I've already earned my $100 bonus on the new Bank of American/Nature Conservancy card. Yay for me. This is much needed income for me.

I ran a bunch of errands this morning, including stops at BJs, BJs gas (.05 promotion if you shop at the store first), the bank, WalMart, and Staples.

I used a $10 off coupon there on a case of paper towels and a Burt's Bee's product, so my net cost was about $3). I love these coupons. I think I'll get more since once I used the first one, I got another one fairly soon after. I'm determined not to spend more than a few dollars over $10 becus I really don't need anything from Staples except printer ink cartridges, and these coupons can't be used with those. But I figured paper towels are something I can always use.

I've updated my resume to show the 2 websites I'm now writing for (one freelance, the other volunteer). The freelance one, which attracts prospective college students interested in getting an online degree, pays very poorly. I'm not done with my current assignment yet, but it consists of 7 college profiles at 150 words each.

By the time you subtract the many keywords they want you to use, you've got just 120 words to write something "interesting and informative." The keywords are overdone and clog everything up, and that's so 2010. Keyword stuffing, as it's called, is not supposed to be very effective.

Total pay will be $105. I figure with time spent on this I'll earn somewhere between $15 and $22 an hour if I'm really cramming these out.

At least by putting these 2 sites on the resume it will answer the question by prospective employers, so what have you been doing with your time since you left the bank?

I got another letter from the German pastor chock full of more birth, baptism, marriage and death details of my ancestors, mostly in the 1800s. Such a thrill to know who they were. All but one woman, who died in the US in 1906 (not too long before my grandfather and his sisters and their husbands came over, around 1923), stayed put in the same town and most were also employed in the same industry, "cloth making" and weaving. I think they had massive mills like they did here during the Industrial Revolution.

Ironically, these mills were a big thing in Garfield, NJ area where my grandparents landed when they got here. So I wonder if they felt life was better here when employment opportunities seemed to be pretty similar, at least to start with.

My German grandfather never worked in a mill to my knowledge, but owned several different gas stations and worked as an auto mechanic. He identified his occupation as "locksmith" on the ship passenger list when he sailed to America. My dad said he never knew him to do that kind of work but perhaps he just felt that was a good job to cite, I don't know.

While at BJs, I got a bunch of items I think will work well at my little brunch. So basically, I'm not really doing any home cooking to speak of, just having finger food type stuff like crabcakes, stuffed mushrooms, and that sort of thing.

I purchased 2 small motion-activated LED outdoor lights from HSN recently and I'll be curious to see if they perform well. I only put one up, facing south, but given it's on the side of the garage, it may not catch the morning sun. They don't tell you til you buy it in the directions that you need to put them somewhere where they get 9 hours of sun daily, kind of a tall order.