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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October 6, 2023
1. I spotted our crow gang hanging about and offered them a few bits of Sera’s 🐶 treats. They snatched them right up as soon as I turned to walk away! Making new animal friends makes me so happy.
I’m not generally a bird person but I love corvids. Maybe because they’re so interesting and I’ll never try to make one a house pet.
2. We’re all vaccinated against the flu! One down, one booster to go. Smol Acrobat recovered fairly quickly but the achey twinges were very upsetting for them a few hours later.
3. I started Saturday with a 14 item checklist of things to do, and closed out the day with just 5 things left! Not bad. I did, of course, do all the easy things first, so the last few are likely to be more time consuming than the first 9 things.
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October 3, 2023
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks, cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates) and affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon sometimes pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
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.
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Dividend income. We received $415 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
PiC also unexpectedly received an out of cycle cost of living adjustment. We’re more than happy to have the few extra dollars. Bills keep rising like yeast. It does make us wonder when and how his salary falls behind enough that his company notices and adjusts. The cynical part of me assumes he’s been underpaid for longer than we’d like but I have to ignore that voice because he doesn’t have much recourse. We’ll just focus on stretching our dollars.
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October 2, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 185: I spent most of the weekend on the shopping and tracking and all the admin work for our September Lakota families (background). I am thinking very sadly that last year we did SUCH an amazing job fundraising for shopping the Black Friday sales but I’m doubtful I’ll be able to do more than a small fraction of that this year. I can’t tell if it’s primarily because reach has shattered since the loss of Twitter or if everyone’s having a harder time than usual, financially. I hope that it’s just the former. It feels like I’m giving up when the going gets hard. People need the help more than ever, this year, and instead of getting revved up, I’m deflated.
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Email from CVS: “You’ll find COVID-19 testing at your nearby CVS® for $69.99.” $70???? I am so tired of this country’s lack of affordable access to care.
My hormones are overactive today, setting off waves of cramps so strong that I’m nauseous and sweating. No wonder I hate everything today.
Year 4, Day 186: We’re still about ten minutes behind our usual morning routine and it’s been over a week of recovery. I’d expected to be back on it by yesterday, but I’m still dragging and waking up later than I should. Normally Smol Acrobat is my alarm.
The first rain of the fall season fell overnight, so everything’s wet or damp. It’s like a gentle warning of what may lay ahead.
Lots of bits of bad news from friends today. Two were injured, one with broken bones, and another one lost a job offer they’d been overjoyed to receive after months of hunting. Boy I hope things look up from here for them.
Year 4, Day 187: We finally got back on track this morning! Dropoff and sendoff (of PiC and Smol Acrobat) achieved before 8:30 am finally.
Following on from the weekend when I made the time to tackle some desperately needed floor scrubbing, floor scrubbing I haven’t had time or energy for since the entire pandemic started, I feel the urge to learn how to sew something new this year. I haven’t felt this pull all year. I’d love to figure out how to make these designs: Japanese knot bag and gift bag. Is it a coincidence that this coincides with the upcoming holiday gift season? I’m sure it’s not at all. Still, the desire to create doesn’t often wake up in me so I try to listen to it when I can. I most definitely don’t have time for it today but I CAN check to see where I can get for liner material on sale.
Year 4, Day 188: We’ve had forecasts for warm weather all week but it didn’t pan out a single day this week. Luckily it was dry enough that PiC and Smol could do their usual bike commute.
Last week, I started a new jug of detergent. Bought it on sale ages ago, so long ago I’d forgotten it was slightly different from our usual. This one came “plus oxi-clean with odor-blasters!” I’d focused on the oxi-clean part, which I like, and failed to understand “fresh burst” tucked into the corner meant scent. Oops. We’ve used fragrance free detergent for several years now so this was an unpleasant surprise. I crossed my fingers that I’d get used to it. I think we’ve achieved scent neutrality today. I’m accustomed enough to it not to be irritated. Small win!
You’d think I’d be accustomed to being tired all the time, but that’s not how it works. I’ve been fatigued since 2013 and every day is still a mystery of “why am I so tired today?” Last week made sense, we were recovering from a very strenuous weekend. This week, I caught up on most of my backlog and found 20 minutes to dig in the potatoes and onions garden. Why does reaching the end of the day still feel like crawling to a mirage in the desert?
Having chronic fatigue is weird. You know you’re always going to be operating at 10-20% at best and yet still try to find a “reason” for it as if it’s not just a built-in feature.
Year 4, Day 189: Friday food review! I heated up a Kevin’s premade meal, Korean BBQ flavored chicken and added a box of tofu to it to serve with rice and creamed spinach one night. Another night I whipped up a tray of panko chicken, served with rice and salad. Go figure, JB was in love with the Caesar salad, and Smol Acrobat was willing to eat anything in exchange for cheese from the Caesar salad.
Are there any good frozen waffles? Thick heavy hearty waffles? The kids love Trader Joe’s frozen waffles but they just make me sad. They’re probably about as good as Eggo waffles were back in the day but I haven’t had those in eons.
September 29, 2023
- I have made a DENT in the piles of detritus that threatened to take over my office! I cleared one corner of kid clutter, sorting things into giving-away-to-local-friend and recycling piles. Wiped down the baseboards and floor under one of the cabinets, vacuumed the nooks and crannies that the robot vacuum cannot reach, sealed and postaged the birthday package for our Lakota sponsee, and scheduled a mail pickup.
2. Also I reorganized things in Smol Acrobat’s room: filled a bag of things to give-to-local-friend, another bag of things to return to the lending friend, and remembered to mentally start a package for a third friend. There was a LOT of effort expended though by all appearances, I’ve only moved things around to new piles. Still. I did a good job.
3. The Waymaker Race: We still have two weeks in the Prove sponsor’s timeline to earn their matching dollars and we’re still pretty far from that $20K cap. Earlier on, I only had PiC do it because he logs many miles but since we’re still not even halfway, I put Strava on my phone, registered for the Race, and put myself in the Hermits Union, too. I’m only walking about a mile a day but that’s worth $1 a day and every bit counts. Also, it’s a chuckle that the Hermits Union has the most members and is the top of the leaderboard! Go Hermits!
Challenges this week:
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September 25, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 178: It’s “I feel like a SLUG” Monday. The weekend was too long and too much, and didn’t end until about 2 this morning because of painsomnia, but it’s over and I’m putting it behind me. A shame that I can’t put the PEM behind me just as expeditiously.
I managed huge piles of work and my expectations. The remaining giant piles can wait until tomorrow and it will be ok. It is not a judgement on my prowess that some days I can’t do the work of four people. I also gave myself extra time to go pick up JB so I could sloth as slowly as I needed without worrying about running late. Before giving up for the day, I picked a second Lakota family to shop for before September is over.
Something set off my bag lady syndrome. I’m balancing a flare up of my occasional “must hoard resources!” instinct alongside my usual must-help-folks-personally motto. Might be partly because we’ve given a lot more than usual in a single week to folks who needed cash, might be something else triggered my old insecurities. I often worry we don’t help people enough and then have to remind myself it’s ok to live our own lives too, we don’t have to give until it hurts every time all the time. We still have a responsibility to look out for our futures and the kids, as much as we do to give back to the community.
Smol Acrobat was a giant pill at dinner but cooperative during bath time. It doesn’t quite even out but that’s better than the usual terrible at dinner, terrible at bath, and terrible at sleep trifecta.
Year 4, Day 179: Another slow and late morning. We’re still recovering from the weekend, I’ll probably be sluggy all week. My eyes were irritated the whole morning, I assumed it was because my eyeglass prescription is out of date, but it may actually be because the wildfire smoke had been blowing in. I didn’t notice the smell until mid afternoon, when it had become cloying and gross. On that theme, I missed an important detail in a text which led to some complications in the kid pickup routine. Then the dinner place we were going to try was closed today. Also irritating! (more…)
September 22, 2023
1. PiC and I treated ourselves to an adults-only lunch from our local Peruvian place. Total hole in the wall with food that cannot be beat. So so so good. We need to try actual Peruvian food someday from the source to see if it compares.
Challenges this week: I felt sluggish most of this week, and brain fog kept passing through. Not a fan.
Smol Acrobat’s refusal/inability to sleep through the night continues to hold us hostage.
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September 19, 2023
Life with JB
Living with the ultra-extrovert that is JB has shaken up my approach to social life. On the other hand, it hasn’t made me any BETTER at it. It’s confusing when parents suggest that we should set up a play date for our kids, then fumble or punt the scheduling so thoroughly that it doesn’t end up happening at all. PiC was the one in charge of setting up a playdate with parents in JB’s class last year and honestly it felt like their offer was one of those disingenuous “let’s do lunch sometime” things that are associated with LA stereotypes. (I’ve heard of it but never experienced it in LA.) I ran into the mom this year and she offhandedly offered that she remembered it fell through when she was traveling a lot last year, we should try again! But at this point, it really feels like the ball should be in their court after they’ve cancelled twice.
I worried our longtime friends might feel that way, I was due to meet their new puppy in January but have been sick on and off all year so much that I haven’t been up to setting up a meetup. Thankfully I finally got a treatment, they read my mind about finally getting together, and we visited on Labor Day weekend.
Their extrovertism did make me really proud, though. A young kid we didn’t know at the daycare center was asking PiC about JB’s whereabouts. It turned out they were asking because the kid is very shy. JB was the first kid at camp to walk right up to them, introduce themselves, and invite them to play. Several weeks later, that kid is still thinking of them. That was lovely. We told them we were proud of them for including other kids.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol Acrobat has started narrating their actions. I can reach bowl! I take one. I eat blackberry. Big one!
This won’t be cute in several years but it is right now when it’s a wonder that they’re finally saying real words and sentences.
Pupdate
Drat. I added sardines to Sera 🐶’s diet, along with some rawhide chews as a treat and one or both have retriggered her Gas Attacks.
Precious Moments
Smol Acrobat squeals.
What’s up?
Smol Acrobat mimes sniffing. “Sera niff me!”
She sniffed you?
YAH.
That’s how dogs check in. She’s asking if you’re ok.
No! Not ok!
Oh? Why not?
Be-tuz. Be-tuuuuuz…hmm. Be-tuzzzz.. hmm. Be-tuuuuzzzz… hmmm. She niff me!
You’re not ok because she sniffed you to see if you were ok??
YAH.
That seems… circular.
*****
Smol Acrobat got a sand timer for saying: “p’ay a widdle bit. timer go off, das it!”
It ran out and of course they didn’t notice so I pointed out there was no more sand in the top. Timer’s up.
They look at it closely. “Yeah. No sand.” Turns it over. “Dere! Sand!”
🤦🏻♀️😅
*****
Smol Acrobat, please put those away.
Ohhhhhhh DAS WHY.
What?
Daaaaas whyyyyy.
…. what?
*****
JB thanked me for always being there for them (internally: I dunno, not sure I am or that I deserve thanks for what I do manage. Then I had a quick mental spiral into why they feel the need to thank me for that because they barely remember to thank PiC for taking them on all kinds of fun adventures) and I managed to pull myself out of my head long enough to reply: “You’re welcome. You’re my baby.”
They quickly come back: “But also Smol Acrobat!”
Well yes. Them too.