February 14, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 326: Third terrible night of sleep in a row as I wait out this latest flare up that feels like my bones are on fire. Tossed and turned for hours last night. PiC took Smol as soon as they were up so I could rest as much as possible before we absolutely had to get out the door but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Monday workloads suck to begin with. It’s extra weighted down with fatigue and underlying pain that won’t go away so it’s Molasses Monday. The kind of extra Molasses Monday that destroys even your muscle memory so that you try to crack the eggs into the compost and throw the shells into your bowl, and you turn off the lights as you go into the room instead of turning them on.
It’s going to have to be the little things today.
Smol, having gotten a later start than usual, this morning, got to spend the hour after we dropped JB off at school with me indulging in their current favorite pastimes: throwing all the socks out of their bin, throwing all the shoes out of their bin, unmatching socks, and carrying diapers around like a football. It’s good to have interests.
PiC pulled together a magnificent simple pantry dinner of steak, risotto (frozen from Trader Joe’s) and roasted broccoli. We enjoyed that after a short family walk through the neighborhood to let Sera do her business, JB run some laps and Smol stretch their legs a little.
I came back to my desk to put in some work on our Lakota family orders. For the orders already shipped, those tracking numbers needed to be shared. FedEx needed more information for a shipment. Diapers have been going in and out of stock since the weekend so I needed to grab what I could when it was back in. I’m juggling three families at once which may have been a bit daft for my energy levels but it’s mostly working out.
That done, I dragged myself off to bed for an “early” night in hopes of sleeping off my pain hangover.
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February 7, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 319: Welcome to another week of “What childcare?” with the added twist of a random no school day in the middle of the week. It started at 430 with Smol babbling at us, WIDE AWAKE.
JB is highly offended by this day off, it’s on their library visit day and they had plans for the book they were going to borrow next. I see their pain. Though PiC did just take them to the public library on the weekend, and they did come back with about 20 books, they still want one more.
For my part, I am obsessively watching the mail for our tax forms. It doesn’t make them come any faster but I can’t quite stop stalking the mail anyway.
Smol finally had a good first nap today, and woke up in time for lunch. They were hanging out with PiC while I wrapped up some work, and had started complaining about wanting to eat. As usual, I was talking to them like they can understand me, “let’s get some food into you” and went over to set up their seat and tray. They walked right over to me as if making a conscious decision to come to me and get ready to eat! Like they know things! It was kind of amazing.
Year 2, Day 320: Some of PiC’s work frustration is encapsulated perfectly in Debbie’s comment over at Nicole and Maggie. He has to keep asking his collaborators / vendors to do their d*mn jobs and they won’t unless he CCs their supervisor. Then he found out that this incompetent lout was promoted! Unbelievable.
Parts of my work frustration is the same: sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to get people to reply to simple emails and yes we’re all still in a pandemic but when this is ultimately work that they want done and won’t do their part and will then whine at me later about why it took so long… I wish to bite them.
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JB doesn’t have school today, so I scheduled a couple of Outschool lessons for them to try out: some art and some language. In the hour before their first much-anticipated lesson, they were told that I was working and PiC was in a meeting so only come ask me if they needed something. They were left to their own devices after that. I snuck out to check on them about 20 minutes before their lesson and they were laying on the ground reading. It’s really nice to see that they make reasonably decent choices when not under direct observation because I can’t say much for their judgement when they ARE being observed!
Unfortunately the teacher never showed up for the second class which was a massive waste of my time. We got a refund but it was 25 minutes I couldn’t get back.
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January 31, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 316: We don’t technically live paycheck to paycheck but I sure do look forward to payday as if we do. About six days before we get paid my radar starts going up, every two weeks. Where’s my money. I want it Right Now. I wonder if that twitch will ever wear off…
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I am not sure if the principal is deliberately misleading us but they’ve only notified us of a handful of cases. When I check the district dashboard, that reports 6x more cases than what the principal has reported. This isn’t doing good things for my stress levels.
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Related: I have been noticing the urge to shop more and more often. Not an urge to get something specific that we need – just an urge to shop. Which tells me that I’m seeking endorphins to combat the stress chemicals racing around my body.
The thing is, once I identify the want to shop, rather than the want to acquire things, I remember that I don’t want a quick hit of dopamine. I’m craving more peace and tranquility, more smooth and longlasting doses of quiet and rest and recuperation. The quick hit seems more achievable but it’s not the healthy stuff I actually want.
I don’t know how to get the part though.
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I AM proud of making dinner tonight. I tried this baked panko chicken recipe (thanks for the idea, Hawaii Planner!), with a big salad and roasted potatoes on the side. Everyone liked it, eventually. Smol was my Pickypants holdout spitting out everything I gave them but it turns out they were just being their usual kind of ornery and not wanting much of dinner until JB brought them a banana. That, they ate happily. Pickypants. (more…)
January 24, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 309: Everyone else has the day off today and I’m jealous. I’m also annoyed because JB’s morning shenanigans wasted an hour of my work time which means I can’t knock off early or take a long lunch time walk with them. Humph.
*****
Over the weekend, I made a pasta sauce with ground turkey. I set aside half for one meal this week and half to freeze. We also dug up our teeny tiny potato harvest and I think they’re going to become a plate of crispy garlic roast potatoes. Twitter enlightened me to the magic of parboiling and it works!
*****
My phone continues to mess with me. Adding to the randomly turning off trick, the keyboard has begun to refuse to actually type at a normal speed and inserting random caps locks and spaces at will. That’s less than ideal. I started researching possible replacement phones over the weekend and got really useful info from folks on Twitter. I think I’ve narrowed down my preferred candidates to three Samsungs: S10, S10e and S20.
*****
I should NOT have eaten that many shrimp chips in one sitting. 😶
Year 2, Day 310: It’s been a solid two weeks on a new supplements regimen and I think it has been doing some good for my fatigue. I was at rock bottom for my annual exam a few months ago. They referred me to a specialist who gave me a whole slew of lifestyle modification recommendations, some of which I already do, and the one that was easiest to act on was adding a lot of supplements to my daily routine. It’s still early yet to know if it really works for me but even with my other heartburn and heart palpitation issues, I’m a step up from my lay on the floor because I’m so steamrollered and hollowed out and can’t breathe mode.
Obviously still deeply fatigued, as one step away from rock bottom is not much and can be reached easily by a little overdoing it but still. It’s a step up that I’m on most days and I’m really grateful for that much. More please.
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PiC fixed our water filter! Three cheers for PiC! It only took a $250 full replacement of parts which apparently has to happen every 3-4 years. 👀
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JB is really into chorizo burritos these days. We only tried it because of a mistake, we were given someone else’s order. But fun surprise for us, they’re good!
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I hate the plastic waste related to this but I’ve had to make some food plastic concessions for our sanity and energy. We have been going through our fresh fruits and veggies too fast, usually running out before the next shopping trip and we’re trying to keep our shopping time minimal, so I’ve bought cases of fruit cups. When we run out of whole fruit, we still have something for the kids. It helps us bridge gaps and reduces my stressing over that element of their diets when we’re juggling so much.
On that subject, feeding Smol has been a real challenge. They’re so opinionated about what and when they eat that they can spend an entire dinner yelling at me and waving their arms in negatory gestures. The fruit cups help smooth the way to their eating a balanced meal.
Speaking of dinner, I managed to make a lentil salad and salmon dinner tonight! It’s the first night in weeks that I was able to take up my dinner duties again and I’m so relieved to be capable of cooking again.
Year 2, Day 311: I had to gain consciousness at 4 am in part 3 of Smol’s jaunt down FUBAR Sleep Lane. First it was a diaper change. PiC took care of that and then passed out. 20 minutes later, Smol was hollering because they were hungry. PiC speculated (hours later) that we’re hitting another growth period where they’re hungrier faster than usual, but also they were a right pain about eating yesterday so I’m sure they simply failed to get enough calories during the day. I cuddled them in our bed while they drank a bottle (still trying to wean them) and then plopped them back into bed. I couldn’t get back to sleep until just after 5, expecting that I’d really regret going back to sleep later. I did. It was HARD waking up again to take JB to school and get to work!
*****
I had what should have been my last ortho appt today. PiC said that was fast! I said that felt like an eternity! He said, well that’s because you were holding your breath for 20 minutes!
It’s true.
My ortho is incredibly brisk and to the point which I VERY much appreciated in a time when I wanted to get in and out as fast as I can. It turns out I’m not done yet, alas. They still need a bit more work so while he’s removed the little bits that hold the aligners on, he’s also ordering another set of treatment trays.
*****
I made dinner two nights in a row! I’m happy that my thrown together chicken in enchilada sauce turned into taco salad night with blue corn taco shells, romaine lettuce and tomatoes, Mexican rice we’d had frozen in the pantry, and guacamole! We both grew up almost exclusively on our respective Asian cuisines but in a pinch, what I can throw together is an approximation of Mexican food for dinner with pantry foods. We’re kinda weird.
Year 2, Day 312: Up at 5 am with Smol, both PiC and I were. Ugh. Why. What have we done to be punished so??
We did our best to keep on chugging today, but it was quite a slog to keep the body and brain in motion.
*****
My annual collection of tax forms dance has begun! I’ve got a W2, a 1099, just twenty more forms to go! I’ll have to wait up until the end of February to get my Vanguard forms. Booooo. I always look forward to being done with filing so of course I’m on tenterhooks the whole of January and February trying to gather all the forms.
I don’t know why I enjoy this but I do.
Year 2, Day 313: Smol slept well all night!!!! We didn’t have to get up at 4 or 5 am!!!
So that was exciting. AND we’re speculating maybe all the wake ups this week was for a developmental purpose because today, instead of screeching all throughout their meal(s), Smol suddenly started pointing with a purpose which clearly communicated what they wanted at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was amazing. It was so much better than the dramatic hollering at random that was impossible to figure out.
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JB celebrated their 100th day of school today. (We all did, because as I pointed out, this was not a solo endeavor.) They had a crown, and wrote 100 words as fast as they could, and brought in 100 small items to share. We had cheesecake for dessert with pretend candles to top it off.
*****
I’ve gone without a massage for several months and underestimated how severely I’d be in pain after my first one back. After much deliberation and anxiety, I’d taken up an appointment today and it felt good at the time. But the physical feedback afterward had me curled up on the floor in pain by the evening. Seamus and I used to share my heavy duty pain meds to manage his arthritis. Now I’m using his leftover heavy duty pain meds. Turn and turn about.
I couldn’t sleep until 5 am because that’s the tradeoff for being in slightly less than excruciating pain: having a brain that simply cannot fall asleep for the entire night. I wonder if pain meds actually reduce anyone’s pain because my experience with it has always been, at best, a temporary and mild reduction in pain with horrible side effects.
Maybe there’s a different med I can try in the future.
January 17, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 302: After a too active weekend, I started this day in a bad place. Bad mood, drained of energy, short of breath, mostly zombie.
I think everyone started around the same place because our morning was no good.
The rest of the day boded ill as well with Smol waking up early from their afternoon nap, but it got better once we adults flipped our mental commitments from work to family. Though too early, we stopped trying to squeeze in work and went for a walk in preparation for an earlyish dinner.
That was better. Then having a fun Zoom call with family helped revive my spirits a lot. Some days feel like weeks, this was one of them.
Year 2, Day 303: Have you ever had dreams about your adult teeth falling out? I used to have a recurring dream where I wiggle a tooth so much it falls out and then I realize it was an adult tooth and I needed that!!
Those all came back today when JB asked me to wiggle their loose tooth, and then to pull it out. *Shiver* I’d like to pull it out but it’s not ready yet. UGH.
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Taking my fun where I can find it: tickling the breath out of Smol when they’re up for it. They also like plonking their face on my head and smushing their face into my face. Then they rub their face onto my face like a cat, and start chuckling. They’ve also discovered bouncing today. Happy bounce, angry bounce, shrieky bounce, giggly bounce. They tuck their legs underneath them and bounce! bounce! bounce!
I also quizzed, wait, no, interrogated PiC on his retirement desires and goals.
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January 10, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 295: What’d we do last year for Christmas? PiC asked. I don’t remember but I was a lot less stressed and anxious since we did no socializing. Though we also had a tiny baby so … Probably not less stressed but certainly less anxious than this year.
Today I had childcare coverage all day in the form of PiC still being off work one more day and it was both amazing and a grind because then I really really really had to make the most of that focused work time. I got caught up on a lot of important or overdue stuff with some intense effort to stay on task, so that’s something. I was sad to have missed out on midday baby snuffles and snuggles but that’s the trade off, isn’t it?
PiC took care of everything today: dog walks, feedings, kids, lunch, and dinner. I’ve got a great partner.
I’m still decompressing from a remarkably tough holiday season. We socialized much more than usual. We were super careful everywhere (vaxxed, masked, no indoor dining, running an air purifier wherever we could) and the anxiety that it still wouldn’t be enough was ever present. There was a lot of internal conflict when I met with conservative family members who did respect my needs (masked and outdoors meeting) but still clearly expressed their views which are in direct opposition to mine. We were able to say our goodbyes to a longtime friend and carried a lot of sadness back with us. My fatigue was always so bad that I felt sick most of the time – it expresses itself as cold symptoms when I’ve gone too far. Of course I rapid tested to be sure it was just my body sending up alarms and not COVID. Naturally that was another source of anxiety: we didn’t have enough rapid tests for the serial testing that I’d prefer considering omicron was taking off in the days after we’d hit the road. I was also trying to get all of us an appointment for PCR tests so we could be reasonably certain we were all COVID free before returning to school and that was an inordinate amount of effort. Of course I was working the entire time we traveled. Basically I now don’t want to leave my house for a month. Maybe two. (more…)
January 3, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 288: In the spirit of caring about the little things we have, I’m a bit sad that I’ve finally worn holes through my blue socks. They’re the socks that PiC gave me ten or so years ago, and they’ve been good socks. They’ll be missed.
I also discovered the limits of our plastic ziplock bags. We’ve been using some of these for almost 7 years, and I put them back into rotation for the last time this week. I put my thumb through the side of two of the oldest bags. Whoops! We have stretched their lives as long as we could, though, and I’m proud that we are teaching JB not treat plastic bags as disposable either. I know on the grand scale this doesn’t matter but it matters to me that we make an effort to get the most use out of everything we have and not just cycle through waste thoughtlessly.
Year 2, Day 289: JB (and I do too) count every little get together with family or friends as another Christmas. There have been a lot. We’re masked, vaccinated, and running an air purifier for every possible encounter, and we’ve been rapid testing, but I’m still antsy so have been looking for PCR tests for days. I don’t want to be irresponsible sending JB to school if they’re somehow an asymptomatic carrier!
I finally lucked out and got appointments for all of us next week which is later than I wanted but at least it’s earlier in the week than what I was finding last week.
Year 2, Day 290: Our friend has passed. I’d been holding my breath going into Christmas Day and then again after when we didn’t hear anything. The moment I forgot to hold it, we got the news.
I was grieving coming up to this point and now I just feel hollow. 9 losses in the last twelve months.
I’m glad we were able to hold her hand one last time. I’m glad she was able to ask for a kiss and be delighted by it. I’m glad she was well loved and she knew it. But I’m so mad that we lost her so soon. I’m so mad we lost so many this year too soon. (more…)