Mitzvah accomplished

We had our celebration of life for our friend Jean yesterday and it was absolutely perfect - befitting of the queen that she was. Everything looked beautiful and the speakers had just the right combination of humor and tears. I spoke second and broke down in the middle. I’m quite proud of that, since I have a bad habit of disassociating under very emotional public settings. I sang “We’ll Meet Again” and everyone joined in. There was lots of tears and laughter. It was an absolute delight.

The family never thanked us and one faction gave me the side eye the whole time after an extremely frosty reception. Fuck family. 

For the first time after a week, today I no longer feel nauseated. Coincidence? I think not. I still don’t have my period, which puts me about twelve days late. 

Now that the hugeness of this is behind us, it’s time to pick up the slack on my own event which has been completely ignored once the scramble to find a new registration system was over. I need to start setting that up, getting classes in order, and making sure everyone is hired. The event opening is still two months off but there’s a lot to do.

I got a second opinion on the boys’ orthodonture options, and boy am I glad I did (thank you so much Chryssa for the idea!). The new place, gotten from a local mom’s group, had a much more “let’s wait and see” attitude, which to me as a layperson makes more sense. While they agreed Theo’s buck teeth need to be addressed now, they understood my hesitance about full head gear for 16 hours a day. The orthodontist said she wouldn’t choose that for her kid because she knows he wouldn’t tolerate it, and that’s my feeling. There’s no point in setting up that treatment just to fail in implementing it. So her recommendation for him was Invisalign for ten months. It won’t change the shape of his skull like headgear would, but will at least redirect his protruding teeth. For Bobby she felt there was no need to do anything now - he still has too many baby teeth. She wants to observe him but says really neither kid should have braces until at least twelve or thirteen. Again, this was more my thought - why put braces on now just to have to do it all over again in their teen years…? And also, doesn’t nature mostly resolve these teeth placement issues? Why not wait to see what happens and then if you’re so unhappy with your crooked teeth, make adjustments later? 

So the Invisalign is not cheap, and I’m worried about Theo being responsible with it, but I think it’s the way to go. And his Invisalign alone is cheaper than headgear plus braces for Bobby. And the treatment time is about half. Everyone may still need braces but at least I get to punt that down the road a few years. 

I had a worst case scenario with my tax appointment, unfortunately. I owed a bunch of money, mostly because that California grant I got was taxable, which I knew. I was able to offset my money owed by making a big contribution to my 401k, but that means even less money in my bank, so now I do not have enough to make it to my registration opening. I’ll have to borrow from savings to make it through my end of April payroll and mortgage, and then just pay myself back. And I thought I’d have a surplus this year. What a fool I was. I’m still struggling with the disappointment over that.