Year 4, Day 265: Brrr. Cold, dark, and rainy. Best for sleeping in, not best for Mondays when you have to get up and get out. I’m eagerly awaiting the last of the gifts I ordered to arrive today, mostly for my furry niblings.
It feels like I must be buying things (cold meds for the kids, shampoo/conditioner/toothpaste, etc for us, gifts for other people that are on their wishlist) to feel better about something but it’s probably more my natural hoarding tendencies kicking in, along with a small side of self-soothing pre holiday anxiety. Generally, they’re all practical things. Even the things I don’t need, just want, aren’t terribly extravagant – all of the Toby Daye series, the few Incryptid books I’m missing, the rest of the Murderbot series, nice pens, cool stamps.
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You know what would have helped this morning? Remembering that I have to generate dopamine before getting into complicated work. Going at it backwards made the work a lot more painful than it needed to be.
Year 4, Day 266: More than 4 hours of sleep after a late night of work and before a very running around day would have been deeply appreciated but it wasn’t in the cards. Smol Acrobat was on the night terrors track and then my body was angry for the next few hours.
So I ran Sera 🐶 out for her walk. I ran JB to school. I ran back to school for their Winter Performance. I ran back home. I had therapy. Then I ran to pick up JB from school. Later I ran them to their class. Then I threw together dinner in 30 minutes: tortellini (3 min boil from Costco), a pot of rice in case the tortellini was rejected, the last of the salad bag, quartered the pound of brussels sprouts and sauteed them in butter, oil and brown sugar (which I added after tasting one and it was disgustingly bitter), heated up the leftover panko chicken.
Of course that’s around the time Smol Acrobat decided they were Very Very Sad/Angry and had to have a screaming fit. JB couldn’t jolly them out of this one so they and I went to sit (lay down on the floor) in their bedroom while they worked it out of their system. By 7 pm I was entirely out of gas. But not out of work!
Year 4, Day 267: We’re four days into the first bout of the rainy season. My toes are perpetually cold, and my overprotective (very kind) neighbors are shocked that I insist on wading out into the wet without an umbrella. This is a holdover when my hands hurt far too much to hold an umbrella, I still avoid using my hands for anything that I don’t absolutely have to, to spare them for the things that are very necessary. A hoodie or a hat will suffice, I’m lucky enough to head back to a warm dry home after I get soaked so it doesn’t bother me.
Most of the year I wonder why we pay for rain boots for the kids, these are the days I’m glad we did. The Crocs rainboots we got for Smol Acrobat are pretty delightful. They’re bright and cheerful, and so lightweight they can tromp around in the rain without losing a boot, unlike the clunky old hand me downs they’ve had. I’m all for hand me downs normally but sometimes it’s better to just buy what you need.
Year 4, Day 268: We’ve bought so many things for other people in a short period of time that I’m having trouble tracking all the charges to my credit card. I’m JUST keeping on top of it with extra spreadsheet notes but the Amazon charges are bizarrely off by a few dollars each. That troubles me. Is this a potential hacking problem or something else? Hopefully it shakes out fine in the end without extra work from me.
In semi-related news, my travel and holiday related anxiety appears to continue to hover at lower levels than historical baselines. I noticed this shift earlier in this year and wondered if it would continue to hold. Instead of big giant holding-breath level anxiety and needing to do things like packing six months out, I find myself managing my cope with smaller actions. Setting up spreadsheets for 2024, paying bills, buying consumable supplies for the household, semi-obsessively checking bank accounts – all of these help me cope with the balance of feeling in control of some things and not in control of other things.
Rosacea: It’s been about a week since I started using the cream. In the morning, I used my micellar water to wash, applied the cream and a bit of lotion. Later I’d put sunblock on top before going outside. In the evening, I used the same. I’m not really sure if it’s making any difference yet. At least one day in the past week my redness flushing and that weird feeling like the reddened skin is thickened flared up pretty seriously. It took a few hours for the effects to settle down some. The feeling like the flaring skin is thickening makes me nervous about longer term developments. My mom struggled with incredibly painful and widespread rosacea and I don’t want it to get that bad. I’ll keep using the cream and observing here how it works.
Year 4, Day 269: The kids being on break plus my working until midnight every night this week = today feels like a very bare minimum kind of day. I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t absolutely have to be done today.
A moment of “we live in the future now”: a cousin texted me asking if she could Zelle me something for the kids for Christmas. Our family tradition is to gift red envelope money but you have to show up to get it. My kids have been out of luck because we haven’t traveled for Lunar New Year since they were born? We don’t make the traditional rounds (in part because time is short and mostly because my feelings about my family are complicated and I didn’t know until last year that they were on my side), so they haven’t gotten any gifts. It’s not an exclusion thing specifically, it’s just how we worked. You give a traditional blessing and they give you the red envelope. My energy has been too limited to make that happen. Anyway, it amuses me to have my elder cousin bring this gifting into the present using technology.
Year 4, Day 258: My three sweet potato sprouts are dead. Unexpected cold got them, maybe. More slips are growing in the garage, we’ll try again after January. My onions are still going strong, though, the green tops show no sign of going yellow and flopping over. Here’s hoping they continue to grow another month so we don’t have to worry about them right in the middle of holiday stuff.
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JB lost a specific set of screentime privileges and has to earn it back by setting the table ten times in a row without being told. They have failed to do this 9 times out of ten so far, and that tenth time they only managed it because I wasn’t home to tell them. Every night, I have to tell them to do it which means they don’t get to check the box that says “I set the table X times without being told.” The whole point of this exercise is to train them to remember we eat dinner every single night and to set the table without my having to tell them what to do and clearly I have failed to set them up for success. Open to suggestions.
Year 4, Day 259: This may have been brought on by being mostly awake since 3 am but I’m having an existential … not-crisis … hiccup? I feel like I’m in a bubble of not-being. Or rather a bubble separated from who I am. In the big picture, this hiccup doesn’t matter because I have a dog to walk, the recycling to take out, paperwork to process, kids to pick up and feed. These things are going to happen whether or not I feel wholly at home in my skin or part of my/any community.
I also feel disconnected from so many people right now even as the holiday cards roll in. Maybe they’re a reminder that I’ve felt so isolated all this year and there’s some guilt over that as well as frustration about having wasted an entire year battling a nonstop circus of viruses. It sucked feeling sick all the time for a whole year. I got nothing done. What a waste.
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There is something really grounding about running into a neighbor with their puppy that likes Sera, though! They “played” which was the puppy trying to roll under Sera while she grumpily snarled at them to submit and then getting mad when the puppy kicked her. I gave them both treats and they settled right down.
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Had to grab impromptu takeout for dinner because the chicken wasn’t defrosted in time for me to cook it. We used to limit our eating out to twice a week and it was usually $27 after tax and tip. These days it’s more like $55-65 after tax and tip to feed four, usually with some leftovers.
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I’ve had to shop Amazon this fall for a number of items we can’t get elsewhere. Just heard that if you tell your Echo device or Alexa app “Thank my driver” they’ll give your driver a $5 bonus. Echo and Alexa are not allowed in my house but if you search “Thank Driver” in the app, you can do it that way too. This little message appears at the top of my app screen:
Amazon should just pay generous cash bonuses and cover the taxes, along with real living wages, but since I can’t make that happen, I’ll do this as long as they have it.
Of course I’m a little suspicious why they have it going, because they’re not to be trusted generally but unfortunately they’re the only source for a number of things we need to buy right now.
Year 4, Day 260: Do you consider your statements to be commitments? Suppose you say “I’ll pick up the potatoes today after work.” Would that be a solid commitment in your mind, or do you assume that it’s automatically hedged with “if I can”?
We have a difference of opinions here. I think if you make a declarative “I will” statement then you’re committing to the thing so either be upfront with your known limitations/conditions (if I have time, if that meeting doesn’t run long, etc) or say you’ll try and leave it at that. PiC thinks treating a statement as a promise is too . I say his way leads to chaos. Disclaimer, this isn’t a huge problem for us. It’s just one of those things we disagree on the basic premise for and I’m curious if it’s just us or if other people see it differently as well.
I see this playing out with JB now. He’ll say “we’ll take a ride on Xday”, so they expect a ride to happen come hell or high water on Xday. And then if something comes up, they’re not just disappointed, they’re also confused about how the statement of fact became false: we were going to ride but we didn’t.
I explained that extenuating circumstances happen and they happened in this case. But as kids will do, they fixated on when when when will we take that promised ride?
How do you receive these statements?
Year 4, Day 261: Now that TV ads are a thing on our streaming services again, I’m seeing those holiday car commercials “Lease a BMW for $699 a month!”. It got me thinking I can’t imagine having a giant monthly payment ever seeming like a good thing to take on again. But on the other side of it, the idea of saving that same amount each month in preparation for buying something large seems totally reasonable. Both are taking money out of the paycheck, but the perspectives feel completely different.
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This is my fourth day trying out Dear Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream in what feels like a probably fruitless attempt to calm down my rosacea redness. The redness annoys me and this is the first time I’m trying a product to combat it. Maybe it takes a week or two for this sort of thing to work if it’s going to help? Maybe it can only help reduce redness temporarily, it’s not like it’s curing anything.
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Out of four pairs of Old Navy jeans, boot cut and straight cut, in dark wash and black, only the black pairs fit and the straight cut fits best. Drat. I don’t love boot cut like I used to. They’re all the same size but the dark wash was a struggle to pull on. The working theory is the dark wash jeans were made at a different factory. The takeaway: buy two of each of everything when trying to figure out what size you are to have a chance at having two pairs of something fit well.
Year 4, Day 262: A friend insisted on giving me a Christmas gift, despite my protests she’s already been so generous to us, so I caved and admitted I would love an ebook from any of my comfort reading series that I’ve only given the library money for (Murderbot, Toby Daye, Kate Daniels). I’ll pick up the others myself, probably slowly, but she can start me off with the first one. I have some of the Innkeeper books and some of the Incryptid series already, when I found sales a few years back.
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I planted two sets of onions from sprouts. The six sprouts from the first set are still going strong. One of the three from the second set turned yellow and flopped over which is how you know they’re ready to harvest, except that it was just dead. Eight possible onions left! 🤞
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Friday food! This was very much a make-do week. Monday we had the fundraiser burgers. Tuesday we grabbed Chinese on the way home from activities because the chicken was still frozen. Wednesday must have been leftovers, and I also threw together a diced chicken and Chinese broccoli slivers stir fry with a packet of leftover bulgogi sauce. Thursday, PiC and Smol got home first so they started prepping breakfast for dinner. Friday I tried to place an order to the taqueria for pickup four times online before I finally gave up and sent PiC in my place. I’ve taken to adding a pozole to my order so we’d have a warm delicious soup for dinner or for leftovers.
The three remaining packets of chicken thighs were still kind of frozen so they had to wait for weekend cooking.
Year 4, Day 251: I’m mildly annoyed that the elementary school is having the kids do Christmas carols this year. Not specifically for our sake, we’re Buddhist and we’ve always been pretty open to observing (literally observing in the sense of watching and also celebrating if invited) other traditions in an almost anthropologic sort of way, more for the kids who aren’t Christian and do have meaningful holidays that are ignored in favor of the dominant Christian stuff. Last year their teacher taught them about all the religious holidays that are celebrated in the winter months and I liked that. I’m not entirely sure how to raise this topic because I just heard about it and haven’t come up with a better option that’s celebrating in a way that’s not othering.
In other news, the plea from the Pine Ridge coordinators this weekend was depressing. A lowlight: “We’ve been working hard listing families that are in need of Christmas presents for their children. We have had a tremendous response – but the need of families has been overwhelming. We are getting really scared that the families listed will not get any Christmas presents for their children and grandchildren.” I’m usually shopped out by this time of the year but I couldn’t NOT try again. So I spread the news on Twitter and Bluesky, and picked up a family with ten kids. In the spirit of the Little Engine that could, I think I can I think I can!
Update: I did! We gathered enough funds to send every kid a gift on their wish list plus a bit of food and snacks for the family.
Then I had just enough time to hop around for a look at winter coats on sale. Ordered our Lakota kid a coat, warm gloves, and wool socks to go with the warm hat and rain boots I sent last week. I’m not good at fun gifts but I will make sure our people are warm and fed. That’s my specialty. They might want another sponsor when they get a little older and I’d understand.
Year 4, Day 252: Terrible start to the day at 330 am between a too-early waking and nightmares about fighting with my biodad again. I haven’t had one of those in months, maybe even years, and it’s every bit as unsettling as it was when they were a regular occurrence. It feels like it left psychic goo smeared all over. Ick.
Related, I finally complained about my jaw pain on Bluesky yesterday. It’s been more than a month with an ache in the left side of my jaw and I’m tired of it. It makes chewing really uncomfortable and just hurts the rest of the time. A friend helpfully gave me a rundown on things that have helped her. I knew about the mouth guard recommendation but have you ever heard of tongue posture? I hadn’t! Trying it out today has relieved some of the pressure in the side of my jaw. I hope this is all it takes, though.
I left PiC to figure out the kids’ doctor appts and our conference call this week. Those are usually on my plate but my brain is maxed out.
Year 4, Day 253: The jaw pain isn’t gone today but it’s at least 30% less! Measured by my ability to open and close my mouth and even to chew without excruciating pain, just bothersome pain.
We were all off our game today. The kids had appointments in the morning and were Infinitely Grumpy by the afternoon and evening. By 615 pm, we had one kid sobbing at the dinner table and the other kid sobbing in their room. So many feelings. So many energies.
When they’d all been fed, bathed, and packed off to bed, I settled into a long stint of ordering the last (I hope) holiday gifts for a White Elephant Party that PiC didn’t know about until the last minute (a game), the toddler birthday party (stack of books), and the other niblings (more books). I asked for book recommendations for the toddler set and a friend suggested Mud Puddle by Robert Munsch which I’d never heard of. I also ordered the last gift card for the Christmas Lakota family and packed all of those for mailing in the morning. After scouring Target and Michaels for fabric drawstring bags (NOT Christmas themed), I gave up and bought a pack from Amazon. Again opting for delayed shipping to get the digital reward since I yearn for more books but we’re quite cash poor this month after November’s purchases.
Year 4, Day 254: Another 40% drop in jaw pain! I was startled when I dragged myself out of bed and tentatively yawned. A little pain still, but the worst of it is better. So grateful for the relief.
After only about 4 hours of sleep, 3+ potential sleep hours were lost to painsomnia and Smol Acrobat’s disturbances, getting up into the wintry chill was tough. *Trudge Trudge Trudge* Sitting on the heating pad at my desk after finally pushing everyone out the door is wonderful, though, if I must be upright and conscious. This thing is a workhorse.
Packing continues today: Put together the last holiday box for our Lakota kiddo and scheduled a pickup for tomorrow. I have a standing giftee list to work from but can’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting someone. There are still treats in my Chewy cart for my catphew, but pretty sure all the cousins have been … Nope. Two more! They’ll also get money because they’re long distance.
AUGH also FINALLY remembered the thing I’d been trying to dredge up from the back of my consciousness, tickling at me. There are two December birthdays to worry about and I’d only figured out one of them. Whew. Thank goodness.
Also also, I’d been slowly throwing together some pictures for a “catching up” holiday card since we hadn’t sent one in years. My heart wasn’t really into sending Christmas cards. When I changed it to a New Year card, that felt more right. Plus that gives me more time to send them. It’s a darn shame that Costco shuttered their Photo / Card printing services. Their prices were pretty reasonable. I ordered from Office Depot to test their quality. My experimental order coincided with a 60% off cards and invitations promo taking my $105 order (including tax and shipping) down $55. I also had some rewards money to apply so I’m spending about $30 out of pocket on 75 cards. I’ll be annoyed if they’re trash quality but not nearly as annoyed as if I paid Shutterfly prices!
Year 4, Day 255: PiC recently witnessed the same kid who attacked Smol Acrobat pinning down a little girl who was screaming at him to get off. He wouldn’t let her up until PiC saw what was happening and told him to get off her. Thankfully she wasn’t hurt but she was clearly distressed and it’s really frustrating that even with the safeguards and checks and staffing, this is still happening. So far Smol Acrobat is ok, but we can’t help feeling like it’s just a matter of time before this kid, who generally does this for a laugh from what we’ve seen, does someone more serious harm again. We’ve scheduled a call with the Director to get a read on what steps are being taken about this, but I suspect they won’t be able to bounce him out of there until and unless he harms someone a second time. The thing is we keep seeing him run at the other kids, not in anger, but rather because he thinks it’s funny to ram the others headfirst or things like that. Never quite serious enough to cause real injury but certainly nothing you want your kid to be subjected to, either.
We would normally have had the tree up weeks ago, at my insistence, but it’s still not up yet because I’m feeling quite meh about it. I am on top of the presents and getting the house supplies stocked up. I know PiC will get on it but he usually does it for my sake. Maybe I just don’t have any emotional bandwidth left to want our own tree. Or maybe it’s just really hard to feel holiday related joy right now with all that’s going on in the world.
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Augh reminder to self, I need to open a Roth IRA for JB’s money. Their art store made a little money this year. I plan to donate a portion of the proceeds when we iron out all the kinks. For this first year, we’ll put the small amount into the Roth.
Year 4, Day 244: I’ve spent all year preparing for the end of the year: clearing holiday shopping ahead of time, getting (almost) all the check ups done before December, etc. Now that it’s upon us, I’m flabbergasted. How did it get to be December?? SMH. Also, we’re back to the grind of just the two of us trying to do ALL THE THINGS. We had a very lovely reprieve, it was rejuvenating even though I was short on sleep the whole week. I forget how much feeling supported offsets feeling tired. Under the “but no thank you” heading, Smol Acrobat is sick AGAIN. I bought them
On Bluesky, @vikrambath.bsky.social skeeted: “Very normal college admissions process we’ve got here in the United States of America” with a screenshot of an article: “Esther’s academics weren’t “stellar”, Kim said – only a 4.3 GPA 1520 SAT and nine AP courses. But in her personal statement, she wrote about her mother’s fight with breast cancer. And she was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania. “That was her trump card. It was a unique situation that she overcame,” Kim said. “To be frank, she got really lucky.”
My good friends back in the day were accepted to Berkeley, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia. I never once thought about their application process back then but these little snippets into college admissions processes today are at least a little unnerving. I wonder how much of that is limited to the colleges I’d never have tried for and wouldn’t expect my kids to try for, and how much of this has spread across the board to more … normal? run of the mill? standard? colleges. I don’t know what to call them exactly, but the ones that are in our pay grade.
(Whispers so I don’t jinx it: Smol Acrobat fed themselves eggs this morning and salad at dinner! With their own hands!! The way they eat their pizza is a complete travesty but I’ll take it!)
Year 4, Day 237: This is the one week a year that I get help from someone I love dearly and it’s precious precious time. Last month I had planned to take time off this week to spend with them but then my boss crash-landed with urgent deadlines and projects and and and. I am MIFFED. I’m also working really hard at not letting it consume this week, regardless of the urgency. I’ll do my best (at work) but my best no longer means “at the expense of my loved ones”. This is the one week where someone else can tend to a million kid questions, provide a lap for kids to play a game together, can bond with them and be the fun one while I am up and about doing the million things that I have to do. They are also a splendid cook so this is the one week I get to go with someone else’s meal flow without having to plan. I absolutely appreciate the hell out of it. I’m still a frazzled mess, a week of help is just enough of a taste for me to desperately want more.
On the other hand, I’m skeptical that we could find someone else who could (eventually) provide this third adult help so seamlessly. I don’t get along all that well with many people. (And I cherish my alone time.)
Year 4, Day 238: Well I’ll be! Amazon / UPS keeps sending me failed delivery notices for the 30+ grocery orders shipped from Amazon to the second Lakota family. I spent an hour tracking down every single tracking number (UPS) and then finding the related USPS tracking number since they handed off to USPS and then confirming that USPS hadn’t actually lost the groceries.
Despite the alarming number of notices, so far it doesn’t look like anything has been lost yet and half of them were successfully delivered to the post office. Fingers very crossed that the rest arrives safely and soon.
Year 4, Day 239: I did not budget half an hour this morning to discovering that something exploded in the robot vacuum’s guts to form a crusty layer of yuck on all the surfaces and had to be dug out bit by painful bit. I also did not budget another hour for dealing with people management problems. But there those hours went, anyway. Insert my pained sigh. As I told a friend, on the outside, I am patient and gracious and helpful. On the inside I am yelling and kicking rocks. She assured me that was having self restraint and being professional, not being two-faced.
Yesterday was a rough parenting day. I was very upset with JB and JB was really upset with over an incident at their class and I felt like garbage afterward when a dear friend and mentor gave me their more clear-eyed observations that I did not disagree with. I’m so tired of feeling like all I do are make mistakes. Then Smol Acrobat got extremely belligerent with me over my not allowing them to carry two pieces of Pyrex that were too large for their little hands. They screamed in my face “I CAN DO IT!!!” and swung at me. Typical toddler emotional dysregulation. I carried them to a corner for a quiet time out and sat with them until they calmed down, but it was exhausting, especially when overlapped with the fight that JB and PiC had. JB decided they had better things to do than finish setting the table – a job they’ve been responsible for every night since they were 5. These conflicts feel more fraught.
Year 4, Day 240: Thanks to good planning and pacing, we had time for all sorts of things we usually can’t fit into a day.
Downtime: I laid down to rest with my computer to shop for jeans that 🤞 I hope will fit and picked up cold weather gear for our Lakota sponsee.
We took the kids and dogs for a long walk in unexpectedly beautiful weather. Sera was also unexpectedly peppy! for that walk.
And we put together the dinner feast for dinner. I ate so much I was nearly rolled to bed.
Year 4, Day 241: Do you ever have dreams or nightmares that are so vivid or emotionally intense that you aren’t sure the events of the dream didn’t really happen? Then you’d be upset at the person who was the subject of that dream or nightmare? This used to happen every night, it used to always be fights with my biodad or brother. It’s a lot less frequent now but when it does happen again, like last night, I wake up really confused about reality and memories.
Probably related to that: it’s been two (three? I can’t remember) weeks of working late nights and I’m tuckered. I gave myself the day off to spend with the family. We managed an errand, time for the kids to play at a playground, and a little venture out to a tourist trap ice cream shop for an indulgent treat and the Christmas lights. We stayed up too late but it was nice to make a memory.
Alas, Smol Acrobat’s nose started dripping again and they’ve gone and contracted another virus. Please cross your fingers that this one blows by and doesn’t turn into anything much worse.
It also just sank in that we’re nearly at the very end of November. How did that happen?? I work all year to be ahead of the curve on holiday things and by November I’m always flabbergasted at how we got here.
Year 4, Day 232: I submit a motion for Mondays to be abolished. JB vomited twice before 9 am so no school for them. Smol Acrobat woke up late and dragged their feet every step of the way. Their fever is finally broken, and they’re still coughing a bit, buuuut they just want to play at home. No no. No no no. No. You need to go play with people your own size and age at daycare! I need you to be with people your size and age. I’m also in a mystery back and forth with Kaiser, I don’t know why. They called me but won’t tell me why they called. I called back and asked – no answer. 🤷🏻♀️ PiC injured his back a couple days back and we’re not sure yet how serious it is. I’m topped up on Sudafed, Tylenol/Motrin, and an antiviral that’s trying to fend off Smol’s germs at least partly successfully or unsuccessfully depending on how you look at it. I’m coughing, sneezing, congested and tired but it’s not as bad as it normally would be. Indescribably grateful the antiviral helps me get through enough of the day.
I wish I could rest more during the day but alas. Unexpectedly pressing and unavoidable deadlines sprang into our lives last month and I have to deal with them. We are slowly crossing out stuff on our to-do list, though, and that is satisfying. Never mind that the to-do list might be a hydra. We’re not thinking about that today.
Year 4, Day 233: Because our total contributions to date for the November Lakota fundraising this weekend was $1700, I waffled over the plans for spending it. Try to shop in bulk for the Allen community? Focus on helping families directly? Hit the Holiday Okini? They all have their challenges. Then I spotted a posting from a 72-year old grandmother, in need of dialysis, with a broken washing machine, needing a bed for herself, and a bunk bed for the grandkids she’s raising. The four teens she raised needs clothes, and the household needs cleaning and hygiene supplies. That decided it for me. We’d outfit a couple families as completely as possible. I wasn’t sure we had enough money to tackle more than the washing machine and furniture but I went for it anyway. Thankfully, while I was pricing out bunk beds (4 stores, 3 dozen beds) to find one that we could afford AND that would ship to the Reservation, another group clubbed together for the washing machine and then a few large donations came in.
That left me with a lot of shopping to do on a larger than usual budget. What a good problem to have. I’m so grateful to generous friends and readers who make this possible.
I also picked up a second family that is out of food and filled a giant Subscribe and Save order for them. Amazon is unfortunately the only place that consistently ships food to the Reservation. Every other store I’ve tried is an exercise in futility.
Of course since I spent my morning happily shopping for families, I ended up working deep into the night to catch up on work. Worth it!
Year 4, Day 234: Uh, I have bitten off more than I can chew. Belatedly realizing that’s an ironic turn of phrase because the REASON I put myself in this position is that Family 2 for November is a household of 12 children and adults who are out of food. I couldn’t put off ordering another day, I can’t bear the thought of people going hungry on my watch. Sadly, you need a vast amount of food to feed a family of 12. I consulted with a friend who has experience with providing food to large families and she confirmed that the 26 items I bought in bulk wouldn’t last more than a week. A case of chili makes one meal. If only Costco would let me ship to PO Boxes, that would make such a difference.
Quick recap: I’ve a huge deadline looming at work, and ALSO am neck deep in over 100 items in various stages of processing to keep track of and pay the bills for. Also, we have to finalize the fundraising for our daycare teacher by tomorrow. EEPS. Deep breaths.
Unrelated I love this Cyndi Lauper song, Fearless. I’ve always been a fan of True Colors but this one grabs me.
Year 4, Day 235: We’ve wrapped up the daycare teacher fundraiser, write her a nice note, and PiC is set to pick up some pastries for the teachers tomorrow. That’s one thing down.
About 3/4s of the two Lakota orders have shipped, sometimes one item per shipment, making me really wish that we had the option to ask for these giant orders to be shipped all together. But that would probably be impossible, my guess is that products are in different warehouses and they simply couldn’t. But one can dream.
It’s time to put together our Thanksgiving meal menu. Can’t scrape together the brain cells for it just yet but definitely stuffing, maybe turkey, maybe prime rib instead?, mashed potatoes yes, and …. What vegetable? JB used to vote for Brussels sprouts. We haven’t done them in a while.
Year 4, Day 236: Friday food review! We leaned hard on takeout again this week, just trying to get through. We grabbed a family pack at Jollibee, fried chicken AND mushroom beef patties, which got us through two nights. I did do a very easy honey butter salmon bake one night and that’s relatively reliable. Otherwise Smol was the greatest of pains during dinners.
Rain set in this week, bringing some impressive thunder and lightning. I worried my plants would drown but when I checked on them, the older batch of onions’s green tops shot up another two inches. Just from two days of rain! I was trying not to overwater them, now I’m not sure if they’ve been stunted from underwatering.
The cough is definitely still lingering for me, with some random bouts of horrible congestion. JB’s cough still sounds awful, it’s a deep rattling thing, but their energy is just fine. Smol Acrobat seems to have turned the corner finally. They’re still extra moody, and sobbed for 3/4 of the drive home today because I was driving and couldn’t hug them. PiC’s back is pretty bad, it’s being diagnosed as a herniated disc at the moment just based on physical exam. I hate that they’re not willing to scan it yet, and I hate that a herniated disc sounds so awful.
Year 4, Day 225: Remember that rest I was really hoping to get this weekend, but knew I wouldn’t? I was not wrong! The three hour party turned into a five hour rendezvous because the kids REALLY didn’t want to leave when the party was over and our friends clearly needed help cleaning up after the … 100? guests left. That is a wild guess, it just felt like 100 people. Far too many people. Smol Acrobat and I were overwhelmed before we even got into the house so we hung outside for a while. I didn’t mind but my body most definitely minded. Then Smol’s body took a swan dive into a fever during a terrible night of “sleep” wherein I had to get up to hug them six times, once an hour or so. Naturally, they woke up at 7 am refreshed and chirpy while my joints were rusty and creaky like the Tin Man’s. I couldn’t raise my left arm half the day and my knees were shot.
On the plus side, I did manage to plow through enough work to call it a day, order toothpaste for Sera, and pick out a holiday card for a friend’s kids.
Year 4, Day 226: Smol Acrobat and I are miserable today. Very little sleep and they’re feverish and alternating between chills and sweats. I’m not very symptomatic, thanks to my antiviral, but I have an echoing chamber of nothingness in place of my brain and the body aches are this side of overwhelming. PiC took the day off to take care of Smol so I could work. It should be my turn to take the day off tomorrow, since Smol won’t be able to go back to daycare until they’re fever free for 24 hours. They tested negative on our home test. PiC insisted he’d take the day again and take care of them. We should probably split the day.
I am going to try to catch some rest tonight since sleep deprivation is eating me alive. The irony is that when Smol is sick, my subconscious goes to hypervigilent mode and wakes up 4-6x a night listening for them even if PiC is taking the night shift. So even when they aren’t waking me, I’m waking me. Very counterproductive, body.
As extra fun, JB’s jaw expander just fell out of their mouth. How is that even possible? It was glued in!
Year 4, Day 227: Smol’s fever is down, thankfully, but they’re still dripping like a faucet with a hacking cough. We’re juggling a bit of work and staying home with them today. About half their class is out sick too.
You’d think it was obvious to me at least that we’re doing this without much help but my therapist observing that out loud was a funny perspective. She recently observed: “you don’t have any grandparents, or aunts and uncles, or friends that are helping out. You’re doing a lot on your own.” And … yes.. Day to day, I forget that the reason other people around us can do so much is they have family to rely on. Hell, I’ve been jealous that other people have family to rely on and I still forget that that’s why I feel overwhelmed at times. If it’s not done by me, then it’s done by PiC. And if he’s not doing it, then I’m doing it. We expect JB to help out but there’s only so much that they can do while also attending to their schoolwork and activities, AND still being a kid – they still get hours a week of just being a kid doing whatever they want (within reason). It’s a lot more obvious to me on days like this that it’s just us when the chips are down. I get one week a year when my favorite relative comes to stay where I can relax but that’s it. Just the two of us.
I’ve been putting things to my list to buy when the Black Friday sales come up but some prices are good enough to buy now. I surprised the family with a refrigerator whiteboard and everyone was quite pleased with it. 🎉 Little wins!
I’d better add a hairbrush. All the little protective tips on mine have fallen off, I think I’ve had this one since 2002, and hairbrushing hurts. I also want a new desk chair and a whiteboard for my office. My desk chair is still good but not good for me. My body needs something with a lot more give. PiC can have this one since he’s just been making do with a dining chair.
Lots of small things to keep on my radar. Returning PiC’s crappy bike light for a refund. Sending thank you cards and personal winter holiday cards. Figuring out how to handle the holiday card for the wider masses and how many I need to send – we haven’t sent one since 2019. I hate that Costco stopped doing photo prints. They were a good low cost alternative. Making sure everyone has medication supplies through January, no one wants to be fighting pharmacy crowds in December. Buy some real Sudafed, speaking of the pharmacy! Finish organizing the hand me downs to share with small cousins. Repair my skirt’s torn pocket.
Year 4, Day 228: When PiC asked me on Sunday how my work week looked, I mumbled some not words in reply because I couldn’t yet wrap my head around the future yet. Sadly, I wasn’t prepared as to how this whole week would be wrecked by the mutant virus circulating through Smol’s daycare. It’s been a week of coughing, sniffling, and worryingly high fevers. The doctor just confirmed that their lungs sound bad all over. But since their breathing is still fine so we’re to keep an eye on them and report back in two days if the fevers continue. The doc expects this will need another week or two to clear up, at best. I don’t even want to think about “at worst”.
I was overly optimistic about my antiviral ‘s ability to safeguard me from Smol’s germs, too. I’m congested and my throat is giving off all the warning signs.
Naturally this is when a new major deadline that can’t be pushed off springs up at work.
And since nothing is going our way right now, I ran the wash and found after the fact that a diaper had somehow gotten mixed up with the clothes. It left white bits on EVERYTHING including my favorite (black) t-shirt.
I would like to quit everything now, please.
Year 4, Day 229: Friday food review! Fancy baked potato night: baked taters topped with butter, sour cream, cheesy broccoli, bacon crumbles, shredded cheese and our homegrown chives! Everyone not named Smol Acrobat loved it. Smol Acrobat’s excused, they are so sick this week. The bacon crumbles are amazing by the way. A bag from Costco has made eating so much tastier. I add them to eggs some mornings, I topped my Mac n cheese with them and that was heavenly.
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.