May 5, 2023
Good Things Friday (219) and Link Love
1. I’m finally allowed to eat broccoli again! Pregnancy took my favorite vegetable from me for three years.
April 28, 2023
Good Things Friday (218) and Link Love
1. Being sick for the first 2+ months of the year really trashed my plans to get a lot of medical stuff out of the way early. I’ve been slowly inching my way back to the first quarter goals: Dental cleaning, check! Annual physical and other testing on the calendar, check!
2. I did one guided meditation and one attempt at a self-guided one in the dentist’s chair this week. The latter didn’t actually take but those little 3 minute snippets are helpful in getting
3. Picked up a few adorable papercrafts to support a friend’s crafting venture.
Challenges this week: Facing the reality of our monthly spending being a whole lot more fixed expenses thanks to daycare and having to dramatically reduce our normal spending.
Helping folks: the We Need Diverse Books spring fundraiser didn’t come close to their goal, maybe we can help them out some more?
April 21, 2023
Good Things Friday (217) and Link Love
1. I boiled half a dozen eggs on Saturday, my bones and muscles felt an empathetic affinity to the eggs, and hoped for the best. It didn’t happen, I didn’t feel better on Sunday but I found a way to make deviled eggs anyway. Treat!
2. We managed haircuts for BOTH kids this weekend!
April 14, 2023
Good Things Friday (216) and Link Love
1. ACTIVISM: I’ve long asked friends in Florida what we can do to support their fight against fascism.
Today, Equality Florida took the extraordinary step of issuing a travel advisory, warning of the risks posed to the health, safety, and freedom of those considering short or long term travel, or relocation to the state. The move comes in response to a wave of safety inquiries Equality Florida has received following the passage of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community, restrict access to reproductive health care, repeal gun safety laws, foment racial prejudice, and attack public education by banning books and censoring curriculum.
@michelleerin said about companies in Florida:
And they don’t care about me but they care about you. They need the out of state tourists.
So I’m going to start looking up companies in Florida that we would hypothetically visit if we were to travel there and put pressure on them to lobby against the current wave of terrible laws.
2. We shipped what’s become a quarterly allotment of treats for Penny’s students and my heart is warmed. As always I can’t do this alone and I super appreciate friends in the community pitching in to make it happen.
JB is full of ideas for the next allotment already.
Twitter friends are VIPs in my classroom.
“Miss! Who keeps sending us all these treats?!”
“Amazing people who want to make school a little bit better.”Thank you so much for this and all the other treats, @RevAGSL, @RooibosandRose, @Mrs1500, @StephTheBlogger and @KKnight213! pic.twitter.com/z0cqFO5nI4
— Penny (@picksuppennies) April 13, 2023
April 7, 2023
Good Things Friday (215) and Link Love
1. It’s a good thing I always project our expenses several months out. Daycare has been terrible at officially notifying us of expected increases resulting from schedule changes and I would have been pretty upset to be caught unawares if I just relied on them. Yay for money spreadsheets!
(The irony of my discovery two days after writing this that I forgot to include a huge recurring monthly expense. Oops! No wonder our cash flow looked unexpectedly robust. Artificially is more accurate. Also disappointing because I’d planned to send out a lot more direct aid before the expenses tipped the scale in the wrong direction so strongly.)
Helping folks: Times are rough for a lot of people right now. If you are fortunate and able, we’ve donated to these folks, they could use a helping hand from the community.
@popelizbet is good people and does good work helping survivors of domestic violence. She’s been laid off (no fault to the org) and needs some help to bridge the gap to her next job.
Tami Mitchell (@disabledgirlfi) is in a tight spot. Her senior dog Imri was injured and needs a ramp.
I have a friend juggling school, chronic illness, and a dangerous stalker ex-spouse problem. I’ve been helping her out but due to massive health issues and a few turns of bad luck, she’s unable to make rent this next month and facing homelessness. I’m working out a way to get her some funds.
If you can pitch in, please send it Ruth’s way with the note: for safety/revanche.
Venmo: @RK-Tillman
PayPal: ruthtillman [at sign] gmail.com
Cashapp: $ruthkt
Activism: In a truly open display of racism, “Tennessee Republicans just expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the state legislature after their powerful advocacy for gun safety legislation.” If you hate it as much as the rest of us do, and can, please help support them.
It’s been a turn upside and shake hard! sort of week.
March 31, 2023
Good Things Friday (214) and Link Love
1. It’s been a hard week on most counts but I am managing to keep my blood pressure steady and the internal conflicts to a minimum. More on this next week.
Challenges this week: painsomnia sucks. Insomnia sucks. If it’s not one making me lose sleep, it’s the other.
March 24, 2023
Good Things Friday (213) and Link Love
1. As much as I’ve been sad this week, that some of this might just be sadness and not depression because I’ve also felt the small pips of wanting to have good food or do fun things for the first time in years. I’ve not wanted to do anything, even the things I love the most for a long time. I’ve found no pleasure in planning or even dreaming about unlikely plans for the fun of it.
2. Therapy also helped me work through lots of mixed up grief. Friends have been going through rough stuff and it’s bringing up a lot of empathetic grief for their losses and also twangs resonantly with my own personal grief and losses.
3. My hollowed out chest coughing is still playing up occasionally but it’s much less this week. I almost want to put up a 2 days since last infection counter but that’s just tempting fate, isn’t it?
4. I found PiC’s Global Entry card!!!! It was under my nose this whole time. I’m never telling him I missed it being right there for three months. 😅😂
5. This gave me a much needed laugh:
Helping folks: I peripherally know Limecello through Romancelandia. Can we help them out a bit? They’re going through a particularly rough time post-op: Please Help Limecello