Tax time

Anyone seeing that title might think, "It isn't April yet!" -- but April isn't tax time for us. February is, because that's when (a) the first half of the property taxes are due and (b) we try to get our income tax stuff ready to send to our preparer. This makes February even less pleasant than it already isn't.

(Note that this photo is actually showing something GOOD: the snow is melting. It just looks awful. February is not a pretty month.) 

(Nor is March.)

The property tax side of the unpleasantness is over for now: I could only come up with enough money to pay the first half of the taxes on one of our three properties, so that's done and now I have to pay the full amount on the other two properties by May 1st. May 1st is a long time from now, two months -- MORE than two months -- well, two months and two days. Plenty of time to find $5000 somewhere. Hm.

So now the focus is on our income taxes, and I will be interrupting this blog post periodically to go work on those. I don't know why it's always such a big deal for me, but it is. OK, time to go work on them. 

And now I'm back. I scanned six documents (our tax preparer lives in the Virgin Islands, so we have to send her everything through a "portal"). Now I will blog for a few minutes and then go back and do something else on the taxes.

This has been kind of a crappy week -- although I must hasten to add that nothing really bad happened and we are Just Fine. So, then, what not-so-bad stuff happened?

1. On Wednesday, a scammer called the police department at 8:30 am and said he was outside the kids' high school with a gun and he was going in, followed by "very realistic" sounds of gunfire. Only thing was, the scammer apparently didn't know that Wednesday is "late start," so there were only 60-70 kids in the school at that time (compared to 2000 when everybody's there). But all the teachers were there. Anyway, the school went into total lockdown and eventually was evacuated and there were no classes that day, of course, which my kids thought was great, and I was a nervous wreck. Still am, actually. They were planning to have in-person parent-teacher conferences the next night and those were cancelled -- not postponed, just cancelled. I think they have to give the teachers some time to decompress. Oh, and now apparently they have extra security in the school, in case someone decides it would be fun to REALLY shoot up the school.
   
2. On Thursday, Teen A's phone stopped working. It already had a cracked screen, but the touch screen feature stopped functioning, so he couldn't use it at all.
   
3. On Friday, Teen B's glasses broke.
   
4. On Saturday, Teen A and I went to the phone repair store, but even though it says you don't need an appointment, no one ever came out from the back to talk to us, so eventually we went home, feeling weird. Today I made an appointment, so we'll be heading back over there soon.
5. Also on Saturday, I attempted to fix Teen B's glasses but failed. So I went to the grocery store to buy a new glasses repair kit, they were out, went to a different grocery store, they had one, but I still couldn't manage to fix the glasses. My old eyes, my shaky old hands. So after Teen A and I get back from the phone repair store, Teen B and I will go to Costco (where we bought the glasses) and see if they can fix them.
6. Also on Saturday, one of my book group members announced that she is leaving the group after our meeting on Tuesday. She moved to Philadelphia a year or two ago and has been joining us via Zoom, so I can understand why she doesn't want to do it anymore, but I'm still so sad. She was my first friend in Boulder.
7. Also on Saturday, around 8 pm the kids were watching TV and fighting over the remote. I got tired of the fighting, and foolishly attempted to snatch the remote from Teen A, who was hiding it under his blanket (they watch TV while wrapped in blankets, even in summer). In the scuffle (we were laughing), Teen A knee-ed me in the face (an accident), which not only hurt, but bent my glasses, which I haven't been able to fix. I really need to call and make eye appointments for the three of us -- it's time anyway, and our glasses are all falling apart.
    

Whoops, my timer just rang. Back to the taxes, then the phone store, then Costco. I'll be back here in a few hours, probably. 

OK, I'm back. Teen A and I went to the phone store and the guy said it would cost about $100 to fix his phone and he could have it back Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. Considering the phone only cost $150 to begin with (and Ting is having a sale and we could get a new one for $99), I did think about saying oh screw it and buying him a new phone. But here's the thing: at some point I'd like to buy him a BETTER phone, and now is not that time. So I figured I might as well spend $100 to fix it and then we won't have the hassle of setting up the new phone and there'll be one less piece of electronic junk in the world.

Then Teen B and I went to Costco, and though we had to wait a LONG time to be helped, they did finally fix his glasses, for free of course. We also bought muffins, fruit-by-the-foot, brownie mix, and granola, none of which we needed. Also, Teen B complained pretty much the entire time we were out: the drive was too long, I wouldn't buy anything he wanted (e.g., an iPad), Costco is too big and crowded, why was I wasting time looking at stupid things, I bought things he didn't think I should get, and the drive home was too long.

I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't fun to be a teenager. I'm the grown-up, so I model good behavior instead of bopping him over the head. Then I come home and complain to the blog.

Now we are back. I have put away a load of the kids' laundry, spent another half hour on the taxes, eaten a (rather stale) chocolate Costco muffin, and now I get to work on this blog post a little more. I wanted to take a walk, but it has gotten very windy, and my lungs don't like wind.

But in fact, I feel better. It always feels good to deal with problems, and the glasses are fixed and the phone is getting fixed. And the taxes are almost done -- maybe a few more hours, but I should be able to submit the forms either tomorrow or Tuesday AT THE LATEST.

Once the taxes are done, I have to focus on the book group, coming here on Tuesday. I was looking forward to it, but now that I know it's Karen's last time, I'm not. It's going to be sad, not fun. However, I still have to feed the other members. The book we read was set in Mexico, so I got a Mexican cookbook from the library and found some interesting-sounding recipes to modify. I think I am going to make baked tostadas, with either a mushroom or a sweet potato topping (I'll make both, so people can have a choice). Also a fruit salad, and for dessert I may make an almond cake -- or I may say screw it, and serve Costco muffins.

Or M&Ms, maybe. Ice cream? I'll think about it.

I also have to clean, but that's much easier now that the FlyLady helps me. Yes, the living room is kind of a cluttered mess, but we'll fix that, no problem. Tomorrow, Monday, I'll finish the taxes and clean. Tuesday I'll cook and bake. It will be fine.

Other than the bad things that happened this week, it wasn't such a bad week. I mean, it was, but it wasn't entirely bad. I earned another $16 or so through Mechanical Turk -- someday when I get some time I'm going to try to figure out how to earn more, but still, $16 is fun. So far this week (I get paid on Thursdays) I have only earned about $3, but that's because of the taxes.

I didn't get a lot done on my novel, either. The taxes, again. Even when I'm not working on them, they're bothering me. But I'm on Chapter 19 of the novel, and I will get back to it as soon as the taxes are submitted and the book group has been and gone. Oh, and I'm taking my car in to be looked at on Wednesday, in preparation for our Spring Break trip that we may or may not take. The car is fine as far as I know, but it needs an oil change and "looking at it" is always a good idea before a trip (whether or not we take the trip).

Oh, and my "skin cancer" seems to be finally going away, which means it probably isn't skin cancer after all. So that's nice.

And here comes March! My least favorite month of the year -- but it's OK, it's really OK, it will be fine. I have to think of something to do for the twins' birthday, which is in 11 days, but I'm going to wait and think about that after I submit the taxes and after the book group comes and after the car gets worked on. It's too late to order anything online anyway. I'll have to think of something to buy at a store. Oh lord. Well. It will be fine.

I'll write a post about what I'm going to do in March next week. Right now I need to go back to the taxes.

February should be cheerier than this

The post title says it all. I do not approve of February being this gloomy. 

I mean, look at all the love! Rocket Boy and I couldn't be together on Valentine's Day, of course, but he sent us lots of candy... Actually the big heart box is already empty. We gobbled that chocolate down fast. The other box still has plenty in it, though. And we have several varieties of Girl Scout cookies in the freezer, and as I type I'm munching on Trader Joe's chocolate-covered sea salt butterscotch caramels (my favorite). 

If it were possible to create happiness out of sugar, we would be pretty darn happy.

Which is not to say that the twins aren't happy. They seem to be their usual middling selves, neither happy nor sad. I can't fathom their psyches, really. At their age, I was in love with so many people. I tried to conjure up a crush on a boy in every single one of my classes (sometimes it was a stretch). I've told them that they should be falling in love with people, that it makes life better. They just give me these LOOKS. 

Should I be falling in love with people (other than my husband)? Would that make life better? I somehow don't think so, I think it would make things significantly worse. Fortunately I never meet any eligible men. Occasionally a man will speak to me, a neighbor walking a dog, but they're old men, not appealing. Of course, I am old too. That is probably why they speak to me.

Well, anyway. Another week. 

It's not so bad. This is a three-day weekend, which means we get tomorrow off too. It won't really be "off" for me -- I plan to treat it pretty much like a normal Monday, cleaning and cooking and all that. But we don't have to get up early... though I almost certainly will. 

Yesterday and today I planned to sleep in, but did I? Nope, woke up a little before 7 am, both days. This morning I was dreaming that Rocket Boy and I were in London, for some reason, walking around Piccadilly Circus, which was extremely crowded, and some scammer offered Rocket Boy some tickets for a tour of stately homes, something like that, and Rocket Boy gave him $72 (dollars, not pounds) for them. I threw a FIT -- how could you fall for that, these are worthless, if we want to go on a tour we should RESEARCH it, not buy some probably fake tickets from a random person we meet in a crowd. And woke right up and sat bolt upright.

I suppose money is part of the reason I'm depressed. It wouldn't take rocket science to figure that out. 

We still haven't gotten a bill from ServPro. It's probably time to call them AGAIN, though of course I don't want the bill. And I should call our insurance agent and discuss with her what's going on, and I should look into mold remediation companies. She might have a recommendation.

It's so much easier to do nothing. Except then the problems seep into your dreams.

I managed to earn a little more money last week through Mechanical Turk, and was paid $16.85 on Thursday. My goal was to double my earnings from the week before ($5.56), so that was something. I guess. My goal this week is to average $3/day, for a total of at least $21. I am not optimistic about my ability to reach that goal, but I just have to try. I still think that eventually this might be worth it -- there are all sorts of little jobs on there that pay better than what I'm earning, and I think you get access to them after you've proved yourself with the dumb little jobs. However, there might be more to it. I should research this. 

One reason I am dragging my feet about trying to find a real job is that I am afraid I won't be able to learn how to do it (whatever it is). As I'm doing all these Mechanical Turk surveys, I'm really struck by my memory problems (which I think are a long-Covid side effect). They ask all these questions about your shopping habits, and when did you buy this and when did you buy that. I finally realized that I have to just make it up, because most of the time I don't remember. And once in a while there's a survey that requires some skill -- and I'm hopeless. I wouldn't hire me.

Despite our money worries, Rocket Boy and I are starting to plan a trip to Arizona for Spring Break, which is coming up in about a month. I told him I'd love to do it, but I have no money available to spend on it -- I can't come up with the money for the property taxes, all (or any of) the repairs on the rental house, and our normal bills -- AND a Spring Break trip. So now he thinks he can handle it. He's going to sell some stock. 

I said, OK. Many people might think that was an odd way to handle one's finances, but travel is important to us. We're both so sad that we haven't been able to take the twins a whole lot of different cool places. We'd really like to take them on a few more interesting trips before they get too old to be interested in a trip with their dumb parents.

Though, just as an aside: this past week I finally saw an obituary for the third kid in their high school to die by suicide this school year. I'd been looking for it online, not because I'm a ghoul -- well, maybe I am -- but I think mostly because it's so unimaginable. I want to try to understand. There was a short obituary in the paper and then I found a longer one online. I was struck by several things in the obit, but one is relevant here: they mentioned that she loved to travel, and listed off a whole lot of places she'd been in her 16 years. I read that list and I thought: my kids haven't been to any of those places (except Missouri). But they're alive.

In other words, chill out, mom. They've got their whole lives to go to cool places. Being able to spend money on your kids doesn't save them.

But we would still like to go to Arizona for Spring Break, because Rocket Boy did his masters at the University of Arizona and he would really like to show the boys Tucson. So I think we're going to try to make that happen, and I think it's stressing me out. Even though he thinks he can pay for it, I've got dollar signs flashing before my eyes: I should take the car in and get it checked out before we make a long trip like that, there'll probably be something wrong with it that needs fixing, then there's all the gas, food, hotels, entrance fees to places, more gas, more food, more hotels, and whatever happens to go wrong. Oh, and the pet-sitters. They're not cheap.

***

OK, change of topic. Anything but money.

We had a fairly big snowstorm this week, eight inches of light, fluffy snow. Easy to shovel, but still -- eight inches is a lot. I thought it was going to interfere with Teen B's concert, but it didn't start falling until much later, probably after midnight. The concert was wonderful, and then the next day we woke up to snow. And no snow day, on account of the unjustified snow day a month or so ago (or whenever that was), when they called a snow day and then we got about four inches. I knew that after that they'd probably never call another snow day, which is how we ended up with eight inches and no snow day.

Right now it's much warmer, with high winds, so we're getting some good melting (though the front lawn still looks like this). I took a walk today and there were very few icy sidewalks. And then on Wednesday we're going to get another snowstorm. They haven't given an estimate of how much yet, just "Chance of precipitation is 100%." That suggests that it might be a lot. Well, it's February.

On the plus side, my sister came through her surgery well and is now home and healing. That is something I spent a lot of time pointlessly worrying about this week. I should cheer up now.

It was a fairly productive week, despite my gloom. As mentioned above, I managed to earn $16.85, which is a LOT of surveys. I worked along on my novel, not making a huge amount of progress, but some. I did lots of cleaning and also cooked dinner most of the nights. But that didn't always go well. On Thursday I made My Old-School Baked Ziti from Smitten Kitchen, and although it's tasty (we've had it before), no one really wanted to eat it. Not only that, but no one (including me) wanted to eat the leftovers. Probably two-thirds of the recipe is still sitting in the refrigerator. It takes up a lot of space. For lunch today I did not have leftover baked ziti, I had a bowl of cereal. I am very much afraid that the rest of the baked ziti is going to end up in the compost bin, and that would really be a shame.

I think I have to face the fact that our family (possibly excluding Rocket Boy) does not seem to like Italian food anymore. I mean, we still like pizza, sort of. But pasta -- no, not really. Every time I make a pasta dish, it doesn't get eaten.

It seems terrible to erase an entire cuisine from my repertoire, but maybe I'm going to have to. What's the point of making a 9x13 baking dish full of pasta if 2/3 of it ends up in the compost bin?

I hate cooking. 

***

Moving on, surely I can find a more cheerful topic. I finished Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming, this week. I didn't love every bit of it, but I think it's worth keeping (so now I have to find a place for it). And I might read her new book, too, eventually. I still have three books to finish out of the five I chose to read from my beside-the-bed pile this month, so I'll have to get busy this week. I also have to read the book for the book group (The Forgery by Ave Barrera), but I finally got a hold of it and started reading it today. It's short, and so far quite amusing, so it shouldn't take me long to finish. 

Then I'll have to start thinking about what to serve the book group next week. The book is set in Mexico, so Mexican food is the obvious choice, but one member of the group will be just back from Mexico (the book was her choice), and I don't think I want to try to compete with whatever delicacies she will have eaten there. Hmm. Will have to give this some thought.

I hate cooking.

***

I read two other interesting books this month. Last month I did a search for books to read in February and of course came up with all these romances. Most I'd either read (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights) or didn't want to (pretty much any romance novel), but then I came across Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade, and It Does Not Die by Maitreyi Devi, and I was intrigued, so I requested them both from the library. 

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian scholar, born in 1907, who spent time in India as a young man. In 1930, at the age of 23, he lived for a while in Calcutta (Kolkata) with the family of his teacher and fell in love with the eldest daughter, Maitreyi Devi (and she with him). She was 16 years old at the time. Her family disapproved strongly and kicked Eliade out of the house. A few years later he published a novel called Maitreyi, in Romanian (Bengal Nights is its English title), about the relationship, but fictionalized to make it much racier than it really was. Apparently the real Maitreyi didn't find out about the novel until many years later. Not until 1972 did she learn the whole story. At that point she wrote her own novel, to set the record straight. Her novel was published in Bengali, but she later translated it herself into English. 

The two novels, in English, were reprinted by the University of Chicago Press in 1994, and they should be read together. Eliade's novel, published in 1933, is fairly obnoxious. He loves Maitreyi, but he's so unsure about loving a Bengali girl. It takes him a while to see her as attractive. He also can't believe in her talents: she is a poet, but Eliade thinks she's really just a silly girl. Devi's response, published in 1974, shows that she is much more intelligent and thoughtful than Eliade gave her credit for. Her description of their love affair also makes much more sense than Eliade's x-rated fantasy.

It took me a while to work my way through the two translated novels, but it was worth it. Without going into detail, I'll say it helped me think about my own teenage romance in a better way.

I also finished the second of my two Barbara Pyms this week (I read two every February), but that was more of a slog than it usually is. I started thinking maybe in years to come I'll just read one novel by Barbara Pym each year. I guess I can play it by ear -- maybe some years I'll want to read one and some years two. But I've read all her books so many times -- I think one re-read per year might be the right amount, not two. We'll see.

In the bathroom, where I read The New Yorker, I'm currently working my way through the November 28, 2022 issue, which is all about climate change. Come to think of it, that might have something to do with my mood as well. Right now I'm reading Elizabeth Kolbert's "A Vast Experiment: The climate crisis from A to Z." Although she reminds us, under "D," that "Despair is unproductive. It's also a sin," I don't know how you can read this article without plunging into despair. At one point she mentions a recent survey where Americans said what they thought was the greatest problem facing the nation: most chose inflation. Only 1% said climate change. I just took a survey like that, on Mechanical Turk! And I said the greatest problem was women's reproductive issues. 

But if women can't control their uteruses, how will they have the time and energy to work on climate change?

And then there's the Turkish earthquake, which I just noticed has fallen off the front page. I think a whole lot of people are still suffering, though.

Let's see, what else? Oh, I've decided I have skin cancer. I have this little red spot on my hand that won't go away and I've decided it looks just like the pictures of basal cell or squamous cell skin cancers all over the web. I see my doctor in two weeks for my yearly appointment, so I'll let her tell me it's nothing then. In the meantime I can stress about it, because what would life be without something to stress about?

Reading this post over, it seems ridiculous: cooking struggles, climate change; the Turkish earthquake, and a tiny little spot that probably isn't skin cancer.

When you're feeling low, it's hard to identify what really matters.

Not much going on this coming week, other than an orthodontist appointment for me and that snowstorm. And Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. I used to observe Lent, a little, back when I was in grad school and went to church regularly. I think we'll skip it this year.

Midwinter musings

We are almost halfway through the shortest month. February always seems to go so fast. The weather this past week was quite pleasant -- a few frigid days, but mostly warmish weather, in the 40s and occasionally 50s. Today it's sunny and 45. We've got some cold and snow coming -- Tuesday night, when Teen B of course has a band concert -- it snowed the night of his last band concert, too. But it's fine. It's February. We'll survive.

This has been a strange week, though, for a couple of reasons. First, a lot of illness. Teen A was already sick last weekend and Teen B came down with the illness on Tuesday or so. He came home from school in the middle of the day Wednesday and stayed home Thursday and Friday. He's still sick today, though I'll send him back to school tomorrow. Meanwhile, I haven't gotten sick, but I'm suspicious. I woke up with a little congestion this morning and then developed a headache. Going for a walk seems to have shaken the headache. I'll see how it goes this week.

The other thing that made the week strange was the earthquake in Turkey, or Turkiye, as I think we are supposed to say now. So terrible -- and so far away. But at the same time close, because I'd just been on a Zoom call with some old friends from that part of the world, two weeks before. They're both fine -- they live in western Turkiye, Istanbul and Eskisehir. But the devastation that a large part of the country is facing is so extreme. And then poor Syria, with aid workers not even allowed in to help. And it's so cold, apparently. 

The extent of the devastation has been kind of overwhelming to me. It keeps popping back into my mind and I just can't conceive of it.

So, kind of an odd week. Other than the illness and the terrible stuff on the news, I was productive. I stuck to my schedule pretty well. The house got cleaner -- Teen B even participated a little. The kids are VERY dismissive of the FlyLady and my love for her, making fun of her every time I mention her. This doesn't bother me at all. I know she's easy to make fun of, and I also know that she's changed my life. On Thursday and Friday mornings, after Teen A left for school, I went in my room and made my bed, with Teen B following. "Do you make your bed every day?" he asked me, in horror. "Try to," I said, spreading it up. "That's so weird," he said, helping to straighten out the sheet and blanket. It may be the first time he's ever made a bed, IN HIS LIFE, since he and his brother don't sleep in normally-made beds. They just lie on the fitted sheet and wrap themselves up in cuddly fleece throws. 

I got some writing time in almost every day, and I realized that I am actually making progress on my little novel. I am on Chapter 16 (out of a planned 22-24). I know that I will need to do a lot of revising (mysteries need a very tight plot), but the end of the first draft is in sight. That's very exciting, even though I don't expect to publish the book. We'll see. Maybe I'll self-publish. Not sure if there's really any point in doing that, but it could be fun. Anyway, I'm enjoying the writing process.

After writing (which is from 11 to 12) I'm supposed to exercise, and for the first time in months I got with it. I took a walk on five days out of seven, the best I've done since December, when there was one week with that many walks, and before that October. So I was pleased with myself.

I also buckled down and did a lot of Mechanical Turk work this week (scheduled for 1-2 pm). Some days were better than others, but in general I think it's a terrible way to earn money. I got my first "paycheck" deposited in my bank account on Thursday: $5.56! That's OK, I told myself. I made a $400 payment on my credit card on Friday, and $5 of it was my Mechanical Turk earnings. That's better than zero, which is what I earned most of the previous 150+ weeks. My goal this week is to make at least twice that much, and I have already earned about $8, with three days left. But that $8 represents hours and hours of work! Most of the surveys pay, like, 18 cents. Or 37 cents. Or sometimes 5 cents.

My understanding is that with Mechanical Turk, the pay rate gets better the more you do. There are some tasks that you don't get approved to do until you've completed 100 or 1000 other tasks. I've so far done, I think, 47 tasks. So I'll just keep plodding along for a while.  

One sweet thing: I was telling Rocket Boy about my tiny earnings, and how long it had taken me to earn them, and he said, "Why are you wasting your time on that? You should be working on your novel!" I think that may be the only time in my life someone's implied that my creative writing projects are important. I was quick to remind him that I'm not going to make any money off my little novel, but he held firm: "it's better than that stupid Amazon crap."

I also worked on the taxes for the first couple of days, but once I had Teen B at home, that got harder. By 2 or 3 pm in the afternoon he wanted me to pay attention to HIM, not work on the taxes. So I didn't get much done. But another week starts tomorrow.

I had a good week of cooking, except for Monday, which was a disaster. I made Baked Farro with Lentils, Tomato, and Feta, from the NY Times, and it was terrible. Neither the farro nor the lentils cooked properly (hello, high altitude cooking), there was way too much tomato puree, and the whole thing was awful. We ate a little bit of it and all the rest went in the compost. But the rest of the week was OK: I made a quiche on Tuesday, Red Bean & Rice Bake on Wednesday, and Cheesy Baked Macaroni on Thursday; Friday we had a choice of leftovers from all three dinners. I think the latter two recipes might actually be from Weight Watchers originally -- I used to make so many recipes from WW cookbooks. But they're not terrible. The kids ate them all willingly.

One problem with cooking: Baby Kitty has decided that the warm stovetop is a great place to take a nap! He loves it when there's actually something in the oven, but it stays warm for hours after I turn the oven off, so he stays up there, dozing. This reminds me of the story of my grandmother's wood stove, the one with two warming ovens -- which she sold to a woman with two cats who enjoyed sleeping in warming ovens. 

There is now cat hair in all the drip pans under the burners. And who (other than the fam) will want to eat anything I cook?

I don't know what I'm going to make this week. We were supposed to eat out tonight -- we were supposed to eat out last night, but nobody could come to a decision about where. So I made them sandwiches and ramen, and eating out got pushed to tonight, but we couldn't come to a consensus tonight either. So I had what was left of the leftovers, Teen A had ramen, and Teen B had nothing. He begged me to cook for him, but I wouldn't do it, so he just went to bed. Mad.

I wasn't angry with the kids, really -- I wasn't disregulated so much as fed up. I can't make dinner every night, I just can't. I work so hard to do it six nights out of seven. I dislike it so much, but I do it. But the seventh night -- or in this case the eighth night -- I need a break. You can't just keep pushing yourself forever, you have to have breaks to refuel and recharge.

But of course now I feel bad. Oh well. I guess we'll try again next week. One problem is that there aren't very many restaurants in Boulder anymore, at least not in our price range. So when we're kicking around ideas, nobody really wants to go anywhere.

***

A few days ago I finished The Warmth of Other Suns, the book that was making me so unhappy. It got a little easier to take as I went along, but still I was inordinately relieved to have it over. Then I picked up Michelle Obama's Becoming, which I thought would be totally different, and realized that it's the same story, watered down. She grew up in Chicago. Her grandparents were all part of the Great Migration. She dealt with all the issues discussed in Other Suns. Her book is written for a more general audience, so she is more gentle with that audience, but it's the same story, and I think her book is bothering me more than it would have if I hadn't read Other Suns. In fact, I realize that every book I read from here on out about any aspect of the African-American experience is going to be influenced by my reading of Other Suns. That's quite an achievement for a book.

I'm only 125 pages into Becoming, so I'll be reading it for a few more days, but I am starting to enjoy it. I've always liked Michelle Obama, what I've known of her, and it's fun to learn more about her. I didn't know she was a list-maker like me. I am amused by her struggles to live with her much-less-organized boyfriend-and-later-husband.

So, another week is over, or nearly. In the week ahead, we have Valentine's day and Teen B's concert on Tuesday, my sister's scary heart surgery on Wednesday (and Teen B's orthodontist appointment the same day), and I think that's about it. Rocket Boy sent a box full of chocolate, which we've opened already, but I won't let the twins have any until Tuesday. 

Also this week: perhaps I will finally get a bill from ServPro, who I am less and less happy with. They did finally call on Thursday, and said they were going back down in the crawl space of our rental house to check on the work (that the mold tester criticized). But I didn't hear anything after that. Maybe this week. In the meantime we've learned about several other repairs that we need to make on the house:

1. The entrance to the crawl space is collapsing and should be dug out and redone.
2. The thermostat in the hallway should be replaced.
3. The furnace's cold air return is incorrectly located in the bathroom and should be rerouted to the closest bedroom.
4. The current furnace was incorrectly installed and needs to be taken out and reinstalled properly.

But the first step (I think) is to deal with the mold. And we can't do that until we hear back from ServPro and figure out how much we need to pay them. So I hope I find out this week -- or do I? I don't really have the money to pay them. Maybe it would be better if they'd lay low for another month or so...

February pinks

I was going to call this post "February blues," but it occurred to me that it is February, and therefore the color should be pink, not blue. I am kind of blue, though.

This has been a productive week, if not really a happy one. That is, I got all sorts of things done, made dinner, pretty much stuck to my schedule every day, checked things off lists. And was gloomy. But it's better to be gloomy and productive than gloomy and unproductive. I think.

I don't know why I'm feeling low. I mean, the money is part of it. I'm so horrified by the financial mess we're in. But the fact is, unlike many people, we have options. The easiest one, and the one we'll probably use, is to dip into our mutual funds. I'm not sure how much we have, after the stock market crash, but certainly enough to pay the property taxes (and have some left over). I hate hate hate getting into the mutual funds, because once they're gone, we'll have to start selling off properties (which Rocket Boy will never agree to). Or get into our retirement funds. I guess we could do that. That's not sustainable, though. You shouldn't base your financial life on "getting into" or "dipping into" things that aren't supposed to be gotten/dipped into. Those are supposed to be for EMERGENCIES. Every year can't be an emergency. 

I know why I let this happen this year, though. I watched myself not putting any money into savings over the summer and I thought, "It's OK. By October or so, I'll have a job, and then we'll have more money coming in and we'll be able to save and pay for things." Sigh. I need to not do that this year. It would be great if I got a job, but I shouldn't assume that it's going to happen.

But I don't think the money is the whole problem here. It's more likely to be seasonal affective disorder. I haven't been exercising at all, for weeks now -- too cold, snowy, icy, windy, cold, icy -- yeah, much better to stay home, preferably sitting down.

Today, just now, I finally took a walk, with kind Teen B coming along for moral support. It's in the 40s today, and it's actually been in the 50s a few days this week, so we've had some good melting. I was just going to walk down the street to the park and then turn around and come back again, but with his encouragement we also walked over to the playground and back that way. We spent 18 minutes walking (very very slowly, with breaks), so that was good. Maybe, if I can keep doing that most days, my mood will start to improve.

But it was a pretty gloomy walk (though nice to be out and about with Teen B). Everything is so ugly right now, so brown and gray. Patches of snow (there's a lot still on our lawn). What wouldn't I give to see a flower blooming. Not at the grocery store, in someone's yard. I know, I know, it's winter. Flowers don't bloom in the winter (in Colorado). I should appreciate the quiet joys of winter. But somehow that's not working for me this year.

One other thing that I know for certain is contributing to my mood: I am reading the world's most depressing book. Seriously, it's breaking my heart. The book is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, about the Black migration from the South in the 20th century to escape Jim Crow. It's one of those that's been sitting by my bedside for a couple of years, and it's something I actually wanted to read. I bought it at Barnes & Noble, new, paid full price for it. 

I realize that I don't have to finish it. I could close it now, give it to Goodwill, leave it in a little free library. But I can't, of course. I have to finish it, and then I'll probably keep it -- put it on a shelf and try to get other people to read it and be miserable too. I'm on page 242 (out of about 545) and the three people that the author focuses on, Ida Mae, George, and Robert/Pershing, have just made it out of the terrible terrible South to their new homes in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, respectively. But now things are going to get worse.

I read a little bit at a time. At first I thought I was going to try to finish the book in four days, but it's Day 5 and I'm not even halfway along. What I finally figured out was that I have to read it in conjunction with something cheerful. So I'm reading Crampton Hodnet, one of my Barbara Pyms for this year. I read 20 pages or so of The Warmth of Other Suns, and then I read a chapter of Crampton Hodnet. And then I go to bed, because I can't read The Warmth of Other Suns right before going to bed, it's just SO SAD. I can't take it.

Maybe, I tell myself, the fact that I'm finding it so sad means I don't have to read it. Other people, people who think Critical Race Theory is a lie, for instance, should read it and learn something. The thing is, though, I'm learning a lot too. African-American history is so little taught in this country that most people don't know much of anything. When I finally get to the end of the book, I know I will be a more knowledgeable person.

It just hurts so much, getting there. Arrgghh, this stuff is painful!

***

OK, enough of that for now. Let's think about what's been going well. As I said above, this was a productive week. For dinner we had marinated green beans and tofu over rice on Monday, vegetarian tamale pie (see photo) on Tuesday and leftover tamale pie on Wednesday, fried rice on Thursday, and then on Friday I kind of pooped out, so I made Teen A a grilled sandwich and Teen B had a can of soup (I had crackers and cheese). But still, it's dinner. Saturday we got MacDonald's (I had more crackers and cheese). Today we'll have pancakes, and Monday I'm going to make a dish involving farro, lentils, and feta -- we'll see how that goes. And beyond that I don't know, haven't planned the meals for the coming week yet. I'll do it tomorrow.

I have a lot of strategies for getting things done these days. I find that it helps to have several strategies going at once, because one may work where another fails. These are what I use:

1. Lists. I keep a running to-do list (rather than writing a brand-new one each day) and I also keep a done list, which is more cheering than checking things off the to-do list (though I do that too). I also constantly refer to my general FlyLady to-do lists: Morning Routines, Evening Routines, and the Monday Home Blessing.

2. Schedules. Schedules are kind of like big lists. They help to organize the days. I use the FlyLady's schedules and I also have my own. For instance, FlyLady divides the month into cleaning zones, which is helpful because when you're faced with your big messy house and you don't know where to start, you can say to yourself, what week is this? If it's the first week or half week (e.g., the first week of February this year has only three weekdays), it's time to clean the dining room, entryway, and front porch (for people who don't live at the North Pole). The second week is the kitchen. And so on.

FlyLady also has specific tasks for certain days of the week, but I don't follow that schedule closely. I do try to do the Home Blessing on Monday, and I pay bills on Friday. But on the other days I mostly just do whatever. I often grocery shop on Monday, but sometimes it seems better to do it on Sunday, or even Saturday. Errands can be done any day.

However, I also have started making myself a daily schedule, changing it by the month. For February, I have five main blocks of time while the twins are at school.

• 10am-11am: Cleaning and doing FlyLady things. The power of 3 (see below) is very important here.
  
• 11am-12 noon: Writing. I usually spend 15-30 minutes on my novel and the rest of the time on email.
  
• 12 noon-1pm: Lunch and exercise. So far I haven't actually exercised during this time, but since I went for a walk today, maybe this week will go better. Hmm.
  
• 1pm-2pm: Earning or saving money. So far I've used this time to write and submit a Chicken Soup for the Soul story (which undoubtedly won't be accepted, but at least I tried), sign up for Amazon Mechanical Turk and do a few surveys (total earnings: maybe $2?), and fill out a questionnaire for a CU study (earnings: $30).
  
• 2pm-3pm: Working on the files and taxes (my February project). I did a lot of filing this week!
  

3. The timer. I first learned about the power of 15 minutes from Virginia Valian, in her article "Learning to Work," published in 1977. In that famous article she suggests setting your timer for 15 minutes when you have something really awful to do. My timer helped me write my dissertation (as it helped Valian write hers).

I was amused when I encountered the 15-minute strategy again with FlyLady. It really works. Every night, facing a terrible kitchen, I set my timer for 15 minutes. I can't tell you how many times I've finished and gone off to do something else, forgetting about the timer, which then rings several minutes later -- because it doesn't actually take 15 minutes to clean my kitchen, it just looks like it's going to. When I need to do the breakfast dishes, I set the timer for 5 minutes and it doesn't even take that long.

This past Tuesday I wanted to vacuum the house, but since I hadn't vacuumed in a few weeks, I also didn't want to. I felt afraid. I was so unhappy. I said to myself, "In 15 minutes, this will be over." This turned out not to be quite true, because 15 minutes later, when the timer rang, I still had a room to do. So I kept going. It actually took me 19 minutes to vacuum the house (there were a lot of things to pick up and at one point the vacuum sucked up a whole plastic newspaper bag -- bad vacuum!). But at the end of the 19 minutes, the house looked a lot better and I was glad I'd done the vacuuming. And best of all, it was over.

(On a larger scale, this is also a way to approach my reading. If I read 50 pages of The Warmth of Other Suns every day this week, by next Sunday it will be over too.)

4. The power of three. This isn't a FlyLady trick, but it works very well in conjunction with FlyLady. I think the way it's supposed to work is that you pick three things you want to accomplish  that day and then do them. Nothing else, just those three. But I use the technique a little differently. Let's say it's 10 am and at 10 am on my February Schedule it says "FlyLady stuff, cleaning." OK, so I could do the daily mission or I could declutter or I could do part of the Weekly Home Blessing or I could clean the litter boxes, or or or. Meanwhile, the minutes have started to tick by. So I get out a post-it note, stick it to the kitchen counter, and I jot down three tasks:

1. Clean litter boxes.
2. Declutter for 15 minutes.
3. Mop the kitchen floor.
   

And then I get busy. I clean the three litter boxes, however long that takes. I set the timer for 15 minutes and do some decluttering in the room of the week. And then I get out my mop. When I've finished the three things I look at the clock. If it's only 10:30 or so, then I write down three more things on my post-it note and do them. But if it's more like 10:45, I say good enough, and pour myself another cup of tea.

Sometimes not even these tricks work. Sometimes I'm so freaked out about everything I can't get myself to do even one thing. In that situation I have two choices:

1. Choose ONE small task to do, only one, and tell myself that's the only thing I have to do today. Then set the timer and go do it. Afterwards, relax, have a cup of tea, read a (cheerful) book. Maybe later I'll want to do a second thing, and maybe I won't.
2. Give up, have a cup of tea, read a book (Barbara Pym, not Other Suns). Tomorrow is another day.
   

The thing that's disappointing about having such a productive week (as this one was) is that it doesn't necessarily make me happy. Isn't that nuts? I made dinner, I cleaned things, I worked on the horrible FILES for goodness' sake. I worked on my NOVEL. I put almost all the Christmas stuff away (left up some lights because they're cheery). I took Teen A to the dentist on Wednesday and to get his hair cut on Thursday and I took Teen B to get his hair cut on Saturday. I went to bed more or less on time, and I got up each morning and did Wordle. One day I even got it in two tries!

Didn't matter. Nothing made me happy. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do on that score. You have to keep pushing on, knowing that at some point you'll feel better. And so on we go.

Reading post: Books from the pile by my nightstand, part 1

Well, Karen of the Classics Challenge has announced that she won't be running it this year -- I expected that, but I'm still sad. It's OK, though -- she may bring it back in 2024. This means I will spend 2023 reading books off my shelves, as I planned. Although it's definitely not as interesting as the Classics Challenge, I plan to write an update at the end of each month. Feel free to ignore these posts.

That said, with January over, I am ready for my first update. I had chosen five books from the pile to read in January, all of which I finished.

1. Windy City Dying by Eleanor Bland. A few years ago, when I was reading Black literature, I bought most of Bland's mysteries, and I hadn't read any in a while, so decided to read the next in the series. It was very good, one of the better entries, I thought. I'm keeping it for now, along with the rest of her books, so I've put it on a shelf in the mystery section.
   
2. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I picked this up at Goodwill at some point. I think Trevor Noah is funny, so thought I would enjoy his memoir. I did like it, and I learned some things about South Africa. I don't feel the need to hang on to it, though, so it's in a box headed back to Goodwill (or maybe a little free library).
   
3. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin. The third book in the Broken Earth trilogy -- I bought these new at the Boulder Bookstore a couple years ago and read the first two last year. The Stone Sky was very good, but of the three Broken Earth books I think the first one, The Fifth Season, was my favorite. I'm keeping all three -- they're now on the science fiction shelf in the kids' room (which we will revisit later this year, since there are several books on that shelf that I haven't read).
   
4. Waterland by Graham Swift. I had wanted to read this book because it's partly about eels, and it was referenced in The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson that I read in 2021 and really liked. So I found a copy of Waterland at I think the Bookworm, and kept it by my bed, waiting for the right time to read it. I was expecting to love it, but actually didn't. Not enough eels, really. And as I dragged myself through it, I kept thinking -- this reminds me of something I've read before, but I can't think what it is. He's not a very original author, is he, copying things that have been done before. Then I got to the scene with the teenagers at the river, daring each other to strip. I thought -- this is so familiar, he obviously copied it from some other novel that I've read but forgotten. And then I thought -- have I READ this before? So I went to the Google Sheet where a few years ago I started entering the 2300-plus books I've read since 1980, and I typed in "Graham." Here's a book by Graham Greene, and oh yes, here's Waterland by Graham Swift, read in October 1997. Huh. Sigh. Alzheimer's, here we come. I considered not finishing it, but decided that since my memories of it were so hazy, I might as well, so I did. I didn't love it, but I feel as though it's earned a place on my shelves -- in case I forget once again that I've read it already.
   
5. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson. I've had this sitting around a LONG time -- not sure where it came from, maybe Goodwill or a library book sale. I've started to read it a few times and set it down, even though I enjoyed all of Atkinson's previous Jackson Brodie books. I didn't like the beginning, where the retired cop buys a child. It made me queasy. But this time I powered on through and I ended up liking the book a lot. Still, I'm not going to keep it. It's already in a box headed to Goodwill.
   

For February, I have picked out five more books from the pile by the nightstand (see photo). I thought I'd choose books by Black authors, since it's Black history month and all that, so four of them fall into that category, and then there's one by a Native American author. I'm also going to read the two early Barbara Pyms at the top left in the picture, because I read two Barbara Pyms every February, and I'm on the waiting list at the library for the book for the book group (The Forgery by Ave Barrera), and I've requested something else from the library just for fun, so that'll probably be it. I've decided to postpone my next presidential bio to March, since February is a short month and some of these are long books.

I realized, reading along this month, that books often sit in to-be-read piles for a long time FOR A REASON. They're long and daunting, or I read a few pages and don't like the beginning, or I think I ought to want to read them, but don't really. I'm sure many of them will turn out to be great (some already have), but most of these are not books I've been desperately wanting to read, they're books I've been wanting to put off reading. So this isn't going to be an easy reading year. However, I must keep reminding myself that I don't HAVE to read these books. If I work on one for a while and I'm not enjoying it, I can STOP and put it in the Goodwill box. I really can. We'll see how it goes.