a whole day of fucking off
Dec. 29th, 2018 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I did nothing of note today, and it was fucking fantastic. I spent the whole thing fighting not to leap up and go Do Something. But I didn't do anything.
I haven't even finished a load of laundry. I started one. That's it. Probably get it out of the washer tonight and hang to dry, but no guarantees. Slept in, finished leftovers for breakfast. Went out for noodles for lunch because Dude's nursing a cold and needed some pho to beat the congestion back for a minute. Made colcannon [Irish nutrient paste] for dinner, which turned out great if I do say so myself.
I worked a little on the illuminated map design I'm trying to finalize for my sister for Christmas or whatever. I should have worked on the embroidery design for my mother; I have a feeling I'll just scale it back drastically and put it in a hoop instead of on a pillow. C'est la vie.
(I found out Mom specialized this year in asking for time-extravagant gifts from her time-strapped daughters; Middle-Little's sole gift list item was "dinner at your apartment", which would be tricky. In September of 2017, I absolutely killed myself for an entire week, spending evenings and an entire weekend just hauling shit out of her disaster of an apartment in time for her to host a stupid Tupperware-party-style event there. I mean, I worked my tail off cleaning that place. And the idea was that with that good running start, which was meant to help offset the chaos of having had a series of bad maintenance events and finishing her graduate degree, she'd be off with a relatively clean slate on the path of Keeping Her Apartment Reasonable.
Reader, it was trashed by December. And by the end of the summer of 2018, despite her getting a new higher-paying job, despite her no longer being in school, despite her working fewer hours and not having near-fatal pneumonia and not having the ceiling collapse like it had in 2017-- all of those advantages, and she instantly filled it with debris again and it was worse than before. Which filled me with despair, and I admit made me less motivated to clean my own apartment. If Middle-Little couldn't keep her place clean, with a clean slate like that [and I had mortgaged my own good will with Farmsister by prevailing upon her to let Middle-Little store things in one of the barn lofts, with absolute promises that the junk wouldn't stay there-- well, it's still there]-- then what chance did I have, starting from way down the hill and badly underwater? [Especially when Farmsister formed a habit of using her spare key to let herself in and load the dishwasher from time to time? Middle-Little's apartment is right near Farmkid's nursery school and we all have spare keys.]
Anyway. New Year's Brunch is at her place [nobody's in town except her, Mom, and Dad], and Mom is bringing takeout, but it's going to be at her apartment and that's all Mom wants for Christmas. Is that meaner than asking me for embroidery?
Yes, probably. But. I hate to say it, but Middle-Little kind of deserves it. Mom's got PTSD for real from having to clean out her brother's trashed house when he died, and she worries constantly about Middle-Little suffocating under a collapsed pile of old newspapers with her cat eating her eyelids or whatever. So like. OK I'll suck it up and embroider you a pillowcase, Mom.
Though to be fair, Middle-Little not being able to keep her apartment reasonable despite a lot of pitching in from her siblings is one thing; me not having the mental ability to figure out my embroidery machine is a different thing, and it's hard to quantify but I know there's a difference. I haven't asked anyone for help, for one. Not to be judgy but Christ, I can't tell you how many boxes of magazines I hauled out of that place and up into the barn loft because Middle-Little won't let anyone throw out a magazine she hasn't read, that she still hasn't read in an additional year.)
I also cashed in all the points I've earned from selling [a particular brand of] cameras, which don't seem like much but I'd been hoarding them, and I had nearly $400 in giftcard credits, which I applied to my Amazon account and then I bought myself a refurbished like-new Google Pixel 2 phone. So that wound up being free.
My Samsung Galaxy 5 isn't dead yet but it's slowing way down, and I want a new phone, I've had the other one since 2013? 2014?, and what the hell. They can't give me a raise above minimum, but my immediate supervisor has figured out how to claim the online sales of this one brand of camera, and nobody else was recording the serial numbers, so he is, and he divvys them up among the various people he oversees, and it adds up. I mean, it's not like getting paid regularly, but I'll take a new phone. (He spends his on groceries, so. He hasn't had a raise in longer than me but he's salaried and gets holidays and sick time, so. I only have my job so that he can ever have a day off ever in his life. It's a weird workplace.)
So anyway. I'll probably give in to impulse and run around like a fool tomorrow, but today was fantastic, if nerve-wracking. I'm really not good at being idle, but it was super important to Dude that we not Do Anything today, and I didn't feel like embarking on any major projects without him.
I haven't even finished a load of laundry. I started one. That's it. Probably get it out of the washer tonight and hang to dry, but no guarantees. Slept in, finished leftovers for breakfast. Went out for noodles for lunch because Dude's nursing a cold and needed some pho to beat the congestion back for a minute. Made colcannon [Irish nutrient paste] for dinner, which turned out great if I do say so myself.
I worked a little on the illuminated map design I'm trying to finalize for my sister for Christmas or whatever. I should have worked on the embroidery design for my mother; I have a feeling I'll just scale it back drastically and put it in a hoop instead of on a pillow. C'est la vie.
(I found out Mom specialized this year in asking for time-extravagant gifts from her time-strapped daughters; Middle-Little's sole gift list item was "dinner at your apartment", which would be tricky. In September of 2017, I absolutely killed myself for an entire week, spending evenings and an entire weekend just hauling shit out of her disaster of an apartment in time for her to host a stupid Tupperware-party-style event there. I mean, I worked my tail off cleaning that place. And the idea was that with that good running start, which was meant to help offset the chaos of having had a series of bad maintenance events and finishing her graduate degree, she'd be off with a relatively clean slate on the path of Keeping Her Apartment Reasonable.
Reader, it was trashed by December. And by the end of the summer of 2018, despite her getting a new higher-paying job, despite her no longer being in school, despite her working fewer hours and not having near-fatal pneumonia and not having the ceiling collapse like it had in 2017-- all of those advantages, and she instantly filled it with debris again and it was worse than before. Which filled me with despair, and I admit made me less motivated to clean my own apartment. If Middle-Little couldn't keep her place clean, with a clean slate like that [and I had mortgaged my own good will with Farmsister by prevailing upon her to let Middle-Little store things in one of the barn lofts, with absolute promises that the junk wouldn't stay there-- well, it's still there]-- then what chance did I have, starting from way down the hill and badly underwater? [Especially when Farmsister formed a habit of using her spare key to let herself in and load the dishwasher from time to time? Middle-Little's apartment is right near Farmkid's nursery school and we all have spare keys.]
Anyway. New Year's Brunch is at her place [nobody's in town except her, Mom, and Dad], and Mom is bringing takeout, but it's going to be at her apartment and that's all Mom wants for Christmas. Is that meaner than asking me for embroidery?
Yes, probably. But. I hate to say it, but Middle-Little kind of deserves it. Mom's got PTSD for real from having to clean out her brother's trashed house when he died, and she worries constantly about Middle-Little suffocating under a collapsed pile of old newspapers with her cat eating her eyelids or whatever. So like. OK I'll suck it up and embroider you a pillowcase, Mom.
Though to be fair, Middle-Little not being able to keep her apartment reasonable despite a lot of pitching in from her siblings is one thing; me not having the mental ability to figure out my embroidery machine is a different thing, and it's hard to quantify but I know there's a difference. I haven't asked anyone for help, for one. Not to be judgy but Christ, I can't tell you how many boxes of magazines I hauled out of that place and up into the barn loft because Middle-Little won't let anyone throw out a magazine she hasn't read, that she still hasn't read in an additional year.)
I also cashed in all the points I've earned from selling [a particular brand of] cameras, which don't seem like much but I'd been hoarding them, and I had nearly $400 in giftcard credits, which I applied to my Amazon account and then I bought myself a refurbished like-new Google Pixel 2 phone. So that wound up being free.
My Samsung Galaxy 5 isn't dead yet but it's slowing way down, and I want a new phone, I've had the other one since 2013? 2014?, and what the hell. They can't give me a raise above minimum, but my immediate supervisor has figured out how to claim the online sales of this one brand of camera, and nobody else was recording the serial numbers, so he is, and he divvys them up among the various people he oversees, and it adds up. I mean, it's not like getting paid regularly, but I'll take a new phone. (He spends his on groceries, so. He hasn't had a raise in longer than me but he's salaried and gets holidays and sick time, so. I only have my job so that he can ever have a day off ever in his life. It's a weird workplace.)
So anyway. I'll probably give in to impulse and run around like a fool tomorrow, but today was fantastic, if nerve-wracking. I'm really not good at being idle, but it was super important to Dude that we not Do Anything today, and I didn't feel like embarking on any major projects without him.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 04:39 am (UTC)One of the things that go with a bigger income is that it’s easier to not hold on to all the stuff. Mr. Paean and I did a major purge when I started making over 40k a year, because suddenly the idea of replacing something became doable. And it’s just gotten easier as we become more secure. none of the trendy (and frankly condescending) simplify your life articles ever seem to address that it’s as much about financial security as it is emotional attachment to one’s physical possessions.
A nice side effect of limiting all the stuff in the House has been my allergies and asthma are so much better with less stuff to collect dust in all the corners. But it wouldn’t have been at all possible to do that when we were living on less.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 07:02 pm (UTC)My parents lovingly packed up all kinds of baby things when my little sister outgrew them in 1986, and got them out when my older sister finally had a baby in 2006, and... threw most of them immediately away. They'd spent 30 years in the attic and were in the same condition they'd been in when they went away, but in 1986 my parents were poor, and in 2006, they both had full pensions and had inherited money from their parents and all of their children had left the nest.
Mom literally threw almost every single garment away. "I will buy a new one," she said, and did.
Meanwhile Dad has been clearing out the multiple outbuildings around the property, and he literally said the same-- "I put this away to use because it was good enough, but it's not perfect and I can afford to buy a perfect one if I need it, so there's no reason to keep hanging onto it." Also, he's got some further clarity on the situation: "And when I die, nobody will remember what I was saving this for, and they'll have to pay to have it hauled away. So I'm going to save them that trouble. Or, really, probably you..."
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 09:33 pm (UTC)It's a good reminder to me why I need to not keep any of the baby stuff (I want a third, Mr. P says he's done.) We passed most of it along after Monkey until I got pregnant again, and then managed to be in another hand-me-down chain just in time for Pigeon to have more than enough baby clothes. For kids' stuff, there's usually someone who will be just as happy to have what you are giving away as you were when you used it.
When I was in between broke student budget and middle class, I used to be a serious craigslister. At that time, it was worth dealing random internet buyers to get my $10 for the bookshelf I no longer wanted, but was at least willing to part with things on the basis that I could probably buy it back used if I really needed it again.