I think this board will survive the upcoming SNAP of TMFthanos’ fingers. But just in case…
My son and I are doing well. Tax season is driving me crazy. So all is normal. Can’t wait for it to be done on Monday. (PSA - the deadline is April 18 this year. Why? Because. I can explain better on April 19.)
On the other hand, working from home has been great. The guilt I’ve felt from working late in the office over the last decade has dissolved away. I can work and still be with family. When my son needs something, I can address that need. I’m not leaving him home alone for a couple of hours every day. While he’s perfectly capable of being alone, he is the textbook extrovert. He needs to be with people. And there’s little worse for him than being home alone. So that part has been great.
I also haven’t missed the cost of an office. That’s a fair chunk of change that I can put to much better use.
Our caregiver came down with Covid about 10 days ago or thereabouts. He was here on a Friday, then started feeling sick on Saturday. Called in sick on Monday, then let us know of a positive test on Tuesday. We then followed up with our own rapid tests on Wednesday, which were negative. Still, I kept my son home from school on Wednesday because of the exposure. He doesn’t need to be around all of the medically fragile students after being exposed.
That also started me thinking if I really needed an aide with me home all of the time. Or at least thinking about it for after tax season when I’m not nearly as busy. I’m seriously thinking about going without. There are a couple of specific entertainment things for my son that the aide is handling well. So there’s definitely some value there. But when I’m not as busy with work, I feel like I will have the time to take care of those things myself. Any way, we’ll see. No decision made yet.
We’re planning a road trip with the extended family to visit my last surviving Aunt and Uncle, both of which are living in Arizona. It’s just a few hours drive from here in Southern California. Neither are doing well - Aunt is in her 90s and fading fast. She’ll be moving into assisted living, if she hasn’t already. Arrangement are done, just waiting for a spot to open. Uncle is in mid stages of Alzheimer’s. Still living at home with assistance from his daughter (my cousin). But we need to see them while we still can. So road trip it is. We’re also going to sneak in a baseball game - the Dodgers are playing the Diamondbacks in Phoenix just when we were planning to be there. So it was an easy add on to the trip. My son and my brother are big Dodger fans. So it should be a fun getaway.
Was planning a longer update after tax time, but thought I should get one in now just to make sure it happened.
–Peter