As I think will become my custom, I wrapped up my "work week" this afternoon. Wednesdays and Thursdays are full days at the office and Friday is at home, but there seem to have been a variety of other things happening on my Fridays which prevents me from putting in a full day of work. So I wrap up with a few extra hours on Saturday. (But then I have Monday and Tuesday "off" if I have no freelance work.)

I'm happy to report a small Craig's List sale of $20, and I decided to meet my buyer where I do my grocery shopping, to make it easier for him. He bought my indoor bicycle stand. It basically converts a regular outdoor bike into an indoor stationery bike. It goes for about $80 online, but I'm happy with the sale because I myself bought it used, for about the same price, two summers ago at a church silent auction.

I was so hepped up about getting one of them that when i saw it in the silent auction, I signed up and then stalked the table to make sure I could counter-bid if someone signed up for it. No one did.

But I quickly grew tired of the thing for two reasons: the main problem is that there's no resistance when you pedal. So you'd probably have to pedal for half hour just to tire yourself out. I suppose this might work ok for someone who's totally out of shape and couldn't handle an incline anyway, but I found it virtually pointless to use it. The other thing was, it's fairly noisy, even with padding under the stand.

I feel a little bad about selling it to the buyer without pointing out its shortcomings. Of course, no one pointed them out to me.

So i brought home my groceries and when i was unpacking them, i forgot to put away (in the fridge) a pound of cottage cheese and a pound of Kozy Shack pudding. Umm, they sat on the kitchen table for about 4 hours. I shall eat them anyway.

So one thing i am learning from my new job is that there's an incredible array of high quality, charming children's magazines out there. That's what I'm doing, updating our listings for our 2013 edition of our publication, which summarizes everything a freelance writer of children's stories would need to know if they wanted to browse and see which magazines they might like to write for.

I don't know if all of these were around when I was growing up, but I really feel I missed out. There was one I remember that is still around, called Highlights. But there are so many more that are beautifully illustrated with charming stories for all age ranges.

I also never knew how many Christian/religious magazines for children there are out there. Halleluiah! There are quite a few in the heartland.

After all the brou-ha-ha with my non-paying client, I decided to take down that post temporarily, until I see payment. No need to possibly muddy up the waters further if he, for whatever reason, might google the exact verbiage of his nasty notes to me, he would find them here on my blog and then know a whole lot more about me than I prefer.

So I'm sort of sitting on pins and needles this weekend becus what happens next depends a lot on how soon i get that check and can cash it (yes, I will run to the bank with it), and how soon wifey decides to drop in the office.

I'm guessing that when her manager talks to her about our conversation, she'll be one pissed off lady and I anticipate their trying to stop payment on the check (assuming they mailed it today as promised). Becus once they know I already spoke to her sales manager, they may figure the damage is done and there's no longer any need to pay me, becus her boss already knows all about it. So I'll be wanting to deposit it ASAP.

I have spoken to 2 male friends about the whole thing and both said they'd have no grounds for a lawsuit and that they're sleazeballs trying to pervert the rule of law. All to avoid a $50 bill.

In other news...

It's a rather dreary, cloudy day here, on the chilly side. Not conducive to doing much outdoors.

I bought some tilapia at $3.99 a pound and will have it tonight with a mushroom risotto and steamed broccoli. Tomorrow's dinner is already dethawing in the fridge. Frozen tomatoes from my garden and frozen black beans for a pumpkin black bean soup.

My neighbor returns from Florida today. Maybe i'll give her a call and see if she's back yet. She told me that the cost of the limo (not a real limo) to pick her up at her house and bring her to the NY airport actually cost more than her airplane tickets, which i think were about $300. I know she hated spending the money, but it was her choice to go. She asked me again if I'd be interested in driving her and that she'd pay me, but driving to a NY airport is NOT my cup of tea. Frequent traffic backups, aggressive drivers and I'd probably get lost and then be on my own on the way back. Nooo, I don't think so. I've done her lots of favors in the past and I think she assumed I would do so, but thank God I got my mojo going and said no. It would be about an hour and a half one way.