We got a foot of snow here on Thursday. Now I know how long it takes one small but determined woman to shovel a foot off my 90-foot driveway: 2.5 hours.

It may not sound like much time but it was pretty intense "hard labor" and I had to break it up into 3 separate times: first on Thursday morning, then again Thursday afternoon and finally once more yesterday.

The car's still in the garage, but I have to get out today for some groceries as there will be a few more inches and very messy weather tomorrow, and then again Sunday into Monday.

I got a new assignment for the higher education website: the best schools in Utah. Brigham Young University has quite impressive facilities. I've already done the best online schools in Alabama, Montana and Indiana.

I also had a talk with another website, one that needs a personal finance writer to write 10 to 20 short stories a month. I will likely do a test writing assignment next week. They pay better than the education website but still not great.

I don't think I could do both jobs, but I am feeling cautious about dropping the education job til I'm sure I'll be comfortable with the personal finance job. So I was the one to suggest I do one or two writing assignments to see how it feels, and make sure they're happy with my work.

If I wrote the 10 or 20 a month, the income would mostly or wholly cover all my monthly expenses. I'd only be grossing $36K a year, compared to a similar job I had back in 2008-2009 where I was writing 3 stories a week and 2 blog posts, roughly comparable to what this job calls for (5 stories a week max).

In 2009 I was grossing $70K with benefits, so you can clearly see how desirable it is for me to find a perm job with benefits. This job would just help tide me by.

This new job for a NYC content generation firm, would actually require a lot more brainpower than the education job. The stories would be along the lines of what you see in Money or Kiplingers, and the 1st story they suggested was on the recent TX court ruling on the fiduciary DOL rule. They would provide some talking points but I think I would still need to do independent research.

The education job is pretty straightforward and just requires hunting for specific types of information on a given school's website, making sure to hit on certain things and insert various keywords, etc. But given what they pay, it's quite a bit of work. I DO appreciate they pay fairly quickly, in about 5 days time after you hand in the assignment.

PS The little image you can insert in your profile is now working! I've been in touch with Nate and James. It took a few tries but I see they've fixed it as I have one of my mother's weavings in my profile.