There do seem to be a lot of fun shopping promotions going on since Black Friday.

Today I saw two items consecutively aired on HSN that I went ahead and purchased on impulse. Two in a row!

The first was called the "Car Cane" and is a gadget with a sturdy handle that you stick inside the hole in the frame of an open car door so you have something to hold onto as you get out of a car.

When I saw them using this on air, I instantly thought of how much trouble my dad has getting out of my car. He says he doesn't have strength in his legs. I'm hoping that grabbing hold of this gadget with his hand (rather than just grabbing the side of the door frame) will make it easier for him to lift himself up. It may or may not, but it was relatively inexpensive since I got a $10 off coupon in the mail that I applied to this purchase. The gadget also has a flashlight on it and tools you can use to cut a seatbelt in an emergency or break a car window.

The 2nd thing i bought was a set of 2 outdoor motion-activated LED lights with an adhesive backing, so you can put them anywhere, provided the spot gets a lot of light.

My front stairs are really dark at night and I don't always remember to leave the outdoor lights on if I go out at night. These would be great right on the stone walls surrounding the stairs, but I don't think that area would get enough sunshine. So I'm going to try one on the left side of my garage wall where I park my car. It faces south so should work fine.

The 2nd I'm not yet sure where I'll locate as my front entry faces east and they suggest you put it on south-facing locations. I do have a south-facing stone wall at front of my entry stairs, but it's not at all a flat surface so probably wouldn't adhere well.

Anyway, when I got the 2 email confirmations for the HSN purchases, i noticed a $5 off coupon in the emails, so I called HSN back and got the $5 off applied to my 2nd purchase. Hooray for me.

I got a new snow thrower I ordered from Amazon delivered about a week ago. It's sitting in a big box in my garage and I would really like to assemble it soon to make sure it's in working order. I don't want to wait til I have to use it and it's freezing out to do so.

Today on Amazon I also ordered a gift box of assorted nuts for my cousin Joey after learning he liked nuts. I'm getting little food gifts for both cousins and wrapping them up for Xmas to give to them when dad and I see them next week.

I also took advantage of another "deal" I couldn't resist, where one of my favorite retailers (Amazon) offered what I think was $10 back on a $20 purchase of books.

The other day I applied for yet another bonus credit card, a Bank of America card where you can earn an easy $100 bonus after spending $500. I saw it advertised in the Nature Conservancy magazine, and that group gets a small portion of every purchase you make with the card. When I applied, I was surprised not to receive an automatic "You're approved" online. I assumed they turned me down becus I already have 4 other BOA cards, believe it or not. I got a letter in the mail today telling me I'm approved for the card, but to do so, they lowered my credit limit on some of the other cards to a level they feel is sufficient for my range of spending. Which is perfectly fine for me; I'm just interested in getting the $100 bonus.

So another hip hip hooray for me.

In other news....

Back in early November, there was an educational website looking for freelance writers; I did one test writing assignment, then another one they said they would pay me for, and then never heard back from them about whether I got the job or not.

Truth be told, I forgot about them entirely, and the fact they were supposed to pay me $25, til I came across something on my desk which prompted me to email the woman. She wrote back saying she sent me an email Nov. 8 telling me i had the job (!) but since she never heard back from me, she assumed I didn't want it. She sent the email to my google account, which i never use; i used it to complete their writing assignment only because they requested it. So that was 5 weeks ago.

Anyway, she said I'll have to do another test assignment becus so much time has passed (presumably one that pays) and then I should be able to start working for them for real. And they did in fact deposit the $25 for the test assignment last month in my bank account and I didn't catch that since it didn't show up on my paper statement yet.

I will be relieved to have some sort of ongoing writing going on because I've done practically nothing to speak of, work-wise, and unemployment runs out end of January. While I look for f/t work i need to at least cobble together a few freelance things for p/t income.

I haven't really focused on this as I should have because I've been so distracted by genealogy stuff. I think that's going to change because I let my ancestry.com subscription lapse because I didn't want to pay $200 for another year, and they didn't have any special "deals" going on at the time. Based on what customer service told me, I'm confident I can pay less than that for another year if I'm patient and wait another week or two before calling them to check on ongoing deals. Apparently they change all the time.

I have been keeping up with my volunteer writing for nutritionfacts.org although I don't see any of my write-ups published yet.

I went for a longish (70-minute) walk today and it felt good to do so after 2 straight days of much-needed rain.