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
I neeeeeever wanted to have an answer to this question: When’s the last time you ran into your ex? How was it? Where were you? I had a firm rule developed some time in college: never look back, never talk to exes again. This was after my first serious boyfriend, I think, and was meant to include casually dated people because I didn’t really casually date. Welp, that changed last year. At a holiday outing, a person who looked vaguely familiar and his family joined our group. I didn’t pay much mind because logically, if I only vaguely recognized him, I probably didn’t want to actually recognize him. I was sticking to it. Then at the end of the evening he identified himself to me in one of the weirdest possible imaginable ways, thus shattering my rule and my plausible deniability. HUMPH. I had some ungenerous thoughts about him. That was just one of the few people I casually dated back in the day. I never ever want to run into an actual ex. Ever.
I feel like the first dog
Note: I don’t agree most anti-socialist judgements – they ignore all the realities of life like illness, disability, structural issues like racism and sexism. But the dogs are hilarious.
I’ve added a little widget at the top of the site to offer readers a way to support the blog and will add to that as I experiment with creating neat things! If you enjoy the neighborhood, consider supporting the blog.
Dividend income. We received $485 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $2566.
Bank bonuses came due.Citi paid promptly. I transferred our money out and closed my account without a hiccup.
HSBC, however, was the absolute pits from start to finish. The date for the payouts came and went without a peep from them so I had to open investigations into both accounts. They required about 15x more time than any other bonus situation and neither of us want to deal with them again. I’m still waiting….
Amazon money: It’s rare that I do a paying survey but picked up one at the end of the month earning $35. Nice. We are slowly reducing our dependence on Amazon but it’s a balance.
This is my weekly list of things that were good this week, even if they weren’t all unadulteratedly good things. Please share your good things in the comments!
1. We had done a Save the Date with some friends this weekend and didn’t actually pick a thing to do until two days before. That’s very unusual for me BUT it worked out so well – we picked out a festival / carnival thing to attend. There was something for everyone there! We packed a ton of snacks and brought my refillable water bottle to avoid overspending at all the food trucks – I am a sucker for a food truck.
We consciously chose to spend $25 on rides and $4.50 on one treat for everyone to share (an overpriced delicious soft serve cone). JB has never been to a carnival before.
After 3 hours of walking around and running into local friends we didn’t know were going to be there which was extra fun, we sat and talked for an hour, catching up while JB colored. It was a perfect afternoon.
Bonus: I whipped up a perfectly balanced meal in ten minutes after we got home because we already had marinated meat in the fridge, I had some broccolini that requires very little prep, and rice didn’t take long to heat up. I need to make note of this and start to have prepped proteins on hand even if it’s not yet cooked.
2. I experimented with cooking a whole fish, mashing up some recipes, to duplicate an old family recipe and it worked!!! I am so proud of myself.
3. I took a nap and it was pretty amazing, minus that confusion on waking up when you don’t realize that you did fall asleep because you didn’t mean to. Oops? But … it was so refreshing. It’s such a cycle of life – you fight naps as a child, you crave them as an adult. How can we trade??
4. My zucchini lasagna that was lasagna soup: Oops. Is it because I should have salted the zucchini before grilling it? Should I have added eggs to the ricotta? And cheese as well? I definitely forgot a middle of the casserole cheese layer so that’s another fail. It was very edible but obviously still needs a lot of work! That’s ok, this is the kind of work I enjoy right now.
5. Monday Dread isn’t usually a thing I do but it was in full force this week. Might be I’m setting expectations for clearing all my work on a Monday too high? I’m working on tempering that and not by thinking that I should work on weekends specifically to ward off Monday discomfort. What do you dread about Mondays? What do you do to make them better?
6. Happily, I finally snagged a survey that paid $35 in Amazon money. It didn’t come in time to cover an order of sporting equipment that PiC needed but it’ll cover a part of the order we have for eye drops, dog treats for Sera’s training, pill pockets, flea treatment. That list just keeps getting longer
7. My Bing rewards points total after 101 days: 34,425! That’s the equivalent of $25. I like to celebrate the small wins same as the big ones. They take a lot less time 😉 I’m saving these up to cover our robot vacuum or to cover a few items of clothing at Target and thus freeing up cash for the vacuum. My hope is that holiday sales will bring that cost down enough to be not so outrageous.
8. As part of my budget review to trim costs, I have been weighing the cost of maintaining this blog while regular and necessary costs mount each week and I made a decision: I’m going to start offering readers a way to support the blog if they so desire. I’ve added a little widget at the top of the page and will add to that as I experiment with creating neat things!
:: How was your week? What are you looking forward to this weekend? Naps, anyone?
Angela’s Friday Five made me want to do better. As it often does. But in a good way!
Aitza’s cheap eats strategies for Europe. Ever since car seats became a thing in our lives, I’ve not felt any urge to travel internationally to non-Asian countries with JB (a number of Asian countries don’t require carseats and apparently it’s safe…) but the Done by Fortys are doing it!
This is why Alexa and Siri are banned from my home. It’s basically the equivalent of consenting to bug my own home for the benefit of tech companies. NOPE.
“In the company of their aunts, nephews and nieces know that they are privileged persons. The bonds of duty are somehow relaxed: they have no obligations but to be happy.” I relate to so many of those quotes. I have always maintained that loving aunties and uncles are a key to successful parenting. On the hard days, they can help out a bit or help us remember what is good about the kid. On the good days, it’s wonderful to share the love of the small human. Of course, JB adores the ones we have kept in zir life. And it’s so important to me as a person and as a parent to know that JB is surrounded by family we’ve chosen to fill in that hole left by the family we cannot have.
1. Food and lodgings, $125
2. Gas, $235
3. Trolley: $40
4. Gifts for other people: $117
5. Gifts for us: $127
6. Badges purchased last year, $501
6. Dogsitting, $200
7. Stupid tax, $0 Total: $1561
This year was the 50th Comic-Con! I’m pretty sure it was my 16th, PiC’s 13th, and JB’s 5th if you count the year ze was in the womb and couldn’t opt out of attending.
Was a BUST. Everything that could go slightly wrong did. We didn’t get there early enough to pick up JB’s badge, they didn’t communicate that we needed to be there before Preview Night started, the lines for the off-site activations were capped early, we missed our trolley stop.
Even if we haven’t had Preview Night tickets for years, I’ve been deeply restored by the act of walking on Harbor Avenue soaking in the early sights and the feeling of being in San Diego, on vacation, and not working. Not so, this year. My feet hurt and I was a bit disgruntled.
Thursday
We rode the trolley in, this is usually pretty fun on SDCC days. Two ladies sitting in front of us thought I was a super on top of it mom for having tissues for JB’s boogers and lotion for random itchies. I’ll take the compliment! (more…)
This is my weekly list of things that were good this week, even if they weren’t all unadulteratedly good things. Please do share your good things in the comments!
1. With all the new subscription services coming along, the convenience of streaming isn’t the bargain it used to be. We plan to lean much more heavily on the library for movies and shows rather than falling for the pricey new subscription services. We’ll still always be behind the times and we’ll have to plan head sometimes to borrow DVDs but we’re used to that. Three cheers for the library!
2. Maggie‘s helping me learn new skills! I’m grateful for good friends who teach and share me the gift of knowledge.
3. We hosted Uncle Professor this week briefly and everyone enjoyed his company as usual. The dogs and JB monopolized him, he’s a favorite. The visit was short, as is usual, and Seamus was in denial. He kept looking for Uncle for days after.
4. I’m grateful for fans that work wonderfully: the range hood, our bathroom fans, our little fans when the heat heats up.
5. Thank goodness for little manual coffee drip setups. When the fancy electronic appliance craps out, we don’t have to rush and buy a new one because we can still brew single servings manually.
6. My massage therapist is wonderful and worth double her weight in gold. I always feel better (albeit temporarily) after an appointment with her. I needed to change my appointment date and time this week and she was able to accommodate with a last minute opening. Whew. She helped with all my aches, pains, and weird feelings that keep me up at night.
I thought Meg had published this under her byline but I guess I missed that Anonymous byline! I Make Twice As Much As My Husband. I absolutely aspire to make twice as much, nay, thrice as much, as my husband makes (based on his salary plus the value of his fringe benefits) right now.
If I’m doing this right, the Capacity Factor of our guest bedroom ranges from 12-18% depending on the year. On average, we might host 50 nights a year. The over/under depends on more random visitors, we host at minimum 36 nights a year. The Price Ratio is 6%.
On Money
Our travel cost breakdown