April 14, 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
April 13, 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 3 and 4 of shutdown in the Bay Area.This is a record of our weekdays. We are attempting to set up the occasional video call with other kids so that they can socialize that way.
Week 3, Day 1: Why are Mondays always just the worst? They just are. It’s not even that I dread work, it’s just the day always starts off with me feeling physically slow and sluggish and often also mentally slow and sluggish. My 5yo coworker also complained of being tired but they mostly didn’t want to leave the cozy bed. Me neither, kiddo. Evidently my Monday woes stem from not feeling well on Sunday carrying over. I had to crash for the morning for a while. JB brought their art to hang out bedside with me and narrated their art projects for an hour. I mumbled barely coherent responses most of that hour, they didn’t care.
Seamus just keeps on trying to force us all to be in the same room together.
Week 3, Day 2: Our leadership has confirmed that they think we should be financially ok for several months and no one should be worried about layoffs and that is a huge relief. I’m so grateful to know that I just have to worry about making it day to day with our million concerns and not about losing this job. I was definitely not lucky in job security during the Great Recession so I have a great deal of empathy for the people losing their jobs now.
Since they could be wrong, since we can only make our best guesses on the information we have now and that keeps changing (and is likely inaccurate), I’m doing a lot of balancing of our budget day to day to both be supportive of the local economy and communities in distress and to bolster our own finances.
We’re looking at all the ways we can put cash back in our pockets: requesting our cash back from cash back sites, submitting requests for our dependent day care reimbursements, following up on FSA reimbursements, requesting refunds for services that won’t be rendered for a while from very large corporations that can bear the costs, filing our federal tax return now (we’re due a small refund).
This cash gathering is to balance our spending ahead on services we won’t be getting from smaller businesses until much later to try and help keep them afloat.
Other places that need help:
April 10, 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. Brain therapy was tough and good. I found it hard to agree that I should be kinder to myself, that I deserved to let my body rest without being harsh about it letting me down when I inevitably need way more rest than I think is “normal” or “acceptable” after a certain amount of activities.
Challenges this week: A loved one is going through a really terrible time with their abuser. They’re trying to get out and stay out but the outlook isn’t good for the vulnerable children, the adults in the legal system are NOT standing up for them the way the parent trying to escape is trying to get them to, and they definitely don’t understand how bad it’s going to get. It’s beyond infuriating. PiC’s job is now potentially in jeopardy and THAT is frightening and infuriating.
2. I treated myself to Seanan McGuire’s Imaginary Numbers on Kobo (Amazon) (IndieBound). I am really trying to like Kobo but it is taking a bit of getting used to.
3. Our friends are getting a puppy and this means I get puppy pictures and videos!! I love puppies. I love other people getting puppies and doing the work so I can enjoy them without the work.
4. I learned a new word: kakistocracy. Yeah. That’s what we’re in. (more…)
April 9, 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Middle Class Revolution remembering being caught up in the liar loan euphoria
Mush! Dog Team Delivers Supplies To Elderly Residents Shut In By Virus
I loved this (thanks Cloud!): Tips From Someone With Nearly 50 Years Of Social Distancing Experience
PiC and I are having a small difference of interpretation. Our parks permit us to go walking through them, per the city’s ordinance on their website, and people are going there an staying 20+ feet away from each other or more. So he thinks it’s safe to take JB for a bit of an outing and I want him to. But, I also don’t trust the police to act right. What would you do?
I feel down a YouTube rabbithole and found this clip of Emily Blunt briefly singing with the Backstreet Boys. That really took me back to senior year and the busload of boys who sang the entire Backstreet Boys repertoire on the way home from a field trip.
I spent way too much time thinking about the logistics of this awesomeness:
Are supermarket cash registers now so advanced they can ring through transactions without payment entered? My experience many years ago was that you had to either complete the transaction with a chosen payment type or back it out completely if you had to move on to another customer. I’m imagining Tyler Perry walking in with a dozen personal credit cards and handing one to each cashier to ring up all the customers. I love that image.
My current theory is they’re ringing it all through as cash payments without taking payment, and handing over the receipts for reimbursement later. Like I said, way too much time on the logistics. I’m happy that people are helping people.
I’d be happier if the CDC wasn’t issuing guidance that will lead to more sick people.
Not only does the proprietress ask the dogs to hide, she also tells the last dog to bring the cat (which it does), and then gives said dog a treat and tells it to share with the cat (which they do, amicably).
(This is all in Mandarin.)#OneGoodThinghttps://t.co/cn6tuiMVqd https://t.co/mFeovpHCRl
— Sarah Guan @🏡 (@Sarah_Guan) April 5, 2020
April 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
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.
***
Dividend income. We received $274 in dividends in March. I’m grateful we don’t rely on this income yet because we would not make it.
Our Rental Income has been seriously disrupted for the past few months with the previous tenant situation. I’m really glad that we managed to get a new one in before all this came down. We’ve contacted them to ask after their health, NOT THEIR RENT, even though really this is a truly low point in the finances of the rental after I spent more than all our reserves repairing everything the last tenant wrecked but good. So far they are healthy which is the most important thing and my hope is they will be fine financially so we can start to rebuild the reserves. But if they need concessions, we’ll make something work. Not all of us need to be heartless bastards in this.
April 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. It looks like we’re shut down through May. Being a pessimist who was expecting that (and for it to go longer) sort of helps.
Challenges this week: PiC’s hands are healing very slowly which is frustrating and worrisome, my fatigue is off the charts.
2. We had an online “party” with aunties and uncles for an auntie’s birthday on the weekend and it was fun.
3. That constant urge to buy (probably stress shopping) has faded for a little bit. I’m grateful for however long it lasts.
4. My brain therapy session helped me work through the feelings and difficulty I’m having in supporting a loved one because it’s bringing up bad memories of being the child of a narcissistic user. I chose to support them and always will but I am more cognizant of the need to have some boundaries and the need to step back sometimes so I am not giving everyone else everything and leaving nothing for myself. This is a new realization and a work in progress.
5. JB still seems to be handling the adjustment to our not-quite routine well. I am sure that it helps that they’re getting all kinds of treats they normally wouldn’t: no getting sent off to school at somewhat rigid times, lots and lots of free choice and art time, screen time with every dinner (usually educational but just fun on the weekends.) They generally benefit a lot from daycare programming in terms of education but they have also been attending year round for years with only winter break and a couple of weeks in the summer off. This is kind of the equivalent of their first summer break from a school routine, even though their scope is seriously limited.
April 2, 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, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
I’ve barely been able to keep head above water this week so not a lot of links happening here.
Inside the Story of How H-E-B Planned for the Pandemic
Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.
A bug in Zoom.
COVID-19 PSA from Samuel L. Jackson.
I always like Emily’s writing but this especially resonated: “What’s causing my impatience is not the world outside of my head. That may be triggering my response, but it’s not the cause of it. No, my impatience is my own response to something not working the way I expected it to.‘
I admire Rihanna‘s drive as a businesswoman and her sheer creative power.
Would you guys like to see a mama quokka eating a leaf?
Good. Because she has somebody she wants you to meet. pic.twitter.com/j7bWRJVAbh
— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) March 20, 2020
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