I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

In general, things here are good, but lately I'm feeling more waves of "stressed and drained" or "lonely and sad" amid the normal "productive and high-energy" states. Work is intense, although at least they love and appreciate me and make it worth my while! Passover is coming, which is never my favorite, but it's good to feel that sort of renewal and spring-cleaning process.

If anyone else is still on Finch (self-care app) and would like to friend me, my code is BHRPQNLDPZ. I downloaded it last week because it seems a lot more fun to have a little round birb chirping "go do some things! you are great!" at me than it is to just sit there doomscrolling for an extra hour every morning while I tell myself "get out of bed, dumbass". I'm not sure it's actually gotten me out of bed any faster, but it is somewhat satisfying, and on the plus side, here I am writing a 5-minute journal entry for the first time in some years.

I'm also about to get out of my chair and go to the gym, but that's more a function of spring break, in the sense that it's the first Sunday in months I don't have to get up and/or roust child out of bed to be somewhere. I started up this gym membership in July of 2024 and I actually went faithfully 6 days a week for about 2 months that summer, but that fell off as soon as school started up. My therapist says "you have to make time for yourself" but my sleep has been so broken for most of that time, I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it. It's been better in recent months, sleeping through til 6:30 instead of waking up 3:30 - so I really could get myself out of bed and use that time, but see previous paragraph about doomscrolling.

Also, the world is going to hell and it's terrifying. I am trying to plan out another visit to Boston exactly when airport security and jet fuel prices are both going insane, and I don't trust that either of these factors will blow over lightly. I am looking at bringing Ms A the first weekend of October for Simchat Torah at Tremont St., but if I could have my way, I would also come out by myself in June for a certain Beginning-of-Summer party. To say nothing of a bat mitzvah in late April and a friend's wedding over Labor Day, but those are looking less likely.

This past week was the 2026 JoCo Cruise; several people I know were on it, and I think it's fair to say that I was experiencing JoCo FOMO. I actually find that I fantasize a lot lately about traveling, not just to Boston but to other places - and that's making the above factors feel even more wistful.

I did get to Arisia this past January, for the first time since 2014, this time with 10yo Ms A in tow. It was a delight for both of us, but I'm going to punt that to (hopefully) a separate post as my timer is up.

Apparently it usually does take me 3 weeks to get this posted, but down the line I won't care how belated it was, so here it is. :-)

( 10 goals from 2016 )

( more things that happened in 2016 )

( 10 goals for 2017 )

This poor sentence is trapped in the wrong language. It is in Marketingspeak and needs to be in English. Can someone please help me translate it?

“Throughout the organization, efforts are being redeployed around member-focused initiatives.”

("Members" = our customers. This line would be tolerable if it were a marketing-internal document, but it's actually being published in a major customer-facing piece of collateral. NO NO NO NO NO just no.)

The snow started Saturday evening and continued through this morning. Forecast total of 10-14" (not sure how that translated to reality, but etrace's weather gauge measured 7.5 inches as of ~10am Sunday morning, and it's been snowing pretty continuously since). So I got over my East Coast blizzard envy from watching everyone's snow days last week. :-)

This morning:

Work: Still open, but half-hour delay!
Snow: *continues falling in inch-wide flakes*
Me: ...
Nephew: Hey, I shoveled your car out.
Me: <3 *drives carefully to work*
Boss: Well, I HAD to get here, 'cause I have like 50 projects on deadline!
Me: Great, can you pass anything to me, 'cause I have literally none?
Boss: Um, maybe? Let me get back to you.
Me: *finds 2 small projects and completes them*
Boss: *crickets*
Me: Sigh.
Boss: *gets on conference call*
Me: *gets on LJ*
Work: Hey, at least we're ordering in pizza for everyone who made it!

... I swear, I am really loving this job and everything they've had me do. I could just do with some *more* of it.

... I mean, a full-time housewife!
... I mean, a full-time freelancer! :-D

Because my last day at work was Friday. One more milestone down.

On Day 1 (Monday) I did what I thought was the majority of my taxes, only to find out that I was facing almost $2000 in taxes (federal + state) due to having earned almost $7500 in freelance income in 2013. So I spent the bulk of yesterday going back through my 2013 credit card statements to claim Every Single Possible Deductible Expense, with the help of a shiny new OpenOffice spreadsheet, and succeeded in getting that tax bill down to about $700. Go me!

Also, taylweaver had us over for lunch this past Shabbat, and jessruth came over on Sunday to help us start packing (and eat lentil stew and homemade cookies). And we packed another 5+ cartons of books last night, with more to come tonight.

Also, yesterday was Death of Windows XP Day. Sniff!