The weather has been awful yesterday and today. In the 80s, but with high, high humidity.

I haven't wanted to go anywhere, so i have 3 ceiling fans and 2 box fans going full tilt.

I have managed to vacuum the downstairs, change the hummingbird water, clean the bath tub and make iced tea. I also calculated that my gross income year to date is about $15,000.

That includes $8900 from unemployment (gross), $3254 from 5 weeks of work with the census bureau (gross) and $1490 from my freelance writing. It also includes $200 from doing online surveys, market research focus groups ($240), medical research studies ($249) and some other odds and ends.

(I made roughly similar amounts of money from the online surveys, the market research focus groups and the medical studies, yet I must say the online surveys took the most time. I probably spend 30 minutes to an hour most days on them, while the money earned from the market and medical studies were earned much more quickly, in a day or two. Just a reminder to self regarding what my priorities should be.)

I want to continue tracking my income as the year goes on, since I want to do a Roth IRA conversion later in the year and I want to make sure that 1) my income remains in the 15% tax bracket, thus making it worthwhile to do a conversion while I'm unemployed since I'm usually in the 25% bracket, and 2) that the amount I convert itself doesn't push me into the 25% tax bracket. Doing it this year on such a low income means I'll pay 15% taxes instead of 25%.

Round 2 with the Census Bureau is imminent. In fact, I was told there'd be a prelim meeting of the new crew this weekend, but I haven't heard anything further.

I also applied for a p/t contract job (advertised only in my local weekly paper) working for my town's economic development commission doing some interviews and reports of how we can make the town more appealing to business. It sounds interesting. Preferential treatment given to residents of my town. Instant advantage.

I also exchanged a few more emails with a woman from the online rug website I mentioned before. It was sort of painstaking to get some basic info from her on what the job entailed, but now she has and i named my price, a small job that ideally would lead to more and bigger jobs. She hasn't gotten back to me yet on accepting my proposal.

Finally, in my never-ending quest to make money, I proposed to my older neighbor/friend that I scrape, sand, prime and paint her small front porch. She's been wanting to get it done for years. I told her to take 20% off what she's pay a professional painter and let me do it. It's the kind of thing I do around here at my house all the time. It'd be a lot of work but I would earn money and she lives a half mile away from me. I'd delay starting that until the Census "cleanup" work is done, probably a few weeks or a month from now.