Good Things Friday (97) and Link Love
December 25, 2020
If you celebrate, Merry Christmas!
1. We will only be doing quiet presents at home this year with JB instead of flitting hither and yon. While I miss my people, I won’t pretend I’m not appreciating the lack of travel and schedule-juggling stress.
2. Refund central: I found a minute to process a bunch of returns. I was a week late on one of them and had to ask for an exception to the closed return window. Thankfully, I was able to get an exception for that item which was worth over $100 and get all three packages in order.
3. We renewed our Cal Academy membership this year to continue supporting the museum. Our compromise was to renew at a lower Family tier since we won’t actually be going there any time soon. This is more of a tax deductible donation this year. We’d splurged on the Family Plus level last year with the expectation that we’d be bringing guests with us through 2020. Clearly, that was a bust. We don’t mind supporting the Academy but we do want to allocate some of that elsewhere to other needs.
4. Our Saturday was full of unexpected treats. We started out on a bad note – I had severe muscle aches and chills which were very likely just due to my fibro and sleep deprivation but we also had a precautionary COVID test scheduled so I figured it was just as well that we’d be tested and I could be sure it’s just my usual “body is broken” random grab bag of symptoms. We decided to take a walk on a nearby trail just to get some fresh air since I hadn’t left the house all week. Turns out that the dog park was overrun with dogs and an absolutely adorable pitbull puppy kept following us around. It eventually left with its family but JB got to say hi. Then we discovered a nearly empty playground and PiC took pity on JB who desperately wanted to play for a bit. In the interest of supporting local / small business, I gave PiC the nod when the ice cream truck came around – JB got an overpriced popsicle which never happens. And then, our friends showed up at the park because they had plans to meet up with other friends. So we got to say hi at a safe outdoors site and that was lovely. But I was absolutely bushed after and needed a long rest.
Challenges this week: Our friend fighting cancer isn’t doing well. I’m worried for them. Our time left with Seamus is growing short, going by his increasing shakiness.
I always love a good book recommendation list. This one is for comics for middle grade readers but I’d love to read all of these myself.
We need to do WAY better with healthcare in the way we’re set up regarding rules for how disabled people can manage their finances. Tami’s healthcare deductible skyrocketed as a result of receiving unemployment this year.
BGR’s Be Somebody’s Eliza with a Simple Yet Life-Changing Act of Kindness, got me right in the gut. I’ll never know if I was ever someone’s Eliza but I try my best to let people know when they have been mine. There are still people out there I still wish I could thank but our contact was so brief I don’t have the information needed to track them down.
Lego Version of Hokusai’s Iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa
