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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July 11, 2018
Photo by jousi osorio on Unsplash
We are living in particularly stressful times. 2018 is even worse than 2017. GRAND.
I knew things wouldn’t be easy as we got older but as I told a friend, I never fathomed that we could be spending our middle years (ish) fighting the rise of fascism in America.
And even if we weren’t, living as a responsible adult and parent means that stress is a natural part of our lives. We have to have healthy coping mechanisms, and we have to be able to reset to neutral or happy, or we’ll never make it.
Here are a few things I do.
All things in moderation. I have a sweet tooth but the myriad of carbohydrates that would normally take care of it are now out of bounds. Now I rely on a package of Immaculate brand gluten free cookies, bought on sale. I used to think of this as cheating but that was unenlightened me. A lot of the time, I only want a couple of cookies. Mixing up a full batch is just too much trouble, but pulling out two cookies? Perfect. Which leads me to….
3 cookies. 2 for now and 1 for later. I’ve developed a little ritual of baking 3 cookies from my break apart cookies pack once a week when things are particularly tough. Two get eaten with lunch on that day, and the other one is for the next day.
#SweetTooth
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July 9, 2018
FIREcracker says don’t give your kids money and let them fail if you want them to succeed.
That’s similar to my core parenting tenets.
I will save JB’s life when ze is choking or about to pelt over the edge of a cliff.
I don’t spare zir the bumps, bruises, scrapes and scratches that happen when you run pell mell through life without your feet under you. Ze takes after me so won’t ever be graceful but eventually ze will learn to stop falling so much. BY FALLING SO MUCH.
I just stopped being the biggest klutz in town at age 35 so I could send zir to gymnastics lessons for fun and an attempt to learn some physical balance, but my guess? Ze will just be pretty good at the sport and STILL go through life collecting bruises like Mario Coins. Fine. Bruises won’t kill you.
Back to the point – there’s more nuance to this whole parenting thing. We are saving a bundle for zir college education even while I’m hesitant to commit to paying for all of it because I think ze needs skin in the game. At the same time, I know what life was like when I had to work all through college – I barely remember anything I learned.
The reality is, if we’re doing our jobs right, ze will very likely have some resources inherited from us or from one of many grandparents. We must teach zir to fend for zirself, making a living wage, saving, investing, and making good decisions. In short, have the skills to survive without money coming from anyone else. But I also want zir to have the skills and discipline when resources are plentiful and not live in short-termism.
Some people are naturally frugal, some people learn it. If JB is the latter, the lessons should come from us – we have the knowledge. It would be a massive failure on our part not to try to pass along the lessons and philosophies that create the life that ze lives now.
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July 5, 2018
Small win: I’ve converted my Alaska card into a different BofA travel card without an annual fee for the moment to buy some thinking time on what we want to do next on our card churning.
What were your small wins this week?
Femme Frugality in Osaka. I’m dreaming of taking a really cool trip to Japan one of these days.
Discover the productivity secrets of the most productive creatures in nature. Hint: taking breaks!
How America handles disability is shortsighted, counterproductive, and downright stupid.
Talk about some serious boundary-crossing
The true rigors of childbirth that aren’t commonly discussed.
Chief Mom Officer’s recounting of how they handled childcare. I always like seeing how other people manage things.
I’m very curious what made this particular individual’s Fiverr gigs take off to this extent because I’m guessing this is not the typical experience of other writers who take $5 per gig.
If you need a laugh, I always do, Sam Sykes trolling Myke Cole pretty much always makes me laugh. He’s dedicated to the cause. I can’t tell if he’s ever passed on an opportunity to troll Myke on Twitter and possibly also in person. From my observations, so far, no.
Joe took one of my dream vacations: Iceland!
Do you do five year plans? I haven’t done one in a while, I’m in a season of rest for a little bit.
A friend found this site that solicits bids for services for you, no charge to the consumer and no commitment required. She crosschecked this with Yelp reviews and it seems pretty solid, at least on the East Coast.
OMG PUPPY
July 4, 2018
I left off the weekly updates after the first six weeks of the trial but I’m going to keep on with a few monthly reports for posterity and discussion.
Meal winners
- Rice pasta with ground turkey, marinara sauce, topped with mozzarella. Broccoli on the side.
- Coconut rice and baked tilapia
- Chicken and tofu masala, coconut rice. Palak paneer and lamb curry from a box on the side.
- White corn tortilla quesadillas – ALL HAIL white corn tortillas! Soft like flour tortillas but none of the gluten.
- Turkey and cheese enchiladas for dinner. The sauce packet says to make four, I made 15. It stretched!
- Gluten free three cheese pizza crust topped with fresh red bell peppers, sweet Vidalia onions, 1/3 lbs of sweet Italian sausage. And of course sauce (from a jar this time) and shredded mozzarella (bought in bulk from Costco). Pretty darn good!
- CPK’s cauliflower crust pizza, though not at all economical, was pretty good too.
- Herbed butter chicken thighs, garlic mashed potatoes, elote.
- Grilled pork loin chops, pan fried cauliflower with a touch of salt, garlic mashed potatoes.
- Cottage pie with sour cream mashed potatoes, and mozzarella on top
Meal losers
Nothing this time! Those horrible snickerdoodles are finally done and gone though. Thank goodness. The Trader Joe’s snickerdoodles are a little bit better but still not really winners for my palate. The Trader Joe’s fake Oreos are even worse than the snickerdoodles by a small margin.
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July 2, 2018
On Money
Income
Our normal income comes from two full time day jobs. We earn money on the side, including tiny cash flow we don’t touch from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks.
Our side income comes from Swagbucks, infrequently selling on Poshmark, using cash back sites like Ebates, Mr.Rebates, and tracking physical activity through Achievement (my introduction to it). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a (very) small commission to keep the blog lights on.
The long term goal is to replace our day job income before my health declines enough to prevent me from working.
***
Micro-income 1. I complained to Comcast about their scheduling maintenance during the work day but not bothering to warn us about it, and they credited my account on request. For 2 cents. Wow.
Micro-income 2. I don’t do much with MTurk now but occasionally they’ll email me to do the odd survey. $0.50. 😀
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June 28, 2018
Small win: I made an amazing cottage pie with sour cream mashed potatoes for dinner. JB loved it and declared: mama, I am going to eat ALL MY FOOD!
Also, though I hate phone calls with a passion, I returned some calls about the LTC policy application that we’re considering. I’m really not ready to go through the fine print and make a decision so I scheduled the exam for late July to buy some time.
What were your small wins this week?
***
Ruth and I lost our mothers too young, she younger than I, and it’s left scars. I still remember the exact moment I got back to my desk at work and getting her message that her mom had passed; I remember it as clearly as when I got the call that Mom died suddenly. She’s written something you should read.
Shiloh Treatment Center is being charged with the mistreatment of children and forcibly injecting them with substances that were not approved by their parents. The Tribune reports the court filings. When does this stop and when will these people be held responsible for child abuse and human rights violations? These kids are going to need so much help to heal.
The psychiatrist who’s been treating immigrant children at Shiloh lost his board-certification to do so in 2010. (more…)
June 27, 2018
It seems like everyone was spending time in Hawaii and we wanted to go too (Angela’s week and GenYMoney)! I originally planned to travel hack most of this trip but that didn’t happen. (Belatedly I realized that GenYMoney’s hacking did NOT include their lodgings.)
Getting ourselves ready for travel has become such a hassle, though!
For the travel itself, we have to book the transportation (flights, car rental, lodgings), call to make sure that our PreCheck number is on our reservations, put everything in TripIt to keep it organized. I usually download whatever promo code there is for cabs or rideshare, if we’re going to use them, a few days ahead of time so that it’ll be valid for our whole trip.
For work, I had to make coverage arrangements at work which always means updating people’s training, and working ahead on some things, and planning which days I’m still going to check in because there are a few things only I’m senior enough to do.
Preparing at home means tons of logistics 3 weeks before we travel.
Humans: checking all our security is in place, putting the mail on hold, making sure that all our packages are delivered before we leave. Doing everyone’s laundry, packing the medications bag for our carry-on (I’ll never forget leaving the Tylenol in our checked luggage and then having JB have teething pains on the flight!), planning airport and plane food, picking and packing all of our travel clothes, plus carry-on clothes. Packing 5 hours’ worth of entertainment for a 3 year old.
Dogs: getting a good sitter and booking them, doing all of their laundry, packing their food, supplements, medications, snacks, treats, beds, bowls, and blankets. It’d be easier to pay someone to stay here with the dogs but I’m still not comfortable with the idea of a stranger in my home and having to provide food for them as well.
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