family

Goodbye, too soon.

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How quickly one’s world can change. Last Wednesday my father had a fairly comfortable night’s sleep at Cooper University Hospital. But early Thursday morning I got the call no one wants to receive.

I am heartbroken to report that Dad died at 5:09 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, Nov. 5, after nine days of hospitalization with COVID.

As I write this it has been fewer than 48 hours since he left us. It seems like centuries.

That call was from my sister, telling me that organ failure had set in and Dad would soon be removed from the ventilator, per his stated request. Before that, the hospital was willing to arrange a “Zoom farewell,” a particularly modern invention. Because of the COVID protocol, no one could visit. But we could dial in on our phones, laptops or tablets.

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All Souls’ Day, with refreshments.

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(Note: I originally put this up as a Facebook photo and post. Because of the reactions, I decided to expand it a bit and post here for those who don’t do social media.)

Monday being All Souls’ Day, my partner constructed his usual altar to the memory of dead relatives. It’s hard to make out the details in the picture above, but in addition to photographs, a rosary, Mass cards and newspaper obituaries, there’s also a shot glass of whiskey, a cup of coffee, a glass of water, a pipe full of tobacco and a candy bar.

(The framed photo at the top left is of my mother, at age 11 or 12.)

Shortly after I took this picture DF added a Mexican Coca-Cola for Great-Great Grandma Myrt, who hated coffee but adored Coke. It had to be a Mexican Coke because those are made with sugar rather than the high-fructose corn syrup that U.S. bottlers use.

His 4-year-old granddaughter, whom I’ll call “Daisy” to protect her privacy, visited for a short time that morning. A child prone to wild flights of fancy – mostly in a good way – she was immediately fascinated by the idea of “the ancestors.” Possibly that’s because she’s a big fan of the animated film, “Coco,” which features the Mexican celebration of El Día de los Muertos.

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COVID comes calling.

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The other day I mentioned “other stuff” that had combined with website issues and a deadline avalanche to keep me from posting much, and promised an update soon. So here it is: My father, who recently finished radiation treatment for cancer, has been hospitalized with COVID. I don’t even like writing that. Imagine how I … Read more

Monday miscellany: Decision fatigue edition.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“Decision fatigue” is hitting women hard during the pandemic, according to the HerMoney newsletter from money expert Jean Chatzky. A leadership coach and resiliency expert named Beth Benatti Kennedy reports a widespread issue among her clients: “I’ve never had to think about so many personal and work decisions.”

These women were already busy before COVID-19. Here’s what their lives look like now, Chatzky says:

“In an average day, women are making decisions for their families regarding school, play, meal planning, cleaning, pets, who goes to the grocery store, and whether or not risk for catching the virus should be taken in order to go to an event or have an experience, and all this is being done alongside a paying job for which you’re hoping to have a nice quiet office space in which you can comfortably earn a living.

“If it sounds like a pipe dream, that’s because it is. Because working from home has removed the boundaries that helped separate work and life, women are now working longer hours and are unable to turn work (off).”

That’s some serious fatigue.

 

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Monday miscellany: Single-mom stimulus grant edition.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

On March 26, writer Emma Johnson created the 2020 Kickass Single Mom Stimulus Grant. Since then she’s given away a $500 cash grant every week to single moms in need.

The criteria are pretty simple:

You are a single mother.

You need the money right now.

If that’s you, head over to Wealthy Single Mommy and apply for the grant. And if you don’t need the grant but know of other single moms in need? Please share the link.

This is a no-strings deal, according to Johnson. Having worked with her, I can say if she says she’s going to do something, she does it. No BS.

 

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Monday miscellany: Pandemic hangout edition.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The “miscellany” idea is one that I’d like to make a weekly (or at least relatively frequent!) feature on the site. It will be a mix of news, events and whatever crosses my desk.

This week I’ll start with what’s happening today: a free virtual hangout designed for mothers during the pandemic.

“Monday Mom” is a way for mothers to share resources, chat and, yeah, vent to other moms who Get It. It takes place at 5 p.m. PDT/8 p.m. EDT.

Monday Mom is staged by the LOLA Retreat, an annual conference that’s the brainchild of personal finance author Melanie Lockert (“Dear Debt: A Story About Breaking Up With Debt”). Lockert has two other events this week as well:

“Managing Debt During COVID” is just what it sounds like: tips and tactics to help you survive financially during the pandemic, with financial law attorney and money maven Leslie Tayne. She’s the author of “Life and Debt: A Fresh Approach to Achieving Financial Wellness.” The program takes place Tuesday at noon PDT/3 p.m. EDT.

Finally, the “LOLA Retreat Hangout” is a place to connect with other women and talk about personal finance. The topic of money is too often taboo and as a result people miss opportunities and/or make choices (or don’t make choices) that wind up affecting their entire lives.

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6 ways to save money on cloth diapers.

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(Happy Throwback Thursday! A version of this article was originally published Jan. 30, 2014. As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small commission if you purchase using my affiliate link.)

Yesterday I read an article about continuing shortages on things like disinfectants, toilet paper* and diapers. The piece suggested you could make emergency diapers out of T-shirts.

Couldn’t resist that notion, so I watched a YouTube video on how to turn that old 10k shirt into a COVID-19 hack. It sounds counterintuitive somehow, but cloth diapers are made of cotton, too, so it sorta-kinda makes sense.

Note: The diaper “shortage” is likely due to panic-buying rather than a diaper industry failure. Parents see emptying shelves, which makes them fear potential shortages, which in turn creates actual shortages.

It’s also led to a boom in the cloth diaper industry, according to an article in Today. These didies can be super-pricey. It’s a far cry from way, way back in the day, when I paid $2.99 per dozen for cloth diapers. Believe it or not, they were “slightly irregular.” Yes, I swathed my daughter’s butt in factory seconds.

What’s more, after moving to Philadelphia I had to wash the diapers by hand on a scrub-board and dry them on wooden racks. As a broke and exhausted single mom, I could afford neither the time nor the money to go to the laundromat. I hope none of you are ever that hard up.

Cloth diapers really aren’t as awful as people think. These days they’re prefolded like disposables, so you just tuck them into covers (no more plastic pants). In fact, these diapers are so well-made that they actually have resale value after Junior gets toilet-trained.

Yes, there’s a bit of an “ick” factor, but let’s face it: If you have a baby, you are going to have to touch some poop even if you use disposables.

Here’s how to save money on cloth diapers.

 

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Scenes from quarantines, Part 1.

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The times in which we live are not just potentially deadly. They’re psychologically and emotionally exhausting.

People are dealing with not just varying degrees of isolation but also variables like:

– The fear that loved one (especially elders) will get sick and they won’t be allowed to visit

– Unemployment (or having to keep working without reliable child care and/or proper protection)

– Food and household product shortages

– Generalized anxiety, which can mean existing in fight-or-flight mode 24/7 and can also make the simplest tasks of daily living feel insurmountable

– Being full-time parents in a pandemic, i.e., trying to explain the new normal to housebound kids who can’t quite grasp why they can’t visit friends or go to the movies

– Maybe being not just full-time parents but also homeschool teachers who are still expected to put in a full day’s work from home

Yet among the ever-more-horrifying news articles and social media posts, I’ve also read some  pretty funny scenes from quarantines. Moms and dads talk about all the math they can’t remember, or moan that the math they do remember has been replaced by Common Core.

People who wear glasses joke darkly about their masks’ effects on their specs. (I’ve had some fairly foggy vision myself on our weekly trips to the Outside World.)

Work-from-home* parents report the mortification of having pants-less offspring run through the room during video conferences. Once-tight couples realize that their SOs have some Really Annoying Habits, or at least habits magnified by enforced togetherness.

I laugh at these things, sometimes harder than the actual humor warrants. We need laughter right now, to offset the daily horror show that is the 24-hour news cycle.

Hence, this article – not intended to make light of a very real public health and economic crisis, but rather to provide what we hope will be a few much-needed laughs.

“We”? Yes, we. The first part is running here and the second is over on my daughter’s site, I Pick Up Pennies. We’ve recorded a few random observations about the new normal.

 

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Sheltering in place. Just not MY place.

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Well, another 17 days have gone by without a post. This time I’m gonna play the C card.

A couple weeks ago I took the calculated risk of flying to Phoenix because isolation was not playing well with my daughter’s bipolar II and depression. Initially she rejected my offer to fly down if things got really tough. Her response was “thanks, but I’m okay” due to her fear that I might become infected.

To be honest, I was a little worried about that myself. After all, I’m in my early 60s and have asthma. But when you hear phrases like “suicidal ideation,” you get on the damn plane.

Was it ideal? No. Was it necessary? Yes. And it turns out that social distancing was a snap with fewer than two dozen passengers.

The decision was snap, too: When she called and said, “Yeah, I really do need you to come down,” I checked the Alaska Airlines website and discovered I could get a nonstop-to-Phoenix flight at 11:55 p.m. that very night. The hardest part was telling DF that I had to leave, and leave soon.

 

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7 ways I know I’m not in Anchorage.

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Chief among them: Sidewalks. Sidewalks I can see!!! No snow, no ice, no worries about slipping and falling. No problem.

I’m in sunny Phoenix, visiting my daughter for a little over a week and I’m really starting to understand snowbirds – especially since it was below zero pretty much nonstop for most of January.

While the time difference is just two hours, it’s a big ol’ world away from not-so-warm-and-sunny* Anchorage, Alaska. And as usual, it’s a non-bacchanal visit:

I write. Love, love, love my work-at-home gig because it doesn’t matter whether it’s my home or someone else’s. Seriously: The flexibility of being able to visit Abby vs. having to request time off far outweighs the occasional self-employment hassle.

I visit friends, including Funny About Money, an old college pal who happened to be RVing in the area, and the blogger formerly** known as A Mom, Money and More.

I clean up*** a bit. She’s pretty much stayed ahead of the cleaning. Roomba + no dog and husband going in and out + no clutter thanks to the disappearance of said dog and husband = a place that’s much easier to keep tidy.

But I’ve got a few specific projects like mopping the floors, tightening loose doorknobs, and scooping the catbox. Speaking of which: I also plan to empty and scrub the box with vinegar and water, let it dry in the sun and refill it with some of the litter I helped her lug home the other day. Yeah, I party hard.

I hang out with my daughter. She also works at home, so sometimes the hangout is in the living room, both of us tapping away on our laptops. The rest of the time we’re either reading (occasionally sharing particularly well-written or funny stuff out loud) or viewing programs she thinks I’d like via Netflix and Hulu. It’s likely that I will watch more TV this trip than I would in a couple of months**** in Anchorage.

To some, all this might sound pretty dull. To us it’s pretty satisfying – and at this time of year, when I can go outside and use Nature’s S.A.D. light, it’s fairly great.

What are some of the other ways I know I’m not in Anchorage any more? So glad you asked:

 

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