February 18, 2022
1. We get one week of summer a year and this was our week! Actual sun and heat and a light breeze: pure heaven. We got to spend a lot of time in the yard with Smol without having to bundle up in four layers, wash Sera, sit in the sun and read a book.
2. For the first time in the ten(?) years I’ve had my ibotta account, we bought a thing that had an actual bonus attached! It was for a $1 back for buying any brand seafood!
I’ve only been redeeming receipts for ten cent rewards in all this time so I haven’t even cashed out once. It’s a real bummer compared to other people’s earnings and I’ve been tempted to abandon it but I’m at the $16.50 now. I figure I’ll stick out until I get one $20 redemption and then I’ll close my account.
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February 11, 2022
1. We managed things so that PiC got an outing both Saturday and Sunday morning to work out and I got 4-5 hours of daytime rest on both days. It wasn’t easy but it was doable this weekend and we both got what we needed for once. We traded the kids during that time and everyone got fed. Win all around even if it wasn’t easy.
2. Our local dim sum place started serving dim sum again! We splurged on a wide spread of dishes and enjoyed every morsel. Even Smol Acrobat got in on the dining delight. They ate up almost an entire steamed pork bun before moving on to the other yummy things in my bowl.
Challenges this week: I needed all that rest because I had a massive flare up that took the form of “molten lava replaced my marrow oh joy”.
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February 4, 2022
1. I’d been hoarding my Bing points. I normally redeem for Target gift cards which either cover Lakota Giving or diapers, both of which are eminently worthwhile, but I’ve been in need of a dopamine burst that hit differently. And here it is! We were not going to do our normal Lunar New Year feast with friends, and I was a little sad about that, but mostly realistic that I simply did not want to make the extraordinary effort to make it happen. There’s a very popular place nearby that does Asian BBQ foods that’s a huge pain to buy from. You can’t call in an order, they rarely pick up and if they do pick up, they may not fill your order for hours. Also: we were gifted Doordash gift cards for the holiday. For the sake of the businesses, and our pocketbooks, we do pickup direct from local restaurants as much as we can but there are many days where we can’t deal with the pain of running out for another thing at the end of a hard day. We hoard Doordash money against serious need. (We have a lot more of those than we’re willing to admit and we should do better on that front.) But this is one way we can win win win: a combination of my points redemption and their gift card = a big order from this restaurant. This will supply some delicious BBQ for our Lunar New Year dinner so we don’t have to waste hours of energy fetching it and I will be able to freeze a few portions of it for future dinners when we are on the ropes. It’ll wipe out our reserve but I think it’s worth it.
(After the fact: the delivery was botched but we got part of our order and that was yummy!) (more…)
January 28, 2022
1. If you’re a direct aid giving type of person, Quiara is good people. Everything in life is getting increasingly expensive and it’s harder to make a very set income stretch.
2. I pulled a batch of Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars from the freezer, apparently I froze them back in 2020! 😬 They were still perfect though, and JB was Very Concerned that I didn’t remember where the recipe came from. Thank goodness I had blogged about it!
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January 21, 2022
1. Last month, we had stocked up on rapid test kits at a huge markup for our travel ($300 worth 😱) but for various reasons didn’t use them all up as I had expected. I felt a bit foolish for miscalculating so when someone I know peripherally on Twitter mentioned an inability to get any tests at all, I was glad we could offer a few of ours. This shouldn’t be an issue but of course this country in this pandemic….SMH. This was just before the announcement that we could order free kits in the mail but that’s a whole 4 kits per address if you can even get them (as of Tuesday, people in multi-household buildings like apartments could not).
2. I organized our coupons and menu drawer and PiC’s t-shirt drawer. One drawer/section at a time!
Challenges this week: We had to make the call to push childcare again. It feels a LOT less bad than going in the middle of a surge with no vaccines but it still feels … rough.
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January 14, 2022
1. Tami at Disabled Girl on Fire started her Patreon for helping her to help people in her community. A darn good cause. If you can, it’d be great to support her!
2. I’m getting myself in order for the 2021 tax year thing. I always feel very anticipatory about this even though it’s possible we’ll owe money. Suppose that’s the anticipation talking: I want to see if my projections last year worked out as intended.
3. Delightful: We got a case of a variety of formulas from Enfamil for … I don’t know what reason that we couldn’t use. I couldn’t donate it anywhere here but was loathe to just throw them out. That’s perfectly good formula! I shipped them to Penny and she was able to distribute them in a day!
4. We took Smol Acrobat out to greet JB coming home from school one day and the squeals from the happy elder sibling were really something. We’d stopped halfway up the street, Smol had given up walking, and was leaning on my legs but was so happy to see their JB that they practically ran home with the renewed vigor. It’s very nice to see them adoring each other right now.
5. Our friend sent us an absolutely hilarious gift.
Challenges this week: I’m still exhausted every week. It’s frustrating that my health did improve with therapy and still only moved my baseline from untenable to moderately to severe misery depending on the day. I hope this isn’t the best time I have left.
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January 7, 2022
1. There is something REALLY satisfying about sitting down to roll over to your next year’s spreadsheets and seeing all the numbers lined up properly for once. I usually have my totals a little off for one reason or another and have to spend time fixing that but this year’s final balance on my manual spreadsheet matches my bank account! Woot!
2. Related: This year I want to track my investing income separately but in the same spreadsheet that I track all my normal budgeting things. I’ve adjusted the formulas to see if that works as planned. I don’t do new year’s resolutions but I do love financial fresh starts so I especially love when the new year is on a weekend so I can spend some quality time with my numbers.
3. I finally got to try spaghetti squash that someone else made and I liked it! We will try it on our own now that we know we like it.
4. This was a really good comment from the Ask A Manager updates: “And a reminder that so many times the people/situations that are taking up enormous amounts of real estate in our brain, turn out to be no big deal.”
Challenges this week:
I’m three miles beyond tired.
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