The Apple May Well Be Rotten Right to the Core, But I Just Can't Go Back | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? Aug 26-Sep 1, 2024
Monday
Having received the text of doom yesterday – to say that Atlas’ babysitter and her husband have Covid – I wake up and immediately remember that I can’t ship him off to her house today, and will have to (a) entertain him and (b) try my hardest to get this week’s work crammed into his nap times, which is easier said than done (especially as… I hate to admit this but… his nap times seem to be getting a teeny tiny bit shorter!).
Anyway, we get up at around 8.45am – thank God this little angel isn’t an early riser or I’d be a shell – and head downstairs where I serve us both a gourmet breakfast of Frosted Flakes (why are these called Frosted Flakes in America and Frosties in Ireland?! Some of the name changes make sense to me, but surely Kellogg’s cereals could just stay the same for the sake of convenience?!), mine in a bowl with milk, his dry on a plate with fruit snacks and a large spoon of yogurt.
Ordinarily, I’d try to take him out somewhere in the mornings as he’s home with me, but I’m still feeling really congested and headachey, and despite my second Covid test giving a negative result, I’m still a bit reluctant to head out and about into society and risk infecting everyone we come across. So instead we do some puzzling, some dinosaur roaring, some playing in the sandpit and some colour matching, all in the name of keeping the TV off for the morning.
For lunch, I order Panera, telling myself that this is to ensure that I get some nutrients in to me – our cupboards and fridge are looking exceptionally bare and I draw the line at eating cheese-flavoured goldfish crackers and mixed berry Go-gurts as snacks – and I get cheddar and broccoli soup and a half portion of their Green Goddess (hate the name) salad, with macaroni and cheese and a chocolate chip cookie for Atlas. ($44.71: yes, Panera is extortionate, especially when you order it on DoorDash and add in the jacked-up prices and driver tip.)
Once Atlas is finished his lunch and down for his nap – refuses to eat his cookie with a loud and effusive “ew!”, the weirdo – I head up to the bedroom to do some work, for once entirely ignoring the pile of laundry that needs to be put away and the unmade bed, because I know once I start down that road an hour will pass before I’ll get to doing any of the work I really need to do today.
I start with some admin and pay off the amount we have overdue to First Steps, the service that provides Atlas with in-home speech and occupational therapies (their online portal wasn’t working for me and I kept forgetting to send a check). Then I head on to the Arts Council site to draw down the payment I received from their Agility Award (!!!! still can’t quite believe this one), which I’m planning on using (some of) to buy myself a new laptop.
I have a Macbook Air but, just like my last Macbook Air, this one seems to have reached its third year of life and just… given up entirely, which isn’t great. I’m going to try to buy something this weekend; it’s Labor Day, which means there’ll be some online sales, although I’m still not sure if I’ll go for another Apple (I love the operating system, and I have an iPhone and an Apple Watch, so it kind of makes sense to stick with it… but in my experience the laptops just don’t last) or give up on Apple altogether and go for a Lenovo or an Acer or a Dell.
Once those bits are done, I edit and schedule an episode of Not Without My Sister, then get started on this week’s money diary, getting down the outline of what I did all week and slotting in all of my expenditures, and the days they occurred. I swear to God, every single week I’m shocked by the amount of stupid, unnecessary spending I do (and what it all adds up to). Every. Damn. Week.
I also make a donation to The Asher House ($51.52), a pet rescue I follow on Facebook and Instagram, not just because I have a crush on Lee Asher, who runs it (I do) but also because their videos just make me so happy that there are people in the world dedicating their lives to rescuing dogs who, for whatever reason, have been left by the wayside. I sometimes think that, if I won the lotto, I’d buy a big house in the country specifically so that I could rescue a whole herd of dogs (then I remember that I am the world’s worst dog trainer and think that would probably be a terrible idea).
When Brandin gets home, Atlas is just getting out of bed so I hand him off to his Dad and then head back to the bedroom to record an episode of the podcast with Bea and wrap up a final few bits.
We have pasta and bolognese for dinner, which Atlas loves – even the carrots, which he otherwise will not touch?!? – and then I do bath and bedtime while Brandin tidies up, after which point I read my book for a bit (I’m on the penultimate book in Tracy Wolff’s Crave series and I will say that she could have cut it down to three books and I would have been happy because I’m on book five and I am struggling) before bed.
Daily total: $96.23
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