Good Things Friday (90) and Link Love
November 6, 2020
1. I decided to do a trial of the twice a week schedule and a combo Good things and Link Love post (voila!) just to see if I like it and if it’s also a good compromise.
2. JB was surprised with a fun Halloween end of their tutoring lesson and they were so happy!
3. It’s startling to realize that sometimes we can afford to choose time over money within a reasonable limit. I used to sacrifice all kinds of time for pennies because I needed every penny and because it helped counter my anxiety that I’d end up broke if I didn’t. Now I can choose to just buy the thing when it’s 10¢ or $1 more at the store we’re already buying from rather than making a whole other trip to another store to save a total of $2.35.
4. Once in a while, I’m bitten by a much more expensive bug. There was a sale this weekend at Elhoffer Design and I absolutely love the maxi wrap dress I splurged on for myself last Christmas. It’s been so handy for the pregnancy too. Now it’s the summery maxi dresses I’m ogling because I like maxi dresses for summer but I hate that my two don’t have pockets. After JB came along, I didn’t buy new clothes for three years waiting for my weight to stabilize. I normally wouldn’t buy anything intended for months away anyway, especially with this pregnancy, but the material is very stretchy and should accommodate whatever weird size I am in the coming months easily. I have bought a few things for the maternity and nursing period as I’ve outgrown all my clothes but mostly the clothing spending has stayed low as normal. We can afford a small outlay now and again.
Challenges this week: Everyone is on tenterhooks this week as November 4th draws nearer. This week has been nothing but tumultuous between the Election and the rushed through SCOTUS confirmation that I think was absolutely despicable. Such hypocrites. If this confirmation is valid, than the blocking of Merrick Garland was not and the seating of that piece of work, Kavanaugh, should not have happened. I’m sick of McConnell and I’m sick of him making up rules to suit himself. I’m so sick of this administration.
5. I picked up a really cute teeny tiny sparkly Christmas tree for our mantel. I’ve been wanting one and it was the smallest one I’ve seen that was the right price point ($3). We also picked up several kid gifts for upcoming birthdays and before you know it, the Target Dollar Spot suckered us for almost $40. But they are fun little gifts and covers 7 kids.
6. I had been fretting about holiday gifts for local friends. Happily Penzey’s had a sale on their gift cards which was perfect because one local friend is an amazing cook and was interested in checking out their stock. One more check box marked off the list!
This article reinforces the reasoning behind our socializing rules. We don’t see people often. When we do, we always wear masks, it’s normally outside and distanced. If it’s inside (and only two people have been allowed inside with us in the past several months), we remain masked, and we keep the windows and doors open plus we now have an air purifier.
I’m enjoying Purple’s retirement series. She’s a fun writer to begin with and getting to share in the experience of her first year of retirement is even more fun.
Did you know about the CVS CarePass? I had never heard of it before. A thing to file away for later when I have more brain.
Brain Scans Show a Whole Spectrum of COVID-19 Abnormalities We Can’t Fully Explain
Even before COVID I couldn’t with people who cared about whether someone else was wearing a bra. Why do you care. They aren’t having breasts AT YOU.
I know we have time yet but I keep thinking about how we can teach JB to appreciate their abundance, be generous, and not be addicted to Getting More Stuff. Reading Donna’s post I can’t help but think of the two ends of the spectrum we’re looking at. We have the future generation that needs to learn the skills and willingness to do better. We have the past generation that (at least in the case of my birth father) needs to stay in the workforce to make ends meet. Or so I assumed. I don’t know what or how he’s doing, he’s too toxic for me to even want to check on him, so he could be making his way just fine continuing his grifting. I do remember feeling a tremendous weight of guilt that he’d need to go back to work at 70. But while he was willing to work hard on his own terms when I was growing up, I don’t know that that’s happening now. I just know that if he had made different choices at literally any point in his life, even as late as 60, if he had stopped lying to me and grifting, he’d be in a very different position. Instead he selfishly decided I only had value to him as a debit card and obviously that line of credit is now gone.
