Month: January 2023

Edda and I went to aftercare yesterday (and we’ll go again today). We have two (!) aftercares to try out – one this week and one next week. Before the pandemic, I think I would have had my choice of aftercares to enroll Edda in, but after the pandemic, we have really struggled to find a place that will even consider taking Edda. We could have replaced the aftercare with a person who would come to the house, but try as we might, we couldn’t find someone who can meet Edda’s bus at home reliably because most people who want the job are working during the day at a school which ends the same time as Edda’s school/bus arrival. Ginny, though we love her very much, calls out a lot, which we can manage, but this lack of reliable Edda-care really was one of the driving reasons I had to give up my nursing gig. Both finding the aftercare and managing the follow-up to leads and managing Edda herself when I had no childcare easily took the 14 hours a week (plus probably 6 hours recovery) I was trying to work at the hospital. Many many phone calls, applications, rejections, etc. This also was a sore point in the marriage – I really wanted Jeremy to take this on, and he was willing, and started to, and then I tried to forget about it, but then he would forget things or get confused and I would have to remind him to follow up with this phone call or clarify the names (every organization had an umbrella organization with one name, the actual aftercare had a second name, usually there were two people, an admin person in the office and the person actually at the aftercare and somehow, every aftercare had the word “Community” in the name, so, you know, I get it…), but then I eventually took it back over because, you know, I’m just better at it (like almost all women in all marriages), but I’m always confused by this because he is so good at complex ideas and policy at work, it’s not as if he is a simple man with simple needs. (Though Jeremy was willing and was doing it, he would probably say that he was not doing it the way I wanted it to be done and that was the source of the dissatisfaction. It is a fundamental difference in our personalities. I take care of things and I make judgment calls, don’t talk to Jeremy except at critical junctions where I present two clear options and we decide and then it’s done. Jeremy likes to talk about it and asks me my opinions about all the things at every single junction, which makes me feel like I should just do it myself if the process involves a 20 minute discussion about it everyday.) Anyways, we have a trial run this week, so I went not knowing if they would want me to stay or not. I brought my ukulele in case – because if they didn’t want me to stay, I wanted to stay nearby just in case they wanted to ask any questions or wanted help. The last aftercare we tried where I dropped her off with no formal introduction (which I have done for every other camp/program/etc that she has been in with no problem), they kicked Edda out after 4 days because she was noncompliant and a safety concern, but I think if I had been there during those 4 days, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. Anyways, they wanted me to stay so I did the entire aftercare, putting on my best first date behavior (I’m for sure better on a first date than Jeremy is) – you like me! you like us! I like you too! we are not crazy or non compliant or a safety risk! no red flags here (in the modern parlance)! Second date is this afternoon.

I also finished setting up a special needs trust for Edda (yesterday!), which also took way longer than I thought it would and also took a lot of time and emotional energy. My life admin seems high, the trust is not funded yet – but as soon as it is, it starts incurring fees and paperwork and tax implications which I just sigh at – the rules keep changing and become more and more complex. I like numbers and I like figuring things out, but it’s really just overwhelming to me. I’m like trying to protect money for Edda, but then it adds this layer of paperwork that will occur annually, or quarterly or whatever-ly, just like her guardianship will require or her SS funds. I remember a long time ago, I would often apply and get a one time $2000 annual funding for Edda (which involved getting up at 5am and standing in a random line somewhere to get a number under 200 which is when the funding ran out). Then I would have to submit the paperwork for what I could spend it on. It was hard to spend it on services (like PT/OT because it was covered (partly) by insurance) or camp (because even though it ran for six hours, it overlapped the summer school offered for free by the county for three hours) or maybe even I couldn’t fund diapers, basically it felt like we could use it on only some crappy thing we kind of didn’t need, but could buy.

The aftercare seems lovely, there is a person from Edda’s school class in the program who has been going for years, but you know, beggars can’t be choosers. This one is run by the Catholic Charities and we would end up paying out of pocket for this. At one point, there was music therapy and the therapist was playing the guitar – I Can See Clearly Now the Rain has Gone, the kids were being kids and I closed my eyes and tried to tell myself that Edda and I were held in the light. You know, Quakers and the light? I want to be held in the light sometimes, so I imagine it to be.

Vince’s last night at home was last night, after Edda went to bed, we tumbled into our bed for a final youtube video watching. We did have dinner with my parents last night, Jeremy almost all better from his non-covid cold. I’m glad we bookended Vince’s trip with my parents, the early Christmas gift opening and pot roast dinner last night. We missed out on them during the actual Christmas week, but it was because we were all getting sick and they were busy putting up drywall.

And the internet is for pets – Elka and Ivy sleeping closer together.

Ivy working out hard on the treadmill.

We have a new Google-home type thing next to our bed because we like having the “sunrise alarm” in the winter when the sun rises so late. A sunrise alarm will start brightening the room about 15 minutes before the alarm and indeed does wake one up more gently. We recently made an effort to make our room completely dark at night which involved installing curtains to separate the very windowed gym from our bed and to close all the doors to the closet and the bathroom which both have windows. We also got rid of anything emitting light like TVs, or the worst emotionally, my beloved GE clock which I’ve used since I was in high school and glow unusual blue numbers. The Google home will adjust down – when we shut off the lights, the home will decrease the brightness of the screen so it doesn’t glow enough for you to sense a glow, but if you look over, you can see the barely lit numbers to tell you the time. Anyways, the Google home also tracks sleep via motion sensor? Anyways, it tracks Jeremy’s sleep and can count when he snores or coughs. But it also counts Elka’s napping schedule. When she sleeps during the day in Jeremy’s spot, it counts it as sleeping time. So we often see a three hour nap in the middle of the day.

So, Jeremy and Bob and Katherine all did end up sick from the holidays. Bob is the only one testing Covid +, and we just by happenstance got him to go to urgent care to get Paxlovid. The other two are slogging through something else during the week. Jeremy has taken the week off of exercise which makes him moody, but it’s too boring to do nothing, so he’s been working a lot and excited about work.

From lunch yesterday I wanted to write down our resolutions:

1. Vickey – read more than 2 books (which is how many she read in 2022)
2. Satya – eat only until 80% full
3. Karuna – don’t work on weekends
4. Doris – go outside more

Haha, I like all these resolutions. We’ll see what happens.

I’m trying to be not irritated by the things I choose to do or that I want to do for other people. This is a level of zen that seems out of reach for me these days.

Yesterday, a group of us from the patent office went out to lunch at Clyde’s (Tower Oak Lodge). Vickey’s mother-in-law loves to give gift certificates to restaurants as Christmas presents, so this is us spending that gift certificate. As Vickey notes, the venue was beautiful, but the food was mostly average, but satisfying. The three other women have December birthdays (Karuna & Satya), so they all got dessert for free! We haven’t all been together since before the pandemic.

Vickey’s mom (my quilting coach) was taking a class to make this enormous king sized quilt. Of course, she was more qualified than the teacher and might have taken over teaching the class herself. But because I’m the only person with a king sized bed that Vickey knows (!), I got this incredible handmade quilt which I will use everyday!

New year, new plant! Lauren spied this on her neighborhood listserv and I felt immediately drawn to it. I totally could rescue this plant! And then I found out that the person giving it away paid $150 for the plant originally and then I really wanted it (I think it came in a very nice pot to justify the price, I didn’t get the pot, lol.). Lauren picked it up New Year’s Day and I went to her house to pick it up. And so on a 65 degree day in January, I trimmed all the dead leaves off of it and we had a chance to catch up.

I went to Home Depot and got a pot and some potting soil and then repotted the entire thing and put it in the most glorious spot in the house and I’ll see if it won’t die (I think they overwatered it trying to get rid of the cat pee). As I’m getting older, I feel more and more like my mother (who is amazing) – Jeremy noted that this was a very Rena behavior, rescuing dead plants from the side of the road. Haha. I’m really waiting for the outdoor gardening gene (I don’t like it now, but I’m open to it in the future) to kick in, I told Jeremy and he said – that would be nice. My mother has an incredibly green thumb and can coax many things to grow, but she can be lacking in uhhh, taste? aesthetics? – her gardens always look a-tumble and jumbled together with things she got for free…

Here it is temporarily replacing the money tree which was thriving there.

It’s a new year, and with that new goals, right? Of course, all the things I want, I can’t really control – like that we make it through as healthy and together as we can. Other things I want is to be in nature more, to squeeze it all out of life and experience it as much as I can. To love and be loved. To serve and be served in time of need. To rest if I need to, to surge forward if I’m energetic. I’m lucky to be here another year, not everyone has a chance like that.

We spent New Year’s Eve putting the house back together, doing laundry, taking down all the Christmas decorations. We also spent some time watching Ivy and Elka try to be friends. I think they are friends now, kind of.

It’s my dream that they end up curled up next to each other sleeping through the night. We’ll see if that happens, lol.