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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January 17, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families this year, please read this post.
1. I made a curry and got all KINDS of accolades from JB. They must have been in a really good mood because they declared “everything about it was good: the mushrooms, the bell peppers, the bamboo shoots, everything!” *waves expansive hands*
Want the recipe? Pop on down to the bottom there. Speaking of recipes, I REALLY want to try making this seafood stew.
2. I had to get a filling repaired at the dentist, apparently I’m still gritting my teeth in my sleep enough to grind it down. Oops. Luckily we caught it early and the fix was painless. I also got some good advice on better flossing technique.
3. It’s SO COLD. It is partly the winter chill and partly the dampness that gets right into you marrow. Thank goodness for space heaters, working furnaces, warm socks, and rice packs.
4. I was gifted a tool from my wish list that should have been really useful except I picked badly and it wasn’t the right quality for my needs. Luckily I was able to return it in store for merchandise credit.
5. You know that feeling you get when you’ve run too far too fast, your muscles are full of lactic acid and it seems like there’s no mercy in sight? This flare up on Sunday was something like that but swapping lactic acid for molten lava. I couldn’t sleep a wink at night, almost gasping for air from the pain, and could hardly move the next day, thoroughly nauseated all day.
The hardest part of these flare-ups is surviving from moment to moment. The second hardest part is seeing past my bitterness that all those years wasted being conned by biofather, all that wasted money I could have saved if he hadn’t lied to me for years full well knowing I was sick and in pain, means we can’t afford for me to retire or go work part time when I’m this wrecked.
I try not to let that drag me too far into the spiral of anger. I’m bitter that early retirement could have been in my/our grasp if it weren’t for his lies but I vent about it and then open myself up to seeing the small good ways I can improve our finances now, today. Thanks to Maggie‘s guidance and encouragement, I have one tiny entrepreneurial income stream to nurture, and the creative aspect of that project is good for my brain as well. Every time I feel like it’s just too little to make a difference, I remind myself that the entire foundation for my financial success is being willing to take every tiny incremental step and every single penny for paying off debt, then building up an emergency fund, then building our investments.
6. That moment that Carol / Captain Marvel responds to Yon-Rog’s emotional manipulation.
I loved the Kelly Sue Captain Marvel comics and the film adaptation was fun, even if there were the usual liberties taken with comics canon that maybe I’ve finally gotten used to.
7. This continues to be a rough week: high pain, lots of work, and needing to keep moving even though it’s exhausting and feels halfway to impossible. But we’re still here, still moving.
COCONUT CURRY RECIPE
This started out life as as a coconut chicken lime curry because I had 6 amazing juicy limes and I had to do them justice. Then I kept tweaking it because I can’t help myself. It turns out that it’s such a flexible mixture, you can do a whole lot of any of the ingredients or leave many out, and it’s still good. Quantities pretty much don’t matter, I just use whatever I have on hand omgoodness I am turning into my mother she used to say quantities don’t matter too and it used to make me bananas!
Ingredients:
Cubed chicken (I have replaced this or supplemented with cubed tofu or cubed roasted pork)
Bell peppers and crimini mushrooms
Tofu cubes
Bamboo shoots
1 can of coconut cream
Seasoning:
Fish sauce, to taste
Tamarind paste, to taste
Lime or lemon juice, to taste
Garam masala, to taste
Garlic
Directions:
In a Dutch oven or large pot, saute the garlic and vegetables. If the protein is raw, take out the vegetables and saute the meat next. If it’s already cooked, just add them into the pot with the vegetables. Add the coconut cream, tofu, bamboo shoots, and then start seasoning. Add the fish sauce, tamarind paste, lime juice, and garam masala. It’s perfectly fine with just fish sauce and/or tamarind paste but the more of the seasonings you add, the deeper and more complex the curry will be.
January 16, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families this year, please read this post.
A Twitter thread on Excel keyboard shortcuts, thanks @PhysicistLisa! I love Stephanie‘s which is so useful to me right now, to paste without formatting: ctrl + shift + v
My Father and the Dragon King
I hope to live a life that warrants this kind of memory / obituary when I’m gone.
Microfiction.
I was thinking of Sarah’s thoughts on how FIRE intersects with feminism, particularly as a well paid woman in STEM. She makes a great point in her reply comment: I worry that so much of our feminism is focused on getting women promoted and paid – getting that representation at higher levels, with salaries to match.
We do need feminism to get us up there with the promotions and payscales, but is that the only way to do feminism as a STEM woman? I would like to think that advocacy for and building cultures where URM including women feel welcome is as much feminism as climbing the ladder and staying in the workforce but maybe that’s simply not possible if you aren’t a higher-up woman who is being paid well. Thoughts?
Speaking of feminism, I’m still mad about Tokyo Medical School and their sexism.
I was thinking about how I’ve not ever just lived on my own, or lived off my own income by myself, I’ve always had someone to care for or support. I’ve also never been in a position where I didn’t need to save for the future, so the idea of figuring out a retirement spending budget where I’m only spending and not saving any longer feels weird. Over at Abby’s, I was wildly guessing that we might be good in retirement with $110,000 in annual income but it’s such a guesstimate. I don’t know if we’ll still have a mortgage (assume yes?), what we’ll do for healthcare, or what other regular expenses we’ll still have (little to no childcare I hope, pet expenses vary widely). Tanja made the very real point that we can’t blindly rely on a 4% withdrawal rate for these calculations. It’s a tough needle to thread. I neither want to spend the rest of my life working (no matter how long or short that life is) nor does my health suggest I have a long good life ahead so I don’t want to spend what’s left of them working all the time. But we don’t have enough saved to change that picture any time soon. How much do you think you’d need if you were no longer needing to save?
On the subject of early retirement, I like following Tanja’s journey into this unknown to me realm. I’ve got a few early retired friends who have been retired for many years so I know it can be done but it’s nice to follow Tanja’s journey from the saving period to the doing it period.
Baby goats and forage
January 13, 2020
Annual Lakota drive
Working on this project earlier in the year (scroll down to the Giving paragraph) worked out so well last year!
I wrote my update before the November 17th collection deadline. Donations had trickled to a stop, I’d ordered everything and confirmed the recipients all received them, we were pretty set. It seemed like a good time to wrap up the project and share how much good we’d done!
Then I was surprised with a couple healthy donations that same week. I happily went back to the drawing board and immediately bit off more than I could chew with the donated $250 and putting in another $50 out of pocket.
A big family with two parents, 9 children, and 2 grandchildren was in need of winter coats, diapers, and wipes for the grandkids. Yes, of course, that pick absolutely made sense with the $300 we had. Quite the bargain hunter am I!
I mused over the challenge with a visiting friend, still thinking I could outsmart the prices. They slipped me some extra cash. Not because they didn’t have faith in me but because they remain in touch with reality. It turns out they were right, I needed more than just $300 for 13 coats. I mentioned this on Twitter, and y’all seriously stepped up. Some folks sent a second donation, others sent their first, and we had soon enough to fill our biggest family’s needs!
Family 6 received: 13 winter coats – one for each member of the family. 2 giant packs of diapers and 2 cases of wipes for the babies. 2 shirts, a pair of jeans and a pair of waterproof work boots for the working parent in the family.
My heart swelled three sizes. Thank you all so much for caring and giving!
Bonus: One of the things I asked them to do when we figure out the matching funds is to create a “Warmth Fund” – a fund that can be drawn on to help families stay warm in whatever way is most suitable for their circumstances. This can be used to purchase blankets, firewood, space heaters, and so on.
For 2020:
I’d like to try something new this year: start collecting early, throughout the year, and make purchases for the Lakota-Okini families in the fall in the hopes that this would be helpful for a variety of budgets. I know that cash flow throughout the year often dictates what and when I can give. I do wonder if collecting throughout the year means it’ll mostly come at the last minute.
I am opening up contributions now through November 1st, 2020. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in contributing and have an opinion about collecting all year vs just in a 6-week period like I did last year.
Edit to edit! Originally, I was going to shop in the fall but it’s still winter, the forecast is Bitterly Cold for some time yet, and people are hungry now. So as contributions roll in, it makes sense to help those who are cold and hungry right now, and through the year, instead of waiting until year-end. This will also distribute the work better!:
Edit to add: Last year we raised $2669.94 to touch a total of 27 lives. I would love to see if we can match that or do more in 2020.
Libraries, literacy and love of reading
I devoured library books as a child and was wretchedly grateful for every single book I could borrow because our family was too poor to buy books and Little Libraries weren’t really a thing back then. I used to stare at other people’s bookshelves like I was starving. We’d visit family and the people would simply disappear from my vision – all I could see was their books.
To this day I remain a voracious reader, and my birthday gift tradition has become a gift of money to our local library. My library allows directed donations and I support their ebook collection instead of buying books for myself. Accessible books for more people!
I’ve long dreamed of becoming rich and supporting rural libraries in a significant way but in 2020, I feel called to do what I can even if it’s just on a really small scale. I’ve known that rural counties simply don’t have funds for books, much less the kinds of extras I could not even have dreamed of as a child.
For example: tool libraries and health electronics that can be checked out, puzzles for kids, a massive selection of tv shows and movies! That’s just for starters. By contrast, rural libraries might maybe have bestsellers and discarded books from other libraries.
I’d like to help them out.
The best way to help them at this level is donations of cash. While I certainly have thoughts on the kinds of books and offerings that would be great, the person who knows best what their library patrons need and what they can actually manage to process and make available is the person who works in the library. They may need more of a specific category of books, e-books, new chairs, computers, keyboards or any number of things we don’t know about.
This year, I’d love to gift some money directly to two rural libraries: Culpeper County in Virginia and Chatham County in North Carolina.
Would anyone be interested in contributing to rural libraries as well? Like with the Lakota families, I will be allocating some of our annual giving budget to each library regardless of interest but if there’s interest, I’m happy to do any coordinating necessary to streamline it for the recipients. As y’all have shown me two years in a row now, we can do so much more together!
You can make contributions to ….
1. My Ko-Fi page (note: Ko-Fi flows through Paypal so they take fees out there since that’s my blog’s account)
2. You can send as a gift (otherwise PayPal will take fees out) to admin [at] agaishanlife.com. If you’re sending via PayPal on mobile, make sure to click on the arrow next to “paying for goods and services” to select “send as a gift” because that’s tripped up more than one person!
Edited to add: If you’d like to donate monthly (this has fees), you can use this donate link.
Whichever way you go, please A) specify what it’s for and B) if you want email updates.
Bonus: We can also get employer company matching for some of our donations though I am still trying to untangle the weirdness of their matching administration.
:: I’d love to hear your thoughts!
January 10, 2020
1. Though PiC warped the lid of our Pyrex terribly in the microwave, they honored the warranty and sent us a new lid promptly.
2. I’m really happy that my hands can handle Pyrex now – this time last year, it was not possible. This means our use of plastic wrap has gone down at least 50%, possibly more!
3. We traded drop-off and cooking shifts mid-week. Though it shortened my work day, I liked going to pick up JB and coming home to dinner being served. I don’t mind cooking 90% of the time, it’s what works for us normally, but a break from that job is really nice too!
4. We FINALLY got our replacement waterproof dog beds in! Seamus and Sera both like it very much.
5. We’ve finally committed to meeting with our contractor to see what kind of work we can get done this year. I’m narrowing down my Must Haves and hoping that we can break up our landscaping work into about three stages so that we can at least create one safe space for Seamus to enjoy before he’s too much older. He’s slowing down a lot, and having a safe yard space to roll around in would be so nice for him.
6. Good news: all the major events I was still waiting on dates for this year have been scheduled so now I can get to work on logistics. Bad news: Unfortunately the timing of both are terrible! We will make them work, but gosh they are such bad timing and are going to make for a tough summer.
:: How was your week? Do you have all your major events for 2020 set?
January 9, 2020
How are you awesome?
Even though I’m personally opposed to buying Tesla because I can’t stand Elon Musk and I think he’s terrible on labor, I really appreciated the lessons here on driving long distances in a Tesla and for electric cars generally.
A New York times feature on Lupita Nyong’o. I’d like to see her on-screen a whole lot more.
Rich and Regular reflect on 2019.
Emma Pattee’s flash fiction. I was musing on whether I’ve developed the writing chops to write our family’s story yet and every time I read a beautiful piece like this, I think, no. Not yet.
Speaking of beauty, I love Penny’s reflection on her nana and her blog.
The SECURE act is being called the biggest retirement bill since 2006 but I’m mostly annoyed that the last point, that’s most important to me, is mostly just removing a couple barriers and not actively making 401ks possible for small businesses, or even just letting those of us who don’t have 401ks have some other means of tax deductible savings. I’m saving no matter what but it’s frustrating that I’m missing out on a huge opportunity for tax savings just because my employer doesn’t offer this benefit. Shouldn’t health insurance and retirement options be employer-agnostic? It makes no sense to tie them together, to me.
Ask A Manager’s top posts this decade.
This literary twist on the AITA subreddit Twitter account is hilarious:
![I [32W*] bit off this guy’s leg because he wouldn’t leave me alone. He’s been following me ever since, I think I’m a kind of metaphor to him. Here’s where I might be the asshole: I’ve sort of been leading him into dangerous situations for my own amusement. AITA? *whale](http://agaishanlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Screenshot_20200104-194800.png)
![I [111H] found an abandoned piece of jewellery a few years ago while being dragged along on a road trip more or less against my will. I brought it home with me and now my world is in peril. WIBTA if I left my nephew to deal with this while I retire to a cushy elf community?](http://agaishanlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Screenshot_20200104-200812.png)
January 6, 2020
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 future 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 because I know from my Mom’s experience that relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA.
***
Dividend income.We received $298 in dividends in December. It was all reinvested. Our whole year of dividends from stocks plus index funds dividends adds up to $7319. We’re still not nearly close enough to making enough on the side to cover even half my income (less than PiC’s before benefits, grrr). I’ve been thinking about one of us going part time for family and health reasons but we can’t afford to do that yet without dramatic changes and I’m not prepared to make them (moving would be required).
Windfall. My work finally earned enough revenue to give a wee bonus this year! I never ever count on bonuses because it’s never certain whether it’ll be a good enough year for one so it’s extra sweet when we get one. It’s the perfect time. While I wish to hoard it like a dragon, it will be such a help with our bills from last month.
CD interest. Our emergency fund is mainly in CDs at Ally. I set it to pay out the interest annually which means Dec 31 is a fun day.
Side money. I didn’t have time to commit to any real side jobs this year but we earned $1,805.81 this year from Craigslist, cashback sites, MyPoints, Swagbucks, and Bing. Most of our side income wasn’t in the form of cash, so this money subsidized our household spending and freed us up to direct our cash where we needed it most.
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January 3, 2020
1. Talking to friends whose kids are in activities year round, I definitely feel like a slacker parent. The kids are in a year round sport (4 nights a week) plus a seasonal sport every season and they’re only doing all of this because the kids still have so much fun and love it all. They CAN do it because they have good health and a nanny and a whole lot of money between the two of them so I don’t feel guilty for not doing it before but I do feel like I might need to kick myself in gear this year and start taking JB to more than one 30 minute activity per week. That was always the plan but I only managed to add one activity last year on our budget and our time constraints. Maybe I could manage two this year? PiC does equal ferrying to lesson duty for the one activity so it’s not all on me. This is mainly to keep zir active and really I’d love to add another sport thing for PiC, I think he’d be happier with another sport hobby. But it’s all $$$$.
2. This year I’m working on somehow cutting out my intense feelings of worry over a friend’s domestic abuse situation that is only going to escalate from the Intensely Worrying stage to whatever is after that, so I can focus on being supportive without wrecking myself. Wrecking myself doesn’t help anyone. Is this possible? Let’s find out.