lapis sky @camelliapollen - Tumblr Blog

I knew removing a stand of acacia would be brutal for sun exposure and it was blindingly bright after they came down today but I also know it was the right thing because 1 they're invasive and combustible and alter the soil chemistry to make it harder for native plants and we live in an oak woodland that became a neighborhood and 2 one snapped in a storm and took our power lines out and the others were leaning even more over our neighbor's roof and when they were cut down, two were rotted from the inside with termite damage. having a reaction to how bright and intense that patch is now and my longterm goal is to replace it with an oak tree but now I'm like dang I need to go knock on my arborist neighbor's door and see if he'll come talk to me about preparing the soil or something now that we know there were termites there not to mention the potentially weird soil chemistry. I also knew this wouldn't be immediate but I think these factors will affect how long it takes. unfortunately.

oooo not our ac breaking in a heatwave... nothing like everyone up at 6:30 with two hours to wait for a service place to open so we can even see if someone could fix it today..

I love my friends born in july so no offense but every summer I think july is like if a month could be a grumpy, moody middle child

to do .. take time off later this week to sand and prime my bathroom so I can paint it over the weekend, send invitations for my daughter's birthday party, organize books in our new shelf

something my dad and I share is really enjoying an after dinner herbal tea, preferably traditional medicinals immune zoom. with a digestive biscuit and ideally also a little ice cream. and every week when I see him it feels so fun to go into the kitchen and see what we're going to find.

making zucchini fritters on the stove in house sandals I was bound to burn my foot..

my kantian categorical imperative approach to nonprofit finance

really unhinged behavior today during a debrief with my boss on about a frustrating call where we've been brought into this time consuming project to rebuild our budgeting and funding allocation processes and how to divide work where I was complaining about this coworker who keeps overcomplicating things and refuses to simplify or accept that some parsing is meaningless and I brought up how she be trained in the philosophical concept of categories and he was just like wow...

bought a low chill hour plum tree yesterday.. the last of the problematic trees are coming out this week, a stand of combustible acacias planted right by our power lines and neighbor's house where they could easily snap and fall onto their roof during a rain or windstorm. going to have to deal with some more evening sun exposure there but I think it will be so nice to have more open space and spring blossoms and summer fruit. got one of those oscillating sprinklers and my daughter loves to run through it and it snapped me out of my moping like of course I'm not only getting the harder experiences I'm getting the wonderful and ordinary like the flower she picked me and the hide and seek game she's starting to play with me. no joke I think sleeping with a mouth guard is messing with me because I'm clenching it overnight and waking up with teeth more sensitive than they've ever been. feel like I'm in a rock and hard place because using it should protect my teeth but it may be adding different problems and then I'm waking up anxious and weird. we keep making spurts of progress in the house like bringing in bookshelves and last night I dealt with a bunch of different clutter on our kitchen counters and it felt good.. also finally winding down at work with a bunch of deadline heavy stuff being due in the next few days then can get a nice breather and take a day off to go to the beach

have a neighborhood potluck of sorts this afternoon that I couldn't figure out what to make til a few hours ago then I was moping and dragging my feet because I kind of couldn't be bothered even though I know it will feel good so I am going to be either right on time or a little late and realized my daughter got a raspberry stain on my shirt and put her dirty shoe on my jean leg and didn't want to figure out changing so I'm sitting in the hot sun with water and soap on the stains trying to dry them quickly while this cake cooks.. could have approached this very differently but here we are

I also am still grieving and I feel like I should put a sign up that says act like I'm a piece of bruised fruit that you should handle carefully because I'm just too sensitive to everything right now

the thing about consistency is it's not really sexy and hard to appreciate until it's disrupted somehow and then when it returns it feels like a return to normal and less like someone actively minding things to keep them running smoothly.. feeling ugly emotions about how while my uncle was in hospice my husband had an inconvenient work trip and follow up so he was largely absent for like 3 weeks and since returning to normal life in our own house with both parents my daughter is like, fine with me, but all about him and I'm just like. cool. yes we go on more errand type outings and yes we do things like cook together but we also go to the library and read books and play outside but I just don't hold a candle these days. and she saves her more difficult emotions for me which I think can be a sign of feeling safe enough to express them so I am glad for that but I'm like if getting your toddler's screaming and crumpling to the floor is supposed to be a reward... I would like to cash in on a different prize too

like I know this is overly simplified and it feels different as an adult knowing adult men and feeling somewhat dismissive about the boxes they feel confined to and being like well women have the same things and it's only recent history that we're involved in fields you see us in now or with the capabilities we have now, like I genuinely think all the time about my grandma who left an abusive marriage toward her and my infant mom in the 50s and was slapped by a priest when she showed up at mass as a divorced woman and had to have her dad rent her an apartment and open a bank account for her so she could raise my mom in an apartment with her mom. like she worked a job and made money and couldn't have a bank account. vs when I left an abusive relationship in my early 20s and only had the trauma to deal with but I had a job with my own money and could go somewhere and rent a new apartment. that was an aside but I do have some sympathy for the narrative that girls have a world that became more open to them and boys are just kind of stuck in the same boxes and nowhere did this strike me more than a few months ago at my niece's ballet recital where not a single boy participated and my nephew seemed interested but at almost 3 already was like that isn't for me. and it's simple stuff like what kinds of patterns they get on clothes and even in a big city and our progressive pocket where kids do everything I still feel like it's so counter current and new. sometimes I listen to 70s music and think about the mainstream and critically acclaimed artists and their images and am like there was kind of a critical mass of different masculinity then and I feel like we almost have less of that now. I talk to friends with sons and am just like.. the questions you get for buying them a toy kitchen as if all people don't cook or men don't dominate restaurant kitchens.. I don't even think I have a point it's just the messages are so conflicting and it must be such a weird layer as a parent to be thinking through.

gender with kids is so interesting because I think we're a lot more accepting of interests being neutral and clothes have come further than blue and pink but it's wild to me how every time my daughter wears a plain blue shirt in public people will say oh your son is so cute and I'm just like thank you like today it happened in the grocery store and she was wearing her hair back in little pigtails at the front since otherwise it's in her face and this young dad with a younger son did this thing where he was friendly and like trying to get his son to wave and said look that boy has long hair too and I was just like.. aw.. didn't have the heart to correct bc boys can have long hair, my husband does.. sometimes buying clothes I feel like things are more conservative than when I grew up like boys overwhelmingly get trucks and animals and stripes and that's kinda it I feel like.. why are plants girl now unless they're woods.. I feel like it's a weird time to raise a boy with the messaging.. what a minefield

read raise high the roofbeam, carpenters in one sitting last night and now onto seymour - an introduction and wow it's been delicious

my daughter will be spending two mornings a week at a local nursery school that is very lovely and seems like a wonderful new chapter for us all but my god the volume of forms I'm filling out right now

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