Good Things Friday (125) and Link Love
July 16, 2021
1. I just saw an ad for Fidelity saying they would help someone planning for retirement consider “different scenarios, like saving more each month.”
That was the example. Saving more each month. I had to laugh. (Then Donna made the good point that what’s basic to us isn’t even on the radar for someone who doesn’t live and breathe money talk.)
2. Turns out the answer to the question of “what do you do if you have some free time?” is: dive into tax and retirement planning and blogging and watching Leverage: Redemption. I would like more free time please. I need a nap.
3. In an unexpected twist, since my maternity leave earlier this year was medically indicated after the first 8 weeks of CA SDI ran out, I think the rest of my leave was paid for through SDI as well instead of the Paid Family Leave program. If I’m right, then I think perhaps that all the state funded income for my maternity leave won’t be taxable. I hope I hope I hope.
4. PiC has finally hopped aboard my container garden train, full steam ahead! By which I mean, our living circumstances are finally such that he thinks it’ll work, and we have friends with great gardening experience telling us potatoes are dead easy to grow, and we’ve experienced the fun of digging up potatoes. We bought a couple large grow bags, soil and fertilizer, and we’re gonna do it! This is a hobby, though we’re absolutely eating whatever we grow, because otherwise these are the most expensive potatoes ever. I’m keeping this project very very small because despite my desire to Grow All The Things!!!! we don’t have the time to pay attention to or research a proper garden and I do not want to waste money starting up crops that are just going to die of neglect and ignorance.
5. Leverage: Redemption Leverage: Redemption Leverage: Redemption!!
I tell you what, I screamed internally when I found out they were coming back. Absolutely giddy. I adored the first run and I was so thrilled they were bringing the characters back. Like old TV friends. I always want more story with characters I love and for once, I’m getting it.
Challenges this week: We’re planning to travel quite some way for the first time in almost two years and it’s a big undertaking.
Technology is fighting with me. Why can’t it just do as it’s told??
Contact your Member of Congress: Help Protect Workers from Dangerous Heat It’s unconscionable that this isn’t already something we do. We rely on farmworkers to put food on our tables and we treat them like they’re disposable.
Strange but True: The Largest Organism on Earth Is a Fungus
(CW: death / suicide) I didn’t know Erin Gilmer before reading her last message online this week but the situation felt very familiar. Megan’s words especially resonate for me: “it could have been me. It still could be.” I was in so much pain through my teens and 20s that it wasn’t “if” I was going to die young, it was when. It was how. Because for damn sure I couldn’t see a real future for myself. I wasn’t always actively planning for the actual act, but I was always planning for the aftermath. Taking care of my affairs so that when I could not bear the pain any longer I’d be ready to go. I never asked for help because everyone in the medical establishment had already failed me and there wasn’t any point in relying on the adults in my life. So that was a pretty bad time. It was a while ago but I remember like it was just yesterday.
this angle of simone biles is 🤯 pic.twitter.com/yd4mwPRRzH
— whitney medworth (@its_whitney) July 11, 2021
Thank you for the Megan Hoak link. It makes me think; in a good way. I appreciate that.
On a lighter note: humungous fungus – wow!
You’re welcome!
Oh, Leverage Redemption. I’m saving it up for the fall, by which time I will hopefully feel more reconciled to the fact that Aldis Hodge isn’t in every single episode. Hardison was my favorite character. I’m glad that he’s doing so well as an actor that he has other things going on… but darn it.
Re: childcare. See if you can get a sense of the owner’s own personal stance on safety and masking in particular. See if they can tell you the percentage of staff that’s been vaccinated, too. I don’t want to talk about my own situation at this point because I’m really unhappy with it and with the outcome of my own good-faith choices. But: policies are set by the people in charge. Beyond what’s state-mandated, a lot of what does and doesn’t happen in the classroom when it comes to the pandemic happens because of the owner’s own beliefs.
Ohhh my heart, I didn’t realize until after this posted that Aldis isn’t in every episode and I crumpled for a bit because he’s my favorite too! Same same same – I’m happy for him but so much want him in all the episodes.
You make an excellent point and that’s actually why I won’t go to a privately owned small daycare with Smol.
This daycare is a larger corporate entity that is also partnered with an employer who has pretty decent requirements about how to deal with the pandemic so they have been pretty good publicly about masking policies. From what I know from a friend who works there is that they seemed to be consistent internally last year. I will need to ask more questions about their policies going into the fall. It’s more about the families whose children will be attending and whether contact with their kids will become an issue for us/Smol. If they aren’t being careful and the kids get sick … :/
I’m so sorry that you’re unhappy with your situation and the outcomes, I worry a lot that we’re going to be in the same boat.