January 27, 2023

Good Things Friday (205) and Link Love

1. Last week I felt compelled to host our “usual” Lunar NY dinner. By Wednesday I realized I really didn’t want to host anything and instead got in touch with an old friend who’d been wanting to talk and they invited us over.

It was brilliant. The kids got to play with older cousins, there was no crying or whining, we had a lovely casual dinner without any pressure to do all the traditional stuff that maybe we don’t wanna do this year.

2. JB shared that they like their self defense partner and I just said I was glad for them. I was tempted to say they need to work harder at practice but you know what? I’m starting to remember how some of that felt when I was growing up. That’s a comment for another time, if ever.

Challenges this week: I’m sick again. Bah.

(more…)

January 20, 2023

Good Things Friday (204) and Link Love

1. A handful of us PF folk threw together a bundle of money so I could buy a variety of snacks for Penny’s students before the holidays. It was gratifying just to know that hungry kids were getting some food, but this update made me so happy.

There’s more people than I can even think to tag, but a whole Twitter crew helped @RevAGSL send my kiddos snacks. And I just got the test scores back?! The kids who tested with me and ate beforehand almost all made their growth goals 😭 I can’t say that about any other class.

2. Then a handful of folks chimed in wanting to be part of the next round. This is great! There will be a next round! I hold the funds in a separate account and track it on a spreadsheet between rounds, then let people know once I shop what our collective funds bought. It’s great.

Also supporting:

Child and Family Relief Round: The “Child and Family Relief Fund” campaign aims to support families with children who are significantly impacted by the ongoing crisis and famine in Afghanistan.

Troop 6000TM is a Girl Scout program specially designed to serve girls in the New York City Shelter System.

(more…)

January 13, 2023

Good Things Friday (203) and Link Love

1. I hope that by the time this goes live, the order will have shipped already. I bought a dear friend something from off their wish list that I normally don’t get to see. It’s a fun extra surprise because their birthday and Christmas are quite far off.

2. Our wonderful regular contributors to the Lakota Giving Project got us in gear to start this year off right. I’ve been working on our first family! Deeply grateful for this community. ❤️❤️❤️

3. I’ve discovered the ability to take long screenshots and to add them to WordPress so I’m sharing tweet threads that way to preserve them in case they go away.

Challenges this week:

(more…)

January 6, 2023

Good Things Friday (202) and Link Love

1.Mutual aid needed: GoFundMe for a family whose home was destroyed by fire the week before Christmas.

2. I hope this doesn’t jinx us but Smol Acrobat has willingly and voluntarily (as in, ate it themselves instead of having to be coaxed) eaten full meals three nights this week: a starch, protein and veggie! This is big.

3. In scraping the silver stuff that covers the access code on a Target gift card, a whole chunk of the sticker with the numbers came off too. Unfortunately a chunk that I needed! I wrote down all the numbers I could see clearly and then manually tested every single permutation of numbers to find the access code. I found it!

4. I need to remember this more often. I frequently struggle with seeing my progress when it does happen:

Challenges this week: insomnia is a terrible foe.

(more…)

December 23, 2022

Good Things Friday (200) and Link Love

1. I hate having to ask for help but the kids were both sick and we needed to know we had enough medication for them both. I had to put out a call to some friends to see if they could get a line on more meds. We were so lucky they happened to have extra!

Challenges this week: everyone is so sick and tired.

(more…)

December 16, 2022

Good Things Friday (199) and Link Love

1. You’d think I could come up with at least one good thing this week, eh? But it’s been a hell of a week and the best thing I can say is I was able to work from bed a few days this week (and I should have done all week) which has given me more than the bare illusion of rest that I was faking when I called sitting at my desk and working “rest”. Here’s to a better next week.

(more…)

This website and its content are copyright of A Gai Shan Life  | © A Gai Shan Life 2024. All rights reserved.

Site design by 801red