marvel Unlimited. Now the real problem is if I have some time and accessible books, I will read til the dawn breaks.
Travel
We have firmly decided to tackle travel, and flying, this year with LB. Thanks to all your reassurances, I understand that mostly it won’t be a huge world-ending thing but we do have to take a few outlier things into account: my uncertain, but certainly limited, energy levels; overall travel costs; balancing the time off with our work and vacation time.
We’ve got a late summer Hawaii visit on the books, along with a spring visit to the packed-to-the-gills Emerald City Comic Con. I’d dearly like head to New York and soak in the wonders of the Hamilton musical while visiting with dear friends we haven’t seen in ages. Even my addled mind admits that’s probably too much to manage this year though, because you start with New York and find yourself adding on New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia/DC because how do you go cross country and miss this friend, or that friend?
If we do Maui and the Big Island, I’d love some food and adventure recommendations!(more…)
It goes without saying that I feel like an idiot. But I’m saying it anyway: I feel like an idiot. So let’s hope this doesn’t become a series.
In the six months since LB has dabbled in non-milk foods, ze has been liberal in hir intentional and unintentional sharing with Seamus. Not once, not even when ze has offered his own treats to him, has he ever taken anything from hir without explicit permission from me. I know this because I keep a close eye on them both. Seamus has been nothing but an angel toward his grabby, unempathetic, sometimes grubby sibling. An angel that stays nearby, but sets boundaries so that ze is slowly learning from our prompting, scolding, and swoop in for the occasional rescue that he likes to be close, he likes to be petted gently, but he does not like to be grabbed, twisted or licked. Ze still licks him. There’s nothing can be done about that. But still, I watch them. It’s irresponsible to take his patience for granted and ze is not nearly old enough to be trusted to respect his boundaries without guidance.
Naturally, that means that the one day that I take them both for a really long walk and playtime, the one time my brain checks out when we’re in sight of home, LB chucks hir snack bread over hir shoulder and Seamus snags it. He never does that. Ever. But in the split second I had to tell him NO and DROP IT, which he would have done, my brain failed us both and I didn’t. So he gulped it down and then my brain started whirring again.
$@!@%!!(@
That was raisin bread. Usually ze eats all the raisins first before gnawing at the crust but this time ze chucked half the slice, which ze hasn’t ever done, before chewing on it. Crap.
Raisins can be deadly for dogs.
Some dogs can eat grapes with reckless abandon. Some dogs can eat grapes, experience kidney failure, and die. Raisins are worse. You need as little as half a raisin for a 300 lb dog and if that dog is susceptible? It can be really bad.
Seamus is a big boy but he’s no 300 lbs and I couldn’t be certain that the bread had been de-raisined. I called the vet to be sure of the facts above and they confirmed: most possible ingested toxic things, if just a bite or less, they’d just suggest we induce vomiting (or they would) and watching overnight. Raisins are Bad News.
Of course, this happens right at LB’s naptime. Since we haven’t replaced his car yet, PiC had taken the car to work and we were carless so I couldn’t race them both to the vet, naptime or no. We’d run out of hydrogen peroxide so I couldn’t induce vomiting unless…
I strap a tired and angry LB into the stroller and raced down the street. Huffing and heaving, we rattle to the nearest store to grab the first bottle of peroxide we could find, pay for it and run back. Wishing with all my might that I were in better shape, and for that idiot catclling from his car to choke on his own spit and pass out, we mad-dash all the way back home. Intrigued by the commotion, LB’s grumbles have faded to an interested chirp, but once we pass the threshold, ze was bound and determined to be involved. Ze quick-crawls after us as Seamus is sent to the bathroom. Quickly, pop a bottle of milk into warming water, then run to the bathroom to measure out a tablespoon and pulling it into the syringe that … was too small. ARGH. Find another or…. Time was ticking, the longer I took, the more likely he would digest that raisin and his kidneys could start shutting down. They say you’ve got two hours, but you’ve really got to get that stuff out ASAP.
I risk a run to the closet to dig out the bigger syringes and SMASH. Of course. Of course LB wanted to know what I was working on and dashed the measuring cup of peroxide off the counter. I should have remembered that ze could reach it now. KIDS.
No matter, I have more. But forget that larger syringe, I’ll just refill this one. Five times. The syringe was only 3 ml, I needed 13. Drat and damn. With each syringe-full, he’s grumpier and more foamy. It helps none at all that LB’s extremely curious, first climbing up my side trying to help with the syringe, then sitting on his back legs to get a better view. His misery is such that he doesn’t even try to move away. The full tablespoon down his gullet, he tucks his head under his back paws, almost pointedly turning his back on me.
Apologetically, I scoop LB up and plop hir on the cushion with the milk, then sit next to Seamus petting him while spreading out the newspapers for the pending regurgitation. In almost no time, ze tossed the bottle aside and comes looking for us so that’s my cue to put hir in bed, all protests and wails.
Ten minutes later, nothing but yowls from LB.
This time, I find the 12 ml syringe. Another two tablespoons, down the hatch. More foam, and with it, an almost satisfying heaving that I was sure would do the trick. Being a hero, he just swallows and swallows and swallows until the urge passes. Fraggit! I text PiC that he may have to leave work early and take over at home so I could take Seamus in for a real induction.
Ten minutes later, still nothing.
One last time.
Seamus is really out of patience with me but down the hatch it goes. And I encourage him to just let it out. Just don’t fight it. And there it is! A lake of foam and food spreads on the newspapers. Never has poking through a pile of vomit been such a relief.
Amid the foam, the carrot chunks and the kibble, I found our culprit. One half raisin.
Elation wars with a sinking stomach. Another call to the vet confirms we still should have him in for treatment. PiC texts that he’s on his way and by 4:30, this saga started at 2, Seamus and I are loaded up and rolling out of the garage. I’m packing a book, a bottle of water, and a phone that’s running out of juice. Of course it is. But with plenty of deep breathing and careful navigating, we arrive safely at our destination.
Social Time! Seamus’s ears say.
No, I’m sorry, not really.
The vet confirms that if it were her pup, she wouldn’t go so far as the “gold standard” of 48 hours in hospital with IV fluids, the next step down should be plenty since it was half a raisin and we retrieved it.
He happily runs off to be poked, poked again, and dosed with activated charcoal.
His kidneys, according to the labwork, seem to be ok, and they’ll want to see him back in 3 days to confirm they are still fine. 72 hours, they say, til we’re out of the woods. $250 today, and another $75 later this week, if he’s fine. Small price to pay, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, but from now on, wheat bread for walks!
We get home at 6 and still manage to get dinner on the table by 7, and by 8:30, I finally get to sit down at the computer to get my work done. What a day!
We made it through the holidays intact in most ways, despite running on empty and for that, I’m grateful. Like a giant nerd, I’ve decided to change our financial reporting for the new year. Presenting money news: Konami Cheat Code-style!
It’s a clean slate as far as percentages go, whatever this month’s net worth is will be the number I compare each coming month to.
Up: A friend told me that I inspired her to start saving and investing because my #1GoodMoneyThing hashtag made it seem simple and not intimidating! That made my entire month.
Up: I negotiated a huge discount on my hosting fees for 3 years, thanks to Donna for the kick in the pants post. This added a year to my already paid service cycle, and netted a refund of $120. Since this blogging venture isn’t exactly raking in the moolah, that lowers the cost of entry so that I can cover the cost of a hobby. (more…)
It’s been a long week and that’s the truth. Before that, it’s been a long six weeks of cold and flu season.
After downing gallons of cough syrup, a sackful of cough and cold medication, even springing for a humidifier (though why was I dragging my feet on that for weeks?) so that I could stay upright and take care of EVERYTHING, I could really use a vacation. As long as the request line is open, let’s also say work is banned on this vacation, involves a lot of pampering with all the food I can imagine, and an extra person to help entertain LB so sleep can happen. Oh and at least shed the damn virus, please! Oh, and the best vacation ever would mean no packing anything.
***
There’s a great book with a great title that a long-ago therapist with lupus recommended to me: Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired: Living with Invisible Chronic Illness. It was recommended at a time when I was struggling with the experience of pain and fatigue, the limited and unnuanced language of pain and fatigue, the reality of pain and fatigue that is forever, and the frustrations of communicating my boundaries to family and friends who Just Don’t Get It.
Right now a horde of things To Do is taking up ever-more limited brain space so I’m dropping them off here so as to clear my crowded mind.
We need the replacement car, Seamus is outta luck for a ride until we find it.
PiC needs to make a decision about possible travel plans in February.
I need to find Seamus a sitter for when we’re visiting dog-unfriendly areas overnight. I’m as picky about dogsitters as I am about babysitters, oh boy. We love our one sitter but her availability is limited this spring. This kind of makes me want to quit traveling anywhere Seamus can’t come. Putting together any travel plans involves so many moving parts now.
Speaking of travel, we need to book a rental car for two trips this year. Bah.
LB needs to transition to drinking from regular cups and we have exactly no infant-toddler friendly cups or plates or anything. Shopping. Ugh.
Subscribe and Save failed us a couple months ago and we’re about 3 days away from running out of pill pockets but they’re add-on items. Curses! *It occurs to me that he takes his fish oil gelcaps right in his food. Maybe I’ll try that for a dose or two of the antihistamine to stretch the pill pockets.
Seamus needs an alternate antihistamine, the poor guy is breaking out in hives.
Also we’re running out of tissues and what is with my mental block about overpaying per unit for paper products??
My hair requires some sort of maintenance but at the best of times there isn’t brainpower to worry about that. I’m generally carted to the hair stylist under protest. Does anyone know how to use duck or alligator clips? I’ve broken 89% of my plastic claw clips and I need one of those biannual lessons in grooming. I’d love to lop it all off a la Mako Mori but that’s way too high maintenance. Trims every six weeks? Nooo thank you.
We have to make a decision about LB’s childcare situation sometime this year. Current choices: spend a lot more and stay where ze is or spend the same for more time someplace I’m not yet comfortable with.
I know the deadline is January 30th for tax documents but I’m slowly going ’round the bend waiting for them to trickle in. So far we have 4 of an expected 35 documents. FOUR.
Whew. It’s a mix of big and little things, only a few are really important. It’s just that being stuck in decision mode and not being able to cross anything off the list makes everything seem worse than it is.
How are you destressing for the weekend? Have a vent in the comments if you’d like to join me in shedding things preying on your mind before the weekend and otherwise, have a great weekend!
