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
Year 6, Day 301: It was a mental health crisis weekend wherein my brain was taken hostage by the depression and it was rough before it passed. I think it was, at the very least, a culmination of the pressure of having to enforce what felt like idleness (which means working like maybe one person, not 6, and still parenting, and trying to keep abreast of the most critical household stuff) for so many weeks, having the pain hit like a freight train as soon as the CFS let up even the littlest bit, and frankly, the dam just broke. I’m not past it yet, there are lots of whispers of “what would be best” but the worst of the death doldrums have passed.
Year 6, Day 302: I’ve had a white hair every few years since my early twenties so it wasn’t a surprise to find this year’s iterations. But I think it’s got company. There’s about five of them? Which led me to thinking: why do people call them greys or silvers? Do they appear grey or silver instead of pure white on other people? Yes, my brain is wandering because it is firmly fixed in the fog.
Year 6, Day 303: I’m finally just about back at my baseline which is roughly 65% human. I don’t know what the other 35% is but it’s not helpful.
Year 6, Day 304: Every Winter Games, I learn a little bit more about the sport of figure skating, mostly from social media. This year’s little learning came from Courtney Milan on scoring and medal possibilities. I don’t have any time to get deeply involved so I appreciate these small glimpses.
Year 6, Day 305: TWO wins today. Animals, of course. Our tiny dog neighbor came by for skritches and love. He’s delightful, likes to politely sniff noses, and is properly spoiled so he always smells good.
While I was doling out the love, I noticed the ravens from last week were back. Not only that, the ground one (they usually come in pairs and split up: one up high as a lookout and one on the ground) kept quoorrkkking and walking / hopping a little closer to us every few seconds. It kept a minimum distance between the strange people and the dog, but it was clearly heading my way. And the longer I petted dog buddy, the more the ground raven puffed up his feathers until he was nearly round. I can’t tell if that was posturing but as soon as our neighbor and dog friend walked away, he slicked back down to normal proportions and then looked at me very expectantly. It’s delightful and astonishing it took so little effort for them to be comfortable enough with me that I can approach within 6 feet of them now. I’m slowly building my Corvid Coalition.
1. My two crow friends haven’t been by in weeks but two ravens visited this week so I signaled treats to them, same as I do my crow friends, and they came over!
They are always braver than the local crows and showed it this time by hanging out by the food spot even after they’d cleaned up the offering, and let me come close enough to roll a few additional rounds of treats over to them.
The crows always require me to be a minimum distance away, and retreat as soon as they fill their beaks. They’ll come back for seconds and thirds but hanging out in the vicinity while I approach is still a solid no.
“Now, Ayures keeps an eagle figurine on his desk. When he’s re-stationed, it’s a piece of Unalaska he’ll hold on to — knowing that somewhere out there, an eagle with his cell phone is holding onto a piece of him, too.”
Helping folks: Carrie Mesrobian: “ICE is still here in Columbia Heights. People are still unable to work, feed their families, pay their rent. If you have a couple bucks to spare, please do. If not, just go please meet at least one neighbor. You will want to be ready if this ever comes to your community and that is the first step.” Link to GFM for this community in MN.
Year 6, Day 294: I keep wanting to make a box cake. Then I remember: it’s so mediocre I won’t enjoy it. Which, I’ve always known what it is BUT I liked it just fine. I took advice to use butter instead of oil, milk instead of water, and added an egg to make it better and still, meh. I keep wondering if it’s me or if something changed with the mixes. Everyone else likes them just fine. I used to live week to week for my Friday night box-cake-and-laundry ritual in middle and high school. I want to reinstate the ritual! But not if I can’t enjoy the cake part of it. I’ve gone searching for other ways to make it better. It feels like by the time I’ve added the butter, the extra egg, the ricotta, the pudding pack, maybe I might as well make the whole damn thing from scratch? I can’t remember the last time I did a cake from scratch, if I ever have. But it feels a whole lot more energy intensive than I can afford. Which takes me back to being grumpy about box cake not tasting quite right anymore.
Year 6, Day 295: Last summer I impulse purchased beautiful Maya Kern skirts with enormous pockets. Advertised as “fits a Nintendo DS”! I don’t have a Nintendo DS but I do have a phone and a wallet and keys and kids who always need snacks and water – I foresaw a fabulous future of magical pockets full to bursting. It was going to be my Mary Poppins moment.
However. While the pockets were absolutely not oversold, the waists are a simple elastic and they defeated me. All of my other skirts have defined waists so I never had to think about it before. I could just pair them with pretty much any shirt and they’d be fine.
Maya’s feed is full of lovely women of all shapes and sizes, mostly plus size with more shape than less, looking wonderful in their skirts with a simple top tucked in. When I put it on, and tucked in a tee (because when packing my bags for that weekend I wasn’t thinking beyond “clothes for the top part”, “clothes for the bottom part”) I looked drab and frumpy. Drab, I’m used to. I’m ruler of sweatpants at work world. But frumpy, ugh. During bedrest, I scrutinized the pictures of Maya’s customers: trying to take notes on how they styled their outfits to get some ideas and even asked some of them for their thoughts. The simplest one seemed to be adding a belt so, using the existing customers’ pictures as a guide, off I went shopping for belts in various colors.
Next problem: I’ve never accessorized with belts successfully. I’ve bought belts but they’ve never made an outfit look better. Fashion bloggers made it seem so easy! This week I finally tried on the belts and promptly made the outfit look much worse. I texted bestie pictures to confirm and she both confirmed it did NOT work and gently guided me to use different color combinations whereupon voila! The belts work for me, not against me! Honestly. Only I add accessories and end up looking significantly worse. There’s a whole world of rules around colors and shapes and lines that I’m overdue to learn in order to dress my adult self.
Year 6, Day 296: The to do list is about a mile long and growing. I’m adding things that need to be done faster than I’m able to do them.
So much grumble.
Year 6, Day 297: Bedrest again. I managed to clear my call schedule for the week though, so at least while I’m confined to working from bed, I don’t have to fake my way through video calls. Yay for that.
Year 6, Day 298: Depression has hijacked my brain.
2. A friend’s willing to be the guinea pig on this crocheting pattern for me. I bought this for them to try first and tell me how tough it really is before I commit to buying yarn and trying to figure out how to crochet again. I learned more than 20 years ago but I only ever learned the one stitch and that baby blanket is STILL a WIP tucked away somewhere.
Year 6, Day 287: We let JB have a friend over for the weekend AND we did fun stuff with the kids on both days, so now I’m paying the piper. Again. Well, I suppose it’s not “again” if it never stopped. Worst game my body plays – is it virus or is it CFS?: slight congestion, brain fog, fatigue, body aches, massively sore throat. Since I still can’t take off work, I still cherry pick only the most critical work and the rest just has to wait.
I’m relieved to see that, for today/now, Haitian TPS status is preserved.
I have had Rizzoli & Isles on for background these past two weeks and was really sad when they cut out one of the main characters at the start of Season 5. Looking him up, the waterworks turned on – the actor had died by suicide over a decade ago and they had to write him out of the show. I’d excuse myself saying that being bedridden for weeks has me maudlin, and maybe it has, but I’m pretty sure motherhood broke my thick armadillo shell of stoicism. I cry over the most random things.
Year 6, Day 288: Accounting fun bits: I’m changing our annual tracking sheet variables. I used to define Fixed and Variable spending as separate categories. The idea was that we had more control over Variable and could cut back on that type of spending in a pinch so it’s good to have that spending pre-identified. Several years later, it’s never been useful information so it’s all just Spending. The side income category isn’t useful anymore so now I track Reimbursements – I’d like to know what income is actually repayment from friends or entities (FSA, Delta Dental, etc).
Looking ahead to 2027 when both kids will be in public school, there will be a massive savings on the daycare line item. In its place, I need to project the cost for summer camp for both kids since the dependent care FSA is up to $7500 – can we use that full amount. A shame that couldn’t have been increased years ago when we could make full use of it. But two kids, summer camps seem to run $500-800 a week (on the higher end for some of the specialty education options like science stuff). PiC found an art camp year but $1000 a week was far too rich for our blood. Let’s say they’re in 8 weeks of camps x 2 kids x average $600 a week: holy smokes, that’s $9600 for part of the summer. There we go, we could easily use up the $7500 FSA for 2027. Phew. That’s one question answered.
Year 6, Day 289: JB’s dental woes continue apace. More of their adult teeth are coming in crooked. They haven’t come through yet but we’re definitely going to need braces again when they do.
SmolAc’s latest dental X-rays confirmed they will need braces eventually, too. Drat. I knew it was a strong likelihood but hoped. *Mentally allocate $6000-7000* Unfortunately our dentist no longer refers to the one we are currently using for JB because they don’t like the quality of their work. JB’s halfway through their treatment, so we have to stick with them until we know what we need to do for Phase 2. I bet we are only paid up through the start of Phase 2 but best to review the paperwork and be sure. Meanwhile I’ll need to do a bit of research on the recommended local orthodontists. This change in quality is a damn shame, their office is so convenient for us.
Year 6, Day 290: I’m on a fairly annoying weekslong quest to improve my working from bed conditions. I’ve got a lapdesk that tilts. It’s been fine for 1-3 days working from bed but that’s half of what I need when I have to work for weeks in bed. I really need a lapdesk that tilts and is mounted on a swingarm so that I can move it away from my position on the bed rather than struggling like an upside down turtle when I need to get out. I’ve searched all over and there are dozens of options, none of which fit the bill. Accidentally ordered one in a fit of optimism only to realize the measurements were all wrong, so that’s going to back. I spent a day trying out different set ups with the stuff that I already have on hand, that didn’t help, it just set off a cascade of pain. Whoops.
Related: I tend to save the Ilona Andrews blog to read in big bunches, especially to stave off depression after long bouts of fibro or CFS flares, and so I’m only just now reading the Christmas Eve post. Innkeeper Innkeeper we might get our next Innkeeper this year!!! (Also those straw mushrooms are the correct mushrooms to use in tom yum soup but our Thai restaurants started using sliced white mushrooms instead. Yuck. So I feel Ilona’s pain.)
That news really hit the spot.
Today was the first day there were signs of the CFS receding even the littlest bit after several weeks of dying slowly inside from fatigue. Hilariously, the heartburn and fibro pain immediately flared up in its place.
Year 6, Day 291: I’m up to feeling about 15% human today! That’s well up from the 0-3% I’ve been feeling for about 3 weeks. I’ve been in the sub 20% range for 7 weeks. This is the danger zone. This is where I feel juuuuust human enough that I will force myself to do “little” things I need or want to do, repeatedly, because I haven’t sunk under the pressure YET and willpower through until collapse. If I do that when I’m nearer my baseline of 65%, I can recover in a day or three. At 15%, it’ll be weeks of recovery. This round I’m working on being extra mindful of this tendency and communicating better with PiC. More honestly, more transparently. I’ve always been one to hide my weakness but it’s too dire to hide now. It’s been hard crawling out of this hole I/we dug for myself.
In exercising, this impulse is precisely what gets me in trouble – this hurts but I can grit it out! Then I am laid up for 3 weeks. Thank goodness for my trainer keeping me on very calibrated workouts.
We’re meant to see our friends this weekend and I want to! But hello, self, all the weekend socializing that we’ve done through January is exactly what took me down to 0-3%. So. Right. Being self aware that 15% is good but not GOOD. I need to refill this tank a great deal more because I have to solo parent one month from now and we cannot risk my being a sludgepile when it’s just me and the kids.
Please enjoy some self-awareness and a walrus vocalizing with me.
2. You have to be logged into Bluesky for this but Claire Willett commentary on the current Catholic Church doings and politics is always enlightening. I had no idea that the Latin Mass was a dogwhistle for virulent antisemitism, for one.
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
***
Dividend income. We received $222 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
I’ve been working with JB to build their business little bits at a time. When we initially started this, we agreed we would be partners and share everything, costs and profit. But I’ve really been doing all the admin, site design and legal work and letting them keep all the money. After we upped the ante at last year’s little craft fair, having them pay for their materials out of their earnings so that they understand more about how a real business works, they noticed that I’d been letting them have all the proceeds. I admitted that I had been spoiling them a bit. We agreed that we’d split the proceeds of any future shows since I’m doing a whole lot of the legwork for these shows. I’m also working on adding my own little craft contributions to the table in hopes of beefing up our application.
Unfortunately we got hit by scammers testing stolen credit cards on the site this month. It’s cost us $55 in fees so far and it’s not over yet. This is really frustrating.
