First time for everything, and how I'm saving money now that it looks like this financial situation is permanent

About a year ago, our local library was hiring a part-time library aide. I applied, the process took months, and I never even got an interview, even though several people acted like I was going to.

Unfortunately, that employee did not work out and got fired just before the holidays. 

I'd learned that he apparently had gotten the job because he was able to do tech support and explain computer stuff to the library patrons. Knowing that, I brushed up my resume to include a WAY BACK job from more than 25 years ago where I... provided tech support to casinos and other clients in Las Vegas.

This time, at least, I got an interview. I hadn't heard anything when we left on vacation (two months after I'd applied, and several weeks after my interview), but when we got back, I saw a social media post and knew immediately that someone had been hired.

I feel like this person is a better fit, but I'm kind of bummed because we could have used the money, part time as it was. Plus, I could walk to work. I am not ready to get a job where I'd need to 1) buy a car and 2) leave Mal in a town alone. 1431 closes down too often, and I am not ready to make an 11-year-old responsible for navigating a forest fire or no electricity when it's 100 degrees out.

Incidentally, I might never have had this worry but in 2021 when we had a bad freeze, there was a guy from across the highway who ran into Cedar Park to check on his jewelry storefront and by the time he tried to get back home, the road was closed and troopers would not let him through, even though he explained that his 10-year-old was home alone. Our electricity went out and the roads were impassable for days. I have no idea how that turned out but I would like to avoid that situation.

So, the "first time for everything": I have gotten every job I have ever really wanted. I have even been told no, they weren't going to go with me and then came back to them with something my dad (an HR specialist) mentioned they did wrong in the interview and rather than deal with a lawsuit, they did end up hiring me. They also tried to frame me for theft, but I outsmarted them (on accident, which I guess isn't "smart" per se but just fortunate that I was as pragmatic as I was and didn't use or take home the key they gave me one day because I never needed it).

For an overachiever like me, a job rejection hurts. I can't imagine the dozens of times James went through it over the past two years. Ugh.

NOW. 

I've been poor before, and while we're not in crisis yet, I want to avoid that. Our expenses outpace what James makes by quite a bit. So here are some things I'm scaling back on that I've done before when money wasn't plentiful:

1) We're back to Supercuts or Great Clips. I'm very lucky that my hair got wavy because it's easier to cut and style now! So it's $25 cuts instead of $60-80 cuts for me. James never gets his hair (except that time I had a mystery shop specifically for a man's salon where they do face massages and stuff; it was cool!) and D pays their own stylist, so it's just Mal and me, and we both get our hair trimmed about every 9 months. 

2) No more boutique food splurges. Piroshky Piroshky is a fabulous bakery out of Seattle. They travel down to Austin once a year or so, and we used to order $100ish worth of items from them to enjoy for a week or so. No more. Same thing with Doughees (which seems to be closed, anyway, but from which I used to order once or twice a year), Fat and Weird Cookies, and any food subscription period. Instead, I try recipes I find online and have recently made conchas for the first time, and a big old cookie with chocolate chunks and caramel chunks. I'm thinking about making an Easter basket cake for Easter. We're not buying expensive treats anymore.

3) I'm not getting energy drinks, even as a splurge. They're $1-2 per can (more usually, but I only got them on sale even when I was buying them). Instead, I get Great Value Energy Drink Mix, which is just under $.20 per serving. What's crazy is that Celsius sells a powdered drink mix but it's still over $1 per serving! Stop!

4) I would grab take-out for the whole family once a week or so, and I have just stopped doing that. Maybe once a month now? But usually, I'm just cooking... unless Domino's has half price pizza and then only Mal and I are usually at all excited about that. With James and D often working full days, I'm having to do lunches, too. D would just suffer without at-work calories, but James works near a bunch of food options, so we're trying to prevent temptation (it helps that his lunch is only half an hour and honestly, it's hit or miss whether you can get a full meal from Whataburger in that time frame).

5) We're definitely cutting back on our trips now that we're back from Mexico. We can't make up the $20k a year I'd have made if I'd gotten the library job, but we can recover a chunk of it by reining this in for a while. I'll be on the lookout for sales and deals, of course. But we'll be staying closer to home for a bit.

One good thing in that regard is that one of Mal's friends moved into our neighborhood earlier this year, and they're having a great time running around being big kids. Yesterday, they'd gone on a walk and when they came back, I was surprised to see a third friend with them... she lives on the other side of the lake, and I was very confused about how she'd joined them, but apparently her parents had driven her over. Having home and the 'hood be a social outlet makes staying home even more appealing.

6) I stopped taking Minoxidil a few months ago. I'd started it when I was losing a LOT of hair, I thought because of perimenopause? I was just going to take it until I'd gotten through to menopause. But what I realized is that I was probably losing hair because of hyperparathyroidism, which I don't have anymore, thanks to surgery 2 years ago.

I went through this whole cycle of when I started taking it, my hair barely shedded! I started having baby hair, and that was a drama. Then after about a year, my hair started falling out at what I'd say was a "normal" rate, and I wondered about whether the meds were still working. I changed to a topical rather than a pill, and I was still losing some hair. So I decided that I could save $175 every 5 months by just stopping and see if maybe now that my hair is wavy, I could absorb some hair loss without it being so shocking. 

I had what I think was an extinction burst where I lost A LOT of hair but now it's stabilized and it's fine. Plus, I've had a lot of talks with myself about how I got to a place of body neutrality where I don't feel like I need to do anything about my weight. I don't wear much makeup (saw a video of me from a few years ago yesterday and it seemed weird that I had eye shadow on!). I dress how I want to. So why was I so caught up in the hair loss, which is also a normal part of aging? I guess I'm just a hypocrite.

Ha ha. Here's a picture of money. I posted it because I was trying to think of something to go with this theme, which is... money. And also, last night Mal was showing James something on his iPad and accidentally dropped it on his face, knocking a baby tooth loose that wasn't ready to come out before. But it's probably going to happen pretty soon! He's currently trying to save money to buy a $80-ish LEGO Star Wars set. This is another change; he's going to have to save up for it on his own because he has so many LEGOs already and we just can't chip in this time. Wish him luck!

An Open Letter

Hey, you. 

You randomly popped up in a dream last night (specifically, I was picking you up from jail after you'd completed your sentence??)... well, the you from more than 15 years ago. Would I recognize you now? Would you recognize me?

I can't even begin to detail how much I've changed in the years since I moved to Austin. 

When I first got here, everything was mostly the same. I tried to build a life that was familiar, like the lives we had in north Texas. But pretty quickly, that manner of living started to crumble and without knowing it, I was building a totally different way of life.

Superficially... I have wavy hair now. Can you believe it? All of that time and effort I spent trying to curl my hair. I know you liked it better straight; I guess we always want what we can't have. Anyway, my morning routine was never cumbersome, but it's so much faster now: spray hair to reset waves. Get out. It's pretty great.

Also, I'm not trying to be skinny anymore. You'd probably "still love [me] in spite of it," but, with all due respect, eff that noise, friend-o. I'm happy with myself, and my body has never been healthier. I've seen the future and know what I need to do to maintain maximum ambulation for as long as I can, as far as it is in my power to maintain. I move more and with more joy than I ever have before. And I also unapologetically enjoy the food I've always loved. No shame. No one watching me or my body change. It's amazing.

I have more tattoos (with another in the planning stages), and got my nose pierced a couple of years ago. I believe you would have hated this. It's probably good that things ended up the way that they did.

In fact, there are bigger things that make me grateful that we're not still in each other's lives. Much bigger.

You'd likely hate me now. I don't think the same way or believe the same things that I did back then. You'd think I had back-slidden or been influenced by something dark... but, man, when I read my blogs from 15-24 years ago, I do not like that person. I was a closed-off, judgy, occasionally humorous know-it-all.

I no longer vote the way I voted before. I remember when I first moved, and a mutual friend called me a loyalist to a particular political party as an insult. It worked. I was upset that she would say that. Now? Guilty as charged. What changed? A lot. So much.

You know what has pushed me to change the absolute most? My kids. They have been a blessing, and they have been challenging... and even that has ultimately made me a better person, and hopefully a better parent. If they ask me a question today, I probably have an opinion, but I don't feel like I have to give a pat answer with absolute certainty that it is and I am right. 

I will err every day on the side of throwing the doors wide open and embracing people, and life, and happiness. I wanted this before, but was so limited by unnecessarily strict boundaries that someone else convinced me needed to be in place.

I made so many mistakes, and I hurt so many people. Heck, I've even done that in the past 15 years, despite my best efforts not to. But at least when I do so now, it's because I'm messed up and not because I think I know the only right way and insist that other people do certain things because of what I believe.

All that time I spent trying everything I could think of to make us work, and you absolutely refused to budge. It was that realization -- that you cared more about your own self-preservation than you did trusting me enough to step out on a ledge and try to fly -- that made me leave. And now I see that you were correct. We were NOT right for each other. We would not have worked. We would have gotten to a point just a few years later where things would have come up that would have caused us to implode, anyway. 

So I guess I'm saying thank you for making me so miserable that I couldn't stay in the same place for another day. Thank you for pushing me away so hard that I ended up never seeing you again for the rest of my life. It was a protection to me, and to my kids (one for obvious reasons as he wouldn't exist). 

And try not to get arrested, because I can't come pick you up.

Laura

A New Hope (not Star-Wars-related)

I'd really forgotten a lot.

It was likely a self-preservation tactic my subconscious exercised on my behalf.

In preparing for an interview, I went back and for the first time read through the blog posts I made during 2010-2012. 

I have a few thoughts, and they're all over the place. So in no particular order:

1) Holy cow, I cringed so hard so many times. The things I said as a youngster (pre-40s, but barely)! Your girl has changed A LOT in 15 years, and that's, to borrow a probably-copyrighted phrase from Martha Stewart, a good thing. If you read my blog back then, and you rolled your eyes or gasped at anything I said ("Thanks, Feminism," I'm looking at you), WE ARE IN AGREEMENT. And I'm so sorry. It's bad. It was very, very bad and re-exposing myself to... myself (not in a dirty way, perverts) created quite a rip in the time-space continuum of who I know myself to be.

2) It's easy to believe the people can't or won't change. Good gravy, have I ever changed in the past decade. I like to think it's for the better. I do probably cuss more than I used to. But getting off of social media was a huge improvement. I feel like I am much more accepting and less judgmental than I was back in the day. I definitely don't obsess over my body or my hair or anything the way that I did 14-15 years ago. I'm pretty sure I am NOT maturing, though, so don't worry about that.

3) It was a complete surprise to me to learn that I kept two concurrent blogs during 2011-2012??! I had "Trailer Trash and Proud" for fun stuff like reviews, things we did, stuff I baked, etc. and I kept my older one for all of my angst and preaching and Deep Thoughts™. That one is very barfy and I only read it to make sure that I was remembering timelines and events correctly. But it was a painful read. Bleh. The stuff about my cool pancakes and all of the chocolate I bought in Dallas was a lot more on-brand and enjoyable.

4) After all of the stuff happened in the early 2010s, it was like I was running out of a burning building and didn't have the energy or desire to look back. Now that I have, I feel a lot less... well, just a lot less about it. The feelings aren't a big deal. I'm over it. Things didn't go the way they would have if they'd happened the way I wanted, and apart from my self-esteem taking a huge hit (but refusing to stay down, which actually would have made it easier), it was all really fine. Better in the long run, in fact. Much better.

5) Things I should have done differently: a) Immediately left my church. b) Moved to Austin a year before I did. c) Been more proactive in helping D deal with the huge changes I, too, was finding difficult. It SUCKS as a parent to be barely treading water and therefore not fully notice that your kid is struggling probably worse than you are. A lot of the issues D has had are because I was not thinking properly and didn't notice or realize things I should have noticed and realized. We both have a lot more perspective on this as adults, but it doesn't change that I messed up. I missed a lot. And I can't redo any of it.

6) That said, reading about where I was back then really makes me more hopeful in this part of my life! I was worried about the same things: finding a job, having enough money to make it, where would I end up if I couldn't afford where I was living anymore? Etc. At the time, I had a friend who compared it to swinging on a trapeze and how, for the trapeze to work, sometimes you have to let go and fly and trust that the other trapeze will be there to meet you when you get there. Right now, I have a whole other adult in this with me, and we have more resources than I did at the time. So it helped kind of jolt me out of some doldrums and I appreciate that a lot!

In 12 years, none of us has aged, including the kid. Which is weird. ;)

I always used to say...

 ... Back when I was married to someone else, that if my ex-husband ever died, I would get fat, and I'd get an RV. Over time, I added that I'd also get another tattoo. 

Well, apparently, it didn't take a death. It only took a decoupling. 

The first thing I did was to get an RV. And I LOVED it!

Me loving my RV so hard.
(Thanks, Gabrielle, for the photoshoot...
14 years ago!)

As you can tell by that older photo above, I'm also bigger than I was back in that day. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with my body, but it has helped to have a partner who is very comfortable with it. I mean, if I'd remained single, I probably would have been fine with it, as well... it's just that being married to someone who views your body with suspicion and expects it to disappoint if you're not constantly managing it makes just living a normal life pretty impossible. In the words of Madeye Moody, "Constant vigilance" and all that. It's exhausting. (Also: JK Rowling, p-tooey.)

Then, not only did I get another tattoo; I've gotten three more, including 2 since I turned 50! And I got my nose pierced!

To my complementarian/"servant leader head of the family" ladies, I will say: Bodily autonomy is incredible, and you should really try it.

I've been thinking about this a lot as we consider our financial future in the days of massive layoffs across the country, and the seemingly decreasing likelihood of James finding a "career-level" job in tech (which he's honestly fine with; but it seems like the Leander Independent School District doesn't want a tech bro as a night janitor, either).

We're looking at selling the house and moving out of the country. We're looking at selling the house, getting an RV, and moving across the Rural Market road. Or out of Texas, as James thinks if we're going to get rid of the house, we should GO.

Mal loves the idea of living in an RV. James is okay with it, too. In other words, I don't have to wait for him to die before considering things I'd enjoy... 

... Although, if James weren't around, I might consider cutting my hair a lot shorter. He has said that it's my hair and I can do whatever I want with it, of course; but I also know he likes longer hair (on everyone, not just me) so I'm keeping it. For now. 

Am I Even a Woman Anymore?

 Well, friend-os, it's apparently finally happened: I am hormonally infertile. 

Despite the fact that my test results say I'm "postmenopausal," as far as I know, "menopause" is defined as being a year after the start date of your last period. My last period actually started in December, but I've been dealing with 100-200-day gaps in my cycle since 2022. I'm only slightly older than the average onset of menopause, but it has felt like a long time coming.

By the way, the title of this blog post is a joke. I don't feel less like anything now that I'm not able to get pregnant (allegedly). I'm excited about a new phase of my life! And I'm determined to live long enough that I'll have had well over half of my life without having a period. 

Although my body has been playing games with me for more than three years now, I am extremely fortunate in that I haven't really had terrible symptoms (so far). Even when I haven't had a period, I've still been aware of cyclical hormonal fluctuations, to the point that for the first time in my life, I'm able to tell myself and the people around me, "I can tell I'm going to be more easily irritated than usual for the next couple of days. Just making you aware." Of course, I do try not to be a menace during that time, as well.

I thought I was getting a kind of "morning sickness" for a few months earlier this year, but think I figured out and fixed that and it was digestive.

I haven't had any "hot flashes/flushes," although I do find myself getting uncomfortably warm after I've had a burst of activity and finally sit down. I've been taking care of that with a little hand-held fan that I sit on the table and blow into my fact for about 10 minutes, then I'm fine.

Here's something you might not know about me: I didn't really want to have kids at all. 

However, I was married to two different men who very much wanted to have children. 

I'm grateful that they did, and thankful for how my life turned out, even if it's nothing like what I thought it would be. Honestly, I'm not sure I ever did think about what my life would look like... a lot of times, it feels like life is living me, but that's just fine because so far, so good. 

Here's to the next chapter...

Happy New Year!

Hey, in case you didn't notice, 2024 is over! 

Also, that's irrelevant because the calendar is subjective and we're in the same winter we just started a couple of weeks ago, so calm down.

I was getting over food poisoning on New Year's Eve, so although James took Mal to the store to pick out a bunch of yummy hors d'eouvres kind of things like we normally have, I just ate a bowl of pumpkin pasta and called it a night.

The next morning, I was feeling better and did enjoy a variety of bites for breakfast. We also set off some "fireworks" on New Year's Day because Mal wanted to.

 

That was cool. 

I feel like I've let Mal down a bit this season. Christmas felt kind of off, and because we didn't want to spend too much money... we didn't. I got sick on a short/cheap trip to Waco to use up our PogoPass, and when we got home, Mal told me that I'd been acting "differently," which he said meant more easily irritated. I feel like I was just sleepy and dizzy a lot, but it's definitely been a weird kind of month or so.

I've started a couple of blog posts that I haven't finished because... well, do we really need a whole post about how my hair is curly now when it didn't used to be? No. Just trust me. Here's the abbreviated version, with me and my natural hair back in August versus 5 years ago or so. 

I'm sorry, am I aging BACKWARD??

I have actively resisted New Years Resolutions for most of my life (that whole "calendar" thing, and the fact that any day is a good day to try to start (or stop) something new (or old). So it's totally random, but I've decided to work on disciplining my tongue. I didn't grow up cussing, and I didn't cuss for a long time. I remember the day I did the first time, and it was glorious. I was working at Sam's Club in Las Vegas, and that was a crazy job environment. 

Anyhoo, have never sworn much until the past couple of years when I've just gotten into the habit. And I don't want that to be my default because it's no different than saying "totally" about everything, to the point that it becomes meaningless and sounds like you don't have a vocabulary. Wish me luck, ***... no, I'm not going to say it.

James is still job-hunting. Or is about to get serious again now that the holidays are over. We're still doing fine. The longer he goes, the longer he has to work before we can afford retirement, but we're trying to take some advantage of his off time now to do things together. Mal definitely enjoys having his dad around, and will comment on his not being there when we do little jaunts like we did last weekend. 

Every night before bedtime, James goes into Mal's room for their nightly catch-up. It's a cool tradition they've instituted since Mal turned 9. I hope they keep doing it for a long time.

D is still working retail, and is making plans to move out of Texas.

We'd like to, as well, eventually... but there are a couple of things keeping us here for the moment. Namely, my parents. And the fact that Mal is heading into adolescence with a great core of friends from school and his homeschool group. This middle school age is a time when it's very difficult to connect with other kids (reference point: D when we moved to Austin at about this same age), and he'd miss everyone if we took off.

Here's our December album, if you're interested.

Mal's ready to film "Mal Wars 4," so I have to go be a cameraperson.

The End of My Crocs Era?

For probably the better part of a decade, all of my shoes were Crocs. I LOVED Crocs. I was a Crocs evangelist! People think they're ugly? Who cares?! Wear what you like! You can't argue with the comfort!

But something happened...

A weird thing about my Crocs obsession was that I don't actually like their clogs. I don't find clogs comfortable, and because I have very high arches, the tops of my feet are up higher than most feet, I suppose. Clogs give me blisters. 

The good thing, though, is that Crocs used to make all kinds of styles of shoes beyond just their clogs. 

During the past few years, it seems like they've tightened up their lines. They're all made of that rubbery Crocs material, and they're mostly variations of clogs. They have platform shoes, sandals, and even rain boots. But they're all the same hard material and the past couple of pairs I've ordered, I had to send back because they were too big or too uncomfortable.

I think I'm done ordering Crocs... for me. Mal still loves them. Regardless, I'm sad that this go-to for me is no longer an option. 

And so, to honor the Crocs of the past, let's stroll through some of the Crocs I've worn (and worn out) in the past ten years...

I almost never need rain boots but I do still have these and wear them in rain and snow!

Cute Mary Janes I could wear AND dip my feet into a pond/fountain in downtown Dallas.

I LOVED these; they have the Croc material sole but stretchy fabric uppers.

Adorable boat shoes with a fake leather thread.

I still wear these shoes, sans lining, when I'm working outside.

Little yellow and blue print on white flats.

Blue floral print on a black background.

Okay, these were Mal's. But they were the same-ish as my shoes with Croc bottoms and cloth uppers

Another pair of Mary Janes. They were translucent! And so flexible.

Heels that look strappy and complicated but aren't. I still have these and wear them extremely rarely, but they're surprisingly comfortable.

 Fare thee well, Crocs! I'll miss all of the fun we had.

Nine-Eleven, and looking back

Someone on the "Ask Old People" subreddit asked this morning: "What was the internet like during 9/11?" They were wondering whether people were on chat boards talking about it or looking for news. One response said that except for universities, people didn't use the internet much at that time. I had to divest them of that notion by pointing out that by September 11, 2001, I had been "blogging" for half a year. 

This made me curious about what I'd written regarding the event (which I downplayed a lot; I guess because I wasn't trying to be a news blogger but just talk about my own personal experiences). I looked, and here's some of it:

"I left work in a snit...

"Ken was already gone when I got home and I promptly managed to over-turn a McDonald's sack, spilling my half of the French fries (which Kaley was more than happy to clean up). After eating a no-longer-on-sale cheeseburger, I went out back to trim some severely over-grown and most likely dead shrubs.

"Having just talked to my sister about our husbands trying to work our part-time employment into the immediate post-delivery future, I was already starting to get defensive. Ken hasn't played the 'you have to; we can't afford this' card yet, but I could clearly envision the future conversation. Mowing down vast quantities of deer grass, I practiced my eventual breakdown: 'You agreed to this before we ever decided to have a baby!' Then I wondered if I was talking to Ken or to God. We involved God in our plans to have a child. So I started wondering where God was and why He wasn't just fixing this situation for us.

"Back and forth... I thought about my cousin who lost a baby earlier this week. I'm sure she'd gladly eat dirt if it meant she could hold her child. But that didn't make me feel much more fortunate. I've been healthy all of my life and through this pregnancy. I realize I take it for granted. I probably am being a brat. But I want Ken and me to be able to be COMPLETELY happy about the nearing delivery of our child instead of having to harp on how we're going to provide for her. And I was mad that all of our efforts seemed for naught and that God couldn't just intervene in the way I wanted him to so we could enjoy the rest of this pregnancy...

"You may remember a few months ago, I wrote that something had happened that I felt completely redefined our relationship... I wasn't sure if it was the hormones or if it really was a huge shift. Now I realize it was the latter. And, though it took some getting used to, it has completely changed my married life for the better.

"I decided to go finish the front yard, a considerably smaller task, then take a cool bath, and write... in my journal briefly before settling in to watch some TV before bed...

"Instead of indulging in a long bath, I took a quick, cool shower and headed into the computer room to relay the events of the evening. Mid-way through doing that, though, I happened to run across something that made me really mad at Ken. I mean furious. So I couldn't even finish what I was writing...

"I waited up for Ken. He got home a bit after 11:30, at which time I found out that the whole rampage-causing irritant was just a misunderstanding. We talked until a bit after midnight and then went to sleep.

"So, even though I did get up a couple of times during the night, I pretty much slept when I was in the bed.

"And after all of my histrionics yesterday, we get up this morning and see on the news that the Pentagon had been attacked by a hijacked airplane, then it cut back to coverage of the World Trade Towers... Suddenly makes my not-yet-serious concerns seem really petty.

"A special church service has been called for tonight; I'd imagine it's going to be a prayer session. So this evening, I really AM going to be thankful for my blessings while asking God to be with these peoples' families and the rescue workers."

Meh.

I went back and read through quite a bit of my first year (and then the 7th year) blogging. A couple of things:

1) My marriage was hard from basically the get-go. Ken floated the idea of separation or divorce when D was 1, but I rejected it because I didn't want to have to put D in daycare so I could work again, and because I'd already been divorced once. The stigma toward divorce was still very strong then, especially within the church.

2) I was a much more uptight and judgmental person two decades ago. I make myself tired. I can't read too much because it's so cringe-y and terrible. I'm sorry to anyone who read my original online journal.

 

Bits and Pieces

Hello, fellow Americans (and any other nationalities, honestly... all are welcome)!

Yesterday was Mother's Day in the US, and my local family came out to my house to visit. We had a nice afternoon hanging out, and I didn't have to do anything because James and Mal picked out snacks, my Dad brought food and plates, and it was just a fun time all around.

Today, I had an early appointment at a radiology office, not realizing that I was getting some nuclear imaging and a CAT scan. Woo hoo. Fun times. Before going into the imaging chamber, I got an IV of radioactive material! About two short hours and I was done. What a psychic workout, though.

First, the radiologist was trying to keep my elbows in place (the camera automatically keeps 1 inch between itself and a body, and she didn't want me moving my arms and making the camera back off). It was kind of like swaddling, and it was comfy enough... until she started lowering the imaging plate to within 2 inches of my nose and my claustrophobia kicked in. I pulled off the sheet and promised that I would keep my elbows tucked under my own power. She offered to try something different and I told her that if I felt restrained, there was no way I could do it. So we kept my arms free and everything was relatively fine after that.

I had 3 different 5-minute scans, during which I could not move. I was kind of restless after those, but THEN it was time for a 25-minute scan! That one did a number on me, as I tried to relax and maybe even nap since I'd gotten less sleep than usual the night before. But my body kept bringing me back into the moment by suddenly detecting an itch in my right ear canal. Then making me hyper aware that the muscles in my leg were clinched and I needed to relax. Then noticing that my pinkies were falling asleep from my crossing my fingers, which was how I was keeping my elbows from flopping around, so I couldn't really move them but I also couldn't forget about how much I wanted to move. However, when the machine beeped that it was over, I'd thought we were only at the halfway point. 

After the long scan, I had to go into a CAT scan machine still without moving because it had to line up with the previous images. The tech had to "stitch" the pictures, and I was trying not to say anything until there was a natural break, but by then I REALLY needed another visit to the restroom (one of the symptoms of the hypercalcemia caused by hyperparathyroidism is that my kidneys are always trying to jettison calcium, thus pulling moisture from my body and causing me to need to evacuate a minimum of hourly). Fortunately, she was able to let me go before we did the 3 final 5-minute scans.

Shortly after I got home, James had deja vu from last spring, when Indeed announced that it was laying off 8% of its work force. This time, James didn't keep his job, and he said he's mostly numb about it, but I think it will end up being a good thing. Morale has tanked since last year's down-sizing (the first mass layoffs Indeed had ever done), and he hasn't been happy for a while. 

Classes and extra-curriculars are shutting down for the summer. Mal has been out of Wednesday classes for two weeks. This Wednesday, we're going to to to the splash pad where we had his birthday party. I'm probably going to plan an activity every Wednesday that I can, just to avoid general malaise (although I love being home). Since Mal is enjoying public transit so much (we took the bus to Urban Air last week and had a great time), I'll see what I can find that is nearby convenient stops (we had to walk almost a mile between the stop and UA, but it was fun).

Thursday is Mal's last homeschool open gym until fall. And our Tuesday group is always lighter in the summer, with people traveling and dealing with summer custody arrangements.

But Mal's looking forward to YMCA movie-making camp in about a month! It'll be his first sleep-away camp, and I hope it's as magical as Camp Coral (a SpongeBob series), which is why I think he was interested in camp in the first place.

This last thing I'm going to tell you about... well, if you're squeamish or just don't like TMI, then stop reading and we'll see you next post. 

If you're still here, allow me to say: I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS! And by "this," I mean continuing my fertility. I, too, had deja vu today. We were in Montreal exactly a year ago (sigh) and the last full day we were in town, I took Mal to an indoor playground. We spent a LOT of time on public transit to get there. On the bus ride, I felt a kind of "swoosh" feeling that was weird. When we got to the playground, I went into the restroom and there was blood EVERYWHERE. I was wearing a menstrual cup (which I've used without leaks since 2010), AND period underwear. And still, my khaki slacks were absolutely drenched in blood.

I had a stain stick and pretty much used it up. It kind of diluted the visible blood, though it definitely looked like I'd peed myself. Oh well. I wasn't going to end the day early and travel an hour back to the hotel room just to change. I moved my stuff from a cloth seat to a leather chair and just dealt with it. It was fine; I didn't make a mess anywhere but on myself. Then Mal and I went to McD's before heading back several hours later.

(It's the next day).

Since then, I've had one overnight situation which hadn't happened since I stopped wearing pads in my early 20s. I determined to remember to change out IMMEDIATELY before bedtime from then on, and have done so.

But yesterday, as I used the restroom prior to my eternal scan situation, I realized I'd started my period. I'd gotten up in the dark so hadn't seen any clues at home. But by the time I made it to the radiology clinic, I suppose I'd been free-bleeding for about two hours. I didn't have on my period underwear (my periods are extremely irregular -- thanks, perimenopause! -- and I didn't get the usual two-day warning of hormone-induced stress this time. 

I had my cup with me as always, but had to do the whole procedure knowing that I'd bled straight through my jeans. Ehh. Got home, changed, was fine the rest of the day.

Then last night, I got the same feeling as on the bus a year ago. Got up and there was just blood EVERYWHERE. I don't understand what or how it is happening, but I'm over it. Cleaned up, went for a walk, could tell I was leaking. Had to change and clean up AGAIN when I got home.

Friends, I am almost 52 years old! This nonsense needs to stop. At least I will probably be at least mostly finished by next week. I don't want to have to do the pad/mesh underpants combo I discussed with the surgical nurse.

Is Mal Becoming a Mini-Me?

 If it's 9:00 AM, Malcolm is dressed for the day.

For most of Mal's life, he's pretty much been happy doing his thing in a diaper or his underpants. Especially having been home so much the past year, he was getting used to not being dressed.

For whatever reason, during the past couple of months, he's decided that he gets dressed at 9:00. If he wakes up at 8:15, he'll watch videos or chat for a while, then hop out of bed at 9 and put on his clothes. If he wakes up after 9:00, the first thing he does is get dressed.

I've never made him get dressed unless we were going somewhere. I liked it better when he was clothed, but since that's just my own preference, I never pressed it. Now it's his idea, and it's cool that it just happened organically.

Also, he's taken up one of my favorite pastimes: religiously studying lyrics and "practicing" singing songs until he has them memorized. In this case, it's the "Encanto" soundtrack. He is super proud of himself when he can sing a few of the songs all the way through.

The other day, we got into the car, and he asked, "Who needs a radio when you have me?!"

What a great kid!

Another thing Mal is doing lately is getting his feelings VERY hurt when I don't agree with him, then bargaining with me to say that I DO agree with him. One example, going back to the lyrics thing: A couple of the printed lyrics from "Encanto" are wrong. There's one part where Maribel sings, "Well, I gotta go; the life of a Madrigal!" But the lyrics say something like, "Well, I've got a good life of a Madrigal" or something that doesn't really make sense in the context of the song. (Another one, where the townspeople sing, "We're only up the road," they have, "We're rolling up the road." What? No, they aren't. Good grief.)

Having memorized everything so carefully (as well as taking incredibly seriously ANYTHING that's in writing), Mal is pretty invested in the incorrect lyrics. I told him he can sing them however he wants, but he wants me to agree that the wrong lyrics are right. And I can't, because they're not, and I don't lie to my kids. Anyway, he cried and stayed in his closed room for an hour, after threatening to do so if I didn't agree. When I still didn't agree, he was pretty disappointed. 

All of this to say that life with Mal continues to be an adventure. I never imagined I'd have such a young kiddo when I was closing in on 50, but it's such a blessing. Love this child.

All Puppy, All the Time

My, how we've all grown over the past three weeks.

Luke has shot up physically. He was 8.8 pounds when they weighed him at the vet on August 6, then 9.2 pounds at our vet's on August 11. When I took him in for boosters on August 27, he was 11.8 pounds! And he's so much taller! He already outgrew the awesome crate I bought him, so we traded with someone in the neighborhood for a much bigger, much cheaper crate. Oh well. C'est la vie. 

James took Luke to his first puppy training class last weekend. I'm taking him tomorrow. He has that for six weeks, and we're also planning to get him out to a pool to see if he likes swimming. He seems to have more energy every day, so we're always looking for ways to get him thinking or moving. And the "moving" part can be a challenge when it's so hot out. 

Ironically, this is one of the cooler summers Austin has had in some time. But that's relative, and it's sweltering. Much more humid than typical.

Mal has figured out how to play with Luke in a way that won't get him all chewed up like James and I are (puppy bites are super painful and I scab over for so long, it would be tempting to wear long sleeves if we weren't living in the sweltering days of hell right now). We have two of Luke's toys each tied to opposite ends of a rope. I'd put one on the end just to kind of make it seem "alive." It was a way to play tug that didn't risk Luke's accidentally biting me. Once we put another toy on the other end, though, it became magical. Mal will run around inside during the day and outside at dusk, and get Luke absolutely bonkers over chasing and taking the toy.

We've also learned that he definitely likes to explore the neighborhood. I hadn't planned to try leash-walking until he was about 4 months old, because he's just such an energetic little ball of loopiness that I didn't think it would work. We're not doing loose-leash walks that give me much exercise, but it's nice to be out and about.

Luke sleeps great in the crate at night, but does not like it during the day. We've had a couple of successful  sessions, both when he was just already exhausted and I put him in when he was basically asleep. When we put him in fully awake, even if he's been exercised and fed and tired out and there are treats and toys in there, he does not like it. Work in progress.

He can use the rabbit waterer!

(It's Saturday morning now)

This time last year, when we weren't going anywhere, Mal got out of the habit of wearing clothes. Once the pandemic seemed to be lifting, he was to the point where he wanted to dress in the morning, even if we weren't going anywhere. Now, thanks to the Delta variant, which has rendered indoor spaces unavailable to him since he's unvaccinated (because of his age), plus the puppy, we're mostly home again. And once again, Malcolm is running around in his skivvies. It's hard to find pictures of him that don't involve partial nudity. But he is spending a lot of time outdoors, playing with the dog and hanging out with James and I while we work in the yard. So here's a cutie I took of him last night, and that's why he's not wearing a shirt. Now, why he wears his undies backwards and pulls them up like he's an 80-year-old man? I have no idea.

Time to go get ready for the day. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Honing in on the New Normal

If it is still 2021 when you are reading this, then I apologize. It's not really for you. It's for posterity.

Greetings, reader of the future! I hope we managed to reverse the climate change trend toward hotter, colder, stormier, drought-ier (yes, I saw that word used in a legitimate news article) weather for you guys. 

Hey, speaking of that...

A couple of days ago, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated (against Covid-19) people could refrain from wearing masks even indoors in most situations. Yay! James got his second shot two days ago, so is still a couple of weeks out from maximum immunity, but D and I are both considered "fully" and I look forward to ditching the masks!

I know a lot of people aren't. They want to keep wearing them, either for a while, until some benchmark they've chosen is reached; or seasonally, say to avoid the flu, which was barely a blip on the radar this past year, as we were distanced and masked.

Covid brought a lot of divisions to the forefront, in some really disconcerting ways.

The first is related a bit to masks. There are people, including most of the folks who were in my social circles a decade ago, who believed mask mandates to be compliance drills by the government, the first step onto a slippery slope to-- ??? Wearing burkhas? Never talking to anyone outside of the home? Closing all businesses to force the populace to be dependent on the government for income? To seize all guns? 

Most of the safety measures and protocol and solutions to the pandemic were seen by some as a great government conspiracy. The vaccines supposedly make you sterile. Or have something that inserts a tracker into your body so the government can see where you are at all times (even though you do that voluntarily with your smart phone, so...). Or will kill everyone who got one within the next decade (if this blog goes dark, you'll know why!). 

The initial "lock-downs" -- which weren't, by the way, as essential travel was never prohibited and we could go to the grocery store and get take-out if restaurants chose to stay open -- were seen as an overreach if not intended to destroy our economy, then doing it carelessly anyway.

Not allowing people to go to others' homes at first was seen as some kind of "divide and conquer" mess, I guess. I don't claim to understand the way people think.

A lot of people who felt all public safety measures were some kind of infringement on their personal rights point to inconsistent messaging. Yes, the CDC initially said masks didn't help; then they said that they absolutely DO help and people should wear them. Yes, that is inconsistent. But a couple of things were at play that helped me give grace to the folks in charge: 1) This was a NOVEL coronavirus and not much was known about it. 2) There wasn't enough personal protection equipment for the medical professionals, and they didn't want a run on what there was. This was smart thinking, the way people hoarded toilet paper and pasta and flour. 

It devolved into a political thing: If you were a Democrat, you wore masks and stayed home and lived in "fear." If you were a Republican, you enjoyed your freedom and did whatever the hell you wanted, and that's what this country is about, after all; plus, there's only a small chance you'll die, so why be such a pansy? There are exceptions. I know right-leaning people (and am related to people) who took trying not to catch or spread the virus seriously. And I know left-leaning people who are quite skeptical of the rapidly-developed vaccine and won't get it.

Another thing that the virus laid bare was the economic fault lines in our society, many of which run along racial lines. 

James has a job that he was able to do from home, and his company stable enough to weather the initial decline in business without having to cut salaries, so we were able to continue our lives without much economic instability.

But many jobs couldn't be done from home, like employees of grocers and restaurants, and in the medical profession. So they had some really no-win choices to make: go to work and risk infection, or don't work and don't get paid and probably get fired. Some people didn't have a choice: their employer couldn't afford to pay them and had to let them go. Some people didn't have childcare for their kids who were suddenly not in school, and had to wing it.

The jobs we suddenly glorified have been historically pooh-poohed as jobs that people who don't have a "good education" do, an almost morality tale about the dangers of failing to pursue higher education. Yet we expected these folks to happily show up, deal with people who were angry about mask mandates, put in all of their hours, expose themselves to the exhalations of hundreds of people every day, and often take public transit there and back.

The death rate of people who identify as Latinae was much higher than the death rate of white people. Black folks also died at a higher rate than whites. In addition to jobs, my guess is that things that played into this are: population density in households and neighborhoods, reliance on public transit and carpooling, and lack of access to medical care (from lack of insurance, fear of attracting the attention of authorities/ICE, and a general and understandable skepticism of the medical industry), in addition to living either in urban areas where the healthcare systems were overwhelmed, or in rural areas where there are no longer hospitals.

In addition to the 8 million people who slipped into poverty between May and October 2020, there was a huge toll on healthcare professionals. Some were laid off when hospitals stopped doing elective procedures; others were reassigned to jobs outside of their expertise. Many were run ragged, and had to choose between taking care of patients and seeing their families. I have two friends who rented hotel rooms for weeks at a time so as not to bring home something to their kids and partners.

The stimulus payments lifted fully half of the children in poverty in the US out, so that's pretty exciting. The eviction moratoriums are just ending, so I hope both landlords and tenants are able to pull through this time okay. I understand that it's easy to assume all landlords are rich corporations, but they are not. And many have been financially hit by the fact that their tenants have not had to pay rent, and federal or state help is slow in coming.

In short: deadly disease aside, it's been a mess. It's showed a lot of weaknesses, including in our communities.

Homeschoolers, especially, seem to lean more toward the "masks and gathering limits are an affront to my personal autonomy." I have a friend (who's not a homeschooler, but kind of the same mentality) who moved to another city where they weren't enforcing the statewide mandate, because she wanted her kids to have "a normal childhood."

I can only make decisions for myself and my family, but I think it's okay to teach your kids how to pivot during a trying circumstance, how to pitch in for the health of all, and that sometimes, things just aren't "normal." How can you build resiliency if you never encounter this kind of thing?

Anyway, we're a long way from "normal," but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel now. I'd really hoped that a global pandemic might lead to more understanding and cooperation, but that just seems not to be super possible, on a large scale. In fact, I might be tempted to be more discouraged if the freeze hadn't happened, and we hadn't had some neighbors step up in a huge way. I think maybe the smaller communities are where the magic happens. And that part is nice.

A Random Encounter a Decade Later

You didn't even recognize me. I mean, it's been exactly ten years, but we were kind of involved.

You once sat across a table from me and asked me, "What if God is just about to do a miracle, and you give up now?" You invested a lot of your time and effort in keeping me from leaving an unhealthy marriage because it was what god wanted me to do, and it was your job to hold me to this personal holiness. The church that you lead called men with whom they saw me talking and asked if I were involved in a sexual relationship with them. You pulled me off of my ministry of writing and film production "not as a punishment, but so you can focus on your marriage." As if that wasn't all I had done for the better part of the previous decade.

And then you just went on with your life and I slipped from your memory altogether. How nice for you.

Believe me, I know that you had good intentions. I worked with you for more than six years, and I saw your heart for people, and for unity. I know how much you worked, and how you put your whole heart into everything. I admired how you reached across denominations and cultures and wanted to gather everyone together. You even stood up for me the first time you met with my ex-husband and me. After I'd told my side of the story, you asked, "What is wrong with you, man? Don't you have any balls?"

But then you expected me to stay the course, as this was the first you'd heard of it, completely disregarding the fact that both I and a whole other church had been trying to fix things for years. I had changed so much, and given up so much of my truest self, trying to placate a person who demanded more than it was possible for me to give. It was never enough. I was always too much or too loud or too involved with my larger family or too fat or too out of control.

"I just wish you guys had come to [the church] earlier. Now we're at this precipice, and we could have helped."

I'm not sure what else I could have done. Literally everyone else knew. My ministry team, especially your staff member with whom I worked the closest, knew about the strain in my marriage. My writing partner once commiserated with me saying, "When they know you won't leave, it's like permission for them to treat you like shit." She's a better person than I am, I suppose, because... I left. I did not deserve to be treated like shit.

Exactly one year before, I had written an Easter segment for "The Bridge" about a marriage that was falling apart. My ex-husband, who was on the camera team that week, told his ministry team that the script was taken directly from our marriage.

I hadn't meant for it to be a cry for help, but maybe it was? Or maybe it was wish fulfillment? At the end of the service, it became clear that the husband had drastically changed tack and the couple ended up having a long, loving marriage. One of the choir members cried as he prayed before service, saying, "Let people hear this and be encouraged; there are a lot of people whose marriages are on life support, and they need to know that there's hope."

I mean, four months or so after that, there was a HUGE incident that several people witnessed, and it bothered one of them enough to reach out to church leadership. You met with us then, and... what? Like just assumed that because we went quiet again that this incident wasn't important? 

There was one other time, toward the end, that I saw a spark of compassion from you. After many meeting with elders, you were in one and perked up when I mentioned a mental disorder. I know what you've been through with your daughter. I know you understand that there are things you can't love someone enough to fix. You said, "You've never mentioned that before." And then you were never in later meetings. I assumed it was because you were at risk of being "too empathetic," which was a charge lain on one more friend who asked to sit in an elder's meeting with me as an advocate, and who broke down crying as a bunch of men came down on me and made me sign an agreement not to share any of what I was going through on social media.

Sir, there were people from your church who followed me on social media and read my blog just to make sure that I didn't speak a word of anything. When other church members called you because they knew me and saw what was happening, I was accused of being "divisive." 

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, and you all cared more about saving my marriage than saving me. I was pushed out of the church home I'd had for six years, after working so closely with everyone who was making that decision.

Maybe you guys thought that I was being a jerk. I probably was. Another former preacher, Kevin Odor, used to say, "Hurt people hurt people." I'm sorry about my part in those things. Maybe, as one friend expressed concern, you were trying to make an example of me, to let everyone else know that marriage was so important, you couldn't tolerate its dissolution. I know you genuinely believe that you were trying to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Writing about these times brings everything back to the fore for me. And you clearly could not place me, even when I pulled my mask down, and said I'd been in Sherman when you were there.

You said, "Oh, things have changed since then..." then you told me about the church you'd pastored after the one I attended, and how now you're here, in my back yard, on staff with your son's congregation. I introduced you to my husband, and my child. I said, "He looks a lot like D at this age." Of course, you didn't know D as "D." And you probably wouldn't remember them, either.

"My wife's around here somewhere," you told me. I said I'd keep an eye out for her. And I did. When I saw her, I made sure my mask was up, and I averted my eyes. I could be polite and chatty with you, but not her. She said two of the worst things anyone said to me during my divorce, and I don't believe that the second one is forgivable, frankly.

The first thing: "Well, he's not hitting you, and he's not cheating, so you're kind of stuck." No, I was not. The law doesn't care why I wanted out; I was free to go. And if there is a god who expects women to tolerate every single thing that is not hitting or cheating, then that is not a god I am interested in following. I didn't have the guts to say it then, but I do now. I do not believe that. I absolutely do not.

The second, worst thing she said, though, after telling some anecdotes, was, "And, you know, most people are pretty miserable, anyway, so..."

What kind of "Christian" advice is this? Your marriage sucks? Well, guess what? NO ONE IS HAPPY so just give up dreaming! I mean, is Jesus supposed to make up for this? "Sure, your life sucks but one day, you'll die and be in heaven as long as you stay in these parameters!"

I'm not talking to her.

Anyway, my mood tanked for much of the event, because it was quite a surprise to see someone I thought was way back in the rear-view mirror. But, I have to tell you, as hard a time as I had, and as much as I struggled with the loss of my church family and friends, I probably should have thanked you.

"Oh, do you go to church here?" you asked about the congregation that hosted the event. I told you no, that I go to church in Leander.

What I didn't tell you was that I would never go to that church, and that was before I knew your son pastored it or that you worked there.

The reason is largely because of what I learned in my experience with your old church. My old church.

As I mentioned, I have no doubt that you and most of the men involved in pushing back on my divorce meant well. As you saw it, God demanded that divorce not happen, and therefore divorce is sin, and it was your responsibility to prevent my sinning if it were within your power.

The same thing happened, though less dramatically, with the church I attended here, when I was engaged to James, an "unbeliever," and the leadership stepped in to discourage me from marrying him. When I said I was going to go on with it, the preacher told me, "If you can't submit yourself to leadership in this way, then I don't really know what we have for you." I told him that wasn't the first time I'd been asked to leave a church, and that it's very demoralizing. We're still on okay terms. But what the hell, man?

Writing this, I think one might, perhaps rightfully, be tempted to say, "They were all right, and you're just a rebellious freak." I mean, maybe I am.

But I happen to believe that rebellious freaks also deserve to feel loved and accepted by their creator (if there is one, and in the context of the church, there is).

I have absolute confidence that the "church discipline" I received was done in genuine love.

And IT SUCKED. It felt awful. It felt invalidating, and humiliating, and made me feel like a problem child. Even knowing I was loved.

If this hadn't happened to me, I might not have thought about that in the context of the LGBTQ+ community. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but it's true. I've gone to church with gay people who were welcomed to the congregation but not allowed to serve in positions of leadership. I've also gone to churches where a gay member would have to keep the gay part on the down-low.

Because of my personal experience, I know that being loved and also seen as a problem doesn't feel like love. It's very "othering." It's condescending. It denies a part of who you are as being unseemly or sinful.

I never want anyone who steps into a church to feel that rejection, and because of that, I'll never attend a church that isn't open and affirming. I might not have come to this decision if it weren't for the way you cornered me and tried to shove me into a mould that I could not inhabit anymore.

So, really, thanks. Thanks for making me a more compassionate person.

If I happen to see you at the store or local events in the future, I'll keep my distance. And I won't let it ruin my day. 

I'd love it if you and your wife could know that you were wrong, though. Sure, there are days in my life that are stressful or monotonous. However, I'm happy. It's attainable, and I hope you guys aren't settling for "pretty miserable." But if you are, it's not my problem. And I'm not yours.

What I Noticed...

A couple of observations from this weekend:

1) There were some things in place that were not "normal" pre-pandemic things. For instance, signing up for a pool slot, the fact that there was no on-site dining at the restaurant, the off-property restaurant we visited only had 4 tables inside the dining room, and a bunch separated from each other outside. People weren't bunching up at the park, even though it was very busy. However, as we packed up to leave Monday, it felt the most "normal" we've felt in a long time.

2) We did not have internet most of the time that we were there. They advertise free wifi, but living in RV parks taught me that it's more aspirational than realistic. We were able to access the internet very early in the morning when people were still asleep, but even then it was SLOW (I tested. It was 1.85 Mbps). And because we were kind of out, AND the park was so full, even our cellular data did not work well. I could text, but not see pictures that a friend sent me. I got notifications from Slack, but then couldn't see them. What this meant is that I also didn't watch YouTube or get news from anywhere. Whatever was happening in Washington DC felt like it was too distant to matter to our tiny little lives. It was glorious.

3) I can be a pretty patient parent when I don't have anything "better" to do than pay attention to my kid.

4) My feet don't threaten to swell when I'm not standing still several hours a day cooking and doing laundry.

5) I think we should move to a remote area in Colorado and pretend we're camping all of the time. I think we'd need a maid, though, so I could reap all of the benefits of numbers 3 and 4.

6) We absolutely are not ready to live in an RV. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, but that cabin had us pressed in way too close for comfort for every day life. And we didn't even bring James's two monitors or many of Mal's toys.

But, seriously, they're not resolutions

There are several things I've mentioned lately that I'm working on, and thought I'd take this time, as I'm waiting in the Walmart automotive department to get a brake light changed out (more accurately at the moment, waiting for other people's auto repairs so they can get to my car to change out the brake light), to provide a couple of updates.

First: environmental stewardship.

I wanted (vs. needed) one new shirt, and coincidentally got a sales code in the mail from a company I frequent. I had loaded my basket with several things, which made the average price per item $7 including shipping. Then I thought better of it. I know a lot of people who use PoshMark to sell their used clothes, and that's easier for me than sifting through stuff at Goodwill (where you can't set parameters like brand and style).

Shipping on each individual item seems to be about $7.25. I don't know if that's a site standard (eBay started mandating some shipping prices several years ago, but I don't have any experience selling on PoshMark so couldn't say for sure), but it made the price of the shirt higher than I wanted to pay. I made an offer that was significantly lower than the listing, and the seller accepted it.

I ended up paying $22 including shipping for a shirt I could have gotten for $6 on clearance at the store from whence it came. Furthermore, it had tags on it. I get that sometimes people buy clothes they end up not wearing, so if I kept a new shirt out of a landfill, cool. But if people are just snatching up clearance clothes to sell for a profit on PoshMark, that's not disincentivizing churning out fast fashion, so it kind of negates the whole point.

I'd try ThredUp, about which I've heard positive things... but I rarely need an "outfit" or a clutch or shoes that aren't Crocs.

I guess I'll just do Goodwill next time?

In better news: I filed our taxes about a week and a half ago and already got the refund! Woo hoo! The solar panels are PAID OFF! That's a huge relief, and I'm still so glad we got them. This was the cloudiest, coldest month so far, and our bill was still just $55, compared to $120 last year (and $20 of that is the flat delivery charge, which we'll have even if we don't use any power... which won't happen, because night).

And in very personal better news, I'd decided to be more mindful about my albuterol usage. I was often using it six times per day, and there's no doubt that each time I used it, my chest was tight and my breathing was labored... but it wasn't always a full-out asthma attack. I wanted to see if I could put off using it until later, and maybe at all.

I have two main triggers for my asthma: allergies and stress (I am also reactive to certain combinations of humidity and cool air when I'm outside doing cardiovascular stuff, but that's not super common). Since we have 3 cats, to which I am allergic, I use the inhaler more at home than anywhere else.

The stress thing is often when my sweet son is being super "interactive" and either keeping me from getting something done that I need to do, or just encroaching on my space in a way that makes me claustrophobic and anxious. I figured that maybe during those times, I could wait it out and see if it passed when the stress passed.

I would never pass on using my inhaler when I was on a walk, or doing something that was strenuous enough to require deep breaths, from which I could not take a break to see if I could head off an attack.

I don't know whether it's that delay or just circumstances, but it's been 3.5 days since I've used my inhaler at all. That's a HUGE deal! I did have to hit it pretty hard when we got back from the weekend in San Antonio, while my body got used to being home again. But after that first day and a half or so... it's been smooth sailing! Hopeful that I can continue to manage it like this! (And don't worry: I'm not going to put myself in danger. I'll use it when I need it.)

Finally, I spent a good part of the week culling books from various rooms (not James's, of course), trying to consolidate and get rid of two rickety bookshelves in our living room. Mal and I made a Half-Price Books run and earned a whopping $13 for our full cart of books. That was enough to buy him a set of modeling clay that he wanted, pizza pretzel bites that I wanted, and macaroni and cheese at the mall food court for Mal (I had a free drink as a loyalty reward).

We actually recycled books I'd decided not to take to Half-Price Books because they were chewed up, or just so old as to be irrelevant (a book on space travel from 1983, etc.). Then I moved some books into Mal's room, some into our living room shelving, and was able to put the old shelves out on the curb yesterday morning. They were gone by this morning!

Good riddance!

Now we're just waiting for our carpet to recover from three years of being mushed by the trim. I hope whoever took them does something amazing with them!

The truth is that we could get rid of this much stuff twenty times and only start to see a dent in the "extra" crap we have. I'm ruthless, but live in a house full of people who develop emotional connections to items with which they have a history. I have a theory that we could empty D's closet and it would not impact anyone's life ever, but... alas. I even know that there's an old iPad that's sticky from maybe melted Silly Bands? iPad doesn't work; case is useless due to the melted rubbery garbage, and the hamper in which it rests is full of stuff D hasn't touched since we moved into the house.

But, it's not my stuff so I'm not in charge of that. Feel pretty good about what we've gotten done so far, though! Early spring cleaning, I guess.

James just messaged me that they're heading my way for us to meet for dinner across the parking lot. Have a great week!

Lots and Lots of News

Looking back to reference the post I did about not coloring my hair anymore, I was a little shocked to find it was all the way back in June! Can one be "a little shocked"? Anyway, I was surprised. It's been six months! And my hair wasn't awful; the red had washed out and I was left with just some kind of inoffensive orange. It wasn't bad, but it was also noticeably darker than my new growth.

Typically, this wasn't a huge problem. But sometimes, mostly when I was with my parents and so one of them took a picture in which I was bent down talking to Mal, so that all of my hair fell forward... well, there was a lot of roots going on.

I LOVE THE ROOTS. It is this sable brown with the occasional silver strand. I did not love the contrast of the colors, which most people assured me was not grotesque. I think I've been helped by the fact that dark roots are in fashion right now (I even noticed that in the final Descendants movie, the kids with purple and blue hair also had... black roots. They did not in the first two films; it was all color all the way.)

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to get some input from my neighborhood on NextDoor and found Megan at Hair's to You.

A hair salon in an RV, you say? Perfect for me! Long story short, here's the final product. Hopefully the brown will stay with me for months to come. We just used a color-depositing dye, no stripping, and she didn't color ALL of the top layer, so my washed-out color kind of acts as highlights.

Here's a picture of me last week versus today. Again, not looking at the crown, it's not as dramatic as the reality; you'll just have to trust me.

Also, because I think the second picture, which has a noticeably-darker under-layer (which I dig), is still a little light, here's another angle. The one above was taken during daylight, and the other later at night. You get an idea of how much darker it is here.

Okay! Enough pictures of me!

In other news, our heater gave up the ghost last night.

That's not entirely true. It works-ish. What happened was that it got VERY cold (and snowed!) and after cycling nonstop between the heat pump and auxiliary heat, it froze up and shut down. When that happens, apparently our stupid Nest "smart" thermostat doesn't charge because its charging relies on the heater or a/c to be functional (??!!). SO we woke up in a cold house and with no thermostat. I quick-charged it a few minutes with a USB cable, checked the breakers (they were fine), and then plugged the thermostat back in.

It was 58 degrees in the house, and the heater came on when the thermostat was back in working order. It stayed on so long, though, that it drained the battery of the thermostat very quickly, and so I started doing a little routine. I'd set the heater to one degree above whatever it was. When it caught up, I'd take the thermostat off and plug it in a few minutes. Then I'd put the thermostat back on and raise the temperature another degree.

Doing that, I got it back up to 68 in a few hours. I could tell, too, that the heater had gone out at about 2:00 AM, so it did work part of the night.

We've known that we needed to replace the unit. It's had an inordinate amount of problems since we bought the house (like the a/c guy shouldn't need to come out twice a year... something I learned after we replaced the inside unit of our heater in Sherman, too... we'd sunk SO MUCH money into repairs), so last December, we'd gotten an estimate to replace it and had budgeted to do it in November.

However, I did not want to repair what happened last night, because I don't think it's fixable long-term. Additionally, the unit is old enough that the refrigerant can no longer be sold as of January, so if we got a leak, we'd be at the mercy of hoping someone had some left over in their inventory. Also, there's some questionable repairs already done, like someone installed some kind of jumper that is only supposed to be there temporarily, but since it works, the serviceman hasn't wanted to mess with it. I'm pretty sure it's original to the house, which was built in 2007.

So, on Monday we're getting a new heat pump. Hey, did I mention spending a ton of money recently? Oh, and the company has a 12-months-same-as-cash finance deal going, so we can actually pay for it in November and that will be cool. I know a lot of people caution against "same-as-cash" offers (and the interest rate is 18% after that!) but we WILL pay it off within a year.

Finally, I've been thinking a lot about a vacation we're taking later this year in which we'll be flying. We don't fly often; I think we've averaged once a year since we've been married, and I had only flown once in five years or so before that. I understand the environmental impact of flying is high, even though I've never seen a breakdown of how it differs from driving if you have to top two nights and stay in a hotel where linens have to be washed, etc. I always just see a gas comparison.

Anyway, when I was trying unsuccessfully to find a comparison of ALL of the associated factors, I came across an article on how to lower your impact if you do "have" to fly. One tip was to take a nonstop flight, which we are doing. I basically will not take a trip, especially with a kiddo, if I have to layover. I realize that if we ever want to go to Montreal, we'll probably have to (or we could drive, but that seems like torture). But, anyway. So we're good on that front.

The person who wrote the article also mentioned that you can go online and calculate the carbon footprint of your flight (ours is just under 2.5 cubic tons -- YIKES). I found a couple of reputable places where you can buy carbon offsets for different projects, and I did that. They have a lot of them that recapture methane from landfills, but a lot of those were fully funded. We did one that helps clean up boreholes in Rwanda so that water doesn't have to be boiled before people can drink it.

I heard on the radio today, specifically regarding airlines, that they're going to have to change how they operate. The lady said, "They can't just buy carbon offsets and continue to do business as usual..." And I realize this about our lives, too. It maddens me beyond belief when politicians point to the economic impact of things like the Green New Deal as a reason not to support it. Reversing the climate impacts we've wrought on the earth will take sacrifice from people like myself who are imminently accustomed to being comfortable. I get that. I'm willing to do it. Our economy is not more important than the poorest of people who cannot deal with increasing temperatures. They don't deserve to die so our GDP stays high.

All of THAT to say that we will be looking more seriously at future trips and might forego flying at all (though we did put a deposit down on a vacation in 2022 that requires a flight... and we might just forfeit the deposit? We'll have to see), but the carbon offset is a way to mitigate it a bit for the time being.

Also, the new heat pump is more efficient, so even though we're on all green energy at the moment (even with the stuff we buy from PEC), in case the next owners aren't, that'll be something, too.

#workinprogress