About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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August 3, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (which is all saved for maintenance) and investing in dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $193.60 in dividends in July.
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July 31, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. We tried roast beef for my sandwiches and I’ve discovered that a good cheese and roast beef sandwich on the keto bagels that PiC makes for me is kind of like a keto friendly cheeseburger! Such a happy food discovery.
2. Two, wait three more, great discoveries: our local dumpling shop set up their own online ordering system so I know the money we pay goes entirely to them, we got 10% off an order over $25, AND they sell frozen bags of their dumplings so we can just stock up on those to avoid too many take out runs for when I’m not up to making our own dumplings.
3. I keep nickel and diming myself on every single purchase to control budget creep but finally said florf it! and bought myself a few much-wanted e-books on Kobo. They were all great. My brain is happy. And of course it wants more. Because I gave it a cookie, so now it wants milk, and a straw and and and…! I am so predictable.
Challenges this week: I caught a one-two punch with the rental and had to sacrifice half a work day to figure things out. It was not fun. We are two weeks out from the supposed start date for school and we still have zero information to go on. We also just found out that PiC’s company has a large number of layoffs planned and we have no information other than “a large number by the fall”. Of course that news has put us on edge.
4. Weirdly enough, after starting the process of making decisions based on what I want and need instead of what I “should” do financially, even though nothing is resolved yet, I feel a hundred pounds lighter. I’m less moody and grouchy overall and I have an extra half bucket of patience. It’s a much missed, now unfamiliar feeling. I don’t know how long it’ll last but I really like it and hope it’s here to stay. I’m going to need every ounce of patience I can get!
:: How was your week?
July 30, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
K. Wright’s right: The Privilege of ‘Always Negotiate’ I have always advocated for myself and negotiated for more money, but it doesn’t always work, it doesn’t always work to the degree that I hope or want or deserve, and I know that more than a few people would penalize me for even asking. I’ve had a strange combination of luck where the workplaces are incredibly toxic but either I had the backing of a strong advocate or they felt like their hands were tied so they had to give me more but they also punished me for it.
I’m not at all surprised that Courtney Milan’s white doctor husband gets no pushback when he stands up for patients’ rights to refuse an exam vs Michele Harper’s experience but I am utterly and completely disgusted with law enforcement and her trainee and her former colleagues who obviously did not have an issue with violating patients’ rights.
Related: I also think that the officer and watch commander should have been personally liable for their actions in arresting Utah nurse Alex Wubbels when she refused to comply with their illegal demands, not just fired and demoted. Maybe that’s what it takes to get officers of the law to actually respect the law they’re supposed to uphold.
Also related: I am so incredibly tired of terrible people.
I hope white people stay out there screaming this truth until it finally breaks the police and federal government brutality.
Brave Saver: “This is the core of what enrages me about traditional financial advice: it actively harms people. There are so many of us who read or hear personal finance advice that leaves us feeling ashamed, worthless, hopeless, and filled with despair. And how can we move forward when the solutions we seek all turn into emotional and mental blocks?” Note – I didn’t have this problem when I was using blogs as a resource 12-10 years ago but the PF world I delved into and loved was incredibly different then. It was almost all stories about people working through their struggles, it wasn’t all this making money off their platform How To and pushing an agenda.
Purple was surprised that she hit her FIRE number this year after all.
Yay for Kitty and paying off her mortgage! I wistfully think: gosh that’d sure be nice and also: gosh but I’m not willing to dump all our cash into the black hole of our mortgage because it needs so much to make it happy.
BABY RED PANDA AT OREGON ZOO!!!!
Bloodlines: short fiction by @etwurth
I cannot carry a tune in a bucket so I admire those who can. I don’t enjoy talent shows and reality shows as a rule but happened across ten year old Souparknika Nair’s Britain’s Got Talent audition and her voice just blew me away.
I hope this bear is doing this for fun
July 27, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 17 and 18 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 17, Day 115: I stepped out of the house for exactly 45 seconds today. My butt was alternately numb and aching from the number of hours logged at my desk. Mondays are the worst of the worst. Compounded by post-holiday weekends :/
I had a rough evening feeling like a bad friend. I was practicing, though it was uncomfortable, naming my guilt, understanding that it was foundless and knowing I still felt it, and trying not to shame myself for feeling the guilt OR into believing that I deserved the guilt. It was a complicated and conflicted feeling. But it ultimately felt better afterward.
I then reconnected with another dear friend who was feeling bad about her own rough life situation so we talked late into the night and I think we both felt better afterwards.
Week 17, Day 116: JB finally had a good lesson without any balking, whining, delaying, or wasting time. Freaking finally! It’s been a bumpy couple of weeks and their teacher and I were discussing minors adjustments along the way to get here. I’m not sure if they worked or if it was just a phase but I’m crossing my fingers that changing locations and physical set up helped them get back on track. (I suspect it was also because they felt well rested, got to read with Dad when they woke up, AND got to play with their cards for a while in the morning.) Hamilton has been a great incentive for us to get through dinner and bath quickly at night, they get to watch a couple songs before bed. Probably not the best to induce actual sleep but it gets them through the nighttime routine so fast. (more…)
July 24, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. JB asked for chicken noodle soup at the perfect time. I had a half carton of chicken broth to use up and I used that for a starter base plus water, onions, salt, pepper, and a dash of cumin and garam masala. Odd but it worked!
2. I made a Thai (ish) chicken curry on Sunday and it was a hit! It was chock full of goodies: tofu, straw mushrooms, chicken, bamboo shoots, and bell peppers. My hand still hurt too much to cut up an onion this time but it still turned out well.
3. This was such a lovely note to wake up to one morning.
4. Sir Patrick Stewart with Sonnet 91.
Challenges this week: My pain flared up again, this time in alternating wrists and hands and arms. I worked through it during the week which was alternatively good and then bad for it but then made it a real point to rest on the weekends and maybe most importantly, not feel guilty and horrible about my body’s failings. We should be at SDCC right now and I’m feeling so sad we’re not.
5. After lots and lots and lots and lots of medication, and an equal amount of passive resistance on his part and grumpy insistence on my part, Seamus is better!!!
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
July 23, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1608.94; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Structural racism is why I’m leaving organized psychiatry
Coronavirus contract tracing: Woman infects 71 people in 60 seconds
Babies under 1 are diagnosed with COVID; Children are not immune to coronavirus.
A both/and approach is so much more nuanced than the current either/or approach we keep seeing in the discussions about reopening schools: “The choice isn’t online schooling or schooling as it was pre-pandemic. The choice is between online schooling and a shell of the version we had. We have no actual evidence that in-person school during Covid-19 will work any better than the online schooling some have decided was a failure. There is no good solution — just band-aids on a broken system.”
DHS is sending federal officers to snatch people off the street in Portland. Here are some ways to help.
SDCC isn’t happening this year and I’m ever so sad about the lost family and friends time. But we can still support the people who would have relied on those sales as a big part of their finances. I’ve been adding tweets to this thread of the vendors currently listed with online shops that we’d normally buy from.
Miser Mom on reducing our use of single use plastics.
Baby llamas falling asleep: a thread
We lost a civil rights giant.
I missed him at this SDCC visit but it was wonderful just knowing he was there leading this Children’s March even if I didn’t make it there in time.
July 20, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Siblings, the abyss, something something
JB squatted in front of Sera, staring intently. I wondered and then: Mom!! I don’t like Sera looking at me!
Me: …. Weren’t you staring at her?
JB: Yes! I wanted to look at her. But I didn’t want her to look at me.
Me: That makes absolutely no sense! If you sat right in front of her face and stared at her, she absolutely has the right to look back at you.
JB: No, I don’t like it!
🤦🏻♀️ Why. Are. Kids. So. Weird.
Punishments, consequences, and effective parenting
I don’t choose to issue punishments because as a rule, I know they come from a less than great part of me as a parent. I want to punish JB when they have gone way over the line because I’m mad at them. And generally when I’m mad and assigning punishments, it’s about hurting them back and not about what’s appropriate (like throwing away toys they love). But that’s entirely the wrong motivation. That does work if we were always authoritarian and they’re not allowed to speak their minds or think for themselves – then punishment is suitable to that kind of parenting.
But that’s not what we’re trying to do here – we are trying to teach them that making poor choices is a bad thing and that they should choose to make better choices. Like not doubling down when you’ve said something mean and hateful, and saying MORE mean and hateful things.
I struggled with that a lot during the week that JB was just stomping on my last nerve and then some. They were being rude, then pulled faces and rolled their eyes at me warning them that their words were rude and hurtful, then shouted even meaner things at me when sent to timeout as a result of doubling down. I was so angry that I was harsh and took away toys when they kept shouting at me and being ruder – that was a reaction to their behavior but not a good reaction. The first time this all blew up, I walked away and ignored them until they were done tantruming and returned to say so, and then we had a long talk about the fact that they would have a real and appropriate consequence later that wasn’t just taking away toys, I had to think of something that was related to the problem. The next time that happened, though, I realized that a better way to put it for us would be this:
For every minute of nastiness and negativity, they have to do two minutes of good things. So that half an hour screaming tantrum of rudeness = 1 hour of being helpful around the house and doing good things to balance the negativity. I didn’t want to assign chores after the first round because I didn’t want to associate chores and punishment. But this way, their doing chores as their helpful thing can redeem them as a positive contribution instead.
New levels of autonomy
It’s still a little hit or miss but I can assign chores to JB with a time frame and they will do it! It’s more likely to happen if I say “in the next 20-30 minutes, the dishes have to be put away” than if I give them a wider time frame like “between breakfast and lunch” though.
Precious Moments
Who’s the Boss?
Me: When you’re done with cleaning up that pile, you can go through the other bag.
JB: You got it, master!
Me: …
JB: I called you master because you’re the boss of me.
Me: That’s true.
JB: And I’m the boss of babies.
Me: … what babies ….
JB: And Older Cousin is the boss of me, and I’m the boss of Younger Cousin!
Me: Uh that’s not how that works.
Taking sides
Me mocking PiC: your dad is silly, JB
JB: Yeah! He’s so silly!
PiC: hey! I thought you were on my side!
JB: I am on your side. Actually I’m on both your sides.
PiC: good. That’s how it should be..
JB, whispering: but mostly on daddy’s side.
Me: I KNOW. YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
JB: Daddy, this was an EXCELLENT lunch!
PiC: Thank you!
JB: What does excellent mean?
Creepy or cool?
I woke up to JB in my bathroom whispering: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, preparing to die!
Ratings, levels, we got em all.
JB: The Rock has guns in it!
PiC: what?
JB: The movie! The Rock! It has GUNS and FIGHTING and it’s a higher level than I am right now, I’m not ready for it yet.
JB: can I walk both dogs?
Me: no, Sera’s too strong for you right now.
JB: but I want to be a real dog owner!
Perseverance and perspective
JB’s muttering sullenly as the glass noodles slip off their chopsticks: this is too HARD! I’m never going to get it!
Me: Not like that you’re not. You’re not fast enough. Be the predator. Scoop up your prey and POUNCE.
JB, clumsily imitating the pounce: nomf! I caught it!
Me: Yup. Noodles are prey. Be the predator.
Pop culture can get it wrong, sometimes.
JB’s been singing and dancing to The Cure’s “Boys don’t cry”. They keep correcting the lyric with “that’s not right, boys DO cry when they’re sad!” or “boyyyys don’t cry, boyyyyys DO cry”!
Wait, what?
Me: How should you be sitting? (Correct answer: on your butt)
JB: Criss cross applesauce, pepperoni pizza, hands in your fish bowl, bubbles in your mouth!
Me: Uh…..ok….
:: When did you first watch The Princess Bride? What was the first music you remember listening to? How are your chopsticks skills?