Bits and Pieces

Kiki called home yesterday. Apparently she saw that I’d said we assumed all was well with her since we figured she’d call if something was wrong. So she called just to chat. Mostly she told me about her classes and the fun things going on. I watched her talk and realized, again, that I miss her. I don’t miss her the way that some of my friends miss their recently-moved-out adult children. It isn’t like part of my heart is somewhere else, or that we have a hole here at home. I miss her because she is fun to be around and she makes me laugh. It is going to be fun to have her home for Thanksgiving next week. As I was listening to her, I got a strong sense that she is in the stage of life where all things are possible. She could choose so many different things and is just beginning to see what they all are. This is different than my stage where I’ve got 20 years invested in my current paths. I could choose something very different, but there is lots I’d have to give up. Kiki’s stage is wonderful and I’m so glad she gets to have it.

Patch helped me with the postcards again this year. It has become an annual tradition. He and I sit together putting stamps and labels onto the postcards that thank all the people who have ordered things from our store this year. He talks to me about things as we work. Often they are comments on the places where the postcards are going, or thoughts from school, or from the games he’s been playing lately. Patch is pretty good company and the cards are all ready to go out tomorrow.

Howard had a depressive episode earlier this week. He tweeted about it quite a bit as it was ongoing. Being open about the depression is therapeutic for him, it is also a small part of what we can do to de-stigmatize mental health issues so that more people seek help when they need it. I was thinking about it and realized that I should probably write up a post about the other half of the equation. Howard can talk about depression. I can write about what it is like to be married to a depressed person and the things loved ones can do both to help and to keep themselves healthy. It gets difficult.

This week I was worn down by the never ending tide of small tasks which I do for other people. I have a record keeping job for our scout troop. I’ve had it for awhile and my whole mode of operation has been to just quietly keep the records, because me doing this job allows the part of scouting which I think is actually valuable: which is that boys get to have growth experiences. We just had significant leadership turn over in our scout troop and suddenly I’m the one who knows how everything works. Instead of being invisible, I’m now the expert in a system that is confusing and labrynthine. On top of that was Link’s ever revolving list of homework. I’m helping him track it and get it done. For each assignment I’m torn. Do I help here so that he can focus his learning energy there. Or do I stand back and let him struggle with all aspects of the assignments. Am I helping too much? It just hardly seems fair that he spends so much of his school hours being variously confused because he missed hearing or tracking some small piece of information. Except it is even harder for me to track the info since I’m not in the classes and have to go off of things Link tells me and occasional emails from teachers. I’m probably helping too much.

The shipment of calendars arrived today. This means I need to shift into shipping preparations. I’m going to have to unpack that part of my brain and figure out what the steps need to be. Tomorrow.

The Kickstarter is slowly progressing. I’m grateful for each person who finds their way to it and decides to pledge. I need to make slow but steady efforts for the next 10 days and then a big push for the last day. 67% funded right now.

We had adventures in healthcare coverage this week when one of Gleek’s prescriptions was ten times more expensive than usual. Our fear was that the new healthcare legislation had changed our coverage and the medicine was no longer covered. The good news is that our plan is grandfathered. It can’t be changed by new laws. The price change was simply because Gleek maxed out her prescription plan for this year and we’ll have to pay full price instead of just a copay until January. It is also possible that our plan being grandfathered is a bad thing because it means our plan still doesn’t cover any sort of mental healthcare. We’ve spent quite a lot on mental health this past year and it has all been out of pocket. I don’t see that number going down next year either. So now I have a homework assignment to try to figure out if it is to our advantage to stick with the current coverage or to change to something new.

I used to be a person who started thinking about Christmas right around Halloween and who had most of it purchased before Thanksgiving. Now I’m a person who deliberately avoids thinking about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Too many other things in my head.

Thanksgiving, now that I am looking forward to. The internet always goes to sleep during that weekend, which means that work won’t accumulate. Instead I’ll get to spend time with my extended family. Kiki will be in town. And my sister and her family will be arriving from Germany to spend a few months in the US. Also, there will be pie.