Still Here
Mar. 1st, 2025 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjMy relationship with social media is not expansively polyamorous: I have a tendency to settle on one or two venues that I read compulsively, while forgetting about all the others (except when I want to post some blog/podcast publicity). Thus Bluesky has been getting all my love, Mastodon has been left to languish, fb gets browsed as a timewaster, and Dreamwidth...well, I'm not going to check when I last posted.
And yet, I love blogging long-form, and there are all manner of things that aren't really appropriate for the Alpennia/LHMP blog. So here I am. Maybe I'll even get caught up on my book reviews.
As of today, it is 60 days to retirement. I'm still angsting over whether my social security and medicare applications will get processed in time. I thought I'd allowed way more than enough time, but then they blew past the "normative processing times" posted on the websites. Well, I did some searching online with questions about current wait times and found a discussion with crowdsourced data that looks reliable. The conclusion of that discussion is that social security applications are being processed by start date, not application date, and that people have waited multiple months only to have their applications approved just in time for their desired start date. That helps a little, though it means I should be hearing very soon now.
In reality, as long as my payments start by May, it makes no difference in cashflow. (I picked February as my start month because it was my earliest 100% date and if I waited after that I was leaving money on the table.) The Medicare Part B start is a bit more critical since I need it approved before I can switch to Kaiser as my Medicare provider. I suppose I should research what my options are if there ends up being a gap before it kicks in.
The spring season in my garden has officially started. I've harvested my first two artichokes and am having some successful experiments in treating the artichoke leaf stalks as cardoons. I planted the replacement persimmon tree (and discovered the one it was replacing had rotted at the graft, so I may have planted it too deep). In the cleared bed around the persimmon, I'm seeing if I can manage to start an asparagus bed. And I also decided to squeeze in one more citrus tree--a mandarin. I think this weekend I need to begin processing the Seville oranges. I have plenty of marmalade in several varieties from last year, so I think this will be a candied peel year for the most part.
And yet, I love blogging long-form, and there are all manner of things that aren't really appropriate for the Alpennia/LHMP blog. So here I am. Maybe I'll even get caught up on my book reviews.
As of today, it is 60 days to retirement. I'm still angsting over whether my social security and medicare applications will get processed in time. I thought I'd allowed way more than enough time, but then they blew past the "normative processing times" posted on the websites. Well, I did some searching online with questions about current wait times and found a discussion with crowdsourced data that looks reliable. The conclusion of that discussion is that social security applications are being processed by start date, not application date, and that people have waited multiple months only to have their applications approved just in time for their desired start date. That helps a little, though it means I should be hearing very soon now.
In reality, as long as my payments start by May, it makes no difference in cashflow. (I picked February as my start month because it was my earliest 100% date and if I waited after that I was leaving money on the table.) The Medicare Part B start is a bit more critical since I need it approved before I can switch to Kaiser as my Medicare provider. I suppose I should research what my options are if there ends up being a gap before it kicks in.
The spring season in my garden has officially started. I've harvested my first two artichokes and am having some successful experiments in treating the artichoke leaf stalks as cardoons. I planted the replacement persimmon tree (and discovered the one it was replacing had rotted at the graft, so I may have planted it too deep). In the cleared bed around the persimmon, I'm seeing if I can manage to start an asparagus bed. And I also decided to squeeze in one more citrus tree--a mandarin. I think this weekend I need to begin processing the Seville oranges. I have plenty of marmalade in several varieties from last year, so I think this will be a candied peel year for the most part.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 06:41 am (UTC)For a change you are talking about spring, and we have it, too. The Swedish weather service defines metrological spring as at least 7 days in a row wherein the average temperature for each day is above freezing, which my part if the northern Sweden coast did for the first time this year. They have a map showing which parts of the country are in what season: https://www.smhi.se/vader/observationer/arstidskarta/
I live by the projection out towards Finland that is about 3/4 towards the top of the map where there is a thin stro of coastal spring temperatures.
There is, of course, still snow in my yard, seven days above zero C isn't enough to melt that, but the pile of stones in the neighbour's back yarr has lost all of its snow.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-03 12:50 am (UTC)What I'm finding is that I don't write long form in spite of my best intentions. I finished my Worldcon report in longhand by the end of September. It is not yet on my Dreamwidth, and it is now March.