10 Unfinished Projects

 I feel like the poster child for late diagnosed ADHD right now, because I feel like I’ve started ten things and haven’t finished any of them. 

The book I’m writing called The Child Advocate. I did write out a few scenes in the spiral notebook I talked about earlier. That thing is too heavy to work on every day. Every day would be ideal, though. 

All the reading and research on anti-ABA online, which now includes  This culmination

The two books I’m reading on the same subject.  The book by the author “Julie Roberts” who I can’t find info on because of her similar name to Julia Roberts is all full of scientific studies. I simply can’t remember much of what I learned in methods in research class at University of Houston.  I’d need a brief refresher, probably something on YouTube.  I texted my daughter asking her when she takes it at TXST.  She doesn’t know.  Probably in her junior year, as it’s a 300 level class. 

Working as a caregiver and trying to set at least some boundaries with musical schedule boss (gift card boss).  She does sort of a professional version of love bombing.  It’s not real love bombing, it’s work appropriate.  She says I’m amazing, I’m a rockstar, I’m this and that  and maybe I am 🤷🏻‍♀️.  I’m also fundamentally exhausted, and musical schedules affects my mental health.  

I am trying to do more side jobs on the merchandiser and field agent apps, and now my husband wants to try them.  We are planning to go do some together, but haven’t gotten a chance.  This weekend, the field agent app had a lot of freebies.  I got two free subway sandwiches plus $3 each, free chipotle (I got vegetarian tacos) plus I think $3 or $5, and another free stick of deodorant plus $5.  We will never run out of deodorant at this rate.

Writing my own recipe cards based on stuff I find in cookbooks that I like and want to try. 

I bought an old art history textbook from half price books and am trying to cut out pictures of art and make collages with decoupage.  I worked a little on a Byzantine inspired one for my mom for Mother’s Day.

Reading the handful of books I have on writing. 

Purpose nigh to walk 10,000 steps daily  

The fun I’m having with ChatGPT helping me come up with elements to the other book in my head- the one with the couple based on me and my first love, Matthew. I’m actually creating story lines for all seven kids based on the kids of some influencers I semi-follow. 

Thinking of Matt brought a memory to mind. When we first started dating, we worked together at a supermarket. He used to say he wanted to work his way up with that and eventually become a store manager. This was very much discouraged. He was basically yelled at that there was no working his way up in the supermarket business and that it was a dead end job to even be a store manager. He was pressured to go to college and get a degree instead.  We all were. Well, about a year ago, my inventory coworker, who used to be a grocery store manager told me that she was making $120-$130,000 a year. I was floored. She was making that in the past, not just now days. When I expressed my disbelief, her husband told me that store managers actually do make that much. What?  I literally said, “Why then, when you are a kid working in a store, they tell you that working your way up there is a dead end?  They both said, “I don’t know.” And “It’s not a dead end.” 

One more thing to add to the list of “things they were wrong about.”  RIP Matt

AI Family Portraits

It dawned on me today that there would be no way possible to get my three cats posing together in a nice grassy meadow for a family portrait. So I had ChatGPT do it. It came out perfect, except for the fact that Alex has less white on his paws. He wears ankle socks, not crews. 

Then I thought- you know what else would be impossible?  Getting my family together to pose for a family portrait. It’s not just because we all live in different cities and states, it’s also because many of us/them don’t even speak to each other. I tried to get ChatGPT to do one family portrait of me with my paternal first cousins, and one with me and my maternal first cousins. 

This one is what came up when I entered pictures of me and my cousins on my father’s side. That’s supposed to be me on the far left. My only female cousin on that side has aged significantly since looking like this, and she looks exactly like our mutual grandmother now.  The four men all look spot on. 

My mother’s side was a little more complicated, because there were 16 of us.  I’m supposed to be the one in the black shirt in the front row. It looks nothing like me. This was way more complicated to make, because I didn’t have pictures of everyone. For the ones I didn’t have pictures of, I gave ChatGPT pictures of their siblings that they resembled most. That’s why there are a couple in here that look like twins. In my opinion, only half of the people here look like the actual people, but this one was just hard to do. Maybe when I have the mental energy and headspace to do so, I’ll submit more changes to ChatGPT to get a more realistic family portrait. 

I didn’t like being an only child, and I gravitated to my 19 cousins as much as possible. Yes there are 20 total, but one was an adoptee that we didn’t find out about until about 2017.  Two have passed away, two have gone no contact with everyone (it’s not known if these two are alive or dead but I presume them alive), and there are three that won’t speak to me and are among my biggest haters now. But that’s ok. Haters are gonna hate!  

I’m not sure if the children of one’s first cousins are considered your second cousins or your first cousins once removed, but in total, I have 29 of those now. Most of those 29 are adults with their own families, and I do not have a count on how many grandchildren of my first cousins there are. (Great grandchildren of my parents siblings). On my father’s side, it’s 8.  On my mom’s side, who knows. It’s 24-25 that I know of. 

When I’m old, with grandkids and great grandkids, I hope we can take family portraits like this in real time, instead of having AI do it because we are all so distant in so many ways. In the 1980’s in Chicago, my holidays looked like this. 

If my grandparents saw these fake images with everyone hugging and smiling, they’d be proud if they thought it would be real. Realistically, they couldn’t possibly proud at the sheer number of generational curses that have been perpetrated. I’m confident that third generation, the one I don’t have a count for, will “break those curses” and do way better than we did. In fact, I believe the young people in general are already doing way better than we ever did, in most families. 

The kids are alright. 

I’m the Proudest Mom

Today my daughter Anna volunteered again with the animal sciences club at Texas State U. Then, she went to a No Kings protest and posed with a drag queen. 

I’m so proud of my kid. I never tried to live vicariously through her, and I never pushed things on her that would make her “have things I didn’t have”.  But here she is, living her best life at 18. 

Tidbits for the Last Full Week of March

 Gift card boss has me working with a couple whose son normally cares for them but is out of town until Sunday. The shift differential for this is $6.50 more per hour, probably because they are only paying for split shifts. They get two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. It’s 8-10 am and 5-7 pm from this past Wednesday until this Sunday. GCBoss said it’s a very important client because they were referred by their hospice company and she wants that hospice company to refer more people. So, I’m the only one working with this couple in order to prevent them from thinking she sends different people all the time and plays musical schedules. This couple are both dying from COPD. I go in and basically just get them a meal, clean their commode, take care of all the pets, visit with them and that’s it. They are lonely. They gave me several cookbooks. In fact, they insisted I take them. I took only two and they wanted me to take more. 

I actually like having seven hour breaks. Can’t do it all the time, though. I had a doctors appointment, did the taxes, and a lot of grocery shopping. My doctor put me on a weight loss pill!  It’s called phentermine, and it’s great. I have a nice burst of energy all day long, and I’m good eating only half of what I normally eat. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to go to the park on my 7 hour break and get 10,000 steps again. 

I also got two $50 gift cards to Walmart for taking last minute shifts over the weekend. After I’m done working with this couple and their son comes home, I’ll get an Amazon gift card. The son of this couple, who’s traveling, told me about the Lone Star Walking Trail. It’s 96 miles. I gotta check it out. There must be some great nature there. I want to go before the bluebonnets die. 

I’ve also been using ChatGPT to help me in writing a narrative about some fictional characters based on me and my first boyfriend. My first boyfriend died last year at age 46. We were 18 and a half when we started dating and about 21 when we broke up. I dumped him out of pressure from others, and when I regretted it a month later and tried to get him back, he refused. We kept in touch here and there over the years. But with ChatGPT, I started exploring kind of a story line of us if we had actually gone through with the things we dreamed of in the future. The main thing is that we wanted 7 kids. Realistically, would that have happened?  Probably not, but we were young daydreamers. We had other goals and aspirations too, regarding jobs, businesses, house design, etc. ChatGPT is an insanely horrible writer. It can’t write the story, but it gives me ideas. It shows pictures of the house we dreamed of. It gives me potential story lines and characteristics of the seven kids we never got to have. Which in the story is a boy, then a girl, then boy/girl twins, then adoption of a sibling group of 3. If this were ever to become a “book”, there would need to be a character arc, perhaps even a character arc for all seven kids. And of course, in the made up story, he doesn’t die at age 46. It’s fun to go down the possibilities. I do not believe the claims that ChatGPT causes psychosis. I’m not psychotic yet. I’m 100% in reality, and I’m bringing companionship and help to a couple in their final days. An escape to the what ifs is deserved. 

Tuesday Tidbits

Thanks for the advice you two, but I kind of despise getting out my laptop. I have no idea why!  I was able to upload photos by simply opening safari on my phone instead of chrome. Here’s my friend DP showing how her broom stood up on the spring equinox. I also heard that eggs stand upright on the two equinoxes. I didn’t know these things had any sort of validity. 

I’m getting a lot better at going to the park intentionally to get my steps in while speed walking  while there, I saw this interesting flower.  It’s too big to be a dandelion. 

While walking, I’m listening to an audiobook that was a free download (with membership) on Audible called Writing with Impact: Crafting Compelling Arguments by Barrett Williams. It’s read by an AI voice, but the voice is tolerable and doesn’t sound too robotic. 

Last but not least, we have a nest outside, and here’s a short clip of our baby Jordan really thinking he can get those birdies. He’s really a joy.  He gets along better with Mitchell. Alex is old and just ignores the two of them. If they bother him, he hisses as if to say “Get off my lawn!”
 

Why has 2026 sucked so badly?

 I traded in my old iPhone 13 for an iPhone 16. I dropped the 13 flat on the ground and it ended up with a very bright stripe down the left center of the screen. It hurt my eyes. This phone is great, but I can’t upload pictures to my blog on it, and I want to. My friend, who is a witch, posted pictures of herself standing on her doorstep with her broom standing straight up by itself on the spring equinox. I heard that was a thing, but I didn’t believe it. 

It’s also bluebonnet season here in Texas. The Texas wildflowers are so beautiful, and there are way more of them this year than last year. The bluebonnets give sort of an indigo mirage against the green grass. They are usually surrounded by yellow and orange wildflowers. The spring equinox was also my father in law’s 89th birthday. There were three or four times this past year that we thought this was it for him, but nope, he’s been blessed with another birthday. 

March 19 was our one year wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we took Anna to the sushi place where we had our first date. She’d never been there before. Anna was home for spring break. Now she’s back in her dorm. She drove her little prelude all the way to town and back and complained about gas prices. 

At work, a mother and daughter client have requested me to come more often. On a bad note, I am not working with the married couple anymore. He always made flirty comments towards me and apparently other female caregivers. One day, he attempted to sexually assault me. Gift card boss feels super bad about it, but I don’t hold anything against her. I don’t want to go into detail. I say sexual assault, but honestly I’m not sure if  I even have the “right” to say that’s what happened. I feel like if it was anyone else, they could call it that. He doesn’t have a diagnosis of dementia at all. It’s a long story, and that was a very bad day. Since then, I’ve had a little bit of dissociation, but I’m trying to ground every day. I wish I could post a picture of the bluebonnets. 🪻🪻🪻

Tweakers at Dollar General

 One of my friends used to say she believed they must hold job fairs for Dollar General managers at meth recovery centers, because to her, they all look like they’ve done meth. She said it was a joke, and I do know that not all dollar general managers are current/former meth users.  Just to get the “not all” out of the way!  But the one I saw today when I attempted the cigarette merchandising job fit the description. She was supposed to have the signage at the store, and as soon as I read that I kind of knew they weren’t going to have it. I hate it when they say DG will have supplies at the store. More often than not, they don’t. This lady looked everywhere and said she didn’t have it. She then said she had posterboard and markers if I wanted to make signage, but the instructions reiterated like three times not to do that. The job would be rejected if I did that. I explained it to her, and she immediately got irate and said, “Well I was just trying to give you an alternative!”  Oh!  “That’s fine,” I said in a calm voice in an attempt to calm her down. “But I’m just not allowed to do that.” I told her I was stepping outside to message the person in charge. That person never responded, so I just documented what happened and submitted the job and left. Another person from merchandiser messaged me and asked what time I would be completing the DG cigarette jobs. I messaged him the whole story and said I had another experience last week where the customer service desk employee didn’t accept the LOA from the vendor. (This is true, they didn’t, and this was at an HEB). I said I no longer felt comfortable doing assignments from that vendor. 

Now, it’s a huge deal for me to say that. I was raised that if you do anything like that , you’ll get fired immediately and they’ll get extremely mad at you and you’ll never work again, because no one will hire you, because they’ll badmouth you all over the place. I should know by now that it’s not like this, but that freak out crept in. The merchandiser dude just messaged me back, and said “No problem.  (That vendor jobs) are removed from your list. Thank you.”  

I finished the day out by doing the rest of what was on my list- two more Costco jobs that I did five of last Wednesday, and one with electrolyte straws at Target. They were easy, and the staff was knowing!  

Tomorrow, I plan to do another one that just posted today where, like the Costco ones, you don’t have to talk to management unless there’s an issue. I plan to do them all the way to my mom’s house, take a bath and take her trash out, and do them on another route back. 

Then gift card boss texted everyone saying there was a call out for the client I worked with yesterday morning. She needed someone with her from 6-8 pm tonight, and aside from getting paid (two hour shifts also have a differential for being short), she was offering a $75 gift card!  Oh?  Are gift card incentives back?  I entered the client’s address into my navigation, and it would have taken an hour and a half with traffic. Then she texted that someone took it. Eh. At least gift cards are back. 

The Anti-ABA Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Recently, this Wall Street Journal article was posted to social media trying to expose Medicaid fraud by ABA facilities. It doesn’t surprise me. The centers seem to have a ton of money, and there are a ton of them too. Every time I log into indeed to just browse, another ABA center “behavioral technician” job pops up on my suggestions. I always click the thumbs down for “this is a bad match.”  Indeed doesn’t get the hint. 

Here is a list of books I’m in the middle of reading about this issue: 

The Autism Industrial Complex by Dr. Alicia Broderick. Dr. Broderick also talks about this issue on a couple podcast episodes here, and here

A book I have but haven’t looked at yet is The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA by Julie Roberts. She’s hard to find any more info on without coming upon tons of links to Julia Roberts. 

TikTok content creators I like: 

Songbird Speech (an adult with autism and a speech language pathologist)

Jean (autistic adult, educator with a doctorate in education)

They both do a lot of talking about how communication isn’t behavioral. This is one of the things “wrong” that I couldn’t put my finger on when I attempted to train to be an RBT.  Communication is innate, and it’s not true communication when it’s treated as a behavior. Maybe once I learn more, I’ll get into it more. 

YouTube links:

Paige Layale’s video on her own childhood ABA experience. Some people on Reddit say that about half of what she says is spot on and half is her projecting, but to me, if she’s been in therapy her whole life, then she should know when she’s projecting and not do it in a YouTube video. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Because of that, I give her the benefit of the doubt. 

How to advocate against ABA without losing your mind.  They do a very good job explaining a lot of things, as well as understanding many aspects of “the other side of it.”  

I think that’s all for now.  More later.   I re-watched and re-listened to all of that and most of the TikTok’s before linking. You can also fall down the rabbit hole on Reddit by searching for ABA SLP. One might ask, well what would the alternative be?  The alternative would be speech and occupational therapy, along with pouring some of the billions from that Medicaid fraud into special education and parent education. 🫶🏼

Finally a Few Days Off

 Well, Kathy, you were right, she kept asking haha!  BUT to be fair, I was already scheduled with the lady who canceled for today and then figured I couldn’t say no when she had another client during the same hours roughly. I could not tell her I already “made plans” in the hour between the cancellation and the call out, especially since I was with the couple and not supposed to be on my phone anyway. (I could still hear the texts ding across the room though, and glanced at it just enough to see what she was saying but not enough for her to get a read receipt . 

Well this lady adored me, and she was on the phone with her daughter saying, “Danielle is very knowledgeable and a very good girl!” Lol. 

I texted gift card boss some specific questions I had about the lady this morning. She then said “thanks for being such an awesome caregiver” with her responses.  I don’t think I’m that “wonderful” of a caregiver, but maybe compared to some of the others I am. There is another caregiver that clients rave about who’s really great, and he’s a male. 

So gift card boss asked me,”I know you mentioned only working Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but would you like to work with (this same lady) every Monday from 9am till noon?”  Haha, I thought of Kathy’s comment on my last post immediately. I said, sure. I mean. It’s only 3 hours.  This lady is very sweet, and it’s in Conroe.  I can’t complain, and I feel more confident after winning over the couple. 

Tomorrow, I told the merchandising app that I would go to two dollar generals here in my area and set up a cigarette display. They actually called me from Boston to ask persistently if I’d do it, with a very nice bonus. Dollar general managers never know what’s going on with merchandising and audits and tend to get defensive. They are supposed to have price stickers for me, but something tells me they’re going to be like “Wuuuutttt price stickers”. Luckily, I can still get paid if it’s a flop due to the manager not knowing. 

Long Weekend Done

 I worked all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the couple with the $4.50 shift differential. I mentioned earlier that they must have had bad experiences with other caregivers. Well, they finally opened up to me about the main lady they had a problem with, and Jesus Christ. She sounds like a real prize package. I wished they hadn’t assumed I’d be the same way, but I eventually won them over. 

Gift card boss texted me saying the four hour shift I told her I would do before I changed my availability was now canceled. I started getting really happy and then she texted me an hour later saying someone called out for tomorrow 9-noon and could I do it 🙄. I guess I couldn’t say no, because I was going to work anyway with the cancellation and told her I would that one time despite the change in availability. Usually the really short shifts are just people who want you to help them shower, get dressed, make a simple meal, make the bed and leave. So I said ok and she told me this.  This just makes me think there must be some crappy caregivers here. And the musical schedules mess with my head so much.  I’m glad I set my days at only Friday Saturday and Sunday.  Can’t deal with it 24/7

“It’s a new client. Very sweet. Bed bound.

I will tell you that almost all the caregivers have been late to this client and she’s about to pull services if things don’t change. Are you good to be there at 9am sharp?”

Stuff I’m working on

 I’m working on a comprehensive blog post containing links, books recommendations, podcast episodes, studies, and content creator suggestions that I’ve encountered while going down anti ABA rabbit holes. If only I had gone down these rabbit holes before I started working at an ABA facility, only lasting less than two weeks. 

The couple that I’m working with this weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday that I haven’t seen in about 12 or 13 days- I showed up yesterday, and it appears that they’ve had several different caregivers, including some pretty crappy ones. I broke my wire rimmed glasses and had to go to work yesterday wearing my back up pair which has thick black frames. Because of this, and because of it being nearly two weeks since they’ve seen me, they didn’t recognize me. They thought I was another new person and started being very mean and defensive right away. Then an occupational therapist showed up to work with the wife. The OT asked me if it was my first time with them. I said no, I was here a couple weeks ago. The wife then said, “So are you Danielle?”  I said “Yes.”  She said, “I thought you talked a lot like her, but I thought you were someone else.”  I chuckled and explained my glasses situation. She said I look like I lost weight too. I’m not sure if I have, but I’m on another no sugar kick. I was also wearing dark solid scrubs whereas two weeks ago I wore scrubs with characters all over them. Scrub tops with characters make everyone look fat. 

She told her husband, “Danielle is the one who’s writing a book!”  Oh! I thought, wow she remembered my book! It only came up when she asked my work history. I said I had worked with abused children and was writing a book about it. I also said that a standard novel is 50,000-100,000 words and I’m at about 33,000 words. 

She vented to me some complaints about other caregivers but didn’t know specific names to go with each complaint. I texted my boss immediately about it, because if she calls the office and doesn’t know anyone’s name, gift card boss might be suspicious of me. I thought that they had one person Monday through Friday, but they said there have been so many different people. That’s a little annoying, and even though gift card boss is great, she does play musical schedules a lot. 

Musical schedules have gotten the best of my anxiety this past week. Because of my anxiety levels with constantly changing schedules, I made the decision to ask gift card boss what she thought of me switching to only Friday, Saturday and Sunday availability. This is because I’ve been accepting more higher paying merchandising and audit jobs on the apps and really would be a lot happier doing that. But I need to pursue it. I don’t have “that much” experience at the aspects of that job that matter. In online spaces for people that do merchandising jobs, they seem to make really good money after a little while. (Working for actual companies instead of just on the 1099 app). Anything having to do with caregiving and helping people will never pay well. 

Pursuing merchandising jobs Monday through Thursday is a personal choice I’m making, because I was happier and paid better whenever I did things that sent me to stores as opposed to caring for children or the elderly. Some may not agree with it, but if for whatever reason this “doesn’t work” then all I have to do is tell gift card boss I’m available more. Or always. Who knows. She’s still a pretty new start up. She enthusiastically said absolutely to my availability request. 

I also want to pursue writing more. If I could just take a class to refresh, I would, but I can’t find the right one. We’ll see. 2026 has not been NEARLY as smooth sailing as 2025 was. But we aren’t even 25% through it yet, maybe my year will get better! 

Offers

 Today I worked in a town in Porter, TX. It’s an hour and a half away from me, so I did some side jobs on the way back. I then got another nice offer with bonuses from the merchandiser app and said that I can’t do it until Tuesday. They still assigned it to me with a deadline of Wednesday at 11:45 pm. One of the things on there involves a planogram, which is what I want more practice with. 

Tomorrow and all weekend, I’m working with the couple with the $4.50 shift differential. I haven’t seen them in about 12 or 13 days, and honestly I am looking forward to seeing how much improvement the wife has. She had a pretty severe injury and had just gotten home from rehab when I first met them. She’s had a lot of home physical therapy, and I know after 12 days she’s probably improved a lot. Two weeks ago, she could maybe do 3-5 steps with me holding the gait belt during transfers. We’ll see!!  

Five Costcos

I did side jobs today at five Costco locations. On the Merchandiser app, I did one job that paid $15 each with a $15 bonus for completing all 5. Then I opened the field agent app and did a handful more at a couple of them and made another $27. I also bought a few things I needed at each one.  So I earned $117 and spent $276. I ate a $1.99 slice of pizza for lunch. It was a good day! Lots of walking. I need to be physically active. 

 

Apologies and Depression

 Just a random funny I found on social media ⬆️. 

Gift card boss told me that the client from yesterday apologized and said she figured out that her credit card was maxed out and that was why it was declined.  She also thanked me for helping her set up DoorDash because she doesn’t like to leave the house. 🙄 

I was like “that’s fine”. But I’m not scheduled to go back with her. Today was kind of a mental break down day because of the false accusation yesterday, the triggering events regarding my aunt, and that the fact that gift card boss changes schedules constantly. I think a lot of clients are complaining about other caregivers, caregivers are also complaining about certain clients, and she’s trying to make everyone happy. I pulled over today into a Kroger parking lot and had a good cry. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down my last two employers’ names, full addresses and phone numbers so that I can eventually apply at all of these merchandiser companies, if in fact I’m “allowed” to. (Yes I know technically I’m “allowed” but it goes deeper than that.). 

I also accepted an offer on the merchandiser app that will require me to go to five Costco’s tomorrow. They are all relatively nearby. I’m also going to shop a little at each one and keep tract of how much I’m making and how much I’m spending on the deals. It will definitely be worth it. It’s mostly a mystery shop, but if a certain problem arises, I have to alert management and tell them I’m there on “behalf” of so and so and whatever is wrong, etc. But I’ve done these before and it mostly never happens. I have to dress decently just in case I do have to talk to a manager. Black jeans and plain polo. 

After that, gift card boss has me working approximately 40 hours from Thursday through Sunday. Well, 34 hours to be precise. That is, unless something changes again. Last weekend, I gave up two shifts with the couple because “another caregiver wanted more hours”. I plan to say no to that if she asks again if I want to give it up for this caregiver, but who knows, I might be fundamentally exhausted on Friday again and be like “Sure”.  

Writing Prompts and Drama

I was cleaning out my photos and found these writing prompts. I want to do these eventually, but today isn’t the day. 

I’m having an even harder time in life today than yesterday. My 93 year old aunt was kicked out of an assisted living facility for assaulting another resident. My aunt is my mom’s sister, and they are 13 years apart. My aunt is extremely abusive and has always gotten away with it. I have a very large family on my mom’s side, and most of them all have stories of abuse from this aunt. I’m not sure exactly what happened with the other resident of the assisted living, but it sounds like she tried to hold her head under water. I think the other lady is ok, but even my own mom is now saying that my aunt held her head under water when she was 10. So my aunt would have been 23 at the time. Old age and dementia isn’t an excuse if you’ve been doing it for 70 years. She never did this to me, but she did other abusive things to me. She has never ever been held accountable. I was hoping she would go to jail, but instead, she is in a psychiatric ward with a geriatric wing. That’s the next best thing to jail. No one would ever hold her accountable enough to put her in real jail. I honestly hope she gets put into solitary.  And maybe she’ll die there. I’m not sorry for saying that. 

I went yesterday to the four hour shift for the client whose care plan made her look like a difficult person. I basically spent three and a half hours walking her through how to order DoorDash. It was difficult, but I didn’t mind, because that’s what she asked me to do. She had to download the app first, and reset her Apple password. Then set up the DoorDash account. Then finally ordered fajitas. Once the fajitas were ordered, she saw that Kroger was also on DoorDash, so I guided her step by step how to search for all the items she said she needed. Then when she tried to check out, her card was declined. Her card went through for the fajitas though. They arrived. I explained to her that she needed to call the bank and she got very irate. She started accusing me of doing something fraudulent with her card.  I never even touched her credit card, she entered it in herself with a lot of prompting from me. Kevin said “Maybe she entered a number wrong”. I said no, because if she did then the fajitas would have also been declined. I think the fajitas put her card over the limit, but didn’t tell her I suspected that. I had to text gift card boss the entire story, and she reassured me “not to let it bother me” and that she’s having several financial problems right now. 

I thought to myself, well then how is she paying for a home caregiver?  This is only the second week that she’s had care at all, and I was the fourth person to go see her. 

To tell you the truth, this was pretty shitty. It took me a LONG time to show her that, and I had a TON of patience. Then she “thanks” me by the false accusation. 

I hope she actually pays gift card boss. I kind of think that her card is going to be declined there too, especially if it was declined for $100 in groceries. 

 

Choices

 A while back, I posted on here that all of the years I spent working with children and the elderly were essentially the result of a gaggle of people around me when I was younger who were mad that I wanted to be a mom. “Why bring a child into the world?” They all demanded. “Why not do something meaningful for a child who already exists?!?!”  I didn’t realize it at the time, but they essentially didn’t care about people already existing, they just wanted to be mad at me. At the time, I said “ok!” And dove in, didn’t look back, leaned in, got my hands dirty, and developed a ton of vicarious trauma. I am not saying that to complain, though, I think it’s all been mostly good. I feel like I had fun, learned extremely valuable lessons, and made a difference. I do not regret it for the most part. Some, if not most of it, I would do again. 

Vicarious trauma absolutely sucks, though. My last therapist, who dumped me based on “scheduling” diagnosed me with chronic PTSD (complex PTSD isn’t in the DSM-5, so if you see someone saying they were diagnosed with it, it’s not entirely true). In the USA, the diagnoses for insurance companies have to align with the DSM-5. Complex-PTSD is however, in the ICD-11.  When the DSM-6 publishes, and they change their minds about this stuff again, then you will see more people with actual diagnoses of complex-PTSD

More than two decades ago, I worked for about 3 years doing the inventory service that I recently worked at for another three years (which is where I met my husband).  At the time, I liked it a lot, and I thought it was easy money. But as a young person at the time, I was absolutely not allowed to say that I was content doing that. I had older people all the time, literally in my face with their finger, telling me that I BETTER go back to school and do something else. It’s ironic that I went back to that job so many years later in order to clean up the mess that listening to that advice caused, but that’s a post for another day. I also did the side jobs on the apps, which were mostly display compliance and mystery shops. I went all over nine states with that endeavor and made a killing during the pandemic. You can’t make a killing with it anymore (I guess unless another pandemic happens).  That REALLY helped me recover from college. 

One thing the apps introduced me to is merchandising using planograms. Talking about these apps with others online led me to discover that there are several companies who hire people to do this full time. 

About a week ago, I had that epiphany- the one where I realized that all of the helping jobs I’ve ever had didn’t really come from an innate “calling”, and that it was just from people being mad at me for wanting to have kids someday. Even though I do not have a lot of regrets directly, I do kind of feel like all of my trauma symptoms didn’t have to happen. The more I write about working with children and the elderly, the more I realize that I have DEALT WITH A TON. And for extremely low pay. I think it’s fair to ask why me?  

I started to think, what if I just spent the rest of my days doing advocacy through writing and working as a full time merchandiser?  

The merchandiser app has been sending me a lot of route offers lately with good travel bonuses and “just because” bonuses. I always cringe when I hit no thanks. I could really just dive into that and do better not just financially but with my mental health. The thing is, I feel like I do not have a choice. Technically I do. There is a lot of pressure to not want to “do retail the rest of your life”. The people that say that sure do like to shop though. I know “according to the law” it’s my choice. But just because you aren’t trying to make something illegal for someone to choose doesn’t mean that person isn’t phased by pressure and expectations. 

As far as today, I have to work with this lovely woman whose care plan makes her out to be an absolute tool. I’m actually curious what she’s like. Luckily, the shift is only four hours. I’m going to text gift card boss after work to tell her how it went. I can tell gift card boss is uptight about this client. I’m fundamentally exhausted. 

Stuff I’m working on

 I’m currently reading a book called Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel by Jessica Brody. She has a method of writing called the save the cat method, and wow. For every little aspect of the save the cat method that she talks about, I can pinpoint exactly where in my book applies. That’s a good sign for me! 

Tomorrow I’m working for a caregiving client that I think several other people have worked with and refuse to go back to. Gift card boss didn’t say precisely that, but it was implied. Her care plan makes her sound extremely difficult. It’s actually comical, but I didn’t laugh. Well just have to see how it goes. I might be the one person that she likes. That’s happened to me before. 

Also with today being International Women’s Day, I just have one question:

How is it “all about choice” if we always have to explain our choices and are always grilled about “whether we made the choices for patriarchal reasons” or not?  Food for thought, and something I struggle with even though I know better than to talk about it in detail. 

New Writing Method

I designated a spiral notebook to do the following with the book I want to write: I am handwriting the events in the book one by one, in order, not trying to sound good, and skipping 5-6 lines between each one. That way, if I think of another “event” or thing to put in between two events/things I already listed, then I can jot it between them in the five lines. If I think of even more things to put between two events/things, then I have sticky notes in the shape of a finger pointing. This is a chartreuse colored notebook that I got for $1.49 back when school was starting. 

Gift card boss has laid off of the gift cards.  Maybe they told her to, idk.  This weekend I have to relieve the caregiver that was saving them for a she-shed.  She and I appear to be relieving each other every 12 hours a couple times.  

I’m going to join the insecure writers’ support group, but I want to make sure I’m fully able to respond to comments first. I did for a while, now I’m not. 

 First of all yes I did delete all posts on this blog and am starting over. I’ve done that every couple years since 2005. I admire people who can keep up with it for decades. As for me, when my life changes, I delete blogs and posts. I feel like there has been so much shift in my life that I can start over with my daily notes. 

Tuesday I drove to San Marcos and took Anna to dinner and shopping. She wanted to try a Greek place that is unfortunately what happens when rednecks try to open a Greek restaurant. I never thought I would turn into one of those old Greek ladies that criticizes non Greeks making Greek food, but here I am. Above is an appetizer called whipped feta with hot honey drizzle. It looks like olive oil, but it’s honey. Then to make matters worse, they added banana peppers.  My daughter wanted to try it, but she’s been dipping feta into ketchup since she was a toddler. 

I’m working a lot more on my writing. I do realize that I do not always use proper grammar and punctuation on my blogs, but that’s because I’m word vomiting here. Any real writing project, of course I would edit. 

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 7 years old. It’s been the most controversial thing about me for four decades. I just don’t care anymore, because it’s what I want to do. Any suggestions for classes, groups, workshops, software etc appreciated.