Fall Daze

an update

Happy Fall!

I missed my regular 15th of the Month essay post and wanted to write you all a bit of an update.

These small Spartan apples from our tree are delicious!

I’m 14 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child and spent the entire first trimester single parenting. My nausea and fatigue are still pretty bad. I am going to be spending most of this pregnancy single parenting while my husband works out of state remodeling the fixer upper house we own in my hometown of Columbia S.C. Meanwhile, I’m juggling house care, all cooking, shopping, and transportation for myself, my two children, and my Mother in Law, who now lives with us, on account of her age and decline due to age and Parkinson’s.

I’m also in the stage of toddlerhood where Aubrey is getting into everything. I am also interviewing and visiting pre-schools; they all have wait lists! When my son was a toddler, we had one option for pre-school and that’s it. So to be on a wait list at multiple pre-schools around town is crazy to me, and once again highlights the need for more well paid early childhood educators. Meanwhile, my son, now in 9th grade, is not faring well at high school, so that’s also a stressor in the back of my mind. I want him to be apprenticing somewhere, working with his hands, having a mentor, instead he’s getting in trouble for walking out of class and gaming instead of doing assignments. AND YET, as someone with a background in public education and a degree in teaching secondary grades, I don’t blame him. No human is made to sit at a desk in front of screen for the majority of their days 5 days a week. Why do we force people to do things that bore them to pieces and that they hate? Oh right so we can train them to be "good workers” for capitalism.

Thus, my capacity is feeling a bit stretched thin these days. I also do not have the childcare I had last year, so my writing time is fairly limited.

Currently I’ve am at work on two longer pieces I feel excited about- a piece on the Land Back movement, and one about the Wages for Housework movement and welfare. For the Land Back piece, I’m going to be interviewing a friend or two with connections to some of our local tribes. I haven’t interviewed anyone for a piece of writing in a while so I’m looking forward to that.

Thank you and welcome to the new paid subscribers, and thank you all for being here.

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As always-

Eleanor