Category Archives: Tough Stuff

These Feel Like Scary Times (or This Is The Time To Fight For Our Rights)

Posted on May 4, 2022 | Comments Off

I’m sure everyone has heard of the draft by the Supreme Court to overturn abortion rights. For so many of us, this was what we were afraid would happen. After seeing the rush to get new justices on the court who seemed pretty certain they would do this, it seemed inevitable. I had hoped that we would be wrong, but it seems like everyone who thought we were overreacting was wrong and we were right to worry.

Whether or not you agree with having an abortion yourself, nobody should be able to tell someone if they are allowed to have a medical procedure. Nobody can force you to donate blood or a kidney, so why would it be allowed to force someone to use their uterus against their will? Some people claim that because there is adoption, there is no need for an abortion. But that is forcing someone to carry a pregnancy against their will and suffer the physical and mental risks that come with that. And even if you do go through with a pregnancy and have someone adopt the baby (which isn’t a guarantee because you can see how many babies are in foster care that need homes), who is going to also cover the financial risks for the person who had to give birth? They can’t go back to work the next day, so will the government cover paid time off for everyone who is forced to do this? How about all the medical bills? Giving birth can be thousands of dollars. If you are doing this and it’s not your choice, you shouldn’t be forced into paying for the medical care you didn’t want.

So many states have trigger laws that will outlaw all abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned. So if a child is assaulted and becomes pregnant, they will be forced to go through the pregnancy. Some states don’t even allow for terminations if the mother’s life is at risk, so they are sentencing people to death which would end the pregnancy anyway. But I guess they would rather end the mother’s life so they can say they never ended the pregnancy.

And there are so many other issues that come up with this connected to pregnancy if these rights are overturned. We’ve already seen a mother who had a miscarriage be arrested because they thought she had an abortion. I would suspect that would happen more and more as some states give financial rewards for helping them punish women who terminate their pregnancies. Even if those women are found innocent and let free, who pays for their legal help? If they are in jail for a few days and lose their kids because of it, who will help them get things resolved? And then there is the issue of embryos and IVF. When you go through IVF, you create embryos and not all of them are used. Some have genetic issues that would not end up as a viable pregnancy. Others might just be extras after you have your kids. People are given options of what to do with extra embryos, but if termination is illegal will they be forced to use all their embryos even if they are not going to make it? Will they be made to go through the entire IVF procedure knowing they cannot have a pregnancy just so they use up the rest? I know there are embryo donations for extras that are deemed normal that others could use, but would you have to donate the ones you know cannot succeed? And then there is still the financial aspect of it. If you are forced to use all that are made, who pays for the medications and surgeries to use them up when you don’t want to have a baby? Or will people stop doing IVF because of these fears and risks?

And outside of the concerns about the right to an abortion, the draft shows a scary future that the Supreme Court might be creating. They mention that this needs to be overturned and that other things were decided based on the same “invalid” reasoning. These include the right for same-sex couples to marry, the right to have access to birth control, and the right to interracial marriage. This is a slippery slope and I can’t imagine what would happen if they come after those rights next. But why would they mention them in the draft if this wasn’t a preview of their plan?

But now is not the time to be scared. This is the time to fight. And there are many ways to fight. First, if you want to donate to help those who need access to safe and needed medical care, there is a good list on this page. There are talks about protests coming and I would watch social media to see more about that. Make sure you speak up however you can. This draft might have been released so they could see our reaction, and we don’t want to be quiet and have people think we are ok with this. We need to be loud and make sure that safe abortions are accessible. Overturning this will not make abortions go away. It will only make safe abortions go away for millions of people. Those who have the means and money will always find ways to have safe abortions. They might travel to another state to do it or find another way to make sure they get the care they want. But those who don’t have that option will be the victims of this. They will find unsafe ways to end their unwanted pregnancies and we do not want to see that happening. We need to keep each other safe, and keeping safe abortions legal is one way to do it.

I really hope that this draft ends at just being a draft and those on the Supreme Court somehow change their minds, but we can’t just wait and see. We have to make sure we are fighting because if we don’t before we know it more rights will be gone. And now is the time we have to fight for this right and I will not be quiet as long as I have my voice.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged health issues, rights

It’s Finally Goodbye To My House (or Closing This Chapter)

Posted on April 29, 2022 | Comments Off

Tomorrow, I turn in the keys to my house. I still think I can’t totally believe that because it feels like this move has taken forever. But it’s finally the end of the month and the end of my time renting this house. I’ve been sad about saying goodbye to this house for a while, but I think I’ve finally moved past that feeling and now I just feel like I’m leaving a space and not saying goodbye to my home. As things have been moved out of the space, it has felt less and less like it was mine, so that helps with the feelings.

I still can’t believe I lived there for over 12 years. Almost a third of my lifetime. The entire time I have written this blog has been while living there. I have had so many different jobs while living there, and working from home started for me there. I survived a pandemic in that tiny home. I have made some amazing memories and have had some really sad ones there. I am glad to be leaving behind some ghosts of sad memories there, but I also know that those sad moments have made me who I am today.

Finding that house was honestly such luck for me. Before moving there, I was living in a 2 bedroom apartment and had gone through multiple roommates. There were times I had no roommates and the apartment was so expensive to have just to myself. But I always ended up finding new roommates and making it work. But when another roommate told me they were moving out, I knew I needed to find a new place and couldn’t keep just finding new people every year or so. But it wasn’t easy to find a place in my budget in my preferred area. Or if I did find a place, there was something really wrong with it. But one day, I found my house and it was cheaper than anything else. It turned out they had a rent special for one amount for 6 months and a slightly higher amount (but still within my budget) for the next 6 months. I asked if we could split the difference and keep the rent the same for the year, but the landlord said no. But that worked to my advantage because he never raised the rent for the second 6 months.

And because it was a rent-stabilized building, my landlord was very restricted in how much he could raise the rent. He never raised it for the first few years I lived there. I don’t know if he didn’t bother or just forgot. But even when he was raising the rent each year, it could only go up 3%. The last month I paid rent was only $239 more than what I was paying when I moved in. I know that it was a cheap rental. Most places in my neighborhood went for 2 or 3 times the price. I always said I couldn’t afford to leave until I bought a place. And it’s crazy to think that is exactly how it happened even if the timing wasn’t exactly what I planned for.

I had been looking at condos casually for several years. But when we found out my landlord was selling, things went into high gear and we got serious about condo hunting. And I honestly feel like somehow this is exactly how it was supposed to happen. I don’t know if we would have looked at or considered this condo years ago. I was in a different place then and I was a different person. My condo might have been too overwhelming or too much for me before. And while I do feel a bit overwhelmed, I know I can turn this space into a home and I’m not worried about taking my time with it.

I feel ready now to be moving on from the house I loved so much. That place was where I grew so much and really came into my own. I wasn’t sure of who I was and I was a bit lost when I first moved in there. But I rebuilt my life while living there. My life isn’t perfect and not necessarily where I thought I would be now, but it’s my life and I’m happy with things. And I am so grateful that I have this amazing new home to continue to build my life and my future.

I will always be grateful for my tiny home for 12 years. I learned so much while living there. I learned how to be much more independent and that I could live alone and not feel lonely (this doesn’t count when I felt very lonely during the pandemic). I learned how to really create a home and a space that is mine and makes me happy. I built a life in LA that I didn’t have before and I didn’t let others hold me back or always allow fear to stop me from going for what I wanted or asking for what I deserved.

Thank you to my house for being a home for so long. The 12 years there have been amazing and I know that I will take the lessons I learned there for the rest of my life. I know that when they finally tear down the houses (which we know is the new landlord’s plan), I will be very upset to see that home gone forever. But I hope that someone else can live there before that happens so they can experience that magical place just like I did.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged home, moving

Random Days Of Sickness (or I Don’t Know What Caused This)

Posted on April 27, 2022 | Comments Off

I’ve clearly been going through a lot of stress lately, and I know stress can do crazy things to your body. I haven’t been sleeping well, my eating habits are all over the place, and I’m just having anxiety all the time. And that’s outside of the physical issues I’m having connected to moving such as the pain from lifting so much.

And I knew there was a risk of all this stress getting me sick, but you can’t really predict how and when it might happen. But I got pretty sick yesterday and I have no idea if it’s connected to stress or if I got something like food poisoning. Being sick is never fun, but it’s worse when you have so much you have to do and you aren’t really in a place where you know where everything is.

I spent the night before just feeling rotten. This was different from how I feel each month and I just couldn’t get comfortable in bed. I’m glad I wasn’t scheduled for a workout that day so I could have a bit of a lazy morning. And I tried to just be gentle with myself during the day. I had to work and move stuff from my old place, but I was taking my time with things. I also moved around my place while working to be as comfortable as possible. I’m not really set up to work from my couch right now, but I tried to work there so I could stretch out. I also spent some time working from my bed. I know I’m lucky that I’m able to do this since I work from home. If I was someone who had to go into an office I would have had to call in sick.

I’m hoping that this bug or stress sickness will be done now. By the end of the day, I was still feeling a bit off, but significantly better than how I was in the morning. I know that when I get bugs like this it can take a few days to feel fully better. I usually have a few days of uneasiness or being off-balanced.

I know this is a shorter post than what I normally do, but I’m still trying to feel better and I have a lot I need to get done today. I know I’ve said this so many times, but I just can’t wait until the move is done so I can get this stress out of my life. I’m almost there, but I still have a few things I need to do so I can officially say I’m no longer in the process of moving.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged moving, sick, stress

I Underestimated The Stress Of Moving (or I Know This Is Temporary)

Posted on April 21, 2022 | Comments Off

I have some friends who have moved several times in the past few years. Some people have moved almost once a year and some have moved maybe twice in 5 years. For the friends who have moved somewhat regularly, it seems like they have a pretty decent packing and moving plan in place. Maybe it’s because, for many of them, they were moving a far distance so they had to do it all at once (like moving across the country where you really can’t go back and forth). Or maybe they did more research on how to be smart when moving or they are just more organized. I’m not sure why it seems like some of my friends are pros and moving and I’m learning that I am far from a pro.

I know that it’s been 12 years since I’ve moved so I also haven’t had to do this in a long time. And when you’ve lived somewhere for so long, you get a lot of things and you have everything in a particular place. So having to adjust where things are or decide what to take can be very overwhelming. And as I’ve written about quite a few times on here, moving has been so stressful for me and I don’t think I was really prepared for it.

I think that each stage of moving has had its own type of stress and it’s been building upon each stage. At first, when I was just going through my things and deciding what to get rid of, that was stress I’ve gone through more recently and it was a bit more manageable. Coordinating movers and everything that comes along with moving was something I had done before, but not for such a long time so I really didn’t have a plan in place for that. I just reached out to multiple places that were recommended either by friends or online review sites and compared what each offered. I ended up going with one of the cheaper ones because I knew I wouldn’t have a lot for the movers to take.

I think almost all the moving companies I looked at had a 3-hour minimum, and I knew that I wouldn’t need all that time. When the movers were at my old place over the weekend, they even kept asking me if I had more that they could take for me. I started giving them random things that were easy to add to the boxes they were using. But I was pretty unprepared for being able to give them more boxes. I’ve been using banker boxes for the move and I usually fill them to the point where you can’t put the lid on them. And if they couldn’t be closed, the movers couldn’t take them for me. Of the 3-hour minimum, I barely used 2 hours to move the big pieces of furniture and other things I could give to them.

And now, I’m in the phase where it feels like there is a time crunch to get everything out of the old place and into the condo. I know I have about a week and a half left and a lot of things are being picked up by friends or charities so it won’t seem as bad soon, but it feels like I have so much left to move out of there. I’ve been trying to move stuff every day, but it doesn’t seem like I have made that big of a dent yet. But I know that’s probably my mind playing a trick on me.

I know that as soon as this month is done, the moving stress will have to end. The unpacking and organizing of the new place will probably still be happening and causing me stress, but at least everything will be in one location at that point. And because I have reorganized my old place several times, maybe that will be stress that I’m able to handle a bit better.

I’m trying to manage the stress of moving in the best (and hopefully healthiest) ways that I can. And the biggest thing that I think is helping me is having a very regular routine. I still have to work every day (which is also stressful since I wish I could be working on the move during the day but I can’t). And I go to my workouts in the morning. I also still have the regular evening things that I do throughout the week, although just like work, that is making me stress a bit since I know I could use that time for moving stuff. As much as I’m trying to manage how I’m feeling, I also can feel the effect that the stress is having on my body. It’s tough to not get stressed about that too, but I know there is no point in worrying about how this is affecting me.

I can’t imagine how I would be doing with this all if I didn’t have my regular routines keeping me grounded. Right now, that’s my sanity even though it does cause me a bit more stress because my time is being used for other things. But I can’t wait until this time is done so I can be past the stress of moving and can get back to the regular stress that I’m used to in my day to day life.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged home, mental health, moving, stress

2 Years Into The Pandemic (or Still Seeing What Is The New Normal And What Has Returned To Normal)

Posted on March 15, 2022 | Comments Off

There are a few different dates that people consider when they think of the start of the pandemic. For me, I seem to always think of how March 13, 2020 was the last day that really felt normal. It was right before things shut down and before masks were required. I know that I was still worried about Covid and knew that it was starting to affect people in my area, but it still felt separate from my life until things started to change drastically.

And for the first few weeks of the pandemic, I was terrified. There were so many unknowns (there still are a lot of unknowns, but there’s more information about many things). I didn’t know what I really needed to worry about and what might have been an overreaction. Seeing people lined up outside of a grocery store and then finally getting inside and seeing how much was missing from the shelves was something that felt like it was out of a movie. I think I really was going between being numb and being panicked so much for the first few weeks. And it didn’t help that so much of my day-to-day routine was gone right away. I was lucky and didn’t lose my job right away, but it quickly went to having my hours cut by more than half and then down to 3 hours a week before I was out of work. I did do workouts at home so I could try to feel like I was in my routine, but it wasn’t the same as going to my workouts. And I didn’t see any of my friends because we didn’t know what we could do to keep each other safe.

Of course, at that time, we thought maybe this would be life for maybe a month or two. I don’t think anyone expected it to be the way it has turned out.

Last year, when we were marking 1 year since the start of the pandemic, things really were starting to feel hopeful. I had gotten my first vaccination and was about to get my second dose. Some of my friends were also getting their vaccinations and we were looking forward to seeing how quickly things might be returning back to what felt like normal. Most of us were expecting that we would be able to have a normal summer and I started to make plans.

But just like how we thought the pandemic would be over quickly, things a year in didn’t go the way we thought either. We had new variants that were more contagious and got people sick. Not everyone believed in the vaccinations and that caused people to get sick who could have prevented it if they did get vaccinated. And while some things were coming back, there was a lot that still wasn’t normal and people still were being very cautious. I was working on isolating myself less when I could be safe. I started to see friends again when we could be outdoors or in small groups of people who were all vaccinated. And I feel like a year ago, I thought that might be the beginning of the end.

Now that we are 2 years in, things are starting to normalize a bit more but I don’t know if that’s a good thing yet. Masks are not being required, but I still wear mine almost everywhere I go. Cases are down right now, but we can see trends happening in other places and that worries me. We are still in a time where some things are going back to the old way of normal and other things are still the new normal. And we don’t know how long the new normal will stay or if they will go back to the old normal one day.

I do want to stay hopeful and believe that it won’t be much longer before I can stop thinking about how I’m going to keep myself safe when I leave my home. I am taking chances with things that I wouldn’t have done a year ago, and I am trying to find the balance between staying safe and not living my life because of fear. It’s something that has been hard to balance since things started 2 years ago. But now I am able to put a bit more on living my life again and less on taking a lot of measures to stay safe.

I do believe that in a year, we will be recognizing the 3-year mark to the pandemic, but I hope that things will be safer in a year than they are now. Maybe whatever variant we have at that time will be not that contagious or will not get people that sick. But I think I’ve accepted that Covid is not going away and it will eventually be a regular part of life. We aren’t to a place where we can really think that way yet as too many people are still getting very sick and either having long-Covid with debilitating symptoms or dying, but I hope that we will be at that point sooner rather than later.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged anniversary, health issues, pandemic

Missing A Trip (or I Know There Will Be More Chances In The Future)

Posted on March 11, 2022 | Comments Off

This weekend, I was supposed to go on a trip. This was going to be my first trip in quite a long time. I don’t get to travel that often to begin with, but for the past 2 years, the furthest I’ve been from LA has been Santa Barbara. And this was a trip that I had been looking forward to for a while.

I’ve written about the Movie Club I started at the beginning of the pandemic with a Facebook group that I’m in and how a small group of us have gotten very close. Even though I have been chatting and texting with this group for about 2 years, we have never met in person. And this weekend, we planned a trip to finally get to meet each other.

One person in the group is housesitting at a farm where there is enough room for all of us to go there. And I was so excited for this trip and really was doing my best to try to find any way to be there. But the biggest issue for me was trying to make it there. Everyone in the group except me is on the east coast. And this weekend was going to be on the east coast of Canada. I wasn’t as worried about getting into Canada even with the different travel protocols. But getting to the east coast quickly looked impossible.

The first setback I hit was finding flights I could take. I know that getting on a plane is not the safest thing to do, but I wanted to make it as safe as I could. So I was only looking at flights that wouldn’t require a stop or a layover. Those turned out to be pretty limited. And when I opened my search to ones that did have stops, so many had stops in cities I didn’t want a layover in (mostly due to weather) or they had extremely long layovers. If I was going away just for a weekend, I didn’t want to spend 10 hours traveling when I could do it in 5. I looked at flights into other airports that would be cheaper, but then that still made my travel day extra long because I would be flying for 5 hours and then driving for 2 or 3.

As much as I could tolerate the idea of traveling for so long just for a weekend to finally meet my friends, the thing that stopped me was looking at ticket prices. Even the cheapest options were going to be close to $1000 for me. That’s a lot of money for a weekend and I have had a lot of expenses lately that made me hesitate to spend that much on another thing. I was checking flights every day for over a month, but I finally had to admit defeat and tell the group that there is no way for me to make it this weekend.

Everyone understood, especially since I was the one who was traveling the furthest. And I know they wish I could be there but it just isn’t possible. There is one other person from the group who won’t be able to make it due to a work conflict, and while I’m glad we have each other to talk to about how sad we are that we are missing out, I wish there was a way that all of us could be there.

I’m trying to not be too down on myself about this all because there just wasn’t a good way to make it happen. And the group is already planning a trip to come to LA, so that will obviously be easier for me to plan out. But it’s tough when this is something I have been looking forward to for a while. I’m trying to make the best of this weekend at home when I was thinking I’d be away and I’m already working on planning what we will do when the group comes to LA. Even though I am missing this first group trip, I know it’s only the first of many and I will have so many other opportunities in the future to travel with them.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged friends, travel, vacation

Overwhelmed By The State Of The World (or I Stand With Ukraine)

Posted on March 2, 2022 | Comments Off

The past 2 years have changed the world in so many ways. And I think the way I see the world has changed as well. While I was isolated, everything was slightly disconnected from me since I wasn’t out in the world with others. I felt some separation at times between what was happening and my reality. Sometimes this was because others didn’t seem to have the same concerns as I did and I couldn’t connect how others were so carefree and I was so worried. And other times, it was just because everything seemed so overwhelming and I couldn’t take it all in so things didn’t hit me as hard.

While things with the pandemic have gotten better, the way I connect with the world has remained similar to how it has been the past 2 years. And when I hear of major news stories, I think there is still a sense of disconnect out there. And that’s a bit of how I felt when the invasion of Ukraine started.

I am still educating myself on what is happening and the history, so I’m not going to speak too much on that. I do know enough to know I completely stand with Ukraine. The invasion was done claiming self-defense when the citizens of Ukraine did nothing other than to be their own country and not fall in line with another country. So many innocent lives have already been lost and the trauma of people who have survived unthinkable things is going to be unmeasurable. And I am aware of the racism of having this reaction to what is happening now and not having the same reaction when this happened to other countries where the citizens might not look the same way I do. I have been shocked when some reporters have said that this is a civilized country and this shouldn’t be happening when they haven’t said similar things about other countries.

I know a lot of people want to help and it can be tough to know the right places to put money or energy. But this seems like a good list with reliable organizations you can donate to if you would like to do so.

I am trying to stay on top of the news while not obsessing over it. And I do find it odd and interesting that we are seeing things happen in real-time over social media. I think that is also making me feel a bit disconnected as well since these images are things I’m used to seeing in historical video footage, not things that are happening now. But it is happening now and it is something that we need to be aware of.

It’s weird to think about writing blog posts about other things happening in my life. I know that there is nothing wrong with living my life, but I also need to acknowledge that being able to do so is a privilege. These past two years have shown us over and over again that what seems like normal life can change in an instant. What seems mundane and taken for granted could be gone in an instant. We need to enjoy what we have now, but also recognize that not everyone is as lucky as we are. And I know that these are things that I probably should have considered more in my past, but I am working on changing now and making sure I don’t forget to think about this.

And if you are struggling emotionally at all right now, I loved this post I saw online the other day.

There is no right or wrong way to be dealing with emotions right now. We are all feeling a lot and we are being exposed to the news a lot more than past generations have. We have to be aware of what is happening, but also gentle with ourselves as we come to terms with the reality of the world. That’s what I’m doing now and I hope that I can find a balance between being respectful of what is happening but not being too overwhelmed by it to not be able to do things that I want to do.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged news, overwhelmed

Short Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week)

Posted on February 25, 2022 | Comments Off

Until last year, having holidays on Mondays didn’t change much about my schedule since I always had Mondays off. Now, at least I do get an extra day off on weeks that have holidays on Mondays but it seems to make the rest of my week a bit more stressful than normal. It might just be the timing of the few times I’ve had a Monday holiday off, but it really feels like each one that I had makes my week hard.

This time, some of the extra stress was due to work-related things. I’ve been working on a new project at my job and it’s been taking longer than I had hoped. I still have a week before I need to be done with it, but I was hoping I would finish early so I could check everything before it was due. I probably don’t need to check anything, but I like having that time buffer to make sure I didn’t miss anything or need to correct my work. Also, with how my customer service job goes, this week is typically one of the busier weeks of the month so that is adding to my stress.

And I’m dealing with stress with my living situation as well. Nothing is horrible and I know I’m lucky because I’ll be moving soon enough. But my current landlord is still making things stressful for us and being a bit uncommunicative about what is happening. I wish we knew when there would be workers here all day in advance so I didn’t have anxiety when I see a ton of people outside my window. Or earlier this week, I wish I had known they would be doing work on the outside of my unit so I could have been prepared for the noise. I also was still waiting to have heat in my house until just yesterday. That was almost a month of no heat, and it’s been pretty cold lately. Waking up and having it be below 50 degrees in your room isn’t a comfortable thing.

But the biggest thing that I think is making my home extra stressful has been the fact that it doesn’t feel like my home right now. I have been preparing to move for a while, but most of that has been stuff I don’t see. Now, a lot of my stuff has been taken off the walls. There are white splotches where we have spackled over holes. Things feel messy and out of place. I know some of this discomfort is connected to my OCD. I want to fix things, but I can’t. And it’s tough when I keep focusing on what feels wrong to me. I think this is bothering me more than it normally would because of all the extra stress in my life right now.

And of course, the state of the world is so stressful. I don’t know what to write because it’s just so overwhelming. We have gone through so many life-changing or once-in-a-lifetime events lately. I wish things would be back to the way they used to be, but I also know things will never really be back to the before times. But hopefully, the new normal will resemble more of the old normal soon.

I know that having a regular work week next week won’t necessarily make all my stress go away, but I’m hoping that since a few things have started to get better I will have a better week. And maybe I won’t feel the same time crunch that I did this week when I felt like I didn’t have enough time to get things done. And maybe if a few things are better, the other things won’t be as tough for me to get through.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged stress

Still Not Doing All The Things I Love (or I Wonder When I Will Have Another Disney Day)

Posted on February 16, 2022 | Comments Off

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to Disneyland. This is one of the longest breaks from going to the parks that I’ve had since moving to LA. I know that one year of missing Disney was due to the parks being closed, but they reopened almost a year ago and I still haven’t returned. And this is for a few different reasons.

First, I still am anxious about being in crowded places. I know that when they reopened the capacity was reduced quite a bit, but it was still a lot of people. And now, I have seen photos of friends who have gone and the parks are just as crowded as before. I know that I won’t have this fear of getting sick forever, but I don’t see the need to push myself to go to the parks when I’m still uncertain. I’ve waited this long and I can wait a little longer. And right now, even though the numbers are getting better, they are still pretty high and I don’t need to add another risky behavior to my life. I know that going to the gym is still a risk, but I’m trying to be selective with the risks I take.

And they also just announced that vaccinated guests will no longer be required to wear masks at Disneyland, so I think I will want to wait longer before returning. I don’t know if they will be asking for vaccination cards when people are entering if they aren’t wearing masks, but I don’t know if that matters. Once someone is past the front gate, there won’t be regular checkpoints checking vaccination status. So someone who is unvaccinated could easily not wear a mask and I doubt anyone would know. I’ve seen what happened when there was a measles outbreak that was mainly around people who went to Disneyland. I worry that there could be the same thing with COVID-19 with unvaccinated guests not wearing masks. And I also know that being vaccinated doesn’t guarantee you can’t get others sick, so anyone not wearing a mask could be a risk for me. In some ways, I’m glad they announced this because now I’m even more certain about not going to the parks until things are safer. I’m not questioning my choice as much as I did when everyone is masked. Now, it just feels way too unsafe for me.

But even if I wasn’t worried about getting sick and being in crowds, there is another reason why I haven’t returned. I actually had a chance to meet up with my cousin at Disneyland this past weekend and I seriously was considering it. But I also don’t have an annual pass anymore so I would have to buy a 1-day ticket. And for the day I would be able to meet up with them, a 1-day ticket was over $200. When I had an annual pass, it was about $600. I can’t imagine spending 33% of what I spent for an entire year for a single day. Especially when I don’t know how often I would or could go now. I used to have Mondays free from work, and now I work Monday-Saturday. I will eventually start going back and I have a feeling I will buy the new type of annual pass since it’s worth it to me, but I can’t think of spending the money until I feel like I will be able to get the use out of it.

Since everything shut down almost 2 years ago, I have gotten a lot of my old life back. But I am still missing a lot of things, and going to Disneyland is one of them. If I went now, it wouldn’t be the way I remembered having Disney days. In the past, they were days to be carefree and have fun. Now, I don’t think I could have that same carefree feeling and it might be more stressful than other things in my life. One day, I’ll be back to being able to enjoy Disney and escape the regular world, but I’m just not there yet.

Comments Off on Still Not Doing All The Things I Love (or I Wonder When I Will Have Another Disney Day)

Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged Disney, Disneyland, pandemic, theme park

Having Issues At Both Places (or I Know These Are Small Problems, But They Add Up)

Posted on February 8, 2022 | Comments Off

At my current rental, I’ve had a series of issues that have come up. I think this is to be expected considering I live in a house that was built about 100 years ago and I’ve been here for almost 12 years. But I feel like I have had so many random things that have gone wrong and needed to be fixed. I’ve had multiple flood issues from my water heater, bathroom pipes, garbage disposal, and toilet. And I’ve also had a gas leak before or have had gas appliances not work. With my old landlord, things were fixed pretty quickly and they were on top of telling me the status of things being repaired.

Well, last week at my house, the gas company came out because there was a suspected gas leak on my street. They came over to let me know my gas would be off for maybe a few hours, but they would let me know when it was back on and they would relight the appliances. This was a minor inconvenience, but obviously, a gas leak needs to be fixed.

It turns out that the gas leak is in the pipe that provides gas to half the units where I live. My current place has a driveway in the middle and each side of the driveway has one main gas pipe. The pipe on my side was repaired a few years ago. This time, it’s the pipe on the other side.

Normally, this wouldn’t affect me much, but when the gas company came back to turn on my appliances, they said they could not turn on my heater. I guess it needs to have a major cleaning because it’s a carbon monoxide risk. I don’t think it was causing issues for me before because my carbon monoxide monitor is only about a foot from the heater, but the risk isn’t good so I can’t use my heater. I’m glad I have a little space heater, but it gets cold inside my house at night and it’s been tough. I’m hoping my landlord will fix this soon (and legally he has to because heat is a required thing to have in a rental), but I feel worse for my neighbors across the driveway. Not only do they not have heat, but they also don’t have hot water or gas appliances. And over the weekend, we all discovered that the dryer in our laundry room is a gas dryer. So none of us were able to dry our clothes after washing them. So I had to hang up all my clothes around my house and hope they will dry soon.

While I was dealing with the issues at my current place, I was also dealing with a minor issue at my new place. I am trying to get things set up for me so that they will be ready when I move in. And this includes making sure I will be able to set up internet when I move in. There were a lot of cables that looked like they could have been for the internet, but none of them seemed to be in the right place. So I set up an appointment this past weekend to have a technician come and help me see what I might need to do.

This should have been an easy appointment, but just like the issue with the gas leak, nothing is as simple as it appears. The first technician showed up, was looking at some of the wires in my walls (fortunately, we are in the part of the renovation where the walls have a lot of holes in them), said he was going outside to look at things, and then 5 minutes later I got a call saying my appointment was canceled. The technician just left and never told me! I called back and the customer service person I spoke with was shocked that happened and said they set up another appointment. Nobody can explain what happened, but the company canceled and reset my appointment multiple times within 6 hours. And because I was always told they were always on their way, I spent about 7 hours waiting for someone to show up.

Finally, someone showed up who was able to do the work I needed to have done. And because of all the weirdness that happened with the appointments, the supervisor for the technician and the manager for the service department also arrived to make sure everything was completed. What should have been a 1-hour thing ended up being about 7 hours, but at least it is done. There is a bit of additional work we have to do to make everything work the way we want it to, but it’s minor compared to what we thought we might have to do.

I know that having no heat in my current place could be worse (while it does get cold here, it’s nothing compared to most of the country). And I know spending 7 hours for an appointment isn’t horrible either, just annoying. But I think having everything at one time was just a bit overwhelming for me and really made me have a bad weekend. But hopefully, I will have heat again soon and this is one of the last bumps in the road for my renovation!

Comments Off on Having Issues At Both Places (or I Know These Are Small Problems, But They Add Up)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged condo, frustrated, home

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