Good Things Friday (192) and Link Love
October 28, 2022
1. I made a giant 4 lb batch of beef-turkey chili that everyone, even Smol, loved. My taste buds are being weird again so all the lovely melded flavors were lost on me this round. But we had enough for a good dinner, enough to put up a meal to freeze for a busy week, and enough for a small meal later. Not enough to share with our friends as I originally intended so now I know to make an extra lb or two next time.
2. The kids got their flu vaccines and there weren’t any tears! JB opted for the FluMist, I didn’t know that was a live vaccine, and Smol didn’t get a choice but they were a champ for the jab anyway. Now it’s just me left for the flu, and JB needs to get their bivalent booster.
3. I scrubbed our bathrooms until they were about 80% clean and gleaming. At that I needed a 2 hour nap after. I’m glad that I stopped there instead of pushing for the full 100% because I’d be useless the rest of this weekend.
4. Halloween scavenger prep included buying prize stickers from a small business (check), making little tissue paper ghosts from used tissue paper (check) and finding hiding places for them (not yet). Gonna call that progress!
5. I stretched a pound of bacon for a week: breakfast egg and bacon sandwiches, breakfast burritos, adding some crunch to avocado turkey sandwiches that PiC got from work free. Usually it all goes into one giant bacon pasta. Nomz.
An article from 2005: Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride has Jewish bones
Coyote found a squeaky toy I accidentally left outside. Turns out coyote love squeaky toys too.
Internalized misogyny is a heck of a drug
From my favorite tax blogger: Tax-favored retirement savings get big boost from 2023 inflation adjustments
11 Reader Comments on Parenting Teens from Cup of Jo made me a little sad. My parents were largely absent from my childhood and teenhood. They worked all the time right up until I graduated high school, and I was a very lonely kid for a lot of reasons. I struggled deeply as a teen because I didn’t know it was ok to want to be seen or to be loved or to be valued. I think I “knew” they loved me but doubt I actually felt it. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever really connect with my own kids as teens. PiC is great at connection with kids and I’m only good with them until about 3. Then I feel distant.
Life After FI – 4 Years in Retirement, Ali: “I don’t worry about money, I’m not afraid of investing, I’m not afraid of the stock market, and I’m not afraid of running out of money during what I hope is a very, very, very long retirement. I don’t fear market downturns, including this whopper of a downturn right now.” I continue to enjoy peeking into the lives of others who have managed to retire early and seeing how their money works. I also like using snippets as a litmus test for myself. I have 3/5 of the above: I don’t fear investing, the stock market or downturns (generally). We haven’t yet achieved lack of worry about money or running out of money, and that’s not a surprise.
This makes me tired. Yet another battleground we’re already losing ground on. I’m so sick of the well funded Republican hate machine: Liberal parents are firing back at conservatives on school issues — but they’re far behind
Well, this is pretty depressing in light of how much plastic is used in day to day life: Plastic recycling is a “failed concept” in the U.S., study says
Mike Davis, California’s ‘prophet of doom’, on activism in a dying world: ‘Despair is useless’
This article struck me as sort of duh. I’m not sure if it’s accurate but the article makes it sounds like she didn’t do any research and just expected it to go smoothly, at least going by her advice to other people. No kidding you might want to trial it for a few weeks first! I don’t want to go camping, not even glamping, so it’s not hard to imagine so van life would be a step down even from that for the unprepared. I have zero desire to live in a situation where I have to think too hard about where my next toilet and shower are going to be. A close friend outfitted her van to be nomadic, eyes open to the trade-offs because she’s had lots of experience camping, and she’s happy as a clam a year later: Van life is just ‘glorified homelessness,’ says a 33-year-old woman who tried the nomadic lifestyle and ended up broke
☆10/1生まれのエンペラーペンギンの赤ちゃん☆
じっとしてほしい飼育スタッフとじっとしていられない赤ちゃんの攻防戦…！？97日齢 14.1kg pic.twitter.com/ZoLc9cz5Gd
— アドベンチャーワールド 公式 (@aws_official) January 6, 2022
It’s great that your parenting team will cover your kids in terms of connection, but it makes sense that you worry you won’t feel it too. I have no wisdom or advice, I’m visiting friends with 12- and 7-year olds and the 12 is pretty much a wreck 80% of the time from what I’ve observed! I want to be the cool family friend who connects with the older kid but I sure don’t see how it’s done.
Sometimes, hearing that other people don’t always feel it or see a way to connect makes me feel less broken. I don’t get how other people seem to do it effortlessly with their kids or kids who aren’t their own. It’s like a weird sort of magic!