I've been so super busy these last few days.

Yesterday I drove into a small city about an hour's drive from here for a job interview with the news website I think I mentioned previously. Had to pay $6 for the parking garage. Spent an hour yakkin' with the guy. He asked me to do a writing assignment and said if I could turn it around the very next day, then we'd talk $ and he'd have me come in today since every Thursday is their writers' meeting.

So I spent several hours doing the writing assignment and sent it back. Haven't heard from him since. So much for that. I'm not too upset about that one as I wasn't sure it was a good fit or if i could see myself working there. It was full-time, but contract job, meaning, no benefits. And I do need benefits.

This a.m. I drove south to do a focus group on probiotics. There were about 10 of us middle-aged women. Got paid $85, thank you very much.

Yesterday, I also got an email from well-known big accounting firm. I had applied for a job as technical editor, which isn't exactly my background, but i thought i could do it plus D***** would be a great place to work and just about 35 minutes from home.

So I was pleased when they emailed me (and probably a bunch others?) and asked me to do edit a document they sent. I plan to maybe start it tomorrow, but i took a quick peek at it and it is quite boring looking with lots of technical data and abbreviations and so on. Could I do a better job than other experienced technical writers? I'm not sure but I sure as hell am going to try.

In about 20 minutes the viny siding rep is supposed to come by and present his estimate. I hope I don't have to sit through another hour-long sales pitch.

My Dell printer stopped working a few days ago and after spending a solid 2 hours with Dell technical support (I have 3 yrs of free support with them) he informed he that it was Windows that wasn't operaitng properly and that I had 2 choices: talk to another Dell rep who would troubleshoot the problem and then tell mehow much it would cost (they would charge me becus it wasn't a Dell problem) or I could reload Windows. Well, they know I can't reload Windows becus the computer was delivered to me new with Windows pre-installed. They said no, it wasn't pre-installed that I, the customer installed it. That's a bunch of baloney. What they did was mail me, under separate cover, a product code key which "unlocked" the software and gave me access to it. But I didn't load it and i definitely do not have any disks to re-load Windows anyway, so if they try to charge me, i'm going to give them a hard time becus it just aint' my fault and if they're going to install it, they should take reseponsibility. Especially when one of the reasons i bought this computer was becus they offered 3 years of technical support.

I got an unexpected check for $66 from the agency that hired me to work at Prudential. (oops, there i identified them...doesn't really matter....) Seems they over-withhold $ from my last check. I whacked myself in the head for not catching that myself. But am happy to have that check now.

In the month of February I made $106 from online surveys. (Patting myself on the back.) All in all, income exceeded expenses. Being unemployed, this has become my new measure of fiscal fitness.

I'm also happy to report that my total investments surpassed the half million mark. First time ever. It may have since dropped after all the unrest in Libya, but anyway, that's a new watermark. So I'm rich in savings, broke in terms of current income. Strange.