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. 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.
***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.***
Holy wow this Patricia Lockwood review: Malfunctioning Sex Robot. I’m going to TRY not to quote the whole thing: “I was hired as an assassin. You don’t bring in a 37-year-old woman to review John Updike in the year of our Lord 2019 unless you’re hoping to see blood on the ceiling.” “Please tell me you’re writing something about Updike’s 9/11 book,’ another said. ‘Can’t do that,’ I responded, ‘because I’m pretty sure I would die while reading it, and that would be another victim for 9/11.’ Taste and tact had departed hand in hand; I had been reading too much John Hoyer Updike.”
Growing up, this sentiment would have been met with scoffs of “Americans,” underlining the major differences in our family culture and the culture of our new home.
It was laughable to think that you didn’t owe your parents anything – you owed them everything. You owed them life, and everything you had in life, and therefore you owed them your unswerving obedience. Now?
In the end, I feel both sentiments can lead to toxicity. Maybe at this point, all I believe is that we owe our parents what we owe the world: kindness and care to the extent that we can give it.
***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.***
I often grumble at myself that our monthly expenditures are too high – what are we spending on?? Where can we cut costs? Shouldn’t I be having so much more fun with our income level??
Oh yes, right, we made terrible choices. We live in the Bay Area with a mortgage (renting would save not much, if anything), a kid who needs childcare and therapy, and we take very good care of our dogs. Dogs and children are luxuries we chose.
I remind myself regularly that we aren’t carelessly throwing money out the window. That’s always my immediate assumption when bills are too high – we were reckless with spending somewhere. In reality, those reckless spends are always on the small scale. $5 or $10, maybe. By and large, we are making spending choices consistent with our values: taking care of each other, health, education. We are also making savings choices consistent with our values: we must have a very healthy portfolio of assets so we can retire with some level of income security, some day. Probably not early, but some day. It must be particularly robust to account for known and unpredictable health issues.
This was all by choice. I’m not failing to do money responsibly just because I feel squeezed as costs rise every month. I may always work on adding to our income and cutting our spending but all of these are part of our active choices in what we prioritize in life.
While filling out a survey, I was struck by how my answers about our finances don’t convey an accurate picture, and get to what I assume the researchers actually mean because of lack of context.
How would you answer these three questions?
1. During the last calendar year, how often did you put off buying something you needed – such as food, clothing, medical care, or housing – because you need the money? Would you say:
Never / Rarely / Occasionally / Frequently / All the Time / Don’t Know
2. During the last calendar year, how much difficulty did you have paying bills? Would you say:
No difficulty at all / A little difficulty / Some difficulty / Quite a bit of difficulty / A great deal of difficulty / Don’t know.
3. Thinking about the end of each month in the last calendar year, did you generally end up with …
More than enough money left over / Some money left over / just enough to make ends meet / not enough to make ends meet / Don’t know (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.***
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. My new reading glasses arrived! We even had the frames adjusted for comfort so they curve behind the ears. I’ve never had an optician advise me on this particular thing you do to make glasses comfortable so I’m very excited for the unprecedented level of comfort and for the (I hope) elimination of constant headaches now that my prescription has been adjusted. Fingers crossed!
2. We committed to another stage of a series of health surveys and clinical visit for a study that I felt was worthwhile to sign up for 5 years ago. It’s a study to help kids. This stage is time intensive (estimated 6-7 hours) and so they’re compensating us with $200 in gift cards. Our first $100 gift card was issued this week, the other will come in a few weeks after we finish the last set of information. It’s not an easy way to make $200 but that money will really help since it was something that I wanted to do.
3. We’ve received amazing contributions for our Lakota families. I’m REALLY excited that we’ll be able to send some good packages. There are so many families on the list and I’m
4. Sigh. So. On the plus side, we got approved to use the Earthquake Brace and Bolt program. We applied a year ago and funding was finally approved. The minus side is that when I inquired about the retrofit discount with our insurance agent, it turns out that our earthquake and homeowners’ insurance was artificially low because somehow they got the wrong foundation information and I missed that. Our homeowners premium is going up 30%, and the CEA premium is going up 70%. With the discount, after we complete the work, it’ll “only” go up 30%. We really have to get that work done!
I know that the plus side of this is that it’s better we find out now that we’re underinsured when we can do something about it than after a disaster when we wouldn’t have get enough money to cover all the repairs. But it’s a painful plus. I’m crossing my fingers for good bids from the EBB contractors and that one of them will do the work really well, or that our private contractor can beat their price even with the FEMA funding in which case I don’t have to worry at all about quality. I suppose another weak positive is I can pick up another churning credit card with the policy increases, but that will require some time to strategize and I have none to spare.
I do solidlyappreciate that when I did the initial research, I decided that I didn’t want to deal with the contractors directly (I have too many things on my plate right now) and handed that portion over to PiC with a deadline. He called, talked to them, set up appointments and met with them without a single reminder from me because he’s awesome like that.
