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, $1,732.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
‘I Have Stage Four Cancer, But I Will Not Live Like I’m Dying.’ I can’t help but think that JB’s morbid streak comes from me because when I read articles like this, I think harder about all the ways I have to figure out how to replace all the things that I do in our family should I be out of the picture. But that’s a rather transparently desperate attempt to impose control over something you can’t control. I couldn’t replace PiC with systems and preparation if our roles were reversed. Not by a long shot.
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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
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.
I redeemed a $10 reward from Achievement early this month but they still haven’t paid or replied to my emails. Not sure what’s going on with that. *update: I’ve contacted them four times via ticket and email, AND tweeted them twice. They just like the tweets and do not answer them. What is going on??
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, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
While I’m still not yet optimistic that we’ll see true and lasting changes in society after just two weeks of outrage and protests, I do feel like this time feels different and this article talking about protests in small towns across America is exactly why I sensed a difference. I don’t know if it’ll last, I truly hope it does, but I was startled by the number of people from small places I was familiar with coming out to protest. Even my predominantly middle class white suburban hometown turned out.
The ‘3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world – “Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests.
Music’s week during the protests: “It’s hard to walk into a store knowing I may not get service because of the color of my skin, it’s tiring to remember to get a receipt because I don’t want to get stopped for shoplifting. It’s painful to think about my brother getting pulled over for a traffic stop and having guns pulled on him (which actually happened, in front of our house, when we were in high school). In my particular corner of the world, it’s hard to be many of my friends’ only black friend. It’s hard to ignore the Trump-supporting crap my in-laws post. It’s hard to surf social media (which I have to do for my job) and see the awful racist stuff people post, the whataboutism, the well-meaning but tone-deaf stuff from “allies.””
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, $1,021.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 7 and 8 of shutdown in the Bay Area.
We have a bit of a routine now. Mornings: Walk dogs, feed dogs, breakfast. JB has a lesson online, PiC and I work during that period (I oversee the lesson just as a behavior monitor.) Usually they are released to go hang out with PiC for a snack and games after the lesson unless he has conference calls. Afternoon: Lunch, I wander out after I’ve cleared the critical parts of my work (if I’m lucky). I’m juggling my work, training new staff, giving feedback, overseeing policy issues and questions plus the usual household stuff: ordering supplies, watching our spending, thinking about how to organize our lives a little bit better.
Week 7, Day 1: I had to run an important errand today and it threw my entire work groove out of whack. It took hours to get focused on work again, and before I knew it, I was derailed again by fatigue. Rude.
I did get lucky with the weather though! The sun was shining fiercely enough to be warm even with the usual gusty wintry winds we get through our neighborhood, so I set up camp in the garage for a couple hours to get “beach weather” while working. Ahhhh….. The change of scenery really did my mind and body good. I still felt ill and tired, but it did boost my spirits for a good hour and I’m grateful for it.
Week 7, Day 2:
I had to get checked out today and that was really weird. My second solo outing in two days, after 40 days of being home and around the neighborhood only on short walks, and I was feeling such strangeness of being out and about when the world is so altered. Seeing and talking to people at the doctor’s office was also incredibly strange. Some people were reassuring, some people were brusque and off-putting. Some people were slightly hysterical about the medical building’s policies.
One enormous sigh of relief: The possible crisis with PiC’s job blew over. We will be seeing some changes in May, details still unknown, but I’m so many kinds of grateful that it’s not the layoff that we were concerned about.
I’m thinking about how my mentor used to tease me about my 12 month cash emergency fund. She considered it excessive. It could be excessive for her with her very very stable job but I remember the Great Recession far too clearly not to want an 18-24 month cash fund. THAT was probably too much, though, considering how behind I have been with investing for the future. On the one hand, yes it was important to get off my caboose and invest. The habit was the important thing. On the other hand, considering last year’s high prices, I may have been better served if I had held on to the 18-24 month cash and invested a portion of it this year. Wait. No. That’s not true. In a pandemic, I wouldn’t have been able to let go of the cash and I still wouldn’t have made any inroads into our investing goals. Never mind. Hindsight fails to account for the behavioral changes I needed to make.
Anyway. The point is, if we hadn’t had a year of cash in hand, that concern over PiC’s job earlier this month would have been full blown panic. Facing one income when we need 2 to cover our expenses, less than a year of cash, the stock market down, and being stuck at home during a pandemic? Nope. No way. Eliminating one of those four factors as an issue made a big difference. Going down to one job with 12 months cash would let us hold out for about 18 months before having to sell stocks. If facing a recession and a down market, the longer we can wait to tap those stocks, the better.
Of course I don’t know what the heck the market is doing now or why.
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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Seamus
This pupper continues to be our beloved buddy of many veterinary woes. He’s suffering from moderate arthritis, chronic eye problems, incontinence, and his usual dietary and/or environmental allergies. He’s on a mini-pharmacy of medications to keep him as comfortable as we can: 6 medications.
We’re washing his bedding 2-3 times a week some weeks because his bladder is so unpredictable, so we have to add yet another medication to his pharmacy.
His attitude has backslid quite a bit. He’s so grouchy when he doesn’t get his way now! He’s also restless randomly at night sometimes, waking us up at 2 or 3 am to go out for a pee. I’m constantly watching him like a hawk for any stumbles, he has taken us by surprise a few times falling on his face or falling over sideways without warning.
Sera
Training her has been a roller coaster of many stomach-twisting drops.
It took us several months just to find a treat that she gave half a hoot about (Beggin Strips of all things) after several months of trying to find anything that she cared enough about to even notice when she saw other dogs. I thought we were on the upswing and then she had an incident where she totally misread the situation thinking a dog was a threat and freaked out.
From that point, she was so reactive, so upset at the mere sight or sound of other dogs that I was straining with my entire body and soul to keep her restrained on our walks. I was a walking stress case, constantly worrying. It didn’t matter if they were barking at her or just running past, she was fearful and that made her aggressive. Her manners were all shot to hell again, too. She’d meet small humans and leap at them in her excitement. (more…)
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Current total: $313.24
1. After my seventh day of too much pain, and six nights of not sleeping because of the too much pain, I got more than 6 hours of sleep!! Hallelujah! Breaking that vicious cycle is really tough.
2. I truly dislike Fidelity’s contributions interface. It did a weird thing with our IRA contribution last year and then again this year, and I had to chat with them twice to straighten it out because the first CSR was dismissive and also wrong with his advice. BUT it’s done now!
3. I asked Jay a question that I realized applies to me too: What gives me the same rush as spending money? For me, spending money doesn’t make me happy, but buying things makes me think things are getting done. I’m the Family Quartermaster, buying supplies is half my job around here: dog treats, dog food, canned veggies for the dogs, medications for Seamus, groceries, stuff for the house, the list feels endless. But that tricks my brain into thinking that buying things = productivity. So what else gives me the “rush” of productivity that isn’t buying frivolously?
Today’s answer: I think I have to create things to feed that appetite.
Brief interruption to say: Whew. So many bad things happening this week. Family is going through some really rough stuff and I’m doing everything I can to help. It requires research and consulting with people who know better than me and more work. The rental is a whole $$$$ THING, so much work, thankfully I have someone to consult with for that as well. I’m doing all this work to get our taxes in order. JB is due to start kindergarten this year and we’re getting all the information needed for that and I can’t pretend that I’m not freaking out about that a bit. My checking account looks like it’s going to be running about $2000 short and that’s coming out of savings. ARGH.
4. Sera did well with major distractions on a few of her walks: a kid running up to pet her, a small dog running by (running dogs seem to freak her out for some reason).
5. I resolved to get a dog walker to help with Sera’s continued training and to relieve PiC’s tasks up to a few times a week.
6. Thanks to a supporter who wanted to do monthly donations, I figured out how to set up a donate button! This was intended mostly for our Giving but hey if someone wants to support my labor of love that is this blog, I have no objections.
7. I created!I made a thing! I’m so proud of this one. It’s particularly good for the Very Organized Gift Giver, or the aspiring organized gift giver. The look inside feature should be live (not on mobile, alas) so you can see the cool pages I designed. Whee!
8. Achievement stopped syncing with Google Health a year ago and I’ve wasted a whole year of walking by not getting my act together and getting a new app to track my step. FINALLY found an app to use and created an account and synced it. That shouldn’t have taken me a year. But it’s done.
Thinking ahead to kindergarten / elementary school
Kindergarten is 8:30-1:30. Grades 1-5 is 8:30-2:30. Spring break is a week, Thanksgiving is 3 days off, Winter Break is two weeks. Summer is 10 weeks.
How on Earth do working parents deal with that????
Aftercare and summer camps for summer, I guess. But I hate the mental load that we’re going to have to take on for that and honestly I’m not thrilled with the idea of trusting my 5 year old to various groups I have to get to know before I feel like they’re trustworthy.
I’m feeling obligated to just pick up JB and keep zir home with me while I work. For kindergarten, it’s just one academic year, and that’s just … about 5 hours to fill before PiC gets home and we need to do the dinner/bath/bed trio. Hm. Hm. Hm. I’m not sure. Note – the obligation is entirely in my own mind. PiC is investigating aftercare options.
He’ll support me if that’s what I really want but he’s really in favor of getting aftercare. I suspect I just don’t want it because I hate having to get to know and trust new people all over again.
My parents never had childcare really, it was all on Mom’s shoulders to drop us off, pick us up, feed us, and everything in between. That meant that sometimes we were left waiting an awfully long time to be picked up after school as she was stuck at work late most days. I remember sitting outside the elementary school under a tree, reading a stack of books, waiting for hours hoping she hadn’t forgotten me entirely.
I’m not trying to reproduce that situation, taking it all on my shoulders, and PiC wouldn’t let me anyway. But I still feel this pull to keep JB home with me after school and I haven’t parsed out why, precisely.
When is it “tattling”?
I need to do a better job of differentiating between when I want JB to tell us about someone doing something wrong and when it’s not necessary or appropriate. We have been encouraging zir to resolve differences with the kids in question, which ze is getting better at, but we also need to discuss what things fall under “don’t tattle” (when it’s not causing anyone harm, and it’s just an annoyance that someone isn’t following the rules) and what falls under reporting actual harm.
This immediate “don’t tattle” admonishment was giving me hives because it’s too all-encompassing and I didn’t like that feeling of just telling a kid those two words without further explanation. Like this author, I don’t want to feed into a culture of silence for lacking nuance.
Because here’s the thing – we don’t want kids to lie, but we also don’t want them “snitching” when other kids do something wrong. How are they going to know what to do and when without more specific guidance? For example, when accused of wrongdoing and they know another kid did it, are they supposed to tell us the truth or stonewall? Personally, I always want the truth whether or not I’m going to be the one authorized to follow up on the other kid, but people call that snitching. What’s your take?
We’ve been talking about the nuance with JB, and ze recently brought up a situation between two classmates and asked, “Was that tattling?” So we’re thinking about it, at least.
Precious Moments
Another circle of life
JB: mom, do Lions eat zebras?
Me: Yes if they can catch them.
JB: Then they EAT them! *gasp*
PiC: There was a Wildkratts book about that.
Me: What does it say?
JB: That.
Me: Oh.
PiC: It’s called Lion Pride. They also talk about honey badgers.
Me: What about honey badgers?
PiC: Lions don’t mess with them.
Me: Why not?
JB: Because they will BADGE them.
Me: Yeah … that’s no good for anyone.
Me in bed after a rough day and night
JB: Hi Mom! You can take as much as you need in bed. But don’t take too much time, or else you might not come with us! 5 minutes later…
JB *bursting in*: Mom. Mom. Can I have … Mom, are you …. Mom where’s your head???
Me: *should I tell zir I’m in the bathroom?*
Priorities
Me: It’s taco night!
JB: I don’t LIKE tacos!
Me: -____-
PiC: Ok, can I have your tacos?
JB backpedaling: But … I need da pwotein!
:: Were you a latchkey kid or did you have a parent or adult at home when you got out of school?
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families or rural libraries this year, 