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
Read More
January 4, 2023
“Happy” still feels strange to say right now. It’s been a year, much of which feels divorced from reality, because each day is a week and each week is a month.
The COVID pandemic is still a thing at the end of 2022. We’ve regularly gotten COVID case notifications from the school all year, and I noticed an increase in frequency in the last few months. PiC’s employer is still recommending masking and maintaining certain remote protocols (which I think should be stronger but no one listens to me).
We worked and parented full time all year long and felt every painful minute. This was a hard year for us in a lot of ways, so it’s not just you after all, Nicole & Maggie!
This year felt like another decade.
2022 Highlights in Health
- I continued brain therapy all year. My pain is more manageable even while the ME/CFS plagues me. I still struggled with loneliness and disconnectedness.
- In the last few months of the year, we found a way for PiC to get a lot more regular outdoor time than he got last year. We’re hoping to keep that up in 2023.
- Smol Acrobat’s introduction to daycare and other disease vectors (kids their age) was riddled with germs.
- JB and Sera were reasonably healthy.
The wild cards of COVID and now RSV are still around. Three of us are fully vaxxed and double boosted. Smol Acrobat’s vaxxed but not yet boosted. We continued to be cautious about socializing, avoiding crowds and staying masked around other people.
2022 Highlights in Life
We are still chugging along.
Me: still occasionally forgetting my learned lessons and trying too hard to do all the things and being feelings-avoidant. When I can’t avoid the feelings, I resent that I have to feel them. But on the other hand, I’m doing so much better at avoiding shame spirals when I make mistakes. That’s progress. I didn’t even know I was doing it before and reducing the spiral frequency reduces my pain. I was doing ok with feeling my feelings for a while but after so many losses, and so many complications with family and COVID, I’ve grown so tired of grieving. I’m doing some things I care about: reading, helping people, saving and investing. I’m wishing I could do more of those things and less work for pay.
Socially, we did more this year. We attended a loved one’s wedding, saw two sets of loved ones we haven’t seen in years and I got to meet up an author whose work I really enjoy for a long chat about anything under the sun. That last one was a whole lot of unexpected fun considering my introverted self wasn’t sure that we’d have enough in common to chat for long.
PiC: still working and fitting in his hobbies around the edges of caretaking and household stuff we share. We could use more balance. We’re slowly making space for more balance.
Smol Acrobat: we were without childcare for eight months. Six of those months were spent stressing over if and when we’d get a vaccine for Smol Acrobat. Once daycare started, the latter months of the year were spent tending to a sick Smol Acrobat, recovering from being sick, or both. But they do seem to be benefiting from the social aspects of daycare and their words are coming in fast and thick (and garbled). They’re loving their commute and they’re thriving with the enrichment so I’m feeling a lot less anxious about their day to day. I’m just mildly anxious about all the germs. PiC caught the little trouble seeker licking all the toys at pickup. 🤦🏻♀️
JB: attended school through the academic year, camp during the summer, and had two sports activities at different times this year. They love both activities and I suspect they’d love an additional one but we are in agreement that we want to maintain balance.
Our schedule is nothing compared to friends’ kids and we still have zero desire to add anything else.
The kids being out of the house is very good for my need for quiet / quiet time to work and not so good for my immune system.
2022 Highlights in Money
- I ended 2022 with almost the same amount of cash in our checking account as we started, for a second year. There’s something nice and balanced about that. Makes me feel like I’ve got some sort of consistency in our savings and spending.
- Our net worth dropped. The market is doing what it does.
- Related: With some minor adjustments to the recurring amounts in response to all our expenses going up, I stuck to our weekly investing plan. I squeezed every penny I could to pour into investing. We put in 17% of new contributions but ended the year with only 2% more than the start of the year total. Phew.
- I am almost done waiting for my state and federal amendments to be paid. One last refund pending!
- Our iBonds paid some decent interest.
- Collectively, we did an amazing job with our Lakota families project. We fulfilled 17 family requests for aid in the first ten months. In the last two: we shipped 3 cases of gently used items, friends shipped 3 packages of gently used bedding, and the Fall project provided dozens with warm clothes and other necessities.
We continued to be fortunate in having two full time incomes even if PiC had to start working on site. PiC was minimally impacted by recent layoffs, thankfully, and I might never not hold my breath a little when hearing news about layoffs but I hope to unclench my fists a little more each year.
We spent a lot on daycare, direct aid, my therapy, take out a few times a week some weeks, groceries (delivered, once in a rare while), and convenience foods.
For value, the therapy is probably the best thing I spent money on this year. I continue to identify and unpick (or try to) patterns that don’t serve me well. Very close runner up is daycare. This only misses the top spot because of the increased risk of SO MANY germs that comes with the time it bought me to be able to focus on work.
Financial Checklist for 2023
- Update our will and trust to include Smol.
- Change executors to people who have more ability to deal with our mess in case something happens to us.
- Make the important financial documents securely available to the key people.
- Add details on our bequests and set up secondary beneficiaries.
Thoughts for 2023
I self isolated from a large branch of family this year. I struggled with their politics and view of the pandemic which has impacted how I see them. I’ve also put more distance between myself and my chaos-driven loved ones for my sanity. It’s worked, my mental and emotional balance is better, even while it saddens me to deliberately foster distance during a time I’m still feeling lonely. I don’t know what our relationships will look like in 2023. I’d like to find a better balance. But I’m not sure if I’m comfortable seeing them unvaxxed (them) and unmasked (them).
We did reconnect with other family this year with whom we’d fallen a bit out of touch. That was really good and I’d like to keep that connection solid.
Our money
Same same. Save more, invest more, give more. Achieve FI in less than 5-10 years.
Our expenses will be going up:
- Full time childcare is more than our mortgage! We’re still part time. Stomaching that increase will be tough but we should plan for it by around midyear or so.
- We still haven’t committed to a new car and that chip shortage will probably carry into another year of low inventory and high prices but we’d better start saving.
- I’m not sure if we can expect any (minor) increase in PiC’s salary. I hope so, it’ll help offset the sting of inflation and increased daycare costs.
Little life things
A dear friend made me a giant Taylor Swift playlist on request. I’m going to start listening to it in earnest in 2023 now that I don’t have a huge stressful holiday to worry about.
I’m committing to monthly phone calls (anathema though they are to my introvert self) with a couple loved ones who connect best by phone, not text.
I’m resolving to do some little things that will make life a bit more smooth for ourselves. Bigger picture: Declutter, donate, organize. Small specific thing: Print out gift labels for people we regularly gift to since that’s one weak point of my gifting. I’m the worst at gift tags and gift labels. Another specific thing: figure out people’s gifts early in the year.
I hope to expand the Lakota Giving project a little more this year.
:: I hope that 2023 is kinder to all of us. How was your 2022?
January 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.
***
Dividend income. We received $400 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
(more…)
January 2, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 281: Sharing a Donors Choose project: Clothing Closet.
My stomach has been excessively grouchy for the last few weeks. I respond by eating less and less because everything irritates it to some degree and it seems logical to give it less to be annoyed by. Maybe it’s stress related. This reminds me of my childhood where I was constantly having stomachaches and no one knew why. The doctor just diagnosed me with a (never ending) stomach flu and gave my mom a hundred amoxicillin to treat it. Pretty sure he was wrong on both counts. Today I suspect this is and was all stress related.
Year 3, Day 282: Someone wished us a Happy New Year today and I was thoroughly confused. I still don’t feel like Christmas has happened yet so it’s too soon for that. But it’s not actually. Phew. Weird times.
Just took my fourth COVID test in two weeks. Negative still. I have had an intensely sore throat for several days and my sense of taste just suddenly dropped out so I figured I should check. I’d be more certain with a PCR test but we won’t be able to get an appointment for a few days yet.
Year 3, Day 283: Another negative test today which means once again probably I just feel terrible because my body is broken.
Big storms are predicted for the Bay Area but I’m still unclear whether that includes our little bit of it or not. I love rain but not so much flooding.
This was Smol chomping on my face and my shoulder today (image of Fritz the hippo at the Cincinnati zoo chomping a larger hippo). WHY SMOL WHY. (Weekend note: Upon meeting a new to them doll from the hand me down basket, they greeted said doll with a nose chomp. Again, I ask you: WHY?!)
Year 3, Day 284: I’m still impatiently waiting for updates about the under 5 bivalent booster. While Smol Acrobat is catching everything under the sun and bringing it home to me, I’d very much like to continue to dodge COVID for as long as possible.
My throat is a little less painful, after two weeks of testing and meds, and I’m still guessing it was related to exhaustion. Except the fatigue and causes thereof are still high, so it’s unclear why it’s less painful. Not complaining about that, mind you, just observing. Perhaps a more perceptive mind than mine will spot a pattern.
My cough has only gotten worse, though. No congestion, just a dry cough, but a hacking deep cough that frequently nearly induces vomiting which is a whole other dimension of fun.
Year 3, Day 285: I’ve avoided using the WordPress app block editor for ages by copying old templates but whenever I start a new post, I have to use it. I hate it so much! I need to set up a way to dodge it on new posts too.
Also hate: when I run into someone who reminds me of my biodad in some ways but clearly leads a totally different life in some important ways. It brings up much hated guilt over how his life could have should have been better, grief for the father I thought I had but never truly did, sadness that my kids will never have the grandparents that I also wished for as a child.
I shared some of this on Twitter and long time reader friends and Twitter friends provided support that is objective enough that even I can’t argue that I should be to blame.
I’ve also updated our Giving Page here to carry us into the new year. It feels slightly impossible with Twitter falling apart but I’m going to hold hope that people will continue to share and donate through the year.
December 30, 2022
1. Did you know that Gouda cheese also comes in sticks? I did not. And it was on sale!
Challenges this week: Very tired. Feel terrible.
(more…)
December 26, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 274: Fluh. Smol is finally through hand foot mouth and then immediately caught another virus. *Slump*
They’re grouchy as all get out and I’m still tired as hell because my cold thing still hasn’t gone on its merry way. JB is sniffling a bit, too, may it go no further. We’re quite the merry band.
I have got exactly zero holiday spirit at this point in the week. Maybe it’ll change as we go along but I’m skeptical.
*****
What’s the opposite of self preservation instinct? I caught myself feeling today as if I were not rested, but as if I had enough of a break that I should start thinking about how we could possibly fundraise in 2023 without a functional Twitter. I don’t have much reach here on the blog, I don’t want to spam email folks. But I also don’t want to let the Lakota Giving Project wither away.
I asked a friend to holler at me to settle down if I try to start hatching plans too early. I really do need a real break before diving headfirst into new iterations of the project.
But surely brainstorming ideas isn’t doing anything?? I don’t want to use a fundraising platform, I’d stick to the easy and informal setup we have now with Ruth. Put together a page on the Giving page again and ask friends to share it? Maybe offer small rewards when someone gets us over a fundraising milestone? I wonder if that makes sense. Thoughts?
Year 3, Day 275: Smol was screechily excited to meet our friend’s cats, they’re already friends with JB, but that delight was their downfall. They’re really good at petting cats gently but they can’t help their squeal of excitement once petting commences and that squeal absolutely terrifies the cats who take off running. We practiced doing shh shh shh with a finger over our lips, they imitated that, but the second contact was made: *delighted cackle* and off goes the cat. I can’t fault their joy but it was working against them.
*****
Oh hey, I made a sale on Kindle Direct Publishing! A little book that I designed was bought by someone! That’s very exciting! I hope they like it.
Year 3, Day 276: I thought my congestion had finally moved to a clear mucus stage but no. Alas. Not yet.
I had stocked up on kids; medications, thinking we’d have enough to get through the end of the year before I had to worry and of course the Imp of the Illnesses overheard my nonsense. Bam, we’re halfway through the medication supply, no end of their illness in sight, and not a medication to be had from any store.
My dear friend happened to be around. He checked all the local stores I hadn’t checked (because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have it either and I was right) and then ran over with some from their own supply because his partner had stocked up before the shortage without any notion a shortage was coming. That buys us about 7-8 more days, I think. Haven’t quite figured out the math on volume to doses to how long a single 4 oz bottle will last.
*****
I’m organizing all our receipts for the tax year. I’d dated several of them incorrectly and had to download another dozen or so. Usually I’m a lot better about keeping up with all the paperwork as we go through the year. This makes me mildly paranoid that I’ve forgotten to either record the donations or to download the receipt, or both, for others. For the moment, so far as I know, I’ve gotten that all together.
Year 3, Day 277: This time of year feels BEYOND hectic but there are some small bright spots. We got to visit with a very good friend. She was talking about buying me some clothes but I didn’t want them to go to the trouble, so I redirected with my current need I’ve been pondering: what kind of wallet can I switch to? My debate is between two fundamentally different shapes: a long slim zip around, vs a thick squat sort of shape. Having had both, I couldn’t decide.
She happened to have an old but never used wallet in their closet and so I have now inherited that. Perfect! It saved me the trouble of overthinking this for the next six to twelve months! But it didn’t ultimately deter them from buying me clothes which was the point. Whoops. But they were awfully nice sweaters and I’d just discovered four holes in one of my two turtlenecks so it worked out in the end.
*****
A Black professor I follow talked about how she grew up surrounded by Black people and was loved growing up, enough so that she was surprised by anti-Black racism when she encountered it as an adult. She was talking about this in relation to people disbelieving Meghan Markle’s not realizing how very very racist the UK was going to be towards her. I had a similar experience growing up within Asian culture. Asians have a real problem with anti-Blackness, that wasn’t a surprise to me but I learned to see it for what it was because I grew up playing with Black kids and anti-Blackness was easier to identify as wrong. I was surprised by Asians claiming to be superior Asians to others. I was, of course in this scenario, the inferior Asian. A boy I dated told me his mother would just have to deal with the fact that I was “an inferior Asian race” (paraphrased). She only wanted him dating the superior Asian races. Of course. I was offended but I was more surprised than anything at first because what? What’s your problem??
Year 3, Day 278: Smol’s whatever they’ve got, and my cough, seems to be finally on the mend so naturally, OF COURSE, JB spiked a fever of 104. They went from playing at top speed and top volume, of course, to dragging, no appetite, burning up, and exhausted with a headache and sore throat. I put them to bed at 7 pm and crossed my fingers.
That’s about all I can take of this week. I hope everyone’s holiday weekend will have gone well by the time you read this.
*****
Help! Our lovely elderly neighbor we have said hello to most mornings for the past few years as she passes by gave us an unexpected Christmas gift and a $25 gift card. I consider that a not-small present, especially when we don’t know them beyond 2-3 minute conversations. Our kids/grandkids don’t play together.
I have trouble with feeling transactional about gifts of any kind, it’s taken me 20 years to shut up and accept gifts from chosen family that are greater than what I can give them, so this throws me on a bit of a loop. What’s expected in a situation like this? Do I need to get them something? Do I not commit to a gift giving cycle and send them a warm thank you note? Would it be unforgiveably rude not to gift back to them? I really don’t know if there’s an etiquette for this.
*****
Thanks to Nicole and Maggie for highlighting these Donors Choose campaigns to support trans kids that only have a couple or a few funders and may not fund in time. Can we help them out?
We Don’t Ban Books – We Read Them – yay this has funded!
Reading without Barriers This has until Jan 28 to fund.
December 23, 2022
1. I hate having to ask for help but the kids were both sick and we needed to know we had enough medication for them both. I had to put out a call to some friends to see if they could get a line on more meds. We were so lucky they happened to have extra!
Challenges this week: everyone is so sick and tired.
(more…)
December 20, 2022
Life with JB
I found myself explaining US foreign policy, because they wanted to know why we didn’t think their auntie should go touristing in Iraq. We had to explain that generally speaking Iraqis don’t have much reason to like Americans and that led to how the US had used the CIA to secretly mess about elections in many places, including South America. We had to resort to using a fairly simple and potentially terrible analogy.
I could see my child-free friend’s eyes signalling they thought I was opening a dangerous door but I went with it anyway: it’s like if the neighbors decided that Dad and I weren’t doing a good job because they want us to do things for them and we aren’t. So they’d come here and take us away and replace us with new parents who would do what they wanted.
*pregnant pause*
JB: but I don’t want new parents.
PiC passing by: thanks!
Me: Right, so it didn’t matter what the people in those countries wanted. American politicians wanted specific leaders in power so they manipulated the elections, and put the leaders THEY wanted in power, even though it’s not our country and not our business.
I don’t know if they got it. I don’t doubt that most of it went over their heads.
Life with Smol Acrobat
All in one weekend, a bunch of words came together: up! bye!
Hug made it into the practice rotation (uck!) as did cut (ack! with a chopping hand motion). “Cuk!” = cook. “Book” is spot on. Love that. “Muk” for milk.
Used to be, they wouldn’t even try. They’d just babble a string of liquid sounding syllables or yell.
Conversations with them have been largely guesswork and mostly still are. We recently took a class on supporting speech for toddlers who are late developers and that’s helping us help them. We learned that their lack of mimicry has more to do with their not being ready than an inability and that just repeating the word that we want them to try 3-4 times, by itself, helps more than prompting. Oh. That sort of explains why they balked anytime we said “say bye!”
Now they enjoy saying bye out loud and on time, sometimes, which is neat. Some days they won’t STOP saying bye.
Also! PiC finally gets to be dada! He’s been designated “mama” for the past two years.
Pupdate
I went through old pictures of when we first brought Seamus to meet Sera at the rescue and brought her home with us. It made me so sad. She’s slowly warmed up to us but she loved him so much. As did we all.
She’s been hovering by me a lot more lately this month, which is unusual, but I kind of like it. Except when she follows me so closely I have no room to turn around.
Precious Moments
While giving Smol Acrobat their Tylenol, I mused aloud, I really should have given this to you before I brushed your teeth. They abruptly stopped halfway through drinking their water and slid off their bed.
Me: Where are you going?
They signed (vaguely) “toothbrush”.
Me: Oh! I was … ok. I was talking to myself buuuuut you understand words.
*****
Smol has gotten in the habit of taking their trike out for a ride but refusing to come home on the trike or under their own power. We’ve ended more than a few walks in tears because they demand to be carried and my bones demand non-compliance lest I am wrecked by carrying them.
Smol: “uck?” (hug)
Me: sure, HUG.
Smol: up?
Me: No, no up. Mama HELP. Mama will help you push it home.
Smol: Oh. Uck?
Me: Sure, I’ll give you a hug.
Smol, “now that you’re down here again!”: up!
Me: no up. Only HELP.
Smol: oh. *Shuffles feet* Ok.
*****
The kids found their little wind up bunny and chick toys, so they started playing with them and predictably one of them broke almost immediately.
JB complained, why doesn’t the bunny go far?
Me: might be that you messed with it too much when it was running, and it got a little broken. *test the bunny a few times*
Smol Acrobat grabs for the bunny.
Me: no, wait, Mama’s helping it right now. Hang on. It’s a little ouch ouch.
JB: it got SHOT.
Me: …..??!!
*****
I turned off the hood. Smol’s head popped up, issues guttural roars, pointing at the stove.
“I turned it off!”
Smol: *guttural roar”
Oh yeah, I turned it off, we didn’t need it on anymore.
Smol: Ohhhhhhh.