Glimpses of Beauty

 

Montana youths win climate lawsuit against state for promoting fossil fuels

TSS and HOAs

#1 - I listened to a podcast interviewing a woman who lost her legs due to toxic shock syndrome from using tampons. (The Diary of a CEO).  I remember reading the warnings in tampons when I was younger but I've never heard anyone talk about it. I'm completely in agreement with her concerns about chlorine bleach, dioxin and synthetic fibers in tampons, what I was confused by was her saying that even organic tampons contain pesticides. 

 It is true there are pesticides just inherently in our environment, but the whole point of the "organic" label is that the cotton is grown without pesticides.

I just looked this up and I can't attest to this website but this corroborates my knowledge

"Because they don’t contain synthetic and toxic ingredients like pesticides, herbicides, bleach, chlorine, and other disinfectants, they are certainly the more natural option, and will break down quickly and more safely for the environment."

https://www.greenmatters.com/p/best-organic-tampons

I am not saying you can't get TSS from organic tampons and I completely commend the work Lauren Wasser is doing, it was just one thing I was perplexed by that she said.

#2- A friend of mine hurt her foot this weekend, she went in to urgent care and was potentially on the road for surgery and a really long recovery.  That may still be the case, however it also may be a broken toe and Mayo Clinic says, "Most broken toes heal well, usually within 4 to 6 weeks" which is a long time, but shorter than the original scenarios.

#3 - One of my plants has developed a crop of fungus gnats.  However the three things I employed from the internet seem to be working.  -Letting the soil dry out.  -A apple cider vinegar/water/dish soap mixture - and some yellow sticky traps set on top of the soil.

#4 - This gratitude is a fingers crossed gratitude. When my offer was accepted on this condo a little over a year ago, I had a few days to review the HOA documents.  One of the items in that document stated there was the potential for an assessment for hail damage from a storm.  So I asked the seller to either:

A. Reduce the price $2000 or

B. Put $3500 in an escrow account for a year for any pending assessments on the roof hail damage.

He chose B.  Nothing happened last summer, or over the winter.  Once spring arrived and they could look at the roofs I thought it would be decided. I listened to the board meetings each month. Nothing.  So I emailed the management in May (which was a year since the storm) asking for documentation if there would be a bill.

They asked me to contact them again in July.  I asked the title company if there was anything I could do.  They said the seller is already asking for the money, but he has to wait the year.  That is the agreement.

I contacted again in July.

I listened to the the board meeting in July.  They said there would be an assessment and we'd have the numbers the next day.

I emailed a couple days later and got the response, "Accounting should be wrapping up today with the spreadsheet."

Well, time was ticking, a couple weeks later (last Friday - when I didn't know if my final day was Monday or Tuesday), they said they'd have it in a couple hours.  They didn't.

 Fortunately it wasn't Monday because despite my pleading for a bill, yesterday I had nothing.

Today they did send me an estimate I could send to the title company.  And the title company sent myself and the seller something to sign to release the money to pay my assessment.

I'm grateful it was enough for the title company and the responsiveness of the woman that works there.

What I don't know yet is if the seller is going to attempt to dispute it. 

#5 - 

 

 "We've come in modern times

 to believe that we need to do more to be more, 

and it's broken, 

it's fundamentally broken.  

The idea is that we need to be more

 and let the doing flow from that."

Dr. Michael Gervais

 

 

When YouTube Ads Know You Better

than you know yourself...

I cried Tuesday night as I fell asleep. 

It had been a while.

A plan to see my former partner's youngest fell thru and the wound opened...

A couple days later this song appeared as an ad. I've never heard of any of these people, but the fact

that I just keep listening to it on repeat

means things are shifting.

This is What Wealth Looks Like

#1 -#2 - My niece and nephew slept over last night.  We were sitting at the table while they ate breakfast and suddenly my 8 year old nephew got up and ran. I assumed he needed to go to the bathroom. Instead he ran back with the book I started reading them last night, The Willoughbys Return by Lois Lowry and asked me to read to them while they ate.

They just learned to play Scrabble yesterday, so my nephew pulled it out again after breakfast. He was being really whiny though and so I was not enjoying it. I said, "I am going to need a break if you are going to be whiny.  I will give you three warnings.  After the third one I'm going to go work for 1/2 hour."  He pretty quickly whined three times, so I went into the other room and closed the door and logged into work for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes I came out and he and my niece were happily playing another game in much more pleasant moods.  

My niece wanted to return to Scrabble.  My nephew wanted to keep playing the imagination game they were playing. So he very quickly made three whiny sounds in the hope I would go back in the other room and work and he could continue playing with his sister. 

He was smiling while whining this time though. At this point it wasn't taking over him, he was using it (or trying to).

My niece didn't want to play his game any more though, so he played his game by himself, and she and I played Scrabble. 

(Maybe I was actually the whiny problem, because after I took my own time out the entire energy of our morning shifted).

#3 - In the spring I had a prolonged bad cough.  It was frustrating for many reasons, one of which is when I got to really hacking, I'd end up peeing a little.  I ended up having to go to the toilet when I'd start to cough. 

A month or so later I read a book by my former MD Carolyn Torkelson.  She mentioned getting a referral for pelvic floor therapy for situations like this (and others). I made a note to ask my doctor about that, though my next annual exam isn't until March so who knows if I'd remember at that point.

Last Friday I made a last minute doctor's appointment because I wasn't sure if my minor UTI was resolved.  I was a little annoyed about taking the time to do this, and if it was all in my head at this point (my test came back normal) but I ended up asking about the pelvic floor therapy and I got a referral.  

Today they called me to schedule the appointment (quick).  So now I'm really grateful that I went in last week and got the ball rolling on this.  I'm grateful to have health care, and health insurance and the time and space to take action.

#4 - I was SO EXCITED last week to hear Eckhart Tolle commenting on ASMR videos and I emailed some friends about it.  One of those friends asked for a recommendation to listen to some that I liked.  And I have very enthusiastically been restraining myself from working on the long email response I have to her today.  (Latte ASMR and Gentle Whispering ASMR are 2 of my favorite.)

#5 - Finally a 10 second video taken by my favorite 13 year old while camping last week.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9MxoZubOIuI

Breathing Easy Again

 #1 - Opening the windows again since the temperaturs has cooled and the air quality alert (smoke from Canadian Wildfires) has passed.  I know we had some issues with wildfire smoke a couple years back, but it wasn't until this summer that I've started looking at air quality station numbers and bookmarked websites with the air quality.

#2 - My niece, nephew and cousin slept over and I knew this might make us late for my 9AM soccer game, so I planned to leave earlier than usual and we arrived earlier than I usually do.  I told my nephew that one of the guys on our team says, "Go, Hug, Win" instead of "Go, Fight, Win," and he was curious/wanted to know who did that.

#3 - The three of them played cards on the sidelines, during half time my niece hid under a towel behind my nephew and he called attention to it to my team.  I can't recall what he said exactly, but someone said he'd turned into a camel and he smiled. He isn't shy like I was as a child.

#4 - I took a brief nap which I needed, at my brother's house after bringing the kids back.  We had camped a couple nights together and had a great time, however, there were (different) loud people at nearby campsites both nights.  The kids slept thru it, I however, did not.

#5 - My cousin has gone thru a similar tough time this past year (a break-up) and one of the silver linings is that it has brought us closer.  When she left she said our family is so lucky to have me, I think the exact same thing about her.

Mission Accomplished

 

 

These falls have memories.  When I was a kid we'd stop at them between visiting one grandparents to another's.  It was a beautiful spot, that is no longer en route but I was glad to be reminded of it today, and glad it was a place my father used to take me to, though those memories are vague and mostly from photos.

My destination was an unusual state park, a mine, the last 1 of the 66 state parks that I hadn't been to.

Here is a map of where they all are.  My aunt accompanied me on this final visit and took these "mission accomplished" photos. I started this goal 15 or so years ago when I realized I had already visited half of the parks without trying.

Then I spent the next 15 years getting the last 30 or so, which was just 2 or so a year, so no hurry, I've enjoyed the journey!

This is actually a big pit that was mined out of iron ore and now is full of  water.

 And I came home to a phone message that fraud was detected on my debit account and the transaction declined.  I just called and the charge was not mine.  They cancelled my card (which I still have) and I looked online and don't see anything I didn't spend myself.