My financial situation looks pretty bleak right now. Meaning, no work. I've gotten a few itty bitty freelance assignments since the p/t job ended, but nothing major.

But every time I say, OMG, now what do I do, something pops up out of the blue.

I just got an email from an old contact/freelance client from another real estate company. Years back, she gave me a ton of PR work to do for her; she's a sales manager for two key offices for this company.

I probably haven't heard from her in over a year, and now she says the company is rebranding itself and needs a freelance writer to help them redo their sales literature.

It would only be for the next 2.5 weeks but it could be f/t, not sure. She asked how many hours I could provide and what my rate would be.

I said I could work f/t if the need's there, and asked for $35/hr. Not sure if I could work at home or work out of one of their offices, but either way I HOPE I GET THIS.

I'm delighted to have gotten that email. It just goes to show, when you do a good job for someone, it often pays off down the road. I know she really likes my writing, so maybe they figure they have no time to advertise for someone. Crossin' my fingers. I hope I didn't suggest too low a figure.

In other news, here's a perfect example of how a little job turns into a big job, home improvement-wise. I have a bunch of half used paints sitting on the basement stairs. There's a paint recycling event coming up later this month, but there was a can of something in the ivory family, which I used on the tool shed. Instead of getting rid of it, (part of my general decluttering before I move) I reasoned, why not use the last of it to get one more good coat on the tool shed?

So I got the front of the shed painted, probably the side that needs it least, but it's the most accessible side as well. What really needed repainting was the wood plank floor/walkway, but before I could paint that, I could see a lot of green mildew on it that would need to be cleaned off.

I trudged back to the garage (over 100 feet away) and returned with some diluted bleach, a sponge and a scrub brush and set about getting rid of the mildew. Actually, I was back and forth for various supplies at least five times. Then I needed to rinse the bleach solution off, so I uncoiled the heavy double-length hose in garage and dragged the whole thing into the backyard. Now I had to wait for it to dry before painting, which won't take place til tomorrow. I was going to paint at 3 pm, but it wasn't quite dry.

But then I realized the only exterior paint I have is this ivory color I have on the walls of the toolshed. If I use that light color on the plank walkway, it will show every speck of dirt and mildew. I do also have exterior black, but it's a bit of a stark contrast to this ivory; not sure how it will look. Too drastic a contrast? Here's a photo of the tool shed colors now:


Sorry, I know it's sideways but it's not on my Picasa. Actually, those vertical posts you see aren't that flesh color anymore. They're the same color as the siding, so it's just 2 colors, the ivory color on the siding and the darker grayish-whatever which goes really well with it.

The idea is to avoid having to spend any money on this and use materials on hand. What color do you get if you add black to ivory?

I picked about a pound of stringbeans yesterday so today I made a huge stringbean casserole. It's pretty good.