December 29, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (291)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 245: Because I’m a giant sucker, I’ve written to the city asking about next year’s holiday craft fair for details so we can discuss whether JB might want to table there. They were prompt in supplying the information from this year for my reference. The table fee is $70 for a six hour event and they had nearly 700 attendees last year. I think we’d need at least 10% of the attendees to buy one thing for it to be worthwhile. Still, it’s worth having them learn to do the math to see how much they’d have to sell just to break even. I shared the information with them and they very enthusiastically said they want to do it.

Related: I’m very annoyed with myself for looking at a sticker printing service the other day that seemed like it was a good prospect but didn’t save it and now cannot figure out AT ALL what it was called.

Complaining just inspired me to go try searching my browsing history! Luckily I remembered correctly that it was on my phone. My laptop browsing history would have been impossible to manage. Turns out it was CatPrint. Sure wish I knew why I came across them in the first place – did someone recommend them? I have no idea. But I thought we could try them out in January and do a few sets of stickers to see how they might sell online, along with buttons. Magnets are too heavy to sell online, shipping costs a mint.

That annoyance has transmuted into mild annoyance with myself for continuing to create more work for myself in the pursuit of teaching JB to make money from their art. I think it’s not just because they definitely want to earn their own money but also because I worry about them having an unrealistic viewpoint on whether they can make a living in art. It’s precarious, from what I’ve observed.

Anyway, they’re interested in making and selling stickers still. But/and that means I have to learn how to set up their designs for printing as stickers. But this is a good thing for both of us maybe?

Year 6, Day 246: I knew it was likely coming but I’m still sad that Vogmask is likely winding down their operations due to low demand. Their available inventory is incredibly low now. I am very glad that I stocked up big time months ago, and wonder if I shouldn’t just buy out the small sizes they have left. These masks fit us well and the kids are willing to wear them for long stretches because they’re reasonably comfortable. I’m not looking forward to having to find a replacement supplier for kid masks. 😑

Update: I bought another 18 masks. This should last us about 18 months with current heavy use?

My fight with all things electronic continues. Our backup server is being sixteen kinds of a pill and randomly decided that it doesn’t like our internal log in protocols. After SIX HOURS of fighting to figure out why, it decided it was totally fine with them what are you fussing about? BUT THEN that meant our external log in protocols were borked instead. What in the!!! Essentially this means that all my autobackups are paused for two or four weeks because I don’t have any stretch of time to sit down and fight with it again to straighten out the external protocols. URGH.

Year 6, Day 247: I’m a sucker part 2: I decided to try making a Ko-Fi for JB’s art. My own Ko-Fi doesn’t get much action but I’ve had one and navigated it a long time so I’m familiar enough to chance it. Bonus: they have actual products to sell. I really like the ease of Big Cartel but we’re limited to 5 listings for the free site. I don’t see any limits on listings on Ko-Fi so far.

I also spotted this cute listing for a downloadable coloring book and thought: that could be a thing they could also make! They’ve made coloring pages for SmolAc in the past. Maybe digital for online purchases first, and later I can figure out a print version for booth sales. I posted books and shirts that I designed on Amazon Merch several years ago and I seem to recall there is possibly a way to order author copies at cost. If that still exists, I could use it solely for that purpose and delete the listing after.

A reminder to myself: never use Sticker Mule, they went full-on MAGA a while ago. Other creator friends use Sticker Ninja, and they don’t appear to be evil, so I’m exploring them. The nice thing is that, unlike Catprint, they prefer to add their own cutlines and that means I only have to provide the digitized art.

Year 6, Day 248: I managed to visit one of my oldest (time of friendship) friends this week and I cannot tell you how much of a lift it gave my spirits. I always forget how easy it is to just gab about everything going on in our lives at the moment we see each other again. It can be a year or a decade since we’ve heard from one another. It doesn’t matter, we’re somehow still the same people who love each other regardless of how our lives above evolved. Happy bonus, our kids get along like a house on fire. They did not want to part ways.

Also? DANG we look old(er). Half my friends have grey/white hair. It looks great on them but it’s definitely jarring to go from my memory of them in high school to today. I know my face has aged tremendously since 2020, I shouldn’t be surprised they have too.

I’ve been thinking more and more about random things I want to do instead of work. Like I had to think hard about that. But things have been coming up that I’d just like to do. There’s a 2 day course that a local outdoors shop gives on treating emergency injuries out in the wilderness. I try never to be in a position where I AM in the wilderness without medical care but I’d still like that skill. It appeals to the hypervigilant in me. Also the me that watched a few too many episodes of Royal Pains. Possibly also the part of me that wants to be useful in hard situations.

Year 6, Day 249: First it’s our out of touch CEO pushing “AI” (it’s NOT INTELLIGENT!) on us, demanding that we incorporate it into everything when it doesn’t do even a tenth of what they believe it does. Then there’s our customer base’s use of the same which is eroding our ability to run a business that offers an ethical and accurate professional service. I spend part of every single day trying to mitigate the effects of fraud committed by using gen AI tools and it feels like a losing battle from that side. I refuse to use it in my day to day work and have to waste my time redoing the work that it comes up with. Now it’s LinkedIn pestering me to add “AI” key terms to my profile. GET AWAY FROM ME. ARGH.

So many companies are so all in on this garbage even though it does not increase productivity at all, I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull out of this nosedive when it finally crashes. I am whatever the secular version is of praying very hard that it will finally crash and this incessant parade of clueless mouthpieces demanding that we incorporate AI into every part of our lives. I can hope.

December 22, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (290)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 238: A day. This has been one. Two meetings that weren’t terrible but stacked on top of an hour with a friend dropping by to pick up hand me down and another hour and a half ferrying JB to the doctor and then to pick up a promised treat as a reward for controlling their breathing to manage their anxiety. This day has felt like a LOT.

I came into this morning carrying a whole load of aches from last night’s workout. Last week was my best workout week all year, and every bit of it was hard won. I worked out every single night trying to complete the week, no nights off, and finally checked off the last exercise on Saturday. Starting right back up on Sunday I very boldly started with two sets of 16 push ups at the end of which my nose nearly suffered the consequences of my poor choices. Long story short, today’s arms are very angry at yesterday’s arms, and the rest of me was griping over the other poor choices.

Year 6, Day 239: Half my day was bogged down in brain fog with depression. When that finally passed, I was bathed in anxiety. Then it looped back to brain fog with anxiety. Super!

I got my work done but it always feels worse getting it done when carrying the brickloads of emotional stuff.

We’re scraping out the barrels to manage the year end workload but I can’t even relax with the end of the year because I’ve been looking into next year’s requirements and they’re bad. I’m prepping as much support as I can while also working my ass off to get this year squared away but it still feels like ten tons about to fall on our heads. Trying to think of any other ways I can prep us.

A quick chat with a senior person at another company in a similar role revealed that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Their company is considered the premiere income generator in their corporate portfolio and their GM constantly feels like she’s behind the ball too. It’s both mildly comforting that I’m not alone and horrifying that there’s no winning. We’ll be punished for under-performing and for meeting expectations. Just in different ways. UGH.

Year 6, Day 240: I used to browse Extra Petite for professional wardrobe ideas and links. We’re currently shopping for cold weather clothing for everyone because PiC’s cooking up a cold adventure trek for January. I’m still in the Petite / Short range for height but I’ve catapulted from size 00 to 6/8/Medium. It’s very weird. It’s also weird (to me) that Jean still fits 00P. Do other people’s bodies just go back to their old normal after having children? How? Not even my feet are normal! Ugh. I had to replace my boots, couldn’t go back to my really nice Patagonia winter coat so I’m still wearing my maternity winter coat, and my tees don’t fit right. The tees might be more because I’ve been working hard to build strength for more than a year, because my arms went from stick thin to very much not. I’m not muscular but I would not object to being! As I was telling my weightlifting bestie, I don’t care what the number on the scale is if I am feeling strong and actually AM strong. I will confess to asking my trainer to add exercises to help me define my arm muscles more, that would be nice, too.

At some point I need to get these trousers tailored to fit my lumpy potatoes body. I bought two very nice pairs of pants back in the spring and they’re too long. Maaaybe I could venture to hem it myself but I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I don’t want to ruin these very nice, very expensive pants.

Year 6, Day 241: Whenever it’s time to face down planks, only managing one a day these days, I call JB over to do them with me. We’re on 46-second planks. They also have good pushups form because we have been working with both kids to learn how to do a good pushup. SmolAc can do almost three real pushups!

Lucky them, this means they are prepared to do planks for their sport warmups. Of course youth will carry them through that stuff just as well as training does at this age. But it gives me a brief flash of satisfaction that their work at home is good grounding.

I’ve been including them in (age and size appropriate) weight training. They’re allowed to use my little one pound weights and to do half the reps that I do. Then SmolAc goes rogue rigging up weird weights+bands set ups which I have to make them undo so they don’t permanently stretch out my bands.

Year 6, Day 242: Having a prolonged moment of being dissatisfied with my face. Mostly it’s the rosacea redness that makes me feel some kind of way about taking pictures with old friends when we reunite briefly. I’m asking another friend to remind me of the product she uses to cover it up but I don’t just want to cover it up. I really want it gone. Alas, that’s unlikely to happen. Even if I spring for laser treatment, that may not remove it completely, and it can recur after treatment.

This sucks.

I don’t like hating to see my own face in the mirror and in pictures.

December 15, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (289)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 231: We’re scheduling our holiday plans, and some old friends popped up and wanted to get together. I started thinking about the pair of friends from that group who’d had a falling out around a decade ago. Friend A was a contractor and Friend B happened to need their services. They didn’t approach Friend A directly, it was just discussed in our group chats and Friend A offered their services. Then it all went wrong.

Friend B accepted. Friend A did the thing and then presented a bill. Friend B was taken aback. You never said anything about billing!

It’s true, they didn’t. But, this is my actual job and livelihood!, Friend A rebutted. It was a five figure bill. It was paid but they’ve not spoken sincem

Personally I have offered my professional services for which I could bill $60+ an hour to many friends, family, and their kids over the years. I’ve never once charged them or asked for money. They’ve never offered. I haven’t ever had a problem with it. However, I have always had, but for the one recession period, a job paying my bills so while it was extra work on my plate, it wasn’t a loss in the same way doing non-paying work instead of paying work would be for a contractor. But on the flip side, unless we bartered, I wouldn’t take free work from a friend. I would pay them. I have paid friends for favors that felt like above and beyond when they insisted no payment was necessary.

To my mind, both of them screwed up. Friend A absolutely should have been clear and upfront that they would be happy to help and would need to bill their usual fee. Friend B shouldn’t have expected free work from a friend unless it was explicitly said to be on the F&F freebie plan. Anyway, I had a brief moment thinking about whether they’d be in the same room together again all these years later. We’re all old now but are we all mature?

Year 6, Day 232: The pressure at work has been 110 degrees F for a while now, so I’m not loving the extra layer of low grade pre-holiday anxiety that comes around this week every year. I’ve got the majority of the 18(?) family gifts ready to go. Our new year card is now half designed. If I can get that done by Wednesday we might have it in hand in time to prep envelopes. I try to have these cards done before we start the family circuit so we can hand deliver those and save on postage. I’ve got 9 more staff gifts to purchase out of pocket because our new overlords are cheap and won’t let us treat them to the usual holiday tradition to which we’ve become accustomed. Plus cards to write for all of them. I’ll be damned if I let them go unthanked for their efforts this year because corporate is cheap. I’ve already contributed to the daycare collection for the teachers but I still owe SmolAc’s teachers a personal thank you card and gifts. Those are well overdue because they’re hard to write, we really liked them and I hate saying goodbye to good carers.

I do all the holiday legwork because a) anxiety and b) PiC will do all of the holiday driving and childminding while I still have to work through the end of the year. It’s a reasonable split of labor. I’d rather do this stuff than try to juggle kids and working.

Year 6, Day 233: I caught a 40% off sale on socks and ordered 300 pairs (many bulk packs) for the Lakota Dialysis center for $200. Last year I ran out of money before I could get to the socks part of the request so I figured it’d be best to jump on the sale now.

I put Laura Linney’s The Big C on for background noise and have such mixed feelings about it. Her character can be caring but OMFG she can be so awful too. She intervenes in the altercation caused by Marlene being racist at Andrea, but doesn’t call Marlene out on her racism? Her students “reenacted the battle at Wounded Knee”?? And the stereotypes. The guy who overstayed his visa, calling him illegal, making him a scammer who tries to trick a girl into marrying him for a green card. The smart basically shut-in Asian student they hire to tutor her son who has no life because she only cares about going to Harvard – her brother calling her a “geisha”. Her son trying to bribe his tutor to cheat for him. They’re all so entitled in such weird ways. I don’t know, there are some really poignant moments and then the whole family acts so .. messy.

Year 6, Day 234: Alright I pulled another late night to finish shopping for staff and finish the holiday card. The writing is the harder bit than the photos, that took 1.5 hours to add, edit and prune. I never talk about our travel or really personal stuff, so it takes me a good long while to write the mundane silly stuff that makes up our day to day. I enjoy reading about other people’s travel but it feels too laundry list or braggy for me to write even though even our travel is quite boring compared to most folks. Anyway, I prefer to make the every day stuff our focus.

Back of the card designed, ✅. Address book glared at to figure out number to order, ✅. Order placed using a 50% off and free shipping promo code, plus Rakuten for cash back and a gift card Past Me thoughtfully arranged even though I wasn’t specifically thinking of this use? ✅. I redeemed points for that gift card so this order for $60* was covered entirely without paying out of pocket. Go me!

*It cost a little more than usual because I needed some envelopes and it turns out you can’t just buy some matching envelopes, you have to buy enough for your whole order. These definitely won’t arrive in time to put in the mail before year end, so I won’t even worry about trying to address and mail them until after the new year. I have enough on my plate.

Year 6, Day 235: I’ve owned cell phones for… Hum. Many many years. 25? Something like that. Received (did not choose it) my first smartphone 20ish years ago. I’ve turned off the haptics on every single one of them within minutes of using it. This is the first phone that I’ve left them on for. Is this my sign of aging?

Ally sent me an email “Get ready for tax season.”

Ally, I’m ALWAYS getting ready for tax season! I update my tax related records all throughout the year so it’s only waiting on the final forms from various places to finish off the package.