In the never-ending merry-go-round of random part-time jobs I've held in the past 3 years, I decided this morning to tell Jason next time I see him that I don't want to drive him anymore.

It will mean the loss of $510 monthly income, which is not insignificant in my budget, but I will have to somehow make up for that in other ways.

It's just gotten too tiring and the payoff is really borderline, once you subtract gas cost and wear and tear on my car. The latter is a biggie for me since I need my 13-year-old car to last me for a long, long time as replacement is out of the question at the present time.

Just to pick J. up and get him to work one time (and dropping the kids off at daycare) requires 75 minutes of driving by me, door to door. For that I earn $20. Multiply that by twice a day and you've got 2.5 hours of daily driving, albeit all local, on the same darn road. Even with a fuel-efficient Honda, I sure aren't getting rich.

Plus, now that the days are shorter, I am doing the entire afternoon drive home in the dark, always in heavy commuter traffic on a busy two-lane highway, with the headlights of SUVs and trucks in my eyes. Once I pick up the kids with him and drop them all off at home, it's back into the traffic once again to drive myself home. I'm really getting sick of this one road! Having to do all this during a snowstorm is really something I dread, especially the windy, hilly road that goes to his kids' daycare place.

He's not going to be happy about it, but I need to do this for my owny sanity. I'll give him 2 weeks to find someone else. I know so much about this guy just becus we often talk in the car, so I do wonder how he'll manage, and i feel bad for him, becus he is a super sweet guy who's really dealing with a lot of hardship right now (of his own doing, with the DUI) with everything he has to do, but bottom line is, i have to worry about me first. I did it for 4 months and now it's time for something better. I think it's the right decision.

Three pills into the antibiotics and still waiting for them to really kick in. The fever and earache's gone and I am feeling more energetic today, but my hearing is still completely muffled, I'm still hacking away with a cough and my nose is clogged. I've already wasted a week of my life on this and now I'm impatient to be better.

I am also feeling a little hungrier and for dinner I roasted my own sweet potato wedge fries in olive oil, salt and pepper. My "dessert" is a jarred container of Polar pear slices. Sort of reminescent of the fruit cocktail my grandmother would feed me as a child except that this is a much better quality fruit that is actually firm the way a pear should be. In a light syrup, but not overly sweet. They periodically go on sale at Shopt Rite for $1 each and I like them as a portable snack to go or just when I'm in the mood.