February 2, 2024

Good Things Friday (258) and Link Love

1. JB took a very proactive lead in helping keep Smol Acrobat entertained when I was working on paperwork this weekend and then played with them the whole time at the playground when we walked to the park. They aren’t usually that focused and these outings are more often like handling two only children wanting things they want when they want it.

Help a family escape Gaza

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January 29, 2024

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (191)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 4, Day 300: A thunderstorm roared through last night. We would have slept right through it like cozy babies but Sera needed a quick outing at midnight to make sure her bladder wouldn’t be too stressed this morning (because of her steroids). You should have seen the look she gave me. You want ME to go out in THAT??

Anyway, that was a necessary soaking because at 7 am sharp she was click-clacking to the front door because she needed to go out again. It would have been much worse, and earlier, if we hadn’t gone out at midnight. As tired as I was, it meant that everyone got up and out on time for the first time in weeks.

The kids have been generally cooperative for the past couple weeks. It’s weird. There are the usual hiccups and temper tantrums and all that but it’s on the very mild end of the range. I have to hold on to the memory of this when we move into the next phase of very uncooperative.

A loved one is going through a medical thing right now. Not quite a crisis but it could be one if their body doesn’t respond to the medications. Something like Sera, I suppose, except their medical issue currently has a more clearcut set of pretty dire consequences if they don’t respond to the medication route. I’m checking on them daily and worrying in the back of my mind.

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January 26, 2024

Good Things Friday (257) and Link Love

1. The WordPress app occasionally has trouble with uploading posts when I’m on WiFi. I’ve learned to toggle it off when I’m ready to post and back on again. This weekend it decided to quit uploading anything entirely, regardless of my connection, which was quite the fitting cap to this awful week. Thankfully after an hour of fruitless troubleshooting, uninstalling and reinstalling the app did the trick. Could have been worse.

2. I couldn’t make my Monday therapy make up appointment between illness and stunningly bad news but thank goodness for my Saturday appointment because, well, awful week.

It’s been a hard week.

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January 24, 2024

Our philosophy on money in 2024 in three purchases

Much has shifted, though not everything, over my 15+ years of blogging about money.

I still don’t think or trust that “money happens”. Some folks can! I kind of admire that. I’m not sure if that’s a developmental stage I’ll ever reach (if things continue going well for us) or if I’m simply incapable of being that laissez faire about money with my background. Who knows? I never would have predicted progressing to where I am now, not even 7 years ago, and my background will likely always play a role in informing how I think and feel about money. I’m trying to keep an open mind – previously unthinkable changes have happened.

In the past 12 months, we’ve purchased an expensive car ($$$$$), an expensive e-bike ($$$$), and paid for an expensive birthday party ($$$) for one kid. The other kid got a tiny cake.

I would have, in the past, stressed about each of these greatly. In detail. Separately. Cumulatively. I’d be vibrating with the tension, anxiety and fear.

For the car, I would have insisted we have all the cash set aside on top of our emergency fund before we even thought about looking at any vehicles. That would have been an unreasonable amount of cash to hold for a prolonged period of time. And I’ve done that before when I was fearful about our money situation and regretted being so conservative. (more…)

January 22, 2024

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (190)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 4, Day 293: It’s a holiday Monday, but not a day off work for me, so we were going to do a bit of juggling today. PiC was going to take the kids to play somewhere so I could get work done, I was going to have therapy. Then we’d have the contractor stop by to finish up a project. However. We thought we were approaching the clear on Saturday because Smol Acrobat had stopped vomiting (Zofran, a miracle drug), and Sera’s bloodwork came back with NOT dire results. We ran her back to the vet for more diagnostics and agreed on a treatment plan for the following week. I was still coaxing her to eat, unsuccessfully. Overnight, both PiC and then JB became very ill.

Most of Sunday was set to extreme hard mode. PiC had fever and chills with an upset GI, JB was throwing up and wiped out, Sera hadn’t managed to eat anything in two days. Smol Acrobat still wasn’t well but their energy level was back up to a nine out of ten. I was up at 5 am changing out sheets and doing laundry, calling the nurse to get a prescription, resettling JB in a new nest of clean bedding. Grabbed a short nap and then was back at it minding Smol Acrobat, picking up prescriptions, cooking food for Sera that she could tolerate, keeping Smol Acrobat out of everyone else’s hair. They missed JB a lot and kept peeking over at the nest every so often. I had to carefully ration my energy, and still crashed by 3 pm after putting Smol down for a late nap. Thankfully, they slept, JB slept, and PiC slept. Even Sera settled down to sleep. I managed to get a couple hours of rest before everyone was awake again. For the first time ever, I told JB they could watch TV however long they wanted because we just needed to survive. I managed to steal a few minutes to finish an email draft from Dec 23 to a dear dear friend S about shared health issues, updating her briefly on our status and the reason I wasn’t sending one of our usual long emails just yet. I promised her a new batch of pictures of the kids soon.

Which brought me to today. Everyone seemed to be improving a little bit. PiC was able to get up and walk Sera and play with Smol Acrobat. I was able to catch up on a few things and as I wandered back down the hall to get Smol to put them down for a nap, I saw an email from dear dear friend’s daughter. We have never spoken before, but I knew her name, and when I saw the subject line my brain glitched. I skimmed the brief email, sat down in the hallway and sobbed and sobbed. My dear dear friend of 20 years had a stroke and died three days ago. I am devastated. I’m still crying. She was so loved, even though we only ever saw each other in person once, in all our long friendship, and we cherished each other. She was my biggest cheerleader when I doubted myself, she gave me so much encouragement with the kids when I was sad or scared or worried. She could reassure me in the most loving ways and make me laugh. She could take a look at one of the kid’s pictures and see their entire personalities and tell me all about it – a rarity in my experience. Most people just see the superficial. She saw their souls, and she was accurate, too. She supported my Lakota project, shared it with friends and family, and I could FEEL her beaming with pride at me whenever we talked about it. Emailing with her was like getting a great big hug. I don’t know what to make of a world without my dear dear friend in it.

I’ve cried rivers trying to write a proper remembrance worthy of her for her family. (more…)

January 20, 2024

My kids and notes: Year 9.1

My kid and Year 5.6

Life with JB

Life with Smol Acrobat

Just like with a dog that’s not food motivated, I struggled to figure out Smol Acrobat’s motivation. (Sera started out as such a traumatized girl that food meant nothing to her either.)

Food is my natural go to lever for gaining cooperation. What do you do with these food indifferent dogs/kids? Well, I haven’t cracked the dog code yet, I just eventually found treats that were high value enough to break through Sera’s trauma induced anxiety to retrain her but Smol Acrobat doesn’t consistently like anything enough to have it be a high value snack.

Pupdate

Precious Moments

Smol’s reluctance to let me change their diaper sometimes leads to creative excuses:

Here, let me check your diaper.

January 19, 2024

Good Things Friday (256) and Link Love

  1. My post-holidays recombobulation process continues apace. I pulled pictures for JB’s school project and that pushed me to pull pictures from the holidays to photoshop a group picture. That led to me downloading a couple pics for my cousin. THAT led me to finally downloading the majillion (42, actually) pictures from Smol Acrobat’s friend’s birthday party to share with his friend’s mom who says they can’t get their kid to smile for ANY pics. That kiddo beamed like the sun for me so these are precious.

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