See, I am not all that perfectly disciplined. Give me a little extra money, and I find the temptations to spend it very powerful.

I bought a pair of shorts at Kohl’s yesterday and today it was a pair of laceless plaid sneakers at PayLess (embarrassed to say I stopped in there).

OK, enough with the spending, Patient Saver.

I did get my first paycheck from the new job in today’s mail. It was quite small since I worked just two days that first week. I wanted to see how close the actual net paycheck was to what I’d calculated online using a calculator at paycheckcity.com. It was off by a good $30-odd dollars, and that was because the agency’s payroll calculated my CT income tax at the very highest rate possible. CT has about 6 tiers, based on income, and the one she used was for people earning $250,000 and up. Maybe they use that for everyone just to make it easier for themselves, I don’t know.

I emailed J. the recruiter about it. If it’s off that much on just one small check, it will mean I’ll have a fairly large state tax refund at year’s end; I’d really rather just get what’s owed me throughout the year.

So….AFTER I did all that clothes shopping, I thought I should try to go through my closet and dresser drawers and see what clothes still fit and which can be worn at the new job. My 3 closets are quite full of clothes that range from a size 6 through size 12, although the vast majority of clothes are sizes 8 and 10. I’m now fitting into the size 8 pants pretty well.

The closets are stuffed because I have quite a few pieces of clothing hanging there that don’t fit, but just take up space because I haven’t been able to part with them for sentimental reasons, believe it or not. There’s the t-shirt from the Adirondack Nature Museum I got over 18 years ago when I was vacationing with R. It never did fit but I always liked the graphic image on it. There was another tie-dyed shirt I got around the same time period at the Clearwater Festival in New York and a few really cute t-shirts I just liked too much to part with.

Anyway, I did manage to throw away a bag of old clothing that no one will want, and I filled another bag for Good Will. I put aside some clothes I thought my mother would like (she’s a little smaller than me), and she stopped by today to get them and to admire my car.

I organized things a bit better. I don’t want to get rid of everything that doesn’t fit because if I lose maybe 5 to 7 more pounds, I think that will make a huge difference, so I dedicated one bottom dresser drawer to too-tight clothes: jeans (3 or 4 pairs) capris (2 pairs) and shorts (2 pairs). I seem to have a gazillion shorts (that DO fit), so I don’t know why I felt I needed to buy another pair at Kohl’s. Oh, and also at Kohl’s, on a different day, I bought 2 more pairs of slacks. One was gray, to go with my new gray/black leopard print slide-on sandals which are oh-so-sexy cute.

But as for the shorts, if I had just dug through my drawers, I would have realized I have plenty.
Shopping can be addictive. I have enough now.

I’ve had to start calling the contact for a Yale study I participated in back in early May. They were supposed to mail a check for $100 but never did. She called back and left a message. I believe it will be coming eventually.

I recently did some legal editing for a client. I did a 15-page report for her before she realized she’d sent me the wrong version, so then I had to do the whole thing over again with version 2. I explained that I would need to charge her for time spent on the first version, but I did feel bad for her, so I just charged her half price and I told her I valued her continued good will more than a few extra dollars and I figured we could split the cost of the first version edited down the middle. That was my reasoning, anyway. So I was very surprised today when I received her payment and she paid in full for both versions. I sent her a thank-you note. I do believe that how someone deals with money tells you a lot about what kind of person they are. I do recall having the hardest time collecting all of $50 from the nastiest realtors in the world about a year ago.
I mowed the lawn this afternoon and will finish that tomorrow. Otherwise, just tidied up around here, had a brief visit with mom, dropped off the Good Will stuff and some trash at the landfill, deposited some checks at the bank and that’s about it.

Tomorrow not going anywhere. Will finish mowing and make an edamame/corn/black bean salad for the coming week’s lunches.

Next weekend getting together with a girlfriend to check out some Connecticut gardens and then probably do lunch afterwards. I’ve already done a breakfast and a lunch out with her which is more than I’ve done in ages, although she did treat for the lunch and I got the tip.

This is a new friend…the woman who shared my old p/t job proofreading. She’s older than I am and lives here in town but she has a very colorful past. She has 4 degrees, including a PhD. In psychology. She used to be a sex therapist (!) and also co-founded a singles dating service with another woman. She recently retired from many years of teaching in the public schools. She’s very social, smart and nice to spend time with. She’s married to a very blue collar guy who works on cars for a living. It’s nice that although I no longer work at that job (she still does) I still got a nice friendship out of it. She’s also had some trauma in her past which I won’t go into but it was very upsetting to hear about. She is incredibly well-adjusted, given everything she’s experienced. She’s a survivor, as they say.