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Jul. 31st, 2024 06:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngDr Lady is back! Like I said, the kids weren't even that bad this time, but solo-parenting during the week when I can have a break because of daycare versus solo-parenting over the weekend is a whole 'nother level. I'm glad she was back and able to help by the weekend because, well. It's just a lot.
This weekend I dragged our mom friend to the library to make sure she got a library card and then showed her the kid's cookbook section. She's mentioned before that she doesn't know the first thing about cooking, but I don't think I fully internalized what she meant until she mentioned she didn't know how to pick fruits and veggies out at the store. I had showed her CG's cookbooks that I'd gotten earlier in the week, so now she has a few of her own to go through and try things out. She relies way too heavily on Instacart and fast food, but she needs tools to do anything else so hopefully these are some first steps.
Then I took her and her kids home, tossed some spaghetti on the stove, chopped up some veggies and fruit, and fed them all dinner for the second time in a week. I really, really have missed feeding friends; I managed it once or twice with the queer parents we'd met (who then moved away) but it's harder to pin anyone else down. I always feel like I've got some kind of magic when I'm able to spin up a meal for others. I even made chocolate chip cookies while all four kids played bingo on the living room floor and it rained heavily outside.
Speaking of friends... unfortunately, the rain meant the 30-something meet-up I was aiming to go to that evening was canceled. :( I've been trying to make new friends all year long but it's so hard. Nobody else seems willing to meet me even 1/4 of the way, so I do all the work for a bit and then just let it die. So I was stoked to see a bunch of nerds my age and seemingly feeling the same way were planning on getting together at a non-brewery and actively thinking about ways to socialize. Some of them even have kids! But then the rain caused flash floods and other dangerous things and it canceled.
There's potentially another meet-up this weekend, but its 20s-30s which... no shade on folks in their 20s, but that's just a different life, y'know? And I'm going to be turning 38 in exactly a month, so I'm not sure if it's worth it.
IDK. Making (and keeping!) friends as an adult is hard.
Especially when work is being such Work. I swear, I've got 3 different projects all due at the same time out of nowhere, folks requesting edits on other projects with 24 hour turn-arounds, and I've just been so exhausted at the end of every day for several weeks now. Nevermind trying to have a life outside of work, which is absolutely not what I wanted with this job. I'd been really good about setting boundaries and maintaining some semblance of work-life balance, but somehow that's all been torn to shreds. And it's August, this is supposed to be the doldrums. Compliance season is about to ramp up and I have to admit I'm getting nervous.
I wish I could retire sooner. I wish we didn't need to have both parents working to afford kids/mortgage/everything. I've thought a few times about how we could downsize, if needed, but the reality is we got this house before everything went nuts and there's no way we could find anything cheaper without losing friends and schools. And the other reality is we need the health insurance that comes with my job. That alone is pretty much worth my paycheck again, what with Lady's health needs.
Nothing is going to change, so I need to just keep scraping what minutes and moments together that I can and hope like hell I don't get the rug pulled out from under me when it's finally time to retire. That's the hardest thing, you know, trusting the future. I thought I'd stop working when Lady got out of grad school, then when the kids were both out of daycare, then maybe when Lady got tenure. But health things keep cropping up, getting more expensive, etc, and I just feel so stuck.
This weekend I dragged our mom friend to the library to make sure she got a library card and then showed her the kid's cookbook section. She's mentioned before that she doesn't know the first thing about cooking, but I don't think I fully internalized what she meant until she mentioned she didn't know how to pick fruits and veggies out at the store. I had showed her CG's cookbooks that I'd gotten earlier in the week, so now she has a few of her own to go through and try things out. She relies way too heavily on Instacart and fast food, but she needs tools to do anything else so hopefully these are some first steps.
Then I took her and her kids home, tossed some spaghetti on the stove, chopped up some veggies and fruit, and fed them all dinner for the second time in a week. I really, really have missed feeding friends; I managed it once or twice with the queer parents we'd met (who then moved away) but it's harder to pin anyone else down. I always feel like I've got some kind of magic when I'm able to spin up a meal for others. I even made chocolate chip cookies while all four kids played bingo on the living room floor and it rained heavily outside.
Speaking of friends... unfortunately, the rain meant the 30-something meet-up I was aiming to go to that evening was canceled. :( I've been trying to make new friends all year long but it's so hard. Nobody else seems willing to meet me even 1/4 of the way, so I do all the work for a bit and then just let it die. So I was stoked to see a bunch of nerds my age and seemingly feeling the same way were planning on getting together at a non-brewery and actively thinking about ways to socialize. Some of them even have kids! But then the rain caused flash floods and other dangerous things and it canceled.
There's potentially another meet-up this weekend, but its 20s-30s which... no shade on folks in their 20s, but that's just a different life, y'know? And I'm going to be turning 38 in exactly a month, so I'm not sure if it's worth it.
IDK. Making (and keeping!) friends as an adult is hard.
Especially when work is being such Work. I swear, I've got 3 different projects all due at the same time out of nowhere, folks requesting edits on other projects with 24 hour turn-arounds, and I've just been so exhausted at the end of every day for several weeks now. Nevermind trying to have a life outside of work, which is absolutely not what I wanted with this job. I'd been really good about setting boundaries and maintaining some semblance of work-life balance, but somehow that's all been torn to shreds. And it's August, this is supposed to be the doldrums. Compliance season is about to ramp up and I have to admit I'm getting nervous.
I wish I could retire sooner. I wish we didn't need to have both parents working to afford kids/mortgage/everything. I've thought a few times about how we could downsize, if needed, but the reality is we got this house before everything went nuts and there's no way we could find anything cheaper without losing friends and schools. And the other reality is we need the health insurance that comes with my job. That alone is pretty much worth my paycheck again, what with Lady's health needs.
Nothing is going to change, so I need to just keep scraping what minutes and moments together that I can and hope like hell I don't get the rug pulled out from under me when it's finally time to retire. That's the hardest thing, you know, trusting the future. I thought I'd stop working when Lady got out of grad school, then when the kids were both out of daycare, then maybe when Lady got tenure. But health things keep cropping up, getting more expensive, etc, and I just feel so stuck.
