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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November 12, 2021
1. What I can do in under 2 hours while Smol naps (weekend edition): make breakfast for JB and me, eat, clear up dishes and mix up 18 ounces of formula and separate into bottles for Smol, direct and QC JB’s chores, do a handful of the W2 work, update my spending spreadsheet, update the Lakota Giving spreadsheet, sew more practice seams and remember that what I was doing wrong was a deliberate choice from a while back.
2. The other weekend version of what I can during during an almost 2 hour Smol nap: collapse on the bed and stay curled up for 2 hours, reading. I might doze if the tired is too much though I try not to because I don’t want to make my insomnia worse.
Challenges this week: I keep forgetting words. Words I’ve known for ages and still can’t surface in my brain. What’s this soft fabric that looks like mesh? What’s the well known weird puzzley art with all the twists and turns?
Scheduling feels like pushing a boulder uphill. There’s always some consequence to setting an appointment for such and such a day or more appointments than I can handle in a week. I don’t ever want more than one appointment per week because of the disruption to my work hours but as the end of the year approaches, it gets harder to fit everything in.
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November 9, 2021
I just did the math and I’ve been blogging in these here parts for 15 years and a few months!
No wonder it felt like time for a name change or something to freshen up the place a little bit.
In 2006, I started this blog because I was desperate to talk about money with someone. No one in my cohort was concerned about money. They all had housing and college paid for or they were confident about taking out massive loans. I was the odd one out: living at home and paying all the bills, and working at an incredibly toxic workplace to do it. It sucked. I’d also been living with chronic pain for over ten years so by this point, my health outlook was bleak. My assumption was I’d be dead or crippled by 2012. Thankfully, I had access to new exciting financial information at Fatwallet and the determination to be strategic about my remaining functional years. When I realized my bosses were rusty nails and gangrene terrible, following the shared wisdom of my elders here in PF blogging, I plotted my career course and took what I could from this job to the next: experience doing everything whether or not it was my job, negotiating my face off to move my base salary up so that I’d have a better stepping stone to the next phase, taking courses in management and reading all the Ask A Manager I could hold. My goal was to grow enough at this job to give myself some real escape velocity, and pay down all my parents’ debt and get them set up for retirement, then get the heck out of Dodge. I was especially concerned about my body’s expiration date. (more…)
November 8, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 232: So the good news? Smol slept in until 730 am!!
The bad news is I woke up every hour because of internal temperature fluctuations, I’d wake up in a sweat, then wake up freezing, and then leapt out of bed at 1 am startled because my subconscious brain was positive that something was wrong. By 9 am, my entire body was fatigued beyond belief.
But Smol’s sleeping in was so much appreciated.
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JB was so wiped from the day before that they slept in until 930 which was both surprising and appreciated too, just in a different way.
They are grumpy that there’s laundry to put away again. Yeah shocking how with two kids there’s always some laundry to put away, isn’t it? Also shocking there’s always food to be cooked and dishes to wash as well. Life requirements, so tiresome!
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Light rain all day. I’m glad for the gentleness, we need the rain but the heavy rains bring worries of floods.
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My doctor’s office wanted me to take the 13 question questionnaire meant to ferret out depression and can I ask if there’s anyone who isn’t feeling most of those things every day? As an example: Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless; Little interest or pleasure in doing things; Feeling tired or having little energy; Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge. Yes, yes, yes, and yes…. who isn’t??
I function but of course I feel all these things every single day.
A friend pointed out that it’s the people who ignore the pandemic and just live like nothing’s changed who aren’t experiencing this. They’re probably right and that ticks me off too. This could have been so much better, and we could be back to some semblance of a safer normal, if it weren’t for people acting like we aren’t in a deadly pandemic.
I can’t help but feel bitter that the tide shifted from alarm and attention to the “fuck them, I’m fine” attitude the moment the data started showing that this affects PoC more than white people. And it’s not like they were hiding it. They just came right out and said so.
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November 5, 2021
1. I pulled out and donated a pile of perfectly good linens we haven’t used in years, freeing up a storage bin for my nearly acquired fabrics and space in the closet for toilet paper. Win win win!
2. I made an anxiebees tote to go with my anxiebees shirts (standard, women’s v-neck). My bees are cute!
Challenges this week: Tough week at work, tough week at home. They happen to be in the same place physically and I can’t tell if that’s better or worse.
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November 2, 2021
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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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Bing rewards. I’ve earned another $25 Target gift card. It’ll go to good use whether for our Lakota families or more diapers.
It’s almost laughable that I squeak together extra cash, maybe ten cents at a time sometimes, so I can justify giving with a freer hand and completely ignore the fact that I give in much larger increments than I earn on the side. I’m ok with that, it’s just funny.
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November 1, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 225: My Anxiebees were incredibly active today, slowing down my brain processing by a factor of ten, and inspired a new design (women’s V-neck; standard tee). I stopped to make those to burn off some of that oppressive worry / stress / brain fog / creeping depression / fiddly twitchy feelings.
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I had Royal Pains on in the background while I was working and Henry Winkler’s character — can I just say, MAJOR FLASHBACKS. That scene when he and Evan talk about his taking all their money: “You’re gonna get your money back, day or two, week tops.”
That exact same expression on his face is what was on my dad’s face when I was following up with him on getting the money back from the loan I’d made. That lying manipulative asshole expression of “trust me, I’m your father” when he really meant “trust me, I need to take more of your money.” That shook me pretty hard. I still can’t deal with these flashbacks. I think about how angry Hank was, and how angry I am, and how that tracks as we were the responsible siblings. How easily Evan forgave him, I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe it’s because he had a protector, where neither the Hank character or I did.
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I finally asked Michael’s if they were still going to ship my fabric. They confirmed that the fabric was still in stock, and that their warehouse was just ten days behind. I started to ask if it was ten days in addition to the two weeks they’re already late but decided that doesn’t matter. It’ll get here when it gets here, it definitely won’t be in time for me to get through my holiday projects. They sent a $10 gift card for my trouble so that was nice since there’s nothing they can do to hurry along the shipment. I guess it’s a good thing I bought that back up fabric after all. Now I just need to learn to sew on the machine! 😬
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October 29, 2021
1. Sewing machine adventures: Last weekend I wound two bobbins and was very pleased with myself but I think I need to wind about 20 more to be sure I remember how to do it each time without having to relearn every time. I spent this interim period buying too much fabric on clearance at $3/yard. I got carried away, I can admit mistakes were made. However. One part of the order was a huge length of very cute anti pill fleece. I washed it, did a bit of Googling to confirm, and whacked away at it with my scissors for a while to produce a no sew blanket for JB to tie up. By the end of the day, they’d made a blanket for Smol!
2. I definitely overdid it physically on chores that have been piling up for ages: ran a load of laundry, washed our counter, cleared away all the mailers and papers that could be recycled from the kitchen, dining room, entry, and office. We took a very long walk together, I prepped a project for JB, and put up another stack of clean laundry in the donation box. Parca is coming by next week for a pick up and I’m trying to clear out as much reusable stuff as I can before they do. It’s not the same as rest that refreshes (something I haven’t gotten in over a decade) but a long session with the Hypervolt got me on the right path.
3. I defrosted and marinated another round of beef stew meat for a second batch of beef stew to put up and share with friends. I wanted to make a double batch but we didn’t have time or energy to go buy more ingredients so I’m doing what I can with what I have.
Direct aid: Tami’s chronicle of her money challenge reminds me of so many years I spent working my butt off to make ends meet. I’d posted her ABLE account before but I heard that it wasn’t a viable option for some so I’m sharing her Venmo and PayPal.
Challenges this week: I’ve been frustrated by my neverending fatigue. This isn’t just about being a new mom again with a small baby, it’s the same fatigue I felt even before my first pregnancy. Many years ago, a friend described their pregnancy fatigue as the most tired they’d ever been in their life and beyond anything they could have imagined. That’s the level of tired I feel every day and have felt for more than ten years. I always push through but I’m so tired of being tired.
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