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
1. I channeled my sadness into getting a whole lot of stuff done on the weekend.
From the sale clothes I’d bought: one sweater’s going back. Two jeans might go back unless they can fit someone else. Only two of them fit me comfortably but the price is so good that I’d like them to be worn if they can be instead of returning them.
The kids and I dropped off four large bags of film / plastics for recycling.
I finally found children’s Sudafed after checking at three pharmacies. I really hope this isn’t another shortage like last year. I am learning my lesson after last year’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen shortages when the shelves were literally empty. We’re stocked up on Robitussin and Sudafed for JB, my medications, and Sera’s. There’s not a good time of year to be out of meds but running out at the end of the year feels so much worse given all the other pressures of the season.
Oh also, it turns out I already bought the Ziploc BIG BAGS (for storing clothes) that I’d put on my shopping list again, months ago in fact!, and totally forgot about them. They came out this week to store JB’s shoes and WOWZA they were not kidding! That is a BIG BAG. I think I fit in that bag… ! They hold 9 pairs of biggish children’s shoes, laid flat instead of stacked. Stacked, I bet it could hold twice as many pairs. But they wouldn’t fit in the small storage space we have that way.
2. Making better choices (for me, for now): It’s too late to try to make cloth gift bags for the holidays. I gave in and ordered some cloth bags as a second best option. I picked the slower shipping option for a digital $1 reward. While I should have enough to get myself a free Kindle book soonish, it turns out my patience stinks. I want them here right now so I can pack up all the gifts and cross that off my list. If only this had been made earlier, self.
Year 4, Day 237: This is the one week a year that I get help from someone I love dearly and it’s precious precious time. Last month I had planned to take time off this week to spend with them but then my boss crash-landed with urgent deadlines and projects and and and. I am MIFFED. I’m also working really hard at not letting it consume this week, regardless of the urgency. I’ll do my best (at work) but my best no longer means “at the expense of my loved ones”. This is the one week where someone else can tend to a million kid questions, provide a lap for kids to play a game together, can bond with them and be the fun one while I am up and about doing the million things that I have to do. They are also a splendid cook so this is the one week I get to go with someone else’s meal flow without having to plan. I absolutely appreciate the hell out of it. I’m still a frazzled mess, a week of help is just enough of a taste for me to desperately want more.
On the other hand, I’m skeptical that we could find someone else who could (eventually) provide this third adult help so seamlessly. I don’t get along all that well with many people. (And I cherish my alone time.)
Year 4, Day 238: Well I’ll be! Amazon / UPS keeps sending me failed delivery notices for the 30+ grocery orders shipped from Amazon to the second Lakota family. I spent an hour tracking down every single tracking number (UPS) and then finding the related USPS tracking number since they handed off to USPS and then confirming that USPS hadn’t actually lost the groceries.
Despite the alarming number of notices, so far it doesn’t look like anything has been lost yet and half of them were successfully delivered to the post office. Fingers very crossed that the rest arrives safely and soon.
Year 4, Day 239: I did not budget half an hour this morning to discovering that something exploded in the robot vacuum’s guts to form a crusty layer of yuck on all the surfaces and had to be dug out bit by painful bit. I also did not budget another hour for dealing with people management problems. But there those hours went, anyway. Insert my pained sigh. As I told a friend, on the outside, I am patient and gracious and helpful. On the inside I am yelling and kicking rocks. She assured me that was having self restraint and being professional, not being two-faced.
Yesterday was a rough parenting day. I was very upset with JB and JB was really upset with over an incident at their class and I felt like garbage afterward when a dear friend and mentor gave me their more clear-eyed observations that I did not disagree with. I’m so tired of feeling like all I do are make mistakes. Then Smol Acrobat got extremely belligerent with me over my not allowing them to carry two pieces of Pyrex that were too large for their little hands. They screamed in my face “I CAN DO IT!!!” and swung at me. Typical toddler emotional dysregulation. I carried them to a corner for a quiet time out and sat with them until they calmed down, but it was exhausting, especially when overlapped with the fight that JB and PiC had. JB decided they had better things to do than finish setting the table – a job they’ve been responsible for every night since they were 5. These conflicts feel more fraught.
Year 4, Day 240: Thanks to good planning and pacing, we had time for all sorts of things we usually can’t fit into a day.
Downtime: I laid down to rest with my computer to shop for jeans that 🤞 I hope will fit and picked up cold weather gear for our Lakota sponsee.
We took the kids and dogs for a long walk in unexpectedly beautiful weather. Sera was also unexpectedly peppy! for that walk.
And we put together the dinner feast for dinner. I ate so much I was nearly rolled to bed.
Year 4, Day 241: Do you ever have dreams or nightmares that are so vivid or emotionally intense that you aren’t sure the events of the dream didn’t really happen? Then you’d be upset at the person who was the subject of that dream or nightmare? This used to happen every night, it used to always be fights with my biodad or brother. It’s a lot less frequent now but when it does happen again, like last night, I wake up really confused about reality and memories.
Probably related to that: it’s been two (three? I can’t remember) weeks of working late nights and I’m tuckered. I gave myself the day off to spend with the family. We managed an errand, time for the kids to play at a playground, and a little venture out to a tourist trap ice cream shop for an indulgent treat and the Christmas lights. We stayed up too late but it was nice to make a memory.
Alas, Smol Acrobat’s nose started dripping again and they’ve gone and contracted another virus. Please cross your fingers that this one blows by and doesn’t turn into anything much worse.
It also just sank in that we’re nearly at the very end of November. How did that happen?? I work all year to be ahead of the curve on holiday things and by November I’m always flabbergasted at how we got here.
It’s Covered California Open Enrollment time. We don’t need it next year but we may in the future, so I looked up what a Covered California Gold plan for the four of us would cost and what we’d get for that money. They only showed a premium price for a minute, which was very annoying, but it looked to be just a shade under $2000 a month. That buys a family of four:
$17,400: Out-of-Pocket Maximum $0: Medical Deductible $0: Pharmacy Deductible $35: Doctor Visits $65: Specialist Visits $35: Mental Health Outpatient Visits and Services $250: Ambulance Trip $350: Emergency Room Visit $35: Urgent Care Visit $75: X-rays and Diagnostic Imaging Imaging $75 (CT/PET scans, MRIs) Hospital Facility Fee $330 per day, up to 5 days
Free Preventive Care: annual checkups, immunizations, screenings. Pediatric Care: Free vision care and preventive dental care for children. Pharmacy: No drug deductible. Your plan helps cover prescriptions from the get-go. Eye Exam: Free, One Per Year Glasses: Free, One Pair Per Year Dental Cleanings: Free, Once Every 6 Months
I do wonder if there are any hidden fees or restrictions that I’d only discover after going through the process. We probably should do it a few times between now and whenever we will be likely to need it so we have a better idea of what is going to be needed.
~~~~~
I realized I hadn’t visited Joe Udo in a while, losing Twitter links to posts and my general schedule has reduced my blog reading. I had thoughts on a few posts.
First, you need 40 credits to be eligible for Social Security. You can earn up to 4 credits each year. Almost all Americans earn enough income to earn these 40 credits over their working life.
The benefit (Primary Insurance Amount or PIA) is calculated from your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME.) This takes your highest 35 earning years and averages them out to a monthly earning. Once you have the AIME, then the benefit is calculated with the following formula*.
A) 90 percent of the first $1,115 of his/her average indexed monthly earnings, plus
B) 32 percent of his/her AIME over $1,115 to $6,721, plus
C) 15 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $6,721.
40 credits ✅
Highest 35 earning years? Not there yet. I’ve been working since I was 17 so that’s only about 24 earning years. A quarter of them were low wages. Four years of working multiple piecemeal jobs during college, another four working an entry level job. My first post-grad salary was $23,000. I doubled it by the time I left (after a grueling four years with abusive bosses). Anyway my AIME today would be composed of 24 earning + 11 non-earning years. It’s just as well that I doubt we’ll be able to retire in less than 10 years. Maybe I’ll run some calculations just for fun. But then again…
Social Security is a bit uncertain for my generation because the program will start to run out of money in 2033.
The state of politics being what it is today makes me think SS will crash and burn and a whole lot of people will be plunged into poverty. A number of my own relatives are entirely reliant on SS for their income and while some of them can rely on their adult children to help if needed, that’s not true of all of them. We certainly can’t rely on it.
IMO, life is too easy for FatFIRE retirees. They don’t have to struggle at all. That makes life boring. Sure, travel and getting new hobbies are on every retiree’s to-do list. However, those will only keep you interested for so long. There is no challenge. You need challenging goals to keep life interesting. People are happiest when they’re pursuing happiness, right?
FatFIRE retirees are high achievers. They won’t be happy with a relaxing lifestyle.
I believe you can recover from being a high achiever. I have. 🙂 Though I have many more interests than I have time, money, or energy, so I guess even without achievement, I’d be hardpressed to be truly bored.
My 2030 ideal life is very different than my life today. But we’ll be in a different stage of life then. At this point, we have a child living at home. My current life is almost ideal for this stage.
When I was an engineer, I was stressed out and unhappy. I quit so I could spend more time with our son. It worked out very well and life is great today. I work a bit, cook, take my son to various activities, repair the house, and deal with the rentals. I’m busy, but I’m not stressed out. It doesn’t get better than this at this stage of life. We’ll look back on this period fondly someday.
My conclusion is the ideal life will change as you go through different stages of life. It’s good to dream about the future, but you need to be happy today as well.
I agree that for right now, my current life is as ideal as it can be for this stage given our real life limitations. I get therapy, I garden a little, I have a reliable life partner whose company I still enjoy. I love the dog and kids even if they make me bananas sometimes. If I could subtract work from the equation without disturbing anything else, including income, that’d be even more ideal but I’m sure something else would slid into place as an irritant or difficulty (the world. The world supplies frustration in spades). We keep trying to do our best and that looks different from one day to the next.
Our ideal lives will change ten years from now and fifteen years from now, and so on. And, of course, the work leg of this current ideal life may not last long depending on shifts that might or might not happen. That’s always been a risk. I hate that part.
Have you ever held an ideal (for being labor) job? How long did that last? What’s your ideal life right now?
Year 4, Day 232: I submit a motion for Mondays to be abolished. JB vomited twice before 9 am so no school for them. Smol Acrobat woke up late and dragged their feet every step of the way. Their fever is finally broken, and they’re still coughing a bit, buuuut they just want to play at home. No no. No no no. No. You need to go play with people your own size and age at daycare! I need you to be with people your size and age. I’m also in a mystery back and forth with Kaiser, I don’t know why. They called me but won’t tell me why they called. I called back and asked – no answer. 🤷🏻♀️ PiC injured his back a couple days back and we’re not sure yet how serious it is. I’m topped up on Sudafed, Tylenol/Motrin, and an antiviral that’s trying to fend off Smol’s germs at least partly successfully or unsuccessfully depending on how you look at it. I’m coughing, sneezing, congested and tired but it’s not as bad as it normally would be. Indescribably grateful the antiviral helps me get through enough of the day.
I wish I could rest more during the day but alas. Unexpectedly pressing and unavoidable deadlines sprang into our lives last month and I have to deal with them. We are slowly crossing out stuff on our to-do list, though, and that is satisfying. Never mind that the to-do list might be a hydra. We’re not thinking about that today.
Year 4, Day 233: Because our total contributions to date for the November Lakota fundraising this weekend was $1700, I waffled over the plans for spending it. Try to shop in bulk for the Allen community? Focus on helping families directly? Hit the Holiday Okini? They all have their challenges. Then I spotted a posting from a 72-year old grandmother, in need of dialysis, with a broken washing machine, needing a bed for herself, and a bunk bed for the grandkids she’s raising. The four teens she raised needs clothes, and the household needs cleaning and hygiene supplies. That decided it for me. We’d outfit a couple families as completely as possible. I wasn’t sure we had enough money to tackle more than the washing machine and furniture but I went for it anyway. Thankfully, while I was pricing out bunk beds (4 stores, 3 dozen beds) to find one that we could afford AND that would ship to the Reservation, another group clubbed together for the washing machine and then a few large donations came in.
That left me with a lot of shopping to do on a larger than usual budget. What a good problem to have. I’m so grateful to generous friends and readers who make this possible.
I also picked up a second family that is out of food and filled a giant Subscribe and Save order for them. Amazon is unfortunately the only place that consistently ships food to the Reservation. Every other store I’ve tried is an exercise in futility.
Of course since I spent my morning happily shopping for families, I ended up working deep into the night to catch up on work. Worth it!
Year 4, Day 234: Uh, I have bitten off more than I can chew. Belatedly realizing that’s an ironic turn of phrase because the REASON I put myself in this position is that Family 2 for November is a household of 12 children and adults who are out of food. I couldn’t put off ordering another day, I can’t bear the thought of people going hungry on my watch. Sadly, you need a vast amount of food to feed a family of 12. I consulted with a friend who has experience with providing food to large families and she confirmed that the 26 items I bought in bulk wouldn’t last more than a week. A case of chili makes one meal. If only Costco would let me ship to PO Boxes, that would make such a difference.
Quick recap: I’ve a huge deadline looming at work, and ALSO am neck deep in over 100 items in various stages of processing to keep track of and pay the bills for. Also, we have to finalize the fundraising for our daycare teacher by tomorrow. EEPS. Deep breaths.
Unrelated I love this Cyndi Lauper song, Fearless. I’ve always been a fan of True Colors but this one grabs me.
Year 4, Day 235: We’ve wrapped up the daycare teacher fundraiser, write her a nice note, and PiC is set to pick up some pastries for the teachers tomorrow. That’s one thing down.
About 3/4s of the two Lakota orders have shipped, sometimes one item per shipment, making me really wish that we had the option to ask for these giant orders to be shipped all together. But that would probably be impossible, my guess is that products are in different warehouses and they simply couldn’t. But one can dream.
It’s time to put together our Thanksgiving meal menu. Can’t scrape together the brain cells for it just yet but definitely stuffing, maybe turkey, maybe prime rib instead?, mashed potatoes yes, and …. What vegetable? JB used to vote for Brussels sprouts. We haven’t done them in a while.
Year 4, Day 236: Friday food review! We leaned hard on takeout again this week, just trying to get through. We grabbed a family pack at Jollibee, fried chicken AND mushroom beef patties, which got us through two nights. I did do a very easy honey butter salmon bake one night and that’s relatively reliable. Otherwise Smol was the greatest of pains during dinners.
Rain set in this week, bringing some impressive thunder and lightning. I worried my plants would drown but when I checked on them, the older batch of onions’s green tops shot up another two inches. Just from two days of rain! I was trying not to overwater them, now I’m not sure if they’ve been stunted from underwatering.
The cough is definitely still lingering for me, with some random bouts of horrible congestion. JB’s cough still sounds awful, it’s a deep rattling thing, but their energy is just fine. Smol Acrobat seems to have turned the corner finally. They’re still extra moody, and sobbed for 3/4 of the drive home today because I was driving and couldn’t hug them. PiC’s back is pretty bad, it’s being diagnosed as a herniated disc at the moment just based on physical exam. I hate that they’re not willing to scan it yet, and I hate that a herniated disc sounds so awful.
1. I tried to pry the sick kids out of the house for a walk on the weekend. Sera 🐶 and I headed out first, followed by JB and then PiC and Smol Acrobat. We ran into all kinds of neighbors. One texted me about spotting JB trying to find me, to confirm they were actually ok and didn’t need help. One was walking her dog while we petted a very friendly stray cat. One sent their kids out to do a rousing chorus of hi hello hi!!
2. I follow Shirley Raines on Twitter and her work to help people directly is so humane and caring. I especially appreciate that she doesn’t hold people hostage to get their basic needs met like people from organized religions do.
Sometimes it’s hard to get out of the way as a parent. Meaning: I have all these hopes and dreams for JB as to the kind of person they will be and we are responsible for molding their sense of right and wrong. Sometimes the feeling responsible for their moral compass gets a little mixed up with who they are as people. I’m trying to unpick those. HOW they address a right and a wrong should be more in line with who they are. Our job is to make sure they know that they need to address wrongs.
Put another way: It was easier to appreciate how very much their own person they are when they were only 3 and 4 years old. Now that they’re making real choices that have bigger consequences, it feels less natural to take a step back and give them the freedom to make their own mistakes. I still firmly believe they need to at this age, it’s just harder to fight the opposing instinct that comes up telling me to teach teach teach. A beloved mentor advised me to work on building the relationship, not on teaching the lessons, but that’s probably my very weakest skill.
For example, my internal response to this moment in the League of Superpets movie:
Captured? By whom? Who are your allies and what are your resources? You must be here to put together the rescue plan!
The actual reply from a DOG CHARACTER (yes yes, written by humans but STILL) was totally counterintuitive to me:
I have a lot of work to do on myself because that literally never occurred to me as a possible response. You have a problem, you come to me, clearly you want me to fix the problem.
It’s very limiting! I know that but, as a parent, I haven’t built the chops to care more about the feelings than the fix yet. I’m still learning how to do that in just regular life stuff. It’s a work in progress.
School drop off has changed dramatically this year. Last year we’d run into 3-5 parents we knew most days. Sometimes we’d stop and chat a little. This year we don’t usually see anyone at all. One set of parents moved, so we know why they’re not there, but I’m not sure why we don’t see any of the other parents now. Also I had the weirdest twinge of guilt when we did run across one parent who was only there because she was volunteering to help.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We can cross off “panicking about pneumonia” off our parenting bingo card. Not a block I had any interest in checking but here we are. They’ve been in hyper-cranky mode for two solid weeks this month. It’s less than ideal. Everything is “no no no no no!” and bursting into hysterical tears when we tell them no.
When not sick: they’re starting to come up with mischievous answers to questions. JB asked them what their name is. They replied with MY real name. EXCUSE me??
It’s been a tough month with them.
Pupdate
Sera has entered her version of Bossy Old Dog life. When one of us is taking too long to go to bed, she’ll wander to the office door and stare until you make eye contact, then go back to one of her beds. If we’re being TOO oblivious, she’ll take an amazingly long time to circle and circle and circle her bed some more before she thumps down very loudly and pointedly. She’s also in her Era of Communicating only in Groans. No more huffing or yodeling at me, which is a shame. I like her yodel.
She’s also started patiently waiting for me to get to my desk and start working before she settles down. This is a polite echo of Seamus’s habit years ago. He used to yodel-scold me when he thought I was taking too long to get to work. Sera’s not vocally impatient about it but I feel just as guilty keeping her waiting.
Precious Moments
JB: We have a party at Auntie and Uncle’s on Saturday??
Me: DADDY has a party at Auntie and Uncle’s. You do not.
JB: ….. AWW!! Why not?
Me: Kids are not invited. Their place is too small to have a party with kids.
JB: It’s an adults only party?
Me: Yep. So you, me and Smol are home together that night.
JB: ….. *wheels turning, maybe pulling up the memory of the last time 3 years ago they pitched a 2-hour unholy fit that PiC was going out to a working dinner with a dear friend without us and how that absolutely torpedoed their chances at having a movie and popcorn dinner night which I explained the next day when they’d calmed down enough to listen* …..
Me: ….. *remembering the same thing* …..
JB: Can WE do something special at home too?
Me: Yeah, let me think about it.
This is funnier if you’ve read Blood Heir (amazon affiliate link; bookshop affiliate link). They haven’t so I don’t know where this is game coming from but they think it’s hilarious, too.
JB: Does Mommy have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Daddy have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does JB have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Smol have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Sera have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Mommy have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Daddy have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does JB have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Sera have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Smol have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol Acrobat monologues
Wet’s go outside wittle bit! wet’s go find the street sweeper! Maybe dey comin now? Wet’s go wook.
My ears wet. I need COVID test.
I made cake for you, you want some cake? Come here here’s pie! Wook! I can weach! I get tall and tall and tall!
Smol: yummm
Me: yum
Smol: no, YOU don say yum, I say yum!
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
