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Archive for June, 2020

General Update

June 20th, 2020 at 01:45 pm

Things are fairly normal here. MH is done with work, so it's back to our normal summer schedule. I resumed my old work schedule this week. There won't be any changes at my job. We already were set up to work remotely (for flexibility and emergency) but the job is too collaborative and everyone rather be in the office. It's a very small office. I had been working home two days per week for the past three months, which is "doable" but not ideal. MM(16)'s schedule changed last week with his summer class, so I told my boss I'd revisit our carpool schedule and just come back into the office 4 days. With everyone home, is probably better anyway. Oh yeah, and the hot weather. I much rather have free work A/C, that is for sure.

We survived MH's month of full-time work. It was probably easier than I was envisioning, without the kids having their full schedules. In fact, the one day that I Was going to drive DL(14) to school to drop off books, MH got home early and covered for me. Phew! I definitely am happy to have my evenings back and to not be worried about dinner/dishes every night. MH is being MH and just went back to doing all things kitchen. I am trying to be assertive about cooking one day per week (I think we all should be) but I can see that getting lost in the mix. If I have a million other things to do, the stuff that "just gets done" (without me) is going to fall off my radar. It already mostly has. Maybe seeing this blog post will remind me. For now, I am pivoting to other long forgotten chores and maybe at some point if I ever feel "caught up" I will contribute more in the kitchen.

MH was laid off indefinitely the end of May. Though he usually has summers off, we don't expect this job to ever come back. We don't rely on his income whatsoever, so for now we just roll with it. I think at this point we don't expect much on the job front and will wait out MM(16)'s last year of high school. 2020 is *shrugs* because unemployment + stimulus already received will offset lost wages the rest of the year.

I suppose I should circle back to my job. We most definitely expected some slow down, but it's just been crazed. April/May were record breaking sales/profit months for us. We don't want to rush into any new hires given the economic uncertainty. So that is how that is going. On the flip side of the coin, I have personally lost a lot of work chaos. It's the big and the small things, the random things and the not random things. Mostly cleaning up difficult employees and difficult subcontractors (we let go of a lot of people the end of February). But in addition to that, I feel a lot less, "absolutely everything I touch is a disaster." The difference is night and day compared to the prior 2 years. I am just starting to notice this part as the workload has slowed down enough the last few weeks that I can breathe at all.

On the chaos/medical/disaster front, not much has changed. May was challenging. Some brief highlights: Our family friend lost his battle with cancer. 😭 My employee has been going to the hospital twice daily for treatments. 😞 Too much to even remember, much less share. As it has been and continues to be.

Through it all, finances are just very background. We have a good system in place, it doesn't take much energy or thought. If it was less chaotic I might have been seeking out some opportunities to buy when the stock market dropped, but it's been too busy and we have just been on auto pilot.

We made it through 80 of the top 100 movies! I am starting to think we might make it. I think we might be able to knock out the last 20 movies this summer. But if we finish in 2020, I'd be happy with that. (We seem to get on spurts where we watch 2-3 movies per week, trying to get caught up. Then something happens and we watch 0 movies in a month). Finishing this summer would probably require too much peace, but I am an optimist.

It's been quiet enough this year that I've gotten caught up on most everything. After drowning in everything in 2018/2019. The one glaring exception is housework (my least favorite thing). & so now I am circling back to that... It might take me the rest of the year, but at least I am starting to get somewhere.

Things are mostly opened up back here but we are hanging back and staying cautious. Most of the uptick in cases in recent weeks, in our region, is due to family gatherings. I would say our #1 thing at this point steering clear of our parents and grandparents. This is mostly *shrug* at this point. We moved to another city 20 years ago and mostly communicate by skype anyway.