I saw your pix on FB, sj, and you did indeed look fabulous!
I’m bad at this because (similar to weight stuff) it is slow progress.
This has been a topic of discussion with my therapist, as both Pilates and Ozempic work incrementally. I have been able to make considerable progress on both fronts, but it's taken months and months. I've been stuck at a frustrating plateau with the weight loss and I'm really trying to bear down and be strictly disciplined to push through.
Fortunately, there's the immediate dopamine hit of just getting my eyebrows down, or the bigger relief of both Emmett and Matilda getting some traction and forward movement after years for them both being stuck. That was a low-lying anxiety that was always running in the background.
As for finances, we were so poor for so long that we couldn't even afford to get in debt as we were struggling from paycheck to paycheck. That did teach me many frugal skills, and I'm only just now starting to unclench from that as my finances are more than secure.
One way I can tell that Matilda is looking forward to college? She's as obsessively focused on putting her dorm room together with her new roommate, as she was packing her trunk for camp. So she's ready to make a change and commit to it.
Last night she came out and wanted me to watch the short movie of the 10 minute version of Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" and discuss the lyrics and how great they are. (Deb would be pleased by this, no doubt.).
She said "All of my friends know all the lyrics to the 10 minute version of 'All Too Well.'" Which would be more impressive to me if I hadn't watched Matilda and all of her friends learning the entire score to Hamilton when they were in elementary school.
She also made me watch Olivia Rodrigo videos with further lyric dissection.
Last night my friend Jes (who is painting my back steps), and her Drag House did a performance at Booksmith, and it was really fun seeing a drag show in that venue. The theme was "classics" and they all did performances based on classic books (Phantom of the Opera, Wuthering Heights etc.). It's going to be a monthly event.
Erika, been there heard that before, as well as the fake happy condescending tone from strangers way too often.
Definitely sounds like something to unpack in therapy sj but glad you got compliments!! In addition to the fun of horrifying your family.
I am on a plane and somehow using wifi on the plane still feels bizarre. Like aren’t I supposed to be totally cut off from everything for as long as we are in the air, and the excitement of turning my phone back on?
I …don’t really budget like I should. I used to use mint and really liked seeing everything in one place and I’m bummed I can’t do that easily anymore? I added up some numbers in my head the other day and did not like the total. I’m lucky in that my mortgage is relatively low (and I refinanced at the right time!) and not buying a car for 20 years helped too. But paying out of pocket for a GLP1 is both worth it and hella expensive even at the cheaper vial rate!
I'm sure, sj. In the moment it makes sense to behave as if I'm flattered, but it's hard not to go home like "What did I just do?"
When I would have learned to budget it was more like "Not enough is not enough," though I did spend way too much of my "wild and precious life," waiting for an errant twenty to show up on my bank statement, both because I thought I would find it and be Mature Enough(for what? Who knows?) and because I needed goals that social workers, in my experience some of the most literal people the United States has yet to produce, would understand. (Because, I guess I'd find all those twenties and not need government support anymore?)
When I left licensed housing, I stopped trying to balance, but I bet I'd still be $20 short.
cereal: it would be funny to me that people think social workers could be visionaries for our legal system, if the stakes weren't so high for all of us. (I haven't met every single one, surely. some are probably quite gifted. I mostly meet the other ones, though. ) That think a "pretty *penty* is a thing. She's probably a bit deaf; I shouldn't make fun, but I'm just saying...not quite the thin, pink, line.
Timelies all!
Gary and I went to a concert Wed. night at Wolf Trap. It was a triple bill: Barenaked Ladies with Sugar Ray and Fastball. Serious late '90s vibe. It was hot and humid, punctuated by a nasty thunderstorm.(Outdoor venue, though we were in the pavilion so we only got some stray raindrops when the wind blew.) It was fun.
