Week of Money: Where jealous, insecure, cowardly troll(s) get my Instagram @saverspender deactivated for “sexual content”

Pssst! Newest Youtube Video is my shopping haul from this summer. I will be doing these shopping hauls monthly now.

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up refreshed, and Little Bun snuggles into my side, then crawls on top to give me a MASSIVE body hug and says very sweetly: “Maaaahhhhh—meeeeee!” (Mommy). He snuggles me, gives me a kiss, and then rolls off, waiting for me to get up to take his hand, and head into the living room to feed him yoghurt for breakfast.

6:35 a.m. — My matcha latte has to be the one of the best things I look forward to every morning. I drink it super hot, year-round and even though I am sweating while drinking it especially during the summers, I do it anyway because I can’t have it cold. Super hot and with a slight bitter taste is what I love.

6:45 a.m. — The neighbours upstairs are vacuuming. WHY. It’s like they think that we can’t hear them moving furniture and doing all this nonsense so early in the morning.

7:03 a.m. — I snuggle Little Bun and we do a little exercise where he decides to come up with new elements for the Periodic Table, under the group name named Stuffium. It’s super cute. He comes up with 6 new elements and they’ll be in a group beside the Noble Gases.

7:15 a.m. — I go through my To Do list which seems to be growing longer. It’s not so much I have lots of things to do, it is more that I have posts as ideas, I have notes to myself, I have things I want to buy the next time I head out, and in the meantime, I am just feeling restless and stressed but not stressed, and anxious…

7:43 a.m. — Little Bun goes to ask his father when he will wake up. His father says: “8 more minutes”, so he runs out, grabs the iPad and then sets the timer for 8 minutes to go off and give a Robot sound to wake his father. LOL ….. He also tells me: “Mommy I can’t find my phone”… what he means is the iPod Touch, not the phone but I can’t recall where we put it or hid it (?).. I have yet another item on my list to track down.

8:18 a.m. — I show Little Bun the bee from my mother’s garden (we love bees!). It reminds me of the time Little Bun once found three bees on the balcony and said: MOMMY!! There’s a hurt bee! The other two bees are helping it I think. 

..and he stayed there for 20 minutes, watching them help the hurt bee. I thought that third bee was as good as dead because it didn’t seem like it would make it, so when he went down for his nap, I had very little hope that the bee would be still alive, frankly.

He wakes up from his nap, chattering about going to go check on The Bee Hospital (as he called the triage on the balcony), and he was so excited: “MOMMY COME LOOK!!!.. The two bees are gone!” (Oh dear, I thought… they’ve abandoned this third bee, it’s just going to DIE THERE.. O_o)….

…and Little Bun sits there for 30 minutes watching the hurt bee, eyes wide open, and then… the bee flies away. Perfectly fine.

Little Bun squeals excitedly: THEY HELPED THE BEE! THEY FIXED THE HURT BEE!!!!! … He was so happy that they helped the bee on his balcony, and he wouldn’t stop talking about the bees for days.

And he tells me he wants more bees to come onto the balcony to help each other if they need to, in the Bee Hospital, because he won’t ever hurt them and they’re really helpful for fruits and vegetables.

8:25 a.m. — I go and organize my closet – half of it is done. The bookcase isn’t in, but it will be perfect once it is in. I will be able to put in the purses, folded jeans, etc. It will be much better.

9:11 a.m. — I make mashed potato pancakes without an egg – I just added flour, a little salt, and then a lot of oil in a pan, frying each potato pancake until it is crisp. Little Bun gobbles up 3.5 pancakes with no end in sight. He loves it when I do potato pancakes. I go through 3 frying pans because inevitably, a little will break off and turn out to be super, over-fried and black, and the oil will burn on the pan, so I flip through 3 of them doing it.

9:37 a.m. — These are some pretty pretty photos that make me want a straw boater hat and gingham printed items now:

3:15 p.m. — I try to log into Instagram to post, and it suddenly tells me I am locked out. I wonder what happened? I end up verifying my account, and apparently have to wait 24 hours before I can file a complaint!?!? ….

5:11 p.m. — I guess.. I have a lot of free time now. And I’m sort of more than angry because I worked really hard to build up that page organically, and now it could all be gone just because some insecure, cowardly troll(s) decided to slam on my page and report my photos as sexually explicit. I don’t even understand what goes on in their minds, and all I can think is: Jealousy. They’re just jealous... I mean, why are they so obsessed with me to the point where they want to do something like this? It is just pure jealousy.

7:20 p.m. — I do all the dishes, play with Little Bun and then read a book. I also feel a headache coming on, the weather tends to trigger my barometric pressure headaches and makes me want to vomit.

8:00 p.m. — Time to get ready for bed. We start about 2 hours before. We set a timeline where Little Bun has to read with his father at 8:00, do a little art project, and then he does his brushing with his father, and then I take over for bedtime stories and getting him into bed.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — Little Bun rolls on top of me for a snuggle/hug to wake me up and whispers: I want yoghurt. I can’t sleep any more.

6:00 a.m. — I make a cup of matcha tea, and since it is so nice, I take Little Bun out on the balcony to colour and have fun, as the sun isn’t too hot this morning:

8:08 a.m. — I still can’t log into my Instagram account.

12:08 p.m. — I have a lunch, do all the dishes, do laundry, and then work furiously on this Two Dots app where there is a Squares Race on, to make as many squares as possible with dots, and I want to WIN. Because.. I’m super competitive and have way too much time on my hands now that IG is gone.

12:40 p.m. — I see a great Vogue magazine shot and LOVE that blurry fruit-covered coat to the left:

Also, Caroline Issa is a fantastic style icon, I didn’t even know who she was but her outfits are stunning:

3:30 p.m. — I finally get to “log” into my account and it tells me that I violated their community terms by posting sexually explicit/suggestive photos on my Instagram, which is ludicrous because the most I have done is this as you can see on my grid – just photos of myself. I actually got up to 18.5K followers (this is an old image), and this just.. makes me so angry.

3:30 p.m. — I message Instagram saying it is a mistake but with COVID-19, they have a smaller staff and apparently can’t get to my request in a timely manner (is what I read from the whole situation).

4:34 p.m. — I make dinner, do dishes, wipe everything down, and play more Two Dots.

6:03 p.m. — I practice piano – I am working on Chopin’s Nocture in E Major, while also teaching Little Bun. He can now sight read treble clef well, and just learned bass clef, so we are working on two hands together in a song. I’d like him to play Ode to Joy by next year for my mother, one of her favourite songs.

7:04 p.m. — I spend the night editing my videos for my YouTube channel. I end up getting lost into the world of video editing, teaching myself how to do it. This is my first real attempt at video editing, and it’s the first half of my closet (two rails):

9:20 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

??:?? — I wake up again with Little Bun snuggling me.

6:00 a.m. — I make a cup of tea and can’t log in to do anything. I just end up reading my book. I feel dejected. I guess I just wait for Instagram, and what’s nice, is people now rallying around me, realizing what happened and asking Instagram to reactivate my account which was wrongfully closed on some spurious “sexual content” violation. I mean if they just looked before closing the account, they’d see that there is NOTHING sexual at all in any of my posts.

7:59 a.m. — I take a break and watch Indian Matchmaking. I love the show because it reveals a lot about the whole arranged marriage situation, and how/what people look for in a partner.

9:18 a.m. — Corgi + Husky. Love it.

12:08 p.m. — I have lunch, and keep on watching Indian Matchmaking while playing Two Dots to win at this Squares Race. I am certain we will be #1 but Little Bun is urging me to make more and more squares, like a taskmaster….

12:56 p.m. — I am still very excited about sweaters, chunky knits, comfortable, and cuddly:

I LOVE this white chunky-knit turtleneck that is soft with a dolman sleeve. DELICIOUS. I wish I knew who the designer was so I could stalk the piece. I also have a thing for white wool or white felt, or anything that looks cuddly… and white such as this dress that clearly looks like a wool blend of some sort:

5:21 p.m. — I end up trying to organize all of my outfit photos, but the spark has gone out of it for me. Maybe I will just post outfit photos on the blog from now on. I definitely do that anyway on Month of Style. If by end of the month this isn’t resolved, I’ll just post everything on the blog instead.

6:44 p.m. — I make a cup of tea, I am realizing expensive tea really needs the perfect temperature and steep time. Any minute over, and it is super astringent and not at all delicious to drink. I find that the Darjeeling is a little too astringent for me, and I won’t buy it again, but it was delicious and mellow if it is 5-minutes with a lower temperature steep.

6:50 p.m. — I read my books.

8:30 p.m. — I make an executive decision for the blog and start scheduling my outfit posts on the blog, which are now going to be permanently posted every day at noon EST under this tag: #OOTD Daily Style and what really helps is signing up for my notifications of new posts every time they’re published on the blog here.

9:15 p.m. — Time for bed. We sit by the window now, and stare outside at the night sky. Every night, we look for the brightest stars in the sky and muse about which ones they could be. I think the very brightest one must be Polaris or Venus based on guesses, but Little Bun insists we need to check, so I have to find an app for this tomorrow to scan the sky with.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up rather tired (as usual), and have been skipping my yoga lately just from the lack of energy, motivation, etc.

7:40 a.m. — I make fried mashed potato pancakes:

8:45 a.m. — Then I decide I don’t like the peach colour of the nailpolish but decide to mix it up with red because I want a darker pink or magenta colour instead:

I end up with a colour I like – a dark magenta that I would wear instead of peach or some weird Barbie pink:

9:40 a.m. — I finish cleaning the entire apartment, and organizing all of my items. Little Bun is diligently studying languages on his app, because he he isn’t going to French school this year in September (we are homeschooling), he has to learn more French than what is being given at home, considering the vocabulary we use at home is super limited.

12:08 p.m. — I eat lunch – finishing these yummy potato pancakes. Could use some condiments on this, like hot sauce.

1:01 p.m. — Little Bun chases me out of the room telling me it is time for his nap. I haven’t really met another child who self-polices himself the way Little Bun does. I don’t know where he gets it from because it isn’t from me. At 13:00 he will check the clock and say: Time for my nap, Mommy you go to the living room. Daddy, come nap with me. He has a schedule, basically, and sticks to it like glue. Then at night, when it is 21:00, he tells me: Mommy it’s 21:00 I am no longer going to play on the iPad any more (we usually have one hour before bedtime which is iPad free, and we sleep around 22:00 these days). He also won’t eat his dessert after dinner until he has had his dinner (vegetable stew, most days).

2:18 p.m. — I read more of my book as I make another cup of tea, this time with a lower temperature (not a rolling boil), and for 4 minutes instead because Darjeeling gets really astringent if I over steep it.

3:05 p.m. — Little Bun is up and he comes to me asking what the new activity is. I don’t know. I am getting mentally drained trying to come up with new activities every day, new games… it’s a lot. I push him off onto his father and I go and do dishes. That doesn’t last long. We are both drained. He runs off on his own into the bedroom with the iPad.

4:27 p.m. — I am lying down reading my book.

5:20 p.m. — His father takes him out onto the balcony to play and colour with sidewalk chalk. I keep reading.

6:34 p.m. — I finally take him, feeling like my batteries are somewhat refreshed, and we do books together, and read his favourite – See Inside Maths, “for the games and because I love math!”… and these three books are his favourites for math, he has worn out the corners to death already.

8:20 p.m. — Dishes, and laundry. I should vacuum tomorrow.

9:11 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up tired. I need my morning matcha to get me up. I cannot do this day without it.

7:12 a.m. — We play on the piano, and practice a few songs. I am still not in the yoga mood but I have been practicing my handstands a lot more. I can almost hold them without hitting the wall first and then kicking off.

10:08 a.m. — This printed skirt is VERY pretty. Not sure I’d wear it with a cropped top or these heels because I don’t like shoes that don’t match nicely, but it is so much fun:

Along with this summery yellow wrap dress that looks like a linen blend due to the wrinkling of the skirt:

11:56 p.m. — I make a lunch. I am starting to add things like vinegar into my food to add another flavour layer / element.

1:06 p.m. — Time for Little Bun’s nap. He grabs his Stuffies and squeals, running into the bedroom. Takes him about half an hour to calm down and sleep, and I hear snatches of conversation with his father while he winds down for his nap. I hear silence around 1:30 or so.

1:40 p.m. — I am reading my books. I am burning through author Elin Hilderbrand…. a chick-lit author who bases everything in Nantucket, and is interesting as an author for reading something light and sweet but I still don’t like it as much as my favourite authors Sophie Kinsella… who by the way has a new book out – I Owe You One..

6:56 p.m. — I end up deciding on a light dinner, and have oatmeal, mixed in with yoghurt (some new weird invention of mine), and maple syrup. Delicious but I’d leave out the yoghurt next time. Too tart for this:

7:30 p.m. — I vacuum the entire apartment (Little Bun insisted on it, saying the dust bunnies were getting wild)

8:00 p.m. — He checks the time 20:00 and says it is time to read with Daddy, and do some art, then brush his teeth.

8:37 p.m. — I play a bit of Two Dots with Little Bun, and then he plays with his astronomy app – he is starting to really get into constellations as well.

9:06 p.m. — Time for bed. We talk about constellations, he tells me facts about Orion, Orion’s Belt, Polaris, and everything he knows about constellations.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

6:36 a.m. — Little Bun is up early. I hand him milk and he happily drinks it down “Baby loves milky!” he tells me…

8:08 a.m. — I need to look for some shorts for the house but I am picky. They have to be longer than a high leg cut, not tight, loose, viscose, not too tight, and just comfortable, preferably with pockets. I have to touch stuff in person because I tried buying things online but the fabric though it said soft, was itchy and unwearable.

10:11 a.m. — My friend calls and we chat for almost 2 hours. We can go on and on .. her and I. We never stop unless our phones die HAH! Her husband always says: How can you simply talk on a phone for 2 hours? I don’t get it. What do you talk about? … Our answer is: EVERYTHING. She’s the only person I really tell EVERYTHING to. I am not one of those types of women who have a lot of casual friends.. I really find a few I bond with, and I bond hard.

12:28 p.m. — We have a great lunch – maple syrup-marinated chicken, fresh French fries… delicious.

12:54 p.m. — I start reading my ebook once Little Bun goes for his nap but then I realize I shouldn’t waste this time, and do things that require concentration like practicing on the piano, or working on the blog or other things on my mind.

2:01 p.m. — I spend the afternoon taking screenshots of emails, documents and documenting the process to homeschool Little Bun in English because I am seeing it is RIDICULOUSLY complicated, and unclear for parents. Since Québec won’t give an at-home distance learning option during COVID-19.

As I am not over 70 and/or with lung disease, I am not able to get a medical exemption to allow me to take part in their learning program remotely. This makes no sense to me at all because if they can teach the kids remotely to the ones with medical exemptions, what’s the difference in parents like me who want to teach them in French or follow along with the program, but remotely? This is my freedom of choice / right to not want to get sick, as I do not know what it will do to my lungs, having chronic bronchitis and severe asthma. I find this all very frustrating.

I am also not getting the proper emails back with CLEAR STEPS and instructions of what has to be done. One says a learning plan, the other says the board will handle it, and only the third that I picked out of seeing the responses, seemed to be able to get me started on the right path.

For the record, the process so far has been:

1. Submit intent to homeschool via the DEM website
2. Submit the Acknowledgement of Form submission to the EMSB 
3. Obtain English Language Exemption certificate via the EMSB by setting up an appointment with Law 101 Office
4. ????

3:14 p.m. — I finish documenting everything. This is what takes up brain power and time, and I am frustrated.

4:56 p.m. — I do my nails and let them dry. I tried out a new brand – Maison Jacynthe – Colour NAPOLI – which is eco-friendly, and 9-10 free in terms of chemicals for nail polish, and while the application was perfect (one coat is all I needed, and only one stroke for each toe except the big toe), the colour dried darker and more reddish than I expected:

7:54 p.m. — I spend my night like this:

9:14 p.m. — Time for bed. We talk about constellations, the stars, and so on.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up for no reason.

??:?? — I wake up because of his squealing (must be a nightmare) and I groggily pat his bum with my foot because he is all the way down at the end of the bed, and I don’t want to get up and I “Shhhh shhhh baby” him. He calms down.

??:?? — I wake up with a start, and throw a blanket over him to keep him warm, as I find it a bit chilly and he’s completely sleeping without a blanket (HOW!?)

6:20 a.m. — I grab his milk, make my matcha tea, and play a little Two Dots with him. Another Squares Race is on (making squares with d0ts), and we were already 600 squares behind (each level is about 20 squares), and it took me a day to get up to 600 squares, playing the ENTIRE TIME I could, and then another 300+ for good measure. I told Little Bun: We are going to crush them … and he nodded eagerly, because he’s also super competitive and wants to be #1 as well. I can’t help myself. And I have a ton of free time. I also find the game challenging / logical in trying to figure out how to make squares or complete a level, so there’s that aspect as well.

P.S. If you get into this game, please don’t blame me for your lack of time due to playing it obsessively. It’s addictive.

8:17 a.m. — Also.. not believing this staged picture of a table full of croissants, and a girl with ABS pretending she ate any of it. Even a bite. *side eye*…..  This is what we call gaslighting because there’s no way.. unless she then ran 2 hours to get rid of the extra calories.

8:59 a.m. — Little Bun tells me: Today is BBQ day! (he’s very excited)

9:08 a.m. — I am on the phone with my friend while Little Bun plays in my closet, going through the lavender pods from over a decade ago I picked from some dried lavender from my partner’s godfather’s home. They STILL SMELL to this day, and Little Bun calls them “lavender babies”, and cradles each pod like a baby.

11:05 a.m. — I am using my old piano books that have been in my family for years (over 50), to teach Little Bun how to play

My mother even coloured in the photos on some of the pages as a whimsical touch:

And the dates are when we learned the songs – this was not mine – 5/5/84, it was likely my brother’s date he learned it.

12:28 p.m. — I eye more nailpolishes online, but decide to calm TF down because I already ordered two more on the way, and I don’t really need any more. Instead of trying to meet the minimum shipping requirement ($75 means buying 6 bottles!!!!) I decided to try and buy the three bottles I want in-person and save myself the added cost of more nail polish that I will ever likely use in my life. I obviously like to buy things to get free shipping and this is a neat trick of retailers to get me to spend $50 more than I really want to.

1:04 p.m. — Little Bun shoos me out of the bedroom, it’s time for his nap.

3:00 p.m. — I finish reading “I Owe You One” by Kinsella and the main character really drives me insane. I want to … go in there and just tell everyone off. I guess that’s the point of the book but this pent up rage (?) or frustration over the way things are being handled, is not something I enjoy reading. Why does it always have to be such a grand mess?

4:20 p.m. — Everyone has really been kind regarding the Instagram situation. It doesn’t seem like it’ll get resolved soon, and now my Facebook page is acting up – I can’t even log into my account on the desktop, only on the mobile application. I’ve submitted countless help tickets for it, but so far nothing. I think Instagram & Facebook, honestly just don’t have the team or the right procedures/rules in place to lessen the workload. Instagram in particular, should have a peer review in the sense that if something like this happens (my account gets deactivated), if at least 20 people with solid followings of 10K or more people, can personally VOUCH for my account in the app and note that it was wrongfully terminated, they should restore it. Community support, in a sense, makes more sense to take the workload off their ops team. Anyway.

The good news about all of this nonsense is it has made me rethink how much time I was spending on Instagram. A completely (kind of) useless outlet that doesn’t actually do much except act as a hobby, but I was wasting a lot of time and focusing time on there rather than on this blog. It wasn’t a good balance, so I plan on going back to blogging more thoughtfully.

5:21 p.m. — We cut Little Bun’s hair by shaving it all off. He loves his new haircut, he feels like a shorn sheep now.

6:16 p.m. — I end up investing in a small around $50 set of a lapel Lavalier microphone for my iPhone XS Max and an adapter for the phone for the headphone jack, so I can record better audio for my YouTube videos. I don’t want to spend too much money, but I also can’t stand the audio. I wonder how it will work if I am moving around however. Maybe you’ll just see the wire then? Maybe I should have tried for a wireless option. $62.43

7:30 p.m. — I also pick up this nailpolish from Zoya in Paloma because it is a nice berry colour that dries in a jelly look (?) $16.10

7:44 p.m. — I go through and try to figure out all the documents I will need to apply for an English certificate to be able to homeschool Little Bun in English at home.

9:11 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $78.53

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Want more? Read all of my previous Week of Money Diaries.