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
Read More
May 29, 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, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I finally figured out our dishwasher problem! I’ve been cleaning the filter after every two wash cycles and STILL kept having grit and residue on our bowls. It turns out that my first question was the right one: was it to do with placement? For whatever reason, our square bowls can’t be loaded up front. They fall on each other or something and block the water flow so they don’t get rinsed properly. That means if we load round bowls up front top rack and square bowls in back top rack, I don’t have to yell and fume at the dishwasher. (Of course it then immediately left some sediment on a bowl in a totally different area so that’s a new problem for another day.)
2. I was able to trim most of Seamus’s nails without a fight and struggle, and then managed to trim 4 of Sera’s claws. I had to pin her down after the first one, though. They both got treats after. The pet dremel has been amazing! I wish the pet attachment (the plastic guard) had been available when I bought mine, though, I keep accidentally getting myself. (It’s fine though, nothing serious.)
3. I finally organized our financial spreadsheets into one place for PiC. I’ll have to teach him how I use each of them, and he’s not allowed to change things in there without telling me or else I’ll start thinking I’ve lost chunks of memory, but he needs to know how to get in there and work on money things if I’m unable to. I also need to consolidate more of our emergency information but this was a good step.
4. JB and I cleaned their room together. I rearranged their closet, and cleared out an entire dresser drawer of outgrown clothing, and sorted it all into size specific hand me down bags. I’ve been needing to do that for ages and it felt so good to get that done. Bonus: JB does chores better when it’s alongside one of us so I asked them to tackle the rest of the room and they put away all the books and toys and reorganized the toy stand without complaint because they felt it was a team effort. It just looked that way. Really it’s just me needing to corral the clothing explosion, organize things the way I want to, and winnow out the outgrown clothes without clawbacks. If I let (made) them sort the clothes, they’d mourn every item and end up crying in a pile of outgrown wardrobe, swathed in at least two shirts but still have a belly hanging out. They did try to keep one sweater. Out of two large bags of clothes, just one sweater is pretty good so I allowed it for two more wears. We had a few fraught sad moments and I advised them to thank their favorites for being such great pieces and bid them farewell. Surprisingly, that worked. Thanks for the idea, Marie Kondo!
Challenges this week: I am starting to miss little things. Going to the library. Going to stare at all the crafts at Michael’s. Recipes for lemon flavor baked goods need to come with an intensity level so I know to triple the lemon juice and lemon extract.
5. We enjoyed a Zoom picnic lunch with family on the weekend and they all did art time together for a while after we ate. Everyone was sleepy and content.
6. I even took most of Monday off! I worked in the morning but resolved strongly to break off for the rest of the day and I followed through. Go me!
7. JB interpretive danced to my singing of JoDee Messina’s “Heads Carolina, Tails California”.
:: How was your week? Have you been scorched by this heat wave?
May 28, 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, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
How are you adjusting your budget during COVID?
I’m staring at Mt Emotional Health, feeling a bit unequal to the task. The days were very long but at some point it feels like the fast forward was pushed and I’m not ready to keep up with this pace.
I often feel like this hummingbird
May 25, 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, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 9 and 10 of shutdown in the Bay Area.
Week 9, Day 1: Having geared myself up for a total shutdown to last several months, or even the rest of this year, I can’t quite wrap my brain around the idea of CA moving to Stage 2 of reopening. It feels like it’s must too soon when we still don’t have that much testing or any known effective treatments. My friends outside of CA who have been ill for weeks still can’t get tested. As a complete pessimist, I think this is my gut trying to protect me from getting my hopes up too soon that things will start to get better.
Related: I can’t think about the things I miss or how I want things to be later.
Also related: I’m worried about getting sick when things open up more because my immune system is trash. When I get sick with even mild viruses, I get hit really hard. It takes me 3-4x as long as normal people to recover. A 3-5 day illness for a normal person is a 3-5 week illness for me.
Week 9, Day 2: All the little things that bother me popped up today: I hate the way the wires under my desk are dangling, I hate our old round wooden chopsticks that hurt my hands when they’re swollen. I determined to fix those things NOW. I taped up the wires … but the tape that I had wasn’t strong enough. I searched and found replacement chopsticks but the shop wanted $20 for shipping – that was too rich for my blood. I guess it’s not my day for resolving issues.
I did order a gift of delicious small business cheese to a loved one sheltering in place alone who was recently hit with some additional bad news, though. One right thing was done today.
My workload was a bit lighter than usual so it was rather annoying that I couldn’t focus well enough to blow through the workload early and take the rest of the day at my leisure. But I suppose the upside is that I didn’t have to stress over the work piling up at lightning speed while I worked more slowly than I preferred?
Week 9, Day 3: Dammit-Sera is her official name now. I’ve cleaned up 11 piles of vomit and 1 massive lake of pee on my rug this past week. What’s going on, dog?? (more…)
May 22, 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, $1551.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I learned to play Uno for the very first time this week and it was fun!! I’d forgotten how to just have fun, a little bit.
2. My friend is reading through my archives and texting me quotes. This one made me laugh because I still do this: “Tell me honestly, now, is it really weird that when I sustain a really fantastic-looking injury, I want to show people? I’ve got a newish 1 inch by 2 inch gash across the top of my foot from an altercation with an unfinished edge of a desk, and I had to fight the urge to snap a photo and share it. It’s mostly a morbid fascination that’s probably not shared by the world at large.” We discovered that we both do this thing! I have someone to share war wounds with again!
3. In this moment, I really don’t miss anyone. I know that will change when we get into the summer when we have plans, but at this time of year I normally have my nose to the grindstone so that is feeling a little bit “normal”. Minus all the frustrations of being overloaded with work, cooped up with very few safe outlets because even where things are opening, people refuse to wear masks and I can’t risk catching this thing.
Challenges this week: Therapy was unexpectedly tough. We explored the idea that you can have emotions or feelings without any obligation to act on them. That is a completely foreign concept for me. I’ve always had action and obligation tied to feelings. Growing up, family meant obligation. You were duty bound to love them, which means take care of them, make them proud or add to their reputations by visibly doing well in life and sending money home and caring for them in your old age. Love was nothing BUT duty and action. And in my current life I express and perceive love through action. What does it mean to acknowledge the complexity of loving and hating someone at the same time? To me, it means having conflicting needs to both distance myself and do for them. Which is, of course, not at all ideal.
<– I also have trouble with this idea for myself ….
When thinking of other people, it’s obvious. I don’t love them solely for what they can do for me.
But I do think I have to do things to “earn” or prove my worth for love. It literally doesn’t make any sense to me that someone would choose me as a person they’d like to have in their lives just for the sake of having me around. My utility is my worth. Which is probably not a great thing to believe.
4. They are nowhere near out of the woods but we got a little heartening news – a friend’s cancer is not the worst it could be. So we have some hope for treatment. Please cross your fingers that they come up with an effective treatment plan.
:: How are you keeping healthy and occupied?
May 21, 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, $1551.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
A Bitches Get Riches primer on applying for unemployment
Julian and Embracing Conflict
Captain Awkward: “How do I set goals if I don’t want anything?” I’m a HUGE goal setter and yet in this present time, even I can’t handle more than the most basic goals beyond “get through this relatively sane however that must happen, help those who need help, teach JB to send mail”.
I grew up on Will Smith in The Fresh Prince, and have long admired his musical and acting talents so I loved this fresh bit of music from him.
NDN Collective: “In South Dakota, checkpoints have been established at the borders of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, home to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, ensuring that all who enter are vetted, screened, and practicing safe measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.” These are the folks we are helping in the Giving project this year. I’m really steamed at Governor Noem who is trying to steamroller the tribes’ ability to protect their vulnerable residents.
Ann Mitchell, one of the last WWII codebreakers, has passed.
Diana: “I don’t mean it hasn’t been difficult to switch to this slower pace during an anxiety-prone time with no relief from the tedium that parenting nonstop can be, because that is true; however, we also delighted in the closeness and love we feel for each other with less intrusion from the outside world.”
I wonder what happened to Muschi….
May 18, 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, $1551.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” G.K. Chesterton
Unless you’re JB. In which case, every story with a villain is an infomercial for that villain and their scariness. Every morning and evening, I hear a shriek:
Mommy, I’m scared, (evil villain) is going to get me!
I always intended to put JB in self defense classes but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And now, of course, it’s not possible to start for a while.
The fear bothered me because I realized JB is a freeze on fear kid. As far back as I can remember, I have been a fight on fear kid, which may or may not have been trained into me by a mean older sibling, but this served me well.
I was bullied at every single school I attended. I always had to put some bully in their place when they tried me and things were much better when I was able to do so quickly and decisively. I only ever had to deal with each bully once, they weren’t used to being shut down effectively and violently.
We have now implemented Monster Training. After reading age appropriate books about kids fighting monsters, I proposed that we take turns scaring each other and learning to fight back. The whole goal for me is to teach them to get scared and then act, not just freezing.
(more…)
May 15, 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, $1,051.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. PiC and JB teamed up to make me sugar free, gluten free, keto cinnamon rolls and they’re great! I’ve been craving them for months. (Correction: they weren’t keto. They do need to be so I’ll be fiddling with the recipe some more.)
2. My Mother’s Day was spent tackling a part of the yard that has also been bothering me for weeks. I did a big chunk of it on my own in blessed quiet, such a soothing activity to chop and prune back the overgrowth.
Then PiC and JB came out to help for an hour. We got so much more done than I had originally envisioned. My arms may fall off and my back may not work for a week BUT IT IS CLEANED UP. WOOOOO!!
3. We were able to help out a couple more Lakota families (but we ran out of money before I could get the laundry detergent and sheets, sadly).
Challenges this week: JB was really struggling to be human this week. I felt like an anxious pile of sludge, making half my food taste like soap or just nothing.
4. I skipped therapy this week because I’ve been so physically drained and ill that I couldn’t pull myself together to do hard brain work. It was the right call.
5. This bit of genius led to an easy experiment.
I poured the blended ricotta into two small Pyrexes and ended up with two baked ricottas that were pretty good!
It was mostly not sweet (on purpose) and I couldn’t taste the lemon juice or the vanilla. On review, it seems I should have just picked one or the other. Next time I’ll try lemon juice and lemon extract. Next time after that, I’m going to skip the sugar entirely and blend in a little bit of mango if we have it on hand. What flavors would you try?
:: What good things have you enjoyed this week, big or small?