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Home > Archive: March, 2012
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Archive for March, 2012
March 31st, 2012 at 08:04 pm
What a strange mix of emotions at feeling both impoverished (given my underemployment and general lack of here-and-now money) and wealthy. My net worth bumped up by $6,000 in March, bringing up the value of my total investments excluding the house to $500,033.
Compare that to:
March 31, 2011: $512,337
March 31, 2010: $468,696
March 31, 2009: $352,753
Yeah, my assets incrreased by over $100,000 from 2009 to 2010, but they increased less from 2010 to 2011, and that's because I didn't contribute a nickel to a 401k plan since my layoff.
I just need a job now and all my worries will be gone!!
Universe! Do you hear me?
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March 30th, 2012 at 01:08 pm
I've lined up yet another job interview for this Tuesday with the publisher of a local weekly newspaper covering about 10 towns in my area.
It would definitely be getting back to my roots, because newspaper reporting is what I did for the first three years after I graduated college. But it was very low paying, even then, so I later went on to law school and better paying jobs in marketing.
However, I look back fondly on my newspaper days. I met a lot of people and knew a lot about what was going on in the towns I was covering. These were local papers, not those with a national audience, so I wrote a lot of special interest features and attended lots of late night planning and zoning meetings, always toting a camera.
It was a difficult job at times for me to do because I'm your basic introvert and sometimes dislike having to go up and talk to strangers about not always so pleasant topics, like, so, you're getting sued, how do you feel about that?
Well, I exaggerate a little, but you get the idea.
The job also often entailed late night meetings with early morning deadlines and lots of running around on the weekends to various events. For a single 20-something, it was ok, but doing that now full-time? I'm not sure.
So I saw the ad in a paper here and it actually said you could call about the job. So I applied on Friday and decided to call today to follow up. I got patched right through to the publisher and had a brief conversation with him. It's a family-owned newspaper and they actually have two openings: one for a full-time reporter covering one town with blue-collar roots, and another for a part-time reporter (who can work up to 40 hours) covering a different town that's more upscale and is known as an antiques town, has various horse farms, etc. I presume the f/t job has benefits.
Both towns would be a good half-hour drive, although the newspaper office is about 15 minutes away.
I expect the pay for etiher will be EXTREMELY low, quite possibly too low for me to consider f/t, but it could possibly make sense to take the p/t one to supplement my current p/t job and freelance.
So sometime this weekend I will once again assemble a portfolio, this time dragging out old newspaper clips that I'd otherwise be embarrassed to ever show, but which I feel would be important to include just to prove I did in fact work at two other newspapers. Both newspapers have since gone under.
I'm not necessarily expecting much becus it probably won't pay enough to even be worthwhile, but it's worth exploring and these days, I'm leaving no stone unturned. I consider it an "exploratory" interview.
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March 30th, 2012 at 12:20 am
March turned out to be a great money month for me.
Freelance: $1,190
My p/t job: $1325
Unemployment: $503
Credit card rewards: $200
Online surveys: $127
3 rebates: $$34
Product research $30
Total: $3,491
That freelance work was all done all at once in February. It's mostly my one real estate client, with a little bit from my new legal client and also a little from editing the emails of the IT director.
The bad news is, I have no billables outstanding now. That's the problem: the freelance work comes in spurts. The $127 in online surveys is what I'd like to see myself make every month, but sometimes it's as little as $50. I'm so tired of waiting over 6 weeks to get a $25 gift card in the mail. It takes forever, and they often ignore your emails asking where it is. I will be so happy to throw in the towel on those things some day.
I had no major calamities this month expense-wise, and right now, my total March expenses come to $2,094, so my net will be positive $1397 or so. It also helped that March was the second consecutive month where I paid $0 for electricity, part of the deal the state worked out with CL& P for botching up storm recovery of power, twice.
Tomorrow's my work at home day, and in the afternoon, I'll quit early to run down to do another product study. I can wrap up my work on Saturday. On the way home, I'll get another load of free wood chips at the landfill, do a bank deposit of all those checks I got and stop at a good will store to pick up some cheap glass vases so i can play paint a vase as noted in an earlier post. Also want to stop at Staples to get some free-after-rebate batteries, which I mostly use in my digital camera and a few clocks.
I want to buy a $35 water fountain for the cats. It recycles the water and makes it a bit more appetizing to drink than stale water in a bowl. I've had a bit of a scare with Waldo; I thought he might have cystitis after I found he left 2 drops of urine on the bed on 2 separate occasions. He wasn't running to the litterbox and seems fine, but I gave him some apple cider vinegar mixed in tuna juice last night, which he really seemed to like. I tried to give him more again today and tonight when I got home from work, just 1/2 t. mixed in tuna juice and then in his food, and he turned up his nose. I'm going to get tinned sardines at Stop and Shop tomorrow on the way home from the product study to further try to camouflage the apple cider vinegar. But it's going to have to wait a few weeks cus I already blew $27 on black licorice last week (hmmm) and I'll have to wait to save up more Amazon gift certificates.
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March 27th, 2012 at 07:49 pm
I had a thought recently that might be an option in supplementing my retirement income or simply creating an income stream to help me get by. Now, later or down the road.
I won't likely act on it right away, but it bears consideration and is maybe something I would do in eight years or so.
I'm thinking "creatively."
Now I'm sure most of you are familiar with the way a reverse mortgage works. You sign over your house to a lender and in return you get lifetime possession and a monthly stream of income that gradually sucks the equity out of your home. Your heirs get nothing.
Now while I probably wouldn't consider a reverse mortgage because of their very high fees, I thought of something recently that seems to work very similarly to a reverse mortgage.
Is anyone familiar with a charitable remainder trust, aka charitable gift annuity?
I know a teensy bit about CRTs because I used to write sales literature for them way back when for a previous employer. But that was a long time ago and I'm sure the product has evolved.
As I understand, you make a gift to a charity in the form of cash, securities or real estate. My gift would be my house. In return, you get an annuitized income stream for life, a tax deduction (not sure based on what) and of course when you die, your heirs get nothing, because the asset no longer belongs to you.
I'm fine with that. I have already named a number of charitable groups as my beneficiaries in my mutual fund investments. In my will, I have named my parents and my 3 siblings. But as you may know, should the named beneficiaries in your will and investments conflict, your investment beneficiaries take precedence. So in my case, should I die, my family would actually get nothing except my house and material possessions. And I'm thinking of changing that by possibly using a charitable gift annuity as described above.
While I would want to leave $$ to my parents, I think it's safe to assume I'll outlive them. And my father doesn't really need the money. If I willed it to him, he'd probably just save it and then when he died, the money would wind up going to my two half-brothers.
We didn't grow up together and aren't really close at all, although my one brother did recently just have a daughter. Still, he doesn't seem to need the money either and I don't have a special desire to leave either of them money so they can buy some new living room furniture or take a really cool vacation somewhere. I want my money, which I worked so hard for, to do something purposeful and meaningful.
I have been a lifelong environmentalist and would very much like to see my assets benefit certain groups that are trying to preserve our open space, protect wildlife habitat and so on. So the idea of a charitable remainder trust really appeals to me. Even more so because my house represents a huge portion of my net worth that is illiquid and would otherwise not be accessible to me and would really only benefit me by serving as a place for me to live.
The kind of trust described above would enable me to draw some benefit from an illiquid asset and achieve some good at the same time.
Of course, I would have to think very, very carefully about doing this, becus forming such a trust is an irrevocable act, meaning, that once you decide to do it, you CANNOT undo it down the road if you change your mind.
I suppose if all I was after was some extra ongoing income, I could simply sell my house when the market recovered, buy a little condo and then enjoy the extra profit I'd make from the sale of the home. Which i might still do.
I happened to get my Nature Conservancy magazine in today's mail, and according to their little chart, if you donated $10,000 to them at age 60, you'd get a $440 annual payment and a $2,231 tax deduction. My house today is worth about $290K, so my annual payment, should I give them my house, would be in the neighborhood of $13,200, or $1100 a month, at least the way I interpret their chart.
What do you think? Am I overlooking something big here? Cus this sounds pretty good. Dido, MM? What say you?
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March 27th, 2012 at 07:25 pm
OK, so I'm just gonna toss this idea and see what kind of feedback I get about it.
It's just another way of thinking about retirement income, or establishing a stream of income for myself now or later. I probably won't be rushing out to do it today, but it's something to think about, maybe, down the road.
Who out there is familiar with charitable remainder trusts or charitable gift annuities?
Here's what I'm thinking:
First, you should know I really have no heirs. Neither my sister nor I have children. I have two half-brothers, about 10 years younger than my sister and I, but we never see each other and we're not really a part of each others' lives, although my one brother did recently have a child. But they're not lacking for money. He does pretty well.
So I've already named a smattering of charitable groups as beneficiaries in my various mutual fund investments. As you may know, should you die, whom you name as beneficiaries in your investments supersedes whoever you may name as beneficiary in your will, should they conflict.
Right now my will does name my parents and three siblings as beneficiaries, but because my investments name various charitable groups, the only thing my family would get is my home and material possessions. And I'm thinking of changing that.
I think it's safe to guess I'll outlive my parents. I would want to leave assets to them both, but I think I'll be around longer than they will. (My mother could really use some help, but my father doesn't need my money and so if I did leave him money and then he passed, my assets would end up with my two brothers with whom, like I said, I don't have much of a relationship with.
So I'm thinking I might like to do something different with my house. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the way a reverse mortgage works. You get lifetime possession and when you die, the house goes to the bank. You also get a stream of income, which gradually sucks the equity out of your home. Your heirs don't get anything.
While I'm not especially enamored of reverse mortgages, due to their very high fees, I am thinking about something that seems to work very similarly to them, namely a charitable remainder trust or charitable gift annuity.
I know a teensy bit about charitable remainder trusts because I used to write sales literature for a CRT that my employer offered way back when, over 10 years ago now.
I don't know enough, but I'm thinking I could give my house to the Nature Conservancy and retain lifetime possession. When I die, they get the house. I'm fine with that. (They would of course sell the house and use the proceeds toward some good.) While I'm alive, I get an annuitized stream of income and tax benefits in the form of a deduction. (Not sure what kind of deduction nor how much.)
It appeals to me because I like the idea of leaving my assets to the Nature Conservancy (and some other groups). I like the idea of getting my home, an illiquid asset, to generate an income stream to supplement my retirement. Look at it this way: the house would otherwise represent a huge portion of my net worth that's all locked up and inaccessible to me and really would just serve as a place for me to live. Why not put it to work for me instead and do some good with it at the same time?
Of course, I'd have to think very, very carefully about doing this, because a CRT is irrevocable, meaning that once you decide to do it, you CANNOT undo it. So I'd have to make damn sure that I didn't want to move to a nice little maintenance-free condo somewhere and that I was committed to aging in place.
I happened to get my Nature Conservancy magazine in the mail today and according to their little chart, a $10,000 gift to them at age 60 would generate $440 annually and a $2,231 tax deduction. My home is worth about $290K now, so if I gifted my home, the annual income should be about $13,200 annually, or $1100 a month, if i figured that right.
I'm not at all sure I have that mindset now, hence my certainty that I'm not going to do anything right away. I suppose if all I was looking for was a little extra retirement income, I could simply sell this house when the market recovers, buy a little condo and free up some substantial cash from the sale of the house in the process.
Just thinking outside the box.
Dido, MM, what do you think? Am I overlooking something big, because all this sounds pretty good to me.
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March 27th, 2012 at 05:39 pm
I called the landfill this morning and asked if they had plans for the huge mountain of mulch growing there. We had a ton of tree damage from freak storms this fall and winter. They said no, you can't take from that pile, it belongs to someone else, but you can help yourself to some mulch down by the (adjacent) dog pound.
Hmp. I had never noticed another pile of much by the dog pound. Wasn't sure how much of it I would find.
So I filled my car with all the buckets I could collect from the garage, plus my recycling bin. At the landfill, there was indeed one very long and high pile of mulch, pretty clean looking, so i got to work with my shovel. When I got home, I wasn't feeling particularly energetic, but I decided to just transfer it all to my wheelbarrow and the next thing you know I'm applying the mulch, along with some newspaper underneath to two of my perennial beds. I saw that I was able to bring home two-and-a-half full wheelbarrows in one trip.
I made a second trip as well and figure I can keep returning as I move along to each bed, weeding as I go. I also used more newspaper underneath it, which I think will make this mulch even more effective.

Another view:

A creamy white variety:

And here are some with an orangey center:

Yes, I like daffodils!
Here is the really cool thing I did with an idea in Country Living magazine.

At left is what these containers looked like before: just ordinary clear glass vases, for the most part. I took some latex paint (it was free to me and picked it up just a few months ago via Craig's List) and you pour some paint INSIDE the container and swirl it around the inside only. Pour out and let drip any excess, then let dry. It's that easy. Only thing is, you can no longer use these as water-filled vases, as the water will make the paint come up. but you can use dried flowers.
I happen to LOVE LOVE LOVE this color. It's pretty close to my all-time favorite color. It reminds of me of the color of the sea. I could see my bedroom painted this color.
Anyway, back to the mulch.
I'm so tickled (!) that I was able to get this for FREE. I spent a lot of time the last few weeks trying to figure out how to get some at minimal cost, because I simply can't justify any discretionary expense these days.
Agway had a good deal on you-pick-up mulch at $40 a yard. (For several years, I had a yard of mulch delivered to my driveway at about $100 each time. What a ripoff!!!! Never a again!) The Agway deal was good, but I don't have a truck. I thought of getting my father to come up and go with me, but even though they dump it in the truck for you, you have to shovel it out yourself, and I don't want to put my father to work anymore.
I did also place myself on a waiting list with a local tree cutting place (another great idea, I thought) although it remains to be seen how long I might wait for it. I would probably still take some if they ever do call with a load, mainly becus it's delivered. I can get mulch now at the landfill, but it's a fair amount of work to shovel it into my teensy containers and then unload it when I get home.
However, my goal was to 1. Get mulch and 2. Do so at minimal cost. And I did achieve both objectives. Cus while cash is something I'm pretty short on these days, I have plenty of 1. Time and 2. Elbow grease.
I loved the whole process of creative thinking, outside the box, to get something I really needed without spending money. and you guys helped me do it.
I made my own pizza for lunch today. Boboli's pizza crust was on 1/2 price sale, so I got the whole wheat. I like their crusts, but they're ridiculously expensive...over $4, normally. That's more than an entire loaf of bread, for gosh sakes! I used an ENTIRE head of garlic, sauteed with mushrooms and onions, and piled that on top of sauce, then added
crumbled feta cheese. Yum.
Now I am kind of pooped and will hang out inside for the rest of the day.
This a.m. I was able to register to work for the 2nd year in my town's referendum as a poll worker, usually held in late April. It's a very long workday, from about 5 am to 8 pm, but I did paid $175 for it.
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March 26th, 2012 at 01:11 pm
I am in the countdown phase of my dwindling unemployment benefits and am uber-concerned about making ends meet once that's gone.
My immediate goal has been to prolong unemployment benefits for as long as possible (by doing more freelance work, which reduces your unemployment benefit proportionately) so that I would have a lower mortgage balance left when I run out of benefits.
My strategy will be to then cash out my one remaining taxable mutual fund (see my balances in my sidebar) to pay off whatever the mortgage balance is at the time I run out of unemployment benefits. I figure at that point, it doesn't make sense to keep paying 6% interest on my mortgage when I can just pay it of with savings. But I don't want to do the big lump sum payoff if I don't have to because the fund I would use to pay it off (the only taxable fund I have left) happens to be an international stock fund, which has lost a lot of money over the whole European banking crisis thing.
So...I checked my "balance" with the Dept. of Labor and my remaining benefits stand at $3,245. I calculated that the three days a week I work at my part-time job represents 60% of the maximum weekly benefit, so I'm able to figure out that I have roughly 10.6 weeks of unemployment benefits I can count on, assuming I don't have any more freelance income.
I have about $750 of freelance income pending in the form of already-billed work, and it's unlikely I'd do NO freelance work in April, May or June. So I figure the $750 is good for prolonging unemployment benefits for two more weeks, which takes me to 3rd week of June, and I should be able to do SOME additional freelance work in 2nd quarter, so I think, conservatively, I should be able to make it to July 1 without running out of unemployment. (I originally forecast I'd run out in March/April so I'm thrilled with this.)
So what does this mean, exactly? It means that I know I have at least 4 more mortgage payments I can make (March thru June), which means my mortgage balance should be down to $5,000 or less when I'm cut off from unemployment benefits.
If ONLY I could string this out a FEW more months, it might not be necessary at all to dig into personal savings to pay off my mortgage.
That would be great, because that $72,000 I have left in my one taxable account is what I may be living on, supplemented by part-time work and freelance, for a while.
I mean, I remember Dido said she had 5 interviews in the past month. I stopped keeping track of interviews I've had becus it's too depressing to think about.
Of course, my $6500 annual property taxes aren't going away, and I can expect my COBRA to increase this June from the $468/month I'm currently paying, so it WON'T be a cakewalk. But once the mortgage is gone, it will mean that's $700 a month less I have to worry about paying., and my bare minimum monthly expenses will fall from the current $2,374 to about $1,800. My monthly net from my part-time job is $1,438, so after the mortgage is gone, that would leave just $400 I'd have to come up with monthly through freelance writing to meet bare minimum expenses.
Of course, come June 2013, the cards get shuffled again, because that's when my ability to buy COBRA insurance disappears. Without a job, bumped from COBRA and with a pre-existing condition, it could be difficult to get health insurance. I'm not sure I want to take the risk of going 6 months with no insurance so that I would then be eligible for the state's pool of i don't know what they call it, but it's an affordable plan but you have to go 6 months with no insurance. Anyway, if i get a f/t job with benefits before June 2013, it won't be a problem, but I'm 52 now and wondering if my older age is not helping in the job search.
Also, as a homeowner, I know that any one of dozens of things could go at any time. The water heater, the furnace, who knows what. So I'd like to somehow build up my reserves to cover myself in such an event without having to sell off mutual funds.
I guess that's why, as I wrote out my mortgage payment this morning, I resisted the temptation to add an extra $100 to the payment.
I also toyed with the idea of selling some of those taxable mutual funds to fund either my 2011 Roth IRA and/or my 2012 Roth IRA, but it's probably not a good idea given how thin my income/assets are spread right now. I have so many ambitious money plans and it's killin' me not to be able to make any headway toward achieving them.
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March 26th, 2012 at 01:11 am

I had accumulated about $35 worth of amazon gift certificates in small denominations ($5 to $15) from participating in an online forum, and while I have a dire need for mole deterrent and mulch this spring, I couldn't think of anything I "needed" at Amazon.
So I started browsing and spent way too much time trying to decide how best to spend these gift certificates. I liked the idea of getting food, since I need to eat anyway, but wanted to get something that was a bit of a treat that I wouldn't ordinarily buy on my spartan budget. So, umm, I ended up buying 5 pounds of black licorice in the shape of Scottish terriers.
Now in fairness, it's NOT my fault that amazon only sells candy and stuff in bulk sizes. so this was a $27 purchase, which I'm sure will raise some eyebrows. But I'll have plenty to share and satisfy my licorice cravings for quite some time to come. 
This is just the prelude to my much bigger gift certificates I'm excitedly working toward, $250, with my new citi card.
I heard back from my legal editing client and she said it's unusual for her to get this many cases all at once, so I guess she isn't destined to become a big money-making client for me. More like a periodic money-maker. 
I also saw that Agway had what I would consider an unusually low price for mulch. Now that I have mulch on the brain. I recall in the past when I had a yard of mulch delivered, it cost about $100. That was the cedar mulch, which is probably more expensive than other stuff. But anyway, Agway by me is advertising a yard of "bulk brown mulch" for just $40. I'm guessing delivery would be extra, but how would you otherwise get the stuff? Oh yeah, I think you just drive up with your pickup and have them dump it in, so i guess that rules me out.
I will call some local nurseries tomorrow and then on Tuesday I'll call the landfill about their mulch.
Thank god i got up the verve to go for a late afternoon walk around 5 today. 50 minutes. I have really noticed, with some alarm, a growing inclination to pass on the exercise. I was always a big walker, since my college days. Walking, hiking, these were always big things with me, year-round, in all kinds of weather. Now, if it's a little too chilly out or the sun is too hot, I really have to push myself. I don't want to lose my lifelong habit. There's absolutely no excuse for it since I'm not even working f/t.
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March 25th, 2012 at 01:12 am
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.
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March 19th, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Despite the zillions of times I fear my resume has been lost amid the shuffle of hundreds of applications, there are other times when a close match results in an instant response.
Just 10 minutes ago, i saw an ad on Craig's List for a writer for a commercial real estate appraisal company. I sent in my resume, a writing sample and a brief letter highlighting my real estate background. Then, 5 minutes later, a principal from the firm emailed me and asked when I'd be available to come in.
Bingo!
The job sounds interesting but i can't tell from the ad whether it's full-time, part-time or contract work. It states the salary is $25-$50K. That would be very nice work for a contract job, not so nice for a full-time job, although I'd consider it if it was at the very top of that range with benefits.
In the ad it does say that some regional travel would be necessary, so use of a car and flexible work schedule is essential. I don't think they'd say flexible work schedule if it was full-time, right? Yet they do post the compensation above as if it's an annual salary. Maybe it's ongoing contract work.
That other local publishing job is still a possibility.
Just heard back from the appraisal firm. We're on for tomorrow at 9 a.m. He said call me when you get to the building, we're hard to find. Umm, I don't want to tell him I gave up my cell phone ages ago. I guess I'll just have to allow extra time in the a.m. to find them once I get there. How hard could it be?
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March 17th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
for cleaning mom's carpets...
I got to pick out what I wanted from her art. Here's what I chose:

Today I went to an equine and pet show. I had a coupon, so admission was free. I'd wanted to check it out last year, but ended up not going. It's a fairly new event. I suspected there would be pet food giveaways. I got samples of two premium healthy pet food brands direct from the manufacturers: 2 cups of dried and 4 small cans of a new cat canned food which my Waldo loved. They're not the kind I could afford to buy right now, except as an occasional treat.
They had two enormous workhorses at the show, maybe Belgians, and if all the little kids hadn't been fawning over them, I would have liked to have done so myself. Reminder to self: Bring carrots next year.
Picked up another week's worth of DVDs from the library, deposited $1,000 in assorted checks at the bank and enjoyed the warm afternoon sun in the sun room with the boys.
Waldo was just purring for no special reason, other than that he'd just eaten some yummy mackerel canned food, felt the breeze on his whiskers, watched the noisy house finches at the bird feeder and felt the sun warm on his back. Ahh, life is good.
I saw a clever but simple craft idea I want to try in Country Living magazine. Gather together whatever clear glass vases you may have. You know, like the ones you kept from when you got flowers, or something like that. You use ordinary latex paint and pour a small amount INSIDE the glass, then swish it around until the entire inside of the glass is coated. Pour out any excess onto a tray lined with tinfoil, then let it dry, sitting upside down.
The color of the paint turns a plain glass vase into something pretty. You only put the paint inside, not outside. It looks like so-called milk glass. Provided you have a nice color latex paint. Something pale like lavender or blue would be nice. Can't wait to try this. I have like a zillion different half used paints in various colors, and just picked up another 10 gallons of half used paint a few months ago via Craig's List. You can't put water in the vase afterwards, though, or it may start peeling. Dried flowers would be fine.
I called that place where I interviewed a week ago. She said they're still not done doing the first round of interviews, but said I could back again next week. Which I will do. I must be a contender, becus I don't think they'd tell everyone to call back, but I don't know.
Pinecone sent me two rolls of product (paper towels) to try out. It comes in handy.
While I was out, I also dropped a big container of some lentil/barley/carrot stew I made at my neighbor's,who just got home after having hip replacement surgery. I called her but she didn't answer, so I just rang the doorbell (no answer) and left it on her stoop. When I got to my mom's, I called her again (no answer) to let her know I left her some food so she wouldn't have to cook. When I came home after running all my errands, I looked over at her house, and she still hadn't picked up the food from the front stoop. I hope she's ok. I'm not sure that lying around is the best thing to do after hip replacement surgery.
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