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
Reading Work Optional brought me back down to earth a bit. I should be grateful for being where we are today, after so many years of work and saving and fighting.
Truly, I am! I’m ever so grateful for the opportunities we’ve had, for the fruit our hard work has borne, for our little family, for our wide network of loved ones. For the useful things we have, like running water and plumbing, for a sound roof over our head, for a furnace. For the pain relief that my diet has brought me so that I can actually move day in and day out without more than a trace of a limp or a cacophony of crackling when I actually bend my joints. We even tackled the garden as a family over the weekend and may I say, we ripped out an impressive amount of weeds and weed roots. There’s enough blessing and joy to fill a week of gratitude journals. So … whence the crabapple attitude?
It finally struck me on a drive home. It’s the number. The number that’s lingered in the back of my psyche for these past several years like a whisper you can’t quite hear. (I didn’t try to hear it, naturally, I’m really good at blocking out subtle noises to concentrate.)
Mom got sick when she was in her 40s. She had several chronic problems, including dementia which is incredibly hard to handle on every level. We struggled to get diagnoses and/or treatment but nothing was terminal. (Feels familiar.) Then at 55, she died of sudden cardiac arrest.
1. Friday: Costco figured out that they stiffed us $70 in our tire rebate so they gave us a refund on our credit card instead. I’d rather have the cash rebate but this is fine too thank you.
2. Friday: I’d gotten too little sleep last night and fully expected today to be incredibly tough, which it was, but I also unexpectedly cleared one of my four to do lists for work. Yay!
3. Saturday: Frozen pizza and nuggets for dinner, woot!
4. Saturday: We went into the city for the 100,000 tulips in Union Square thing. We got there not long after it opened and it was already too late for us, so we looked at it from afar instead and enjoyed some play time at the mall nearby. Even if we didn’t come away with beautiful blooms, we got out of the house to do a thing and that’s cool.
5. Sunday: We went across the bridge to visit a friend with their new baby, JB and I on our first “long distance” venture without PiC and I’ve got to say it felt like I was making a big mistake when we hit the freeway because my fatigue walloped me a good one. I sincerely worried about having the energy for a visit and the return drive. It was touch and go but we made it there and back safely and we had a fun visit to boot! I’m so glad we made it. JB loved kissing on the baby and we were able to give PiC morning off to get a good long cardio session in. He used to, and still does, take JB out on Dad-kiddo adventures so I could rest, I was pleased to return the favor.
6. Sunday: I did all the laundry, PiC did the grocery shopping, everyone was decently fed, and we did some fun things. Feels like a huge win for the weekend. (more…)
Some truths about being a digital nomad. I would have thought these were all common sense about working from the road! This might be because I’ve been in the position to do that for years and it’s still work. Not only that, it’s work in addition to all the logistics of travel even before the added complication of a family and kids and dogs. Nowadays the best possible option in my opinion is a safe home base that I love and am comfortable in and no central office that I have to report to.
Dividend income. We received $504.44 in dividends this month – an unusually high month. Our year to date net dividends are $661.44. I reinvest all our dividends.
Book sales. I’m usually on the wrong end of that phrase! But I was thrilled to get the biggest quote I’ve ever gotten on an old textbook I’d used several years ago from topdollar4books. After giving myself my first ever blister erasing my notes (thankfully in pencil!) and sending it off firmly wrapped, this netted $45. They paid immediately (Paypal) upon receiving the book which was shockingly fast.
1. Friday: I was so sure that today, my second try, would be the day I got this lava cake right, but it wasn’t.
The great thing is if you mess up lava cake, you end up with “just chocolate cake” and that is a decent consolation prize. It was mostly for PiC and JB, I only had one indulgent bite, and it lasted us a whole week because we really don’t do much dessert.
2. Friday: I tussled all morning with Ally and HSBC and eventually got all the things we needed set up. Achievement!
3. Friday: We had a brief chat about parenting techniques and shared some thoughts on things we can do better.
4. Saturday: We went to the bank and deposited ALL THE CASH. We also managed to go to the grocery store, check out a kid activity, and dropped off returns packages. A very productive morning without much fuss from JB.
5. Sunday: I signed up for userinterviews at Zero‘s suggestion. Looking forward to exploring a decent income supplement.
6. Monday: I trimmed my nails on Friday but I have been basking in that lovely sort-nails feeling for typing all day.
7. Tuesday: I’m picking a couple/few inheritors for my beloved comic books. Possibly half for one nephew and half for one niece. This makes me happy to contemplate.
8. Tuesday: Walked the dogs in the bitter (hahahah I know I know) cold. Was able to hold their leashes in my hands without swelling or extraordinary pain.
9. Wednesday: Traffic broke entirely my way this morning. There was even a street light out and a subsequent line from that light all the way back to the next but the way I organized the order of my errands meant that I avoided getting caught entirely. Managed to do daycare dropoff, gas up, and load up on groceries in an hour and a half.
10. Wednesday: We left Sera alone (with Seamus) at home for 3 hours and she didn’t destroy anything! This is a huge first.
11. Thursday: We had TACOS. Yummm….
Wishes:
May the prices on my long watched-for backpack, water flosser, and alarm clock drop by at least 30%.
May PiC’s job search turn up the role that he’s looking for without a cut in salary.
May both parts of that Huge Thing I’m working on at work turn out well. Part 1 seems promising, and Part 2 is still very much in question.
Please join in with good things from your week and what you want!
Matt Lane steps up to the plate with a very logical point by point response to the nonsense published last week. This is a very long read but well worth the time.
Frogdancer on Chipping away at large tasks. I particularly resonated with this bit: “The research finds that the more writing kids are allowed to do, especially ‘low stakes’ writing, the better their skills get.” I was a TERRIBLE writer in high school, but blogging for years on my own helped me get out of the Embarrassingly Bad Zone to Passable.
Vicki Robin on her life and FIRE: “I don’t see financial independences as the ultimate goal. I see it as just a ticket to the greatest show on earth – the earth itself with all her beauty, complexity, critters and currently crises. The opportunity to ask the Mary Oliver questions: What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?”
I adore the Blair Braverman + Quince Mountain team’s sharing of dog sledding on Twitter. They’re training for the Iditerod at Alpine Creek Lodge now. Long long ago, I was obsessed with dog sledding because dogs, of course, but didn’t have anything like today’s access to the spot from my own warm spot at home.
Go, Big Dog!
We love watching agility videos with JB, this is an excellent one!
When I was 7, my parents took all of our money, my life savings from New Year gift packets included, and sank it all into Dad’s business venture. I would call it “theirs” but we all know it was Dad’s brainstorm and his thing. Though I had no use for the money other than buying postage stamps, I was still sad about losing my stash. Even then, I was a saver (*cough* money hoarder). Though, I could have blown the whole thing on books if I’d known how to get myself to a bookstore. I figured out how to take the dog to the vet for shots when I was a preteen, I think the bookstore mystery would have been solved in a jiffy with money in hand.
Once in a while I idly wonder how much I’d have today if my savings had been invested back in 1980-something. It was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 or $3000 by the time I was seven. Our family tradition tends to gift young kids a lot of cash in your earliest years when you have the least use for it. It’s confusing but a proper steward of that money could have made a real difference with that money.
In any case, that money went to funding a business venture that supported our household for almost ten years and then it all disappeared. The money going away as easily as it did impressed on me the importance of saving relentlessly. That and my health problems.
Today, we make good money. We also live in one of the highest COLAs. Go us. *snort* It wasn’t intentional but it is what happened. (more…)
I’ve been impatient and grouchy.
On Money
When I was 7, my parents took all of our money, my life savings from New Year gift packets included, and sank it all into Dad’s business venture. I would call it “theirs” but we all know it was Dad’s brainstorm and his thing. Though I had no use for the money other than buying postage stamps, I was still sad about losing my stash. Even then, I was a saver (*cough* money hoarder). Though, I could have blown the whole thing on books if I’d known how to get myself to a bookstore. I figured out how to take the dog to the vet for shots when I was a preteen, I think the bookstore mystery would have been solved in a jiffy with money in hand.