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
***FYI: I am collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph of this post. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
1. PiC bought a sack of bulk pumpkin seeds for my snacking needs. They’re low carb and yummy.
2. I filled in some gaps for our last two Lakota family’s needs with the last of our funding.
3. I spent Sunday in my version of quiet contemplation. It was the anniversary of Mom’s passing and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel but I chose to embrace being the only human around the house on this day and do whatever I wanted. That meant I organized two dresser drawers, the bathroom vanity, and our master closet. That felt soothing at the time but maybe it was just pushing off feeling the feelings in their right time and place.
4. I was eaten up by the bah-humbugs on Tuesday. That’s not the good thing. The good thing is trying something that seemed to work: not trying to force myself out of the mood but rather just letting the feelings be and working while I’m feeling it. I was practicing this with JB but forgot to practice it for myself.
5. I got a slew of catalogs from LL Bean, Amazon, Shutterfly and Tinyprints so I took this opportunity to tell them to stop sending us paper catalogs in the mail. LL Bean chat was the easiest, it took less than one minute! Amazon took longer but you can use this link to turn off postal mail for yourself. For Shutterfly and Tinyprints, I had to log into my account to turn off postal mail there.
6. Ah ha! I finally identified three of the many weeds dominating our yard that we need to get rid of: Star Thistle, Spreading Hedgeparsley, Prickly Lettuce. There are more and I’m trying to identify the most horrible one. It has cute tiny yellow flowers and spreads close to the ground with ferny leaves. Underneath the green and the innocuous flowers, it’s hiding ten thousand little stickers. I hates them, precious. I’m hoping this is the first step to correctly eliminating them instead of accidentally helping them propagate forever.
7. It turns out Seamus’s nightly pacings were anxiety over needing his family all in one place. Once that happened, he slept the deep sleep of the just.
8. JB asked me very politely to watch the beginning of a show with zir “because it is scary and I cannot handle it.” When did my child turn into a semi articulate person???
9. I’m thinking about adding VWESX to our portfolio instead of carrying on with VBTLX. Hattip to Nicole and Maggie for mentioning it. I only want to hold one of each type of fund (domestic stocks, international stocks, bonds) but I might consider an exception for this since it’s a higher yield.
***FYI: I am collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph of this post. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
Penny asks Who are you showing up for? I seriously isolated myself for years while I was dealing with Dad’s scamming. Now, I am trying to make up for lost time with a real effort to keep in touch with people whether it’s by email, text, or phone calls (rarer). And I’m very lucky in that I do have people checking on me, and I feel like it’s just as much as I check on others. It’s not a circle, we just keep passing it forward, and it seems to work.
Purple is 100% stocks. I’ve considered going, and was, 100% stocks in our index funds for a while for the growth but as with all things, I changed my mind after a while. I added bonds back in for balance because I am always concerned about overall risk. What’s your percentage?
About gabapentin’s wide off-label use. This is appalling: Parke-Davis hired medical education companies to write review papers, original articles, and letters to the editor in medical journals about gabapentin for “$13,375 to $18,000 per article,” plus a $1,000 honorarium for the author. The majority of these articles had “favorable” conclusions about gabapentin, and in most instances the payments were not disclosed.
***FYI: I am collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph of this post. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks. That money is saved for future repairs or reinvested, respectively. We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. Our side income comes from Swagbucksand 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.
Dividend income. We received $184 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $3,063.40. We are a long way from covering even one month of expenses with passive income. This means I’m still on the hook for working full time for quite some time. That worries me because most of my days are bad days, now.
***FYI: I am collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th.Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
1. We’ve had two days of lovely warm sunny weather and I cannot even tell you the difference it’s made to my mood, stress levels, and good cheer. It’s amazing.
2. It’s high wind and fire season in CA again and this year we’re directly affected by the widespread PG&E power shutdowns. Not awesome. We’re lucky in that we don’t rely on electricity for essential medications and lifesaving or life-sustaining equipment so it’s only a big inconvenience. Many others are not so lucky and are being badly affected by these shutdowns, and cannot afford to just pay their way out to get the medications, generators, and other necessities to stay alive and well.
3. We were able to visit a friend this weekend and it was so much fun. I can’t remember the last time we’ve gone visiting as a whole family where we could mostly relax. Parenting mode is always on but neither of us had work on the brain and we were just out having a few fun adventures. Also tacos, tacos, and more tacos. By our third meal, even JB was suggesting we have tacos again.
4. Friend gifted me a backpack she didn’t need when PiC made fun of my very broken down 12? year old Swiss army backpack I’ve resisted replacing because frugal. The strap is frayed halfway through and all the zipper pulls have broken from age 😆. The new backpack is in great shape and JB immediately tried to steal it.
5. I’ve been waiting for one of these Target promotions: We spent $28 on 4 sets of shampoo and conditioner at Target with a $5 gift card coming back, so we now have 224 ounces of shampoo and conditioner for $25. Comes out to about 11 cents per ounce. Not bad.
6. We are dealing with a really stressful situation this week, and next, with a death in the family. The arrangements have been unbelievably complicated and everything that could go wrong with them has. We’re coping as well as we can, and I’m grateful that while it’s going to be expensive, we should be able to take the hit. LOTS of deep breathing in the meantime.
***FYI: I am collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th.Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
Roxane Gay’s ministry of checking bags. I used to check bags, then I tried to carry on only. Then I had a kid and that all went Hades. We check bags now and it’s nice to only carry enough on to put under the seats, plus one backpack that might go overhead if we haven’t lost our minds and we packed adequate snacks for our small black hole that we travel with. I haven’t traveled solo for longer than a day or two for a few years so I don’t recall what I do unencumbered. Are you Team Checked Bag or Carry-On?
This made me chuckle: hot people are stressful. I had a similar doctor experience once, bundled off to the ER because of debilitating pain, rolled up like pastry wrapped sausage in two coats and a robe. I can neither explain the pain nor the Michelin Man bundle. For some reason that made Mom feel better about sending me off with only my brother as driver? It was unpleasant to say the least to be greeted by a reasonably put together, not utterly disheveled, conventionally attractive doctor. At the very least, I scolded my body, have something worthwhile to justify being here and having to face THIS social interaction! Alas, it did not.
***FYI: I will be collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
Parenting Comparisons
I don’t generally worry over how other parents are doing things. We all make the best decisions that we can for the children we have. But sometimes I wonder “HOW??” There are moms who (and it’s usually moms, though we have a surprisingly even gender split on the parental dropoffs and pickup) do things like prepare goody bags for all the kids in the classroom when their kid has a birthday, or farewell gifts when their kid leaves a classroom, or create t-shirts for all the kids. They might plan huge birthday parties or volunteer for classroom related work. And some of them have multiple kids! And they work full time! I can’t quite wrap my head around how on earth they fit those things in. I feed and bathe our child daily and send zir to school with uncombed hair and clean clothes. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got on the parenting front (granted I’m doing a HECK of a lot with our entire family: household stuff, dog care, financial planning, working full time). How on earth are they fitting in all these extras?
I don’t know anything substantial about their lives but it sure does bewilder me.
Ignore the child
This isn’t something I do if ze would be in danger or gets what ze wants when ze is acting out. This is what I keep in my back pocket for when ze is acting out for attention and discipline is being perceived as attention. Ze has a particular streak that begs for attention in any way ze can get it. It may not be a conscious manipulation but I’ve seen kids do this: if they do something wrong and get the emotional payoff they want, they’ll do it again. It’s just logical.
Instead of rising to the bait, I ignore the behavior.
One morning, ze was clearly trying to needle me with contrary and “mean” statements. Stamping hard on my temper, I only responded to non-provocatory comments, completely ignored the provoking ones, and lo, after no reward for the provocations, ze stopped! (more…)
***FYI: I will be collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
1. I’ve been sick as a dog. This nasty virus has been making the rounds and wrecking everyone in its path. PiC took JB out for six hours of fun and errands on Saturday so I could spend all that time in bed (save for walking the dogs). It was like a little vacation. A really short one but nevertheless amazing and needed. In that time, he did a big grocery run, cooked dinner, prepped snacks and dinner for the weekend because he’d be away all day Sunday, and bought me special cheese and capicola. Nommmm… If he didn’t have a few flaws, he’d make me nervous about being an imperfect person with a Perfect Partner.
Related: I’d made (extremely rare) plans for next weekend with a friend. It’s a big commitment that I was really (x100) looking forward to. I have to wonder if my immune system decided to quit on me to punish me for the audacity of trying to make plans to see people like normal people do. Humph.
2. Speaking of dogs, we bought six sacks of kibble on sale. I get to not think about kibble sales for 2-3 months! YES.
3. PiC had to be away in the morning and afternoon on Sunday, with a stop in the middle where he walked the dogs during my first bout of dizziness. We filled our time in the most leisurely way possible: we wrapped and decorated Christmas gifts. We made gift pouches. We snacked four times and didn’t even cook one time. We spent an hour in bed with a pile of books when my dizziness overwhelmed me, until I felt able to get up again. We walked the dogs slowly and enjoyed the outside air.
4. I made a random sale on Poshmark for a small ticket item, it’ll net maybe $2. That’s fine! The shirt is going to a good home and I get $2. That’s my first sale in months! And it’ll cover postage for cards I need to send to niblings who are going through a traumatically hard time right now.
5. I’ve worked on a total of four families with our Lakota funds so far. One of them has 7 children. If we have more funds come in, we’ll be able to help kit out the 3rd and 4th families more completely! That would be so awesome. I know it’s ambitious but with all the lovely contributions, I’m secretly hoping we can expand to a fifth and sixth family.
6. We’ve had some bad news that will be logistically complicated and expensive. I don’t know what the numbers will be but we should be able to foot whatever bills come.
