July 14, 2023
1. I finished my backpack repair!! The resurrection of a beloved backpack is deeply satisfying. It’s icing on the cake that it only cost an additional $3 in sewing needles on top of the other stuff I already had (thread, spare fabric, old lanyards, a sewing machine that works).
2. The ant bait recommendations worked wonderfully. I think it’s ok to draw a line under the kitchen invasion, that seems to be over. I baited our bathrooms that were still receiving several visitors a day. It’s odd though, they aren’t behaving as I’d grown to expect. Usually you see several scouts and then a full scale incursion hits the next couple of days. They sent scouts daily for weeks without ever fully committing so I don’t understand what’s happening. I wonder if they have a whole other strategy I don’t understand.
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July 11, 2023
How do you think you’ll be remembered? How do you want to be remembered?
I was thinking about this four years ago and shelved it. It’s hovered in the back of my mind as I take notes for my elder friends I will have to write obituaries for.
It bubbled back up after a recent therapy session: What would people say about you at your funeral? What do people think of you as a person? What do YOU think of you?
It’s always made me wonder if people know how they’d be eulogized. What would be the summary of their existence?
I buried this post because I wasn’t ready for that level of introspection. I’m probably still not, given my reaction to similar questions in therapy (I make it a point NOT to think about that!)
Back in 2017….
I’ve kept JB alive for going on three years but that’s a reasonably human accomplishment. Besides, after the first year, that’s less of a hazard pay situation and more of a fight the toddler’s instinct to self destruct. Our home was the result of a lot of hard work but survival isn’t a true achievement. (Well, it is, but not in this context.)
My soul is searching for learning and doing. My brain is craving new things to read and do. BUT. My body says no. It is succumbing to fjaka. Weariness weighs down my limbs, lava boils my joints (metaphorically but I also feel it literally), and no amount of metaphorical browbeating can get them to buck up unless and until they’re ready.
My brain craves a hit of accomplishment dopamine very regularly, was satisfied by the tangible completion of the house renovation weekly, and now that I’m off that particular hook, I’m in serious withdrawal. For someone who usually believes she can do anything, being in an “idle” refortification phase of life feels both strange and sometimes deleterious.
Now in 2023….
With the addition of Smol Acrobat, I still feel like my achievement wheels are spinning in mud. I don’t know what matters for me.
I did pick up sewing which has been an incredibly painful, though satisfying, hobby, when I finally figure out how to do something new. I’ve learned how to attach zippers and sew packing cubes and I’ve repaired (sort of) my longtime travel backpack.
I still measure my successes in the tiniest of measuring cups: did we feed everyone with a minimum of stress this week? Did we make it to each commitment on time this week? (Usually) Did we help out a Lakota family this month? (Usually) Did we send a birthday card on time? (Sometimes)
How would you want to be remembered?
My hope is that I’ll be missed, that I meant enough to someone for my absence to matter. I hope I’ll have helped people.
Don’t know that I can ask for more than that.
July 10, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 101: WEIRDLY smooth morning routine with the kids. Turns out it was the only smooth bit of the day. PiC got stuck at Costco for hours mid-morning, then was stranded when he got a flat tire that couldn’t be fixed on the road. I had to run out twice to drop him off and then pick up everyone.
Still, I was extra efficient and got through my regular work and 2 of 3 backburner projects. Not too shabby.
Year 3, Day 102: A couple friends came over in the afternoon to grill and played with the kids. We tried to strike a balance between keeping it simple and having a nice enough spread that everyone could enjoy something.
JB helped me skewer the veggies, we parboiled corn on the cob, and they all went on the grill with a tritip and hot dogs. The pie, ice cream, and potato salad were store bought. Unfortunately no one liked the potato salad much so we’ll get a different one next time. The kids didn’t appreciate much of anything but the ice cream and pie, of course, but they were willing to eat anything to get to the dessert so two thumbs up for motivation.
Year 3, Day 103: Double Monday! Having the day off yesterday was fun. Having two kids and a scared dog š who couldn’t settle or sleep all night because of the fireworks was an awfully high penalty to pay for the day off. JB had a hard time falling asleep but thankfully stayed down once they dropped off. Smol barely slept, continually popping up to look at me between 2-5 am. Sera š¶ only slept after I gave her a double dose of CBD treats and melatonin. She’s still dragging today. I’m right there with her. I got almost two whole hours of sleep and woof. I’m not sure I can lift my arms much today.
Thinking about money, I’m ruminating on how we calculate our net worth regarding our home. I list our mortgage on the debit side. That’s concrete debt that we owe. But nothing feels right as far as listing the value. That is entirely hypothetical, since it’s dependent on someone buying at the price we are valued for. The cynical part of me views the assessed value primarily as a cost to us on the tax side, but not as an asset that we can rely on because who knows what climate change will do to the property values in the next couple of decades?
Year 3, Day 104: Erph. My everything is drained. But I have to keep going: get the kids out the door. Clear my work inbox/desk. Finalize management proposals I need to put in for long term needs. Covering for folks out on vacation and preparing for taking a bit of time off myself.
The list goes on and on.
Usually I’m pretty good about drawing a line under the day and saying that’s all, folks! But as we’re deep into summer (though it doesn’t feel that way at all), time sensitive stuff piles up and can’t be put off.
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I suspect I’d be a more optimistic / positive person if my children would go to sleep and stay asleep at night. If it’s not one kid, it’s the other. Or both. I can’t remember the last time I had two nights of peaceful restful sleep in a row. 2013?
Year 3, Day 105: I’m nursing a cold of some kind. Tested negative for COVID, at least. I’d wonder who got me but this was probably fatigue related.
We visited our local library for the last time today. Bittersweet. They’re moving to an updated building but we love our little
July 7, 2023
1. Gave PiC and Smol Acrobat their haircuts this weekend. Smol hates their haircuts so it took a ton of energy and Lucky Charms to get through. JB’s next. Savings: $50 Remembering that we shouldn’t do three haircuts on the same day: priceless.
2. I let us both off the dinner hook over the weekend. We were wiped out from the week, and we had cooked all week which makes me feel better when I do resort to takeout. We had a treat of burgers and fries and shared a mini shake between the four of us. That last wasn’t specifically to be frugal. The shared mini shake is exactly the right amount for everyone in addition to their own burgers and a big helping of fries. Still, not wasting money on a larger shake, some of which could go to waste, feels like the comfortably frugal thing to do.
Helping folks: FOGA‘s friend is trying to escape an abuser, can you help?
ZJ’s friend lost her sibling, leaving her the sole surviving member of her nuclear family, and is trying to raise funds to help their brother in law be with their niblings during this time of grief.
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July 4, 2023
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks, cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates) and affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon sometimes pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
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 $387.50 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. All reinvested, of course. Someday it’ll add up to a real income.
We picked up $20 from the Lithium Ion battery class action settlement.
PiC is signed up for our city’s bike commuting incentive and rode enough to redeem $25 in gift cards. That’ll pay for more bike equipment: A better bike light, safety is important!
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July 3, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 94: Rough start at 2 am with Smol Acrobat’s sadly calling for me: “Mama, not feeling good. Not feeling good, mama.”
They seemed to have dodged the COVID bullet from two weeks ago but they caught a different cold this weekend instead and a bit of fever was starting up. We cuddled so they could sleep again, while I tried to read my book on Kindle and remembered sitting with JB for them to sleep at this age.
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Weirdly enough it was a very un-Monday sort of day. Work was manageable. I had time to dig into a bigger project I’d put off for months. I still forgot one I’d been procrastinating, but that’s no surprise.
I had enough time to review some plans for the rest of summer, cook bulgogi and prep rice and salad for dinner, make PiC’s coffee for tomorrow and tidy up the kitchen a touch. Heaped on top of a pile of greens, the bulgogi made an excellent “steak salad” for me where I’d normally have devoured 3 cups of rice. We have enough left over for tomorrow thankfully, when I’m going to be running to stay on top of it all.
Year 3, Day 95: Smol Acrobat decided that it was PiC’s turn to suffer last night, rejecting me totally out of hand. I was trying to spare him. He was already facing a late night working but Smol was adamant they wanted nothing to do with me.
Despite that, this morning was unexpectedly smooth. Smol was irritatingly a jack-in-the-box at breakfast but their current obsession with the timers on my phone was leveraged to get them to wash their hands, put on their socks, shoes, and sweater. Each of those things is usually a separate, exasperating, fight until I want to pull my hair out. But letting them watch multiple countdowns got us right through to getting buckled up in the car. Whew!
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PiC bought me four ounces of fresh brie and I just realized that it must be consumed before July 3. I’m on it!
Year 3, Day 96: I’ve been rehabilitating my 15 year old backpack. It was a work pack that morphed into a Con bag and then became the go-to for everything backpack. It was the best pack. When the strap started fraying and separating, in fact when half of it was detached, I mournfully tried to replace it with an identical one but of course they just don’t make them anymore. Last week, I started wondering: what are the chances I can actually rebuild this strap? And replace all the zipper pulls that aged and broke?
I set the foundation of the strap bridge over the weekend and bought some upholstery needles for the bridge/patch ($3). I searched for zipper pull replacements but couldn’t commit to any style or price. Then inspiration struck today! I gathered my old free Con lanyards that we hold onto but don’t need, trimmed off 2/3 of the length and sewed some seams. They’re ugly but perfectly serviceable, easy to clip on and off, zipper pulls! š
Excessively pleased with myself.
Year 3, Day 97: What a terrible morning. Smol got me up at 6. We muddled through the next hour looking at videos on my phone until body could start to function. We made breakfast (sausage! eggs! English muffins! toast!) for everyone and things were fine. But JB was sluggish, and didn’t get in gear until it was late and way past time to go, and they were in danger of missing the field trip bus. Think they’ll learn to get moving when we tell them that they’ll be late? (No, me neither) and PiC has caught whatever Smol Acrobat and I have. Boooo.
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This afternoon was a bit of a blur. We went for a walk, put up the garbage bins, she did zooms in the backyard, I cooked dinner, and went back to work for a few hours. Usually we walk later in the day and I feed her right after but I needed to be done with cooking dinner earlier than usual so my internal clock was tilted sideways. Embarrassingly, the days are starting to blend together so much I forgot I hadn’t fed Sera š¶ dinner until much later than usual. She’d just patiently shadowed me the rest of the afternoon, without any increasingly pointed signals like Seamus would have given like tapping the food bowl or yodeling at me.
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After dinner, I put in the first of four seams on the backpack patch. The curved needle is exactly the right tool š In hindsight, though, starting on the less padded side of the backpack would have been wiser. My hands ache from forcing the unfamiliar needle through the thickest part of the padding. The seam is ugly as all get out too, but that’s less important than how strong it is. With a quadruple thread, it seems like it’ll be quite strong indeed. Again, I’m quite pleased with tonight’s incremental progress!
Year 3, Day 98: Always nice to wake up to a swollen ankle. From sleeping. /sarcasm
It’s been swollen since yesterday but didn’t think it was worth mentioning if it’d pass in a day. It has not.
As long as I keep my weight off, I do ok but just ten minutes of hobbling around in shoes leaves my whole body aching with the knock-on effects of walking abnormally.
I got my first mammogram today. Friends and family warned me about the experience and it was as advertised: painful! It hurt too much to breathe when instructed to hold my breath, so I couldn’t sabotage it by gasping for air, and the technician was quick, so it went about as well as it could have. Results were back same day: negative. Many friends and family have been through the breast cancer wringer and we lost one dear friend to ALS after she’d bested breast cancer, so despite not having a family history (that I know of), a negative result is a relief.