. 1. Finished up my part-time job work this morning, for the week. Now I feel "free."
2. Promptly settled into legal editing of a 19-page document for someone and was able to finish that. Problem is, I priced this job way too low.
I don't want to bill her for higher than my estimate (although it's called an estimate for a reason), so I am hoping when I'm done with these 3 initial jobs she'll mention more work on an ongoing basis. When she does, I need to tell her I underestimated my time spent on these projects. and I'm charging her less than my usual amount, becus I really wanted the work. I'm charging her $35/hr. I estimated 2 hours on the one job, and I spent 4 hours on it.
So, um, i don't know how she'll react to it, and I'm not sure exactly who is paying my bill. It comes from her, but it could be her employer that's exactly footing it.
After that, I did tidy up the north side of the house, mainly by weeding (a stupid invasive weed that takes over) and sweeping up a footpath running from front to back of house.
I also managed to roll 2 very large cut up logs from the sugar maple that was cut up, and rolled them down from backyard to driveway for eventual pick-up by someone with a fireplace.
Yesterday I continued fiddling with my veggie garden fence. I wanted to move the whole thing over by two feet or so to allow a suddenly thriving service berry tree to grow without its branches hanging over the six-foot-high fence. I also enlarged the garden a bit overall, I think. But I can't seem to get the posts in a straight line and everything looks a bit topsy turvey. I need a MAN for this.
Maybe tomorrow I'll do a seed inventory and see what I've got and what I need.
The grass seed that I planted a week ago never sprouted, despite quite warm temps here. The seed is left over from last year, possibly the year before, so I don't know if grass seed is one of those things that won't germinate well if it's old. I often get years old veggie seeds to grow.
I spent some time on Craig's List hoping to find someone either giving away free cedar mulch or willing to barter it away. I found neither. I really, really need mulch for my many perennial beds which will be rapidly taken over by weeds without it.
But being underemployed and very much living paycheck to paycheck, I hate to plunk down $100 or a bit more on a yard of mulch. Buying it by the bag would not be economical becus I need so much. I am working now to spend $2,000 with my Citi Thank You card and will get $250 in gift cards for it next month hopefully, and could possible get a gift card for Lowes or Home Depot, where I could buy bagged mulch. But again, it would be much more economical to have it truck-delivered here by the yard. Just hate to spend the extra $$.
The other thing I REALLY need this spring is some sort of mole deterrent. There are a variety of applications you can spray on the lawn. Again, hate to spend the money, but moles/voles have been tearing up my lawn for years, and it's getting much worse. They must be doing a lot of subterranean procreation becus all I see is their tunnels.
I also spent time on Craig's List looking for the elusive 3rd part-time job (after my publishing job 3 days a week and my freelance writing) for 1 to 2 days, must be local and pay $15/hr. It's A LOT harder to find something like that than you might think.
I heard back from the commercial real estate appraisal company saying they hired someone else for the job, and while I still haven't heard from the other place i interviewed at, I saw they are back to advertising the position online.
When I returned my DVDs at the library yesterday, I scored the March issue of Money magazine on the bench. The bench near the back door is where people leave assorted books or magazines for others. It's going to be my Saturday night entertainment.
I got my $200 check from Citi rewards and also a $30 check from a Unilever hair product study. Cool. I have a product test or something (not sure exactly what) coming up on Friday for $30; it's hardly worth it to drive out there, but I agreed. I guess I will net $20 after gas.
I signed up for a class on vegetable container garden at a local nursery and puts on a large variety of free classes each spring. Of course, they want you to buy something, but you don't have to. It's been a while since I grew edibles in containers, but I'd like to see what else would work well. I've grown tomatoes and eggplant in containers, and I know people grow potatoes in garbage cans. It could make sense since I have a very sunny driveway and they could be lined up there against the stone wall, protected from deer or woodchucks that wouldn't venture onto asphalt.
The day's accomplishments
March 25th, 2012 at 01:12 am
March 25th, 2012 at 01:26 am 1332638810
If you're not seeing mulch being sold on Craig'sList, would you consider putting your own ad in as 'WANTED' in the local Buy 'n Sell or Kijijji
March 25th, 2012 at 01:16 pm 1332681363
March 25th, 2012 at 04:11 pm 1332691866
Jerry
March 25th, 2012 at 05:24 pm 1332696257
March 25th, 2012 at 05:45 pm 1332697519
March 26th, 2012 at 02:33 pm 1332772428
The way it works is when the guys are working in a certain area and have chips the customer doesn't want, they'll call back in to the office and ask her who on the list for free chips lives closest to where they happen to be.
They will always call you first to make sure you still want the chips, so you have to be home. (I don't have a cell anymore, so 2 days a week i'm at work and wouldn't get the call.)
She said i could get the call tomorrow or never. It all depends.
But worth a shot! I left messages with 2 others; I'd be willing to dig my own if i had to go get them.
Anyway, this was a really good idea and apparently a lot of tree companies do give away chips cus not all customers want or need them, and it costs money to dump them at landfill. This was a nice example of creative thinking.