August 6, 2021
1. Getting to see a few people I have missed deeply lightened my heavy soul. I guess even I need a little in person time.
2. I’m slowly catching up on shedloads of work that I had to get through.
3. I missed a big annual bill by a few days, but I caught it in time to mail the check within the grace period and didn’t start to beat myself up over it other than feeling a gust of exasperation in the moment. Progress!
Challenges this week: We memorialized a dear friend’s passing.
Travel with little ones is HARD.
Preparing for a new school year hardly any better equipped or informed than last year feels awful. How are we still in this muddle?
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July 30, 2021
1. Our power went out right when I needed to prep a bottle for Smol and though I had a flash of annoyance, I thought you know what? Opportunity! We’re going to practice our disaster scenario skills! (Tons of good comments there that I didn’t reply to at the time because it was December 2019 right before the pandemic became a reality for us, so I need to go back and revisit.) I’ve been after PiC to do a dry run for a while and he’s been reluctant because he doubted that he’d like it. But I wanted to confirm, I don’t want to find out our supplies suck when we’re already miserable and stressed. It was fun! We heated water on the stove, cooked up three Mountain House pouches (thanks to Stacking Pennies for recommending them seven years ago!), and used our little silicon lantern for light at the dinner table. We didn’t really need it since it’s summerish right now and the light lasts until nearly 8 pm but hey, it’s a dry run. We also cranked up PiC’s crank radio to find the emergency station but we couldn’t find it. Something to figure out! The food was actually quite good. Chock full of sodium and I’m parched but it was tasty. PiC said they’d be exponentially tastier after a day of energy expenditure if we were to use them after hiking.
2. I’ve been running the robot vacuum every few nights now that Smol Acrobat is all over the floors, and it’s really quite satisfying to push a button, walk away and have wide swaths of the floor be clean later. After the fiasco with the cleaners, I needed a cleaning win that wasn’t using my precious energy.
Challenges this week: As people start to socialize more and we get invitations to things, I’m having anxiety nightmares about overbooking. One dream was about trying to make it to two weddings in one day! It was a mess.
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July 23, 2021
1. Neither good or bad: time is so WEIRDLY elastic. Saturday flew by way way way too fast. Sunday was much less disappeary.
Challenges this week: technology. ARGH.
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July 16, 2021
1. I just saw an ad for Fidelity saying they would help someone planning for retirement consider “different scenarios, like saving more each month.”
That was the example. Saving more each month. I had to laugh. (Then Donna made the good point that what’s basic to us isn’t even on the radar for someone who doesn’t live and breathe money talk.)
2. Turns out the answer to the question of “what do you do if you have some free time?” is: dive into tax and retirement planning and blogging and watching Leverage: Redemption. I would like more free time please. I need a nap.
3. In an unexpected twist, since my maternity leave earlier this year was medically indicated after the first 8 weeks of CA SDI ran out, I think the rest of my leave was paid for through SDI as well instead of the Paid Family Leave program. If I’m right, then I think perhaps that all the state funded income for my maternity leave won’t be taxable. I hope I hope I hope.
4. PiC has finally hopped aboard my container garden train, full steam ahead! By which I mean, our living circumstances are finally such that he thinks it’ll work, and we have friends with great gardening experience telling us potatoes are dead easy to grow, and we’ve experienced the fun of digging up potatoes. We bought a couple large grow bags, soil and fertilizer, and we’re gonna do it! This is a hobby, though we’re absolutely eating whatever we grow, because otherwise these are the most expensive potatoes ever. I’m keeping this project very very small because despite my desire to Grow All The Things!!!! we don’t have the time to pay attention to or research a proper garden and I do not want to waste money starting up crops that are just going to die of neglect and ignorance.
5. Leverage: Redemption Leverage: Redemption Leverage: Redemption!!
I tell you what, I screamed internally when I found out they were coming back. Absolutely giddy. I adored the first run and I was so thrilled they were bringing the characters back. Like old TV friends. I always want more story with characters I love and for once, I’m getting it.
Challenges this week: We’re planning to travel quite some way for the first time in almost two years and it’s a big undertaking.
Technology is fighting with me. Why can’t it just do as it’s told??
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July 9, 2021
1. PiC pulled together a lot of meals seemingly out of the ether this week. I’m so grateful.
2. He was able to take on more of the meal prep because his company declared a no meeting week and OMG can they please have more of those??
3. On a totally unscheduled day, after a few instructions on things to do (reading, Spanish, typing practice, short videos), and a few suggestions for fun things that they passed on, JB kept themselves occupied for hours with a self motivated project. That was really nice.
Challenges this week: Work tripled this week as people who generate work for us seemingly all worked on the holiday weekend and some of the people who do the work were unavailable. I told PiC on Thursday that I was on a razor’s edge about to absolutely lose it.
A family friend had a heart attack. They seem like they will be ok but it was of course very worrisome.
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July 2, 2021
1. Sneaking through the bedroom where Smol was sleeping, my heart squeezed. Their little tiny baby face! So tiny, so baby.
2. Our library is open to the public with precautions and we’re so grateful. We came away with a tower of books, a stack of summer activities for JB and a free board book for Smol. I love the library as much as an adult as I did as a kid.
It’s time for my annual donation to the library. My birthday gift to myself is supporting the library. Usually I just have the bank send a check but I want to write a thank you card to the staff this year.
3. JB and I did a little YouTube craft tutorial together and I only got annoyed that they didn’t follow directions once. That’s pretty good considering our track record with origami.
4. We also made brownies from a keto sugar-free mix and loaded it up with extra walnuts. It might have more walnuts than mix. It barely holds together and I don’t care. Yum.
5. We were so grateful to have dodged both massive heat waves. Instead we were wreathed in by Karl the Fog all weekend. Though I do love some heat those 115 degree temperatures were no joke. My sunburns aren’t ready to be retoasted.
6. I bought these spin pins years and years ago, and could not get them to work in my hair. I was very annoyed with myself but set them aside in hopes that eventually I’d find a use for them. It turns out when your hair is as long as it can possibly get, more than halfway down your back, it’s long enough to be held by these! Just one holds up one of my buns now. I JUST discovered this when I was inspired to try doing something new with my hair (double cone buns which did not work at all).
Challenges this week: JB is processing the loss of our friend and that’s a bumpy road. Well heck, we’re all processing.
My back pain has escalated this week. I’ve woken up with a great deal of muscle pain even though I’m laying on a heating pad for at least a couple hours each night. I have knee support and neck support and the mattress is new so I don’t know what’s wrong. I also picked up my planks and walks most days again but it hasn’t put a dent in this pain. Alas my massage therapist isn’t available until the fall.
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June 25, 2021
1. Their pain, my gain: the terrible heat wave meant we got a couple nice days and I thoroughly soaked it up. Too much, in fact, and got myself quite a sunburn reading out in the sun. Whoops. (But I got to read A WHOLE BOOK on a Saturday afternoon. That hasn’t been possible for years!)
2. Therapy was helpful as I continue to work through my deep rooted instincts that flare up in times of hurt and vulnerability: to push everyone away, tell myself that I’m better off alone, that no one outside my innermost circles cares about me so it’s best to self isolate more and more. I’m not fixing anything, I’m learning to feel what I feel and understand why, and let it pass so I don’t need to revert to old habits to cover up pain. It also lets me be present for JB and teach them how to grieve instead of bottling it up.
3. I set up a subscription to The Bouqs to send flower to our recently widowed family member now, and again in a month. I may keep it up for a few more months, just because.
Challenges this week: Grieving. Too too many losses this year.
Fireworks started mid June. This is ridiculous and stressful for Sera.
I have a mouse (the computer peripheral) graveyard on my desk. I’ve been trying to get a mouse to work for weeks. It keeps disconnecting. I thought it was battery related, so I switched to a really old mouse for the interim while recharging the batteries, then trying replacement batteries, but the USB doohickey still keeps disconnecting. The old mouse is isn’t a good size and it’s LOUD whenever I click so I really don’t like using it. I finally unearthed an older version of the current mouse which works but the movement was lagging just enough to make my eye twitch. Thankfully it looks like changing the cursor speed in the mouse settings fixed that bit.
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