There Is No Pleasure Without Pain

Constantly evolving but consistently petty

[ropeandcoffee]

@find-jupiter shared a cucumber edamame salad so I made it last night. 10/10 would recommend. And since the cucumbers are ripening faster than I can eat them, new ideas are always good. So far I’ve made two different types of cucumber salad, I’ve made pickles, and I also just sprinkle some furikake seasoning and soy sauce on them and eat them à la carte. I’m open for suggestions.

My mini is finishing her first week at her new job as an associate social worker (they call them care coordinators), and the commute hasn’t killed her yet. 😬 She likes her supervisor, and today she is shadowing someone on a visit. When we go down at the end of the month, she wants us to go through her benefits package to make sure she understands it all. I’m so proud of her. I know this is the type of work thar naturally fits her, but this morning we talked about making sure she takes care of herself since it is a stressful field. ♥️

My grade level team met for lunch yesterday. Our work sister who retired early due to her kidney cancer and treatment, let us know that her immunotherapy hadn’t worked and a lymph node came back positive for kidney cancer. They told her it had spread. So she is now on a new medication and it’s harder on her stomach. I feel so bad for her. 😢Retiring was best for her so she can focus on taking care of herself and spending time with her family. She is expecting a granddaughter next month so hopefully it will help her stay positive.

She still wants us to stay in our three stooges group text though so she can laugh at our daily gripes. 😂

Currently waiting for my PT appt and will be getting new exercises to do. My shoulder is so stiff in the AM, and it probably didn’t help that I worked in the classroom and kept reaching up high to take kids’ work off the walls. 😳 Luckily, it loosened up as soon as I did my exercises. Whew.

Score of the week: Dan got a plexiglass fish tank and cabinet on MaxSold for only $1.30. Yay! Now to figure out where it will go when we pick it up Saturday. 😬

Is that 5? It is Friday, right?

Right?! 😬

[ropeandcoffee]

Why is it that I pick a training module that is labeled “35 minutes,” but at slide 15, I look down and realize this:

🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽

[ropeandcoffee]

I really, really, really hate when I have work to do (currently logging in to finish my online training hours) but my cousin sends me a tiktok or reel of something she would know I would find hella funny. She knows me too well. Thirty minutes later, I’m crawling back out of the rabbit hole I went down, only to cuss myself out for wasting time. 🤦🏻‍♀️

[ropeandcoffee]

My friend’s 93 and 94 year old parents just got out of the hospital after a car accident. How did it happen you ask? Because they still have a license! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don’t care how “with it”people still are in elderly years, you cannot tell me that their quick reflexes are still intact: hitting brakes quickly when traffic comes to a sudden stop, swerving to miss a kid on a bike who jumps off the curb into the street, etc.

I agree with @hopefulmisanthrope

that there should be mandatory road tests at a certain point. I don’t know when that should start, I don’t know how often they should be, but I do know that I feel very strongly that my friend’s parents should lose their licenses.

[ropeandcoffee]

I’m mustering the energy to go into the classroom today to see the mountain of furniture moving I have to do. When I went in last week, every single thing in my room was stacked and piled high on the 3-4 foot wide strip of tile because they had installed new carpet in June. Supposedly all of it is back on the carpet because they still have to wax the tile floor. I just hope they put all my desks back in there because if not, I’m going to ask that they do. Technically, I’m not supposed to be lifting anything or doing things like moving furniture so we shall see.

The principal hired a new PE teacher because ours got a position 10 min from his house. He was tired of commuting from Sacramento and I don’t blame him. The new one is from NC, worked for 6 years in the DC district, and was a cop for 6 years. Now I’m not sure how this will translate into classroom management because cops I’ve met in the classroom tend to have zero management skills with kids, but I’ll have an open mind about it. 😬

I’ve been gone from work since early May and yesterday I was feeling like whoa, I almost felt retired and now I have to get back into “hit the ground running” mode. I’m sure I will be fine once I start again but oh how I hate the beginning of the school year and having to teach the kids all the expectations and routines. I like it when they know me and can “understand the assignment” and my body language/facial expressions. lol.

Only 3 more Augusts and then I’m out this bitch! 🤞🏽

[ropeandcoffee]

Ignore the fact that this is a medium and I forgot that my titties fit a small, but I just wanna shout out to front zip-up sports bras! Took me forever to realize that this is what I needed in my life and would’ve saved me some serious pain as I got stuck getting in and out of my other ones and I fucked up my shoulder repair (not really) but it still feels “off” ever since I lost a fight with the one of them a couple weeks ago.

Hashtag game changer!

Hashtag quit putting pads in sports bras!

Hashtag just make them thicker and you won’t have to shove pads in them. 🙃

Now to order some front closing bras! It has been a couple of decades and I really need them again as well.

[ropeandcoffee]

I’m a back sleeper and Dan has told me before that I never move in my sleep. Last night for some reason I laid on my side to stretch my back and to do my shoulder movements and I must’ve fallen asleep in that position because I woke up on the same side and my right ear now feels like it’s buried in the side of my head. OUCH

[ropeandcoffee]

My Oura ring stopped recording my sleep and activities. It started dying in a few hours even thought the battery is supposed to last for several days. So I chatted with the help bot and it told me that they detected an issue with my ring and immediately responded that they would be sending me a new one. I didn't even have to send the old one back to them. I just got my new ring and not gonna lie, this is the customer service for which I live.

My mini told me that for $400 they SHOULD! lol

[ropeandcoffee]

I was watching this doctor talk about a few things that one should do at the beginning of each day to help you extend your years. One of them is getting some sun. So I decided to do that even though I wanted to stay in bed.

I walked 2 miles downtown to the farmers market and bought some fresh berries. A+

Then I walked to a coffee shop and grabbed a cup of joe for the walk home.

Not a bad start to my day. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[ropeandcoffee]

If you don’t know the lyrics to this one, we can’t be friends. 😬😂

[ropeandcoffee]

Babyface still got it! And he sang so many hits he wrote for others, it took me waaaayyyy back!

I didn’t realize until last year that he wrote The Whispers biggest hit.

[ropeandcoffee]

Tonight my cousin and I are going to see Babyface at the state fair. He’s been my favorite since the 80s and I can’t wait to hear him sing hits he has written for others over the years. His catalog is insane. Can’t wait!

My Must Do today-my online district training. A shit ton of mandatory trainings for mandated reporter stuff (ie-abuse signs), safety, etc. In all, if you watch all the videos and take the exams to pass, it’s well over 7-8 hours. They only pay us for like 5. So I try and get them done in 3. 🤷🏻‍♀️ They used to give us a stipend if we completed them by the time school starts. Now it’s embedded in our new contract and they will dock your pay if you don’t get them done by mid September. I try and get mine done during break because once I hit the ground running next month I will forget or will have to do it at night. No thank you.

But first, let me get my lazy butt in gear and get on the peloton😩

[ropeandcoffee]

Whoever said you can’t have leftover steak and salad for breakfast can bite me.

Oh wait, don’t. I may like it and get sidetracked. 😈

[ropeandcoffee]

This is where I am now

GET OFF MY LAWN! 👵🏽

[ropeandcoffee]

Since I have to start getting back into work mode soon, I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30 AM and walked with Dan to the coffee shop downtown. There and back we covered 3.8 miles all before 8:30. And since yesterday was 109°, and today is supposed to be 98, it’s a good thing we got it done because it’s already 81° now. You know I’m lazy when I’m proud of myself for taking a damn walk. Ha!

[shutyourfaceparts]

We Need Gift Cards!

Hi my lovelies! We are in dire need for gift cards for my clients as kids are home for the summer eating all the food and back to school shopping is right around the corner. If you have the means to donate it is appreciated more than you know. My clients all are navigating many different challenges, including a lack of funds and resources to meet their basic needs and the needs of their children. I utilize resources I am aware of that can help fill some of the gaps, but often what is truly needed is money.

Here is our gift card registry. They prefer to shop at Walmart or Aldi as they are cheaper than Target, though we also have a Target registry.

You all have give so much over the last few years and I appreciate all of it. The need just never ends and unfortunately is being exacerbated by the current administration.

[shutyourfaceparts]

So the Walmart site can suck sometimes and not allow purchases so I made an Amazon wishlist which hopefully does actually allow people to purchase from it. The link is here:

Thank you to everyone who reblogged and liked!

[ropeandcoffee]

Boosting for survivors and their children ♥️

[ropeandcoffee]

I just got done bleach mopping my whole entire house floor. TWICE. And three times in high traffic places. Probably about 1200 sq ft without the bedrooms so needless to say, my back hurts and so does my left shoulder even though I tried not to use it.

It’s all Saltillo tile except for the bedrooms. Because of this, it doesn’t look any different once it’s clean. lol

BUT, I’ve decided that since I spent so much time on it and it is actually completely clean now, I’m going to implement my mother’s rule of take your shoes off at the front door. She had this rule for us growing up and I guess since I hated it, I didn’t think twice once I got my own place as an adult. Also, I’m lazy, but y’all know this. Ha! But here I am now in my 50s realizing I should’ve been doing this all along. So I sent the family a text to start this today. Now let’s hope we can keep it up. 🤞🏽

Also, no mop “system” really works. Even the OCedar one that keeps the water separate. You’re still putting the mop in dirty water. So I decided to use one bucket for clean, hot bleach water, another bucket to wring it out, and the bathtub to rinse all the dirty water off the mop down the drain. This is the only way I have found to keep the mop clean. If any of you have any more efficient ways of doing this, I’m all ears! I hate this job. 😩