I have piles of rags for cleaning and I have told her that I am not keen on paying for rolls and rolls of paper towels, so that is under control. In fact, I manage the cleaning supplies' costs by saying I have only budgeted X amount per week for the groceries and supplies she buys and I put that much in an envelope each week. if some is left over, then I only add in enough to get back to the budgeted amount. She is a single mother also, so she is sensitive to budgets. I am sure it seems crazy to her that I bought fresh flowers 2 weeks in a row or that I was getting my nails done. Maybe it is crazy, maybe I am living on a budget that is no longer permissible. God knows I am not saving any money.

I feel guilty about the clutter she has to clean around. and I really do appreciate the help, it has saved my sanity. I must sound like a twit. still it is not how I would do things if I had the time and energy to do it all myself.

It will get better as I get out of my funk and as I continue to get rid of stuff. On that note, found two more ebay shipping notices, so 18 things. I also cleaned out another pile of papers and made a file for 2012 taxes. I put it in all the stuff I have already entered. I pulled out a stack of receipts from the basket of mess - they are all cash purchases that I have not entered into mint for budgeting, so I will do those over lunch tomorrow and that is another bunch of paper to toss.

Clearly it is time for me to do another round of filing and file purging. Tax season is the perfect time and that will clear out a few places where paper just collects. I have gotten better in this last year, I have a bit more of a system and for well over half the year, papers I needed to keep got put into one of three decorative lidded boxes - I just got behind the constant influx of paper at some point and then instead of the papers being a nuisance on my kitchen table which would have prompted me to go through them some weekend, they were stacked out of site in a corner of a desk.

I'd assume the paper towel thing is vaguely hygiene-related

At which point I'd expect her to not be "fooled" by putting them right on top of the paper towels--it's not like they are hidden, just that she'll already have a towel in her hands when it comes to picking up another dish towel to rip off more paper towels. I wanted that to seem like too much work--and lo! She's totally wiped out (er, not intended?) and uses my lovely purple towels with no hesitation.

Hey--where can you empty a sharps case? Can you take it to an average big pharmacy?

Wait--was that Chuck Bartowski in a Lifetime genderswap 50 First Dates? It was creepy first time round. Go Team Rule 63.

ita, WRT sharps, no. CVS will not take the containers, but I've never tried Walgreens or Rite Aid. I have better luck with going to a compounding pharmacy. So I was able to dispose of sharps to Fair Oaks Pharmacy (and get a tuna melt and a delicious vanilla malt). Ask your pharmacist when you go to pick up your meds.

You can also pay $3.99 for an envelope from CVS to dispose of sharps and unused meds by mail.

You can take them to a hospital pharmacy or to a hazardous waste facility. Here's a list from LA Public Health: [link]

and another list: [link] lots of senior centers.

ita,

I got a bigass sharps case from Amazon for cheap.

Another list: [link] This one also lists places where you can get a free sharps container if you don't have one already, though I assume you do.

oh that's right! ita doesn't use Amazon.

But, Burrell, even when you had full-time caregivers for your mom, it had to make you nuts to have people who were not your family there?

Oh well then, yeah, but that was in part a space issue. Too many bodies in too little space. Plus we had to feed them, usually 2 or 3 meals a day. The only cleaning they did was mom-related: washing her wet bedding in the morning, for example.

My pharmacy delivers. And a new script is being written this week. If I can't just drop it off at Wlagreens when I pick up a script, and working out how to it myself sounds like an adventure, I'll make sure to ask them how before they come over with they're incredibly anonymous white bag. People must figure I'm having sex toys delivered to my door.

I never got used to having a nanny, and even though it's made our lives more difficult in many ways not having her, my mental health is much better for it. I think I could have made things easier if I'd sat her down and said "the way you are putting the kids' toys away is driving me completely bugfuck, here is my system please use it" but honestly the whole relationship made me uncomfortable. I just didn't like someone else living in my house.

(The irony is, we may wind up with a babysitter again next year if Dylan gets into the school we want, because there will be 3 or 4 kids from this building all riding the bus together, and it makes much more sense to hire someone to pick them up at the bus stop and sit for a few hours every day than the sign them all up for afterschool care and work out the logistics of carpooling from Crown Heights at 5pm every day. BUT it will be a share, so not in our apartment all the time, and it will only be for 2-3 hours a day. How we work out on-the-books payment with 3 families involved, I have no idea. Maybe we'll just pay cash under the table and skip the tax break in favor of simplicity.)

Set up an LLC?

I'm not being a complete wiseass. [link]