Update September 21, 2024

News

Saturday

Saturday D14, dad, and I went to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. It was pretty good – over-the-top, but that’s to be expected. IL5 and I hung out for a few hours after that – though he didn’t want to do any fun activity. That was while Aaron was at his board gaming group. Finally, I went out for drinks with a friend. IL5 really wanted me to read the same Desmond Cole book as Friday. I’m glad he’s enjoying them!

Sunday

Sunday, I worked until 5pm. In the evening, Aaron, dad, and I watched “Big Fat Liar.” I’m not sure what to think of that movie. It amused me all the way through, but it also is 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Monday

Monday I worked till 5. I got a letter written and some reading done in my downtime. At home, Aaron cooked burgers. Then I made a quinoa salad for a couple upcoming lunches and some pork chops for M12’s upcoming dinners. IL5 enjoyed playing with LEGO at school. D14 had a “mostly ok” day. M12 seemed unexcited by his day.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a pain. I got off work an hour early so I could drive to the regional office and take the CPR class. When that was over, I had a two hour break before a second class, this one for self defense against belligerent clients. I spent the time trying to find out what my new insurance ID was so I could stop cancelling appointments.

I started by calling up my benefits hotline, since that’s what they told me to do when I signed up for my insurance. They didn’t want to help, and told me to call insurance. After going through another “check 2 if…” menu, and being unable to plug in my ID number when prompted, I got through to a person. She told me I didn’t have an account and hung up on me. Click. So I call benefits again, and they say I definitely have insurance, but refuse to call for me. So I call insurance again, and that person tells me I have no insurance. But they do a better job of looking for me and after 20 minutes with them, she finds my account – she’d misspelled my name. Then when I got home that day, my insurance card was in the mailbox. That’s 45 minutes I’ll never get back.

Then nobody came to teach my second class. Apparently, they didn’t have anyone signed up to teach it. But someone higher up found a couple of people, and made them teach us. They had somewhere to be, so taught the 2 hour class in 20 minutes.

In the evening, Liz came over and we watched Doctor Who. The kids didn’t have anything exciting to say about their days.

Wednesday

Wednesday was glorious. When I returned home from my overnight job, I took a 2 hour nap and then had a late lunch with Aaron. Then I read for a while. IL5 seemed excited about school when he got home and told me about his best friend (whose name he doesn’t know). M12’s day at school was “ok.” D14 had fun at crew. In the evening, I read to D14.

Thursday

Thursday was hard for me, but harder for my client’s son. I went directly from my overnight job to my day job, and stayed there till 5, so I only had 4 hours before going back to my overnight job. But that was expected. My client had deteriorated quite a bit from the last time I saw her, and my client’s son was very upset about it. He was like a black cloud, and he kept walking in and out of the house, instead of leaving, so his mood rubbed off on me. I was sitting there worrying what would happen if she passed and I lost my job while Aaron is unemployed. I am too picky for a job to be easy to find. I need a job between 9:30 and 3:00, that is only 2 days a week, not on Fridays, and doesn’t involve working with violent people. That’s an unreasonable amount of pickiness.

After my day job, Aaron, dad, IL5, and I went out to eat and D14 and M12 had fast food. Then we relaxed until I left for work.

Friday

Friday, I was super tired in the morning. My alarm went off at 7am at work like it usually does, but then I immediately fell back asleep (which is the first time that’s happened at work). At 7:40, I got a notification, and it felt like I had just closed my eyes for a moment. Luckily, I managed to scramble through the morning by skipping a few non-essential tasks.

Next, I took IL5 to speech therapy. Next, I’d made a last-minute appointment for dad for what he thought was an ear infection. It turned out to be a lot of fluid in the ears, so the doctor suggested Flonase and saline. Then we went to Target and then <shudder> Walmart for a tea kettle.

In the evening dad and I took IL5 to the playground.

Week’s Photos

Reading to myself

The Week: Triggered
New Scientist: Breaking Free from OCD
The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone, by Jaclyn Moriarty
The Wrong Daughter, by Dandy Smith
Behave, by Robert Sapolsky
Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett
The Wrong Daughter, by Dandy Smith
Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges

Reading to IL5

The Sleepwalking Snowman, by Andres Miedoso

D14 reading

57 Bus, by Dashka Slater
Everblaze, by Shannon Messenger (I’m reading this to her.)
This Poison Heart, by Kalynn Bayron

Media Completed

Lydia Deetz and her daughter Astrid go back to her haunted family home for a funeral. Beetlejuice is called on in an emergency. This movie was funny in an over-the-top way. Very enjoyable.

Bronte Mettlestone is sent on an adventure when her parents die – she must fulfill the fairy-cross-stitched will or else her home town will be destroyed. This was a delightful middle-school fantasy.