I think Creditcardfree was right about how some people's anger issues prevent them from being able to "let go" of things that bother him. I dated someone about 8 years ago who had major issues of that sort and acted in the same extreme, irrational way to minor irritations. It took me a while to figure out that my changing my behavior in this way or that way had no effect on his anger one way or the other.

I also think that given his history, the encounter with the police was practically a traumatic event for him.

The carpenter, "B," is a guy who has gotten the short end of the stick in life. He has a marketable skill but doesn't know how to leverage it to get ahead and he seems to make a lot of poor decisions that exacerbate his problems. Years ago he got behind on his property taxes due to a seasonal work shortage and the interest and penalties just piled up. He is still digging out.

Years earlier he was in a bad motorcycle accident. His young daughter (he's divorced) was riding behind him and he'd given her his helmet. (There is no helmet law in CT.) A driver backing out of his driveway didn't see him. B. jammed on the brakes to avoid a collision and went flying over the bike. He broke his back and had numerous other fractures. I remember seeing an account of the accident in the local paper and calling him at the hospital to see how he was doing. He mistook my concern for romantic interest which I had to quickly correct the next time I saw him, when he got out of the hospital.

This was why he had a doc appt on the second day he was doing the bookshelves. Pain management, he said. I didn't pry, as it was none of my business, but he seemed to want to talk about it. So then we get talking and I mention that painkillers can be very addictive, and he agreed. I asked him if he was in pain and he said "not really."

I got in touch with the friend who referred him to me and told her what happened. She is still using him from time to time but she lets her husband deal with him mostly. She mentioned another incident she'd heard of where some woman cut him off in her car and he chased her down. She had a baby in the back seat. If my friend had "heard of it," I imagine the woman must've called the cops when she saw he was following her and they pulled him over.

Anyway, my friend recommended another guy she said was very nice. I also have 3 guys I'd found on Angie's List earlier who I was going to try before B. agreed to do the job. I really think there's just one full day of work remaining on the project -- all the fun finish work including baseboard, trim and moldings, plus the cabinet below the window and the cubby holes above it. To think that I was going to pay him a $100 bonus just because I thought he was doing a good job.

I did try pouring Dawn dish detergent over the oil stains on the pavers, let it sit a half hour, then rinsed with very hot water I warmed up in the microwave. Disappointingly, this did absolutely nothing to the stains. The source said you may have to repeat.

Instead, after researching it further, I decided to try clay kitty litter sprinkled over each stain, which I then ground into a fine powder dust with the heel of my foot. It should sit overnight and hopefully lift up some of the stain.

If that doesn't work, I still have a few more things to try. One clever idea was to use a charcoal grill lighter fluid, the kind that's a skinny foot-long tube, to heat the oil up and out of the brick so it burns off.

I remember when I pointed out the stains to B. and said I think your truck is dripping oil, he said no, that's not oil, and he never really finished the sentence. Maybe it's transmission fluid or brake fluid. I did get down on my hands and knees and it had just a vague petroleum smell, not that strong, so I don't know exactly what it is.

If, against all odds, the stains remain (there are a dozen of them), I could have the company who laid the driveway last spring come over and just turn the pavers over. I'd want them to do it becus they level it with a soft mallet or whatever and I don't want to mess it up. Perhaps he wouldn't charge that much since I hired him twice now for big jobs.

My carpenter walked off, leaving me with a half-done job.

I'm just floored and very upset.

Today was Day 3. He was making good progress but had to go to Lowes to get more materials. We talked in great detail about what he had left to do, he calculated what it would cost and I gave him another $200 on top of the $500 I gave him at the start of the job.

He left around noon, and didn't return til 2:30 pm. While he was gone, I saw some oil stains his truck had left on my pavers, which was kind of upsetting. It doesn't look good but I went online and cleaning them seems fairly easy, just using dish detergent you let soak on the stain for 30 minutes, then using a scrub brush and then rinsing with hot water. I have it soaking in Dawn detergent now; hope it will work.

But anyway, he was annoyed having to walk further up the driveway since he couldn't drive all the way up. I explained why and pointed out the pavers. He actually said he thought I had put the stains there and said he "knew" I would try to deduct for what I owe him for the bookshelves becus of the stains. I never said I would do that. I just moved my car so he couldn't drive on the pavers.

But this wasn't the real reason he was upset, and I knew it. When I asked him what happened, he said some other driver hit his truck, but while they had damage to their vehicle, they only hit his tire and we looked at it and apparently there wasn't damage. But then he said he almost got arrested because HE LEFT THE SCENE OF AN ACCIDENT, but that the cop was "nice" and didn't make a big deal of it.

So he is VISIBLY upset, and I could understand that. I tried to calm him down and pointed out his truck suffered no damage and he wasn't arrested.

But then he starts talking about things I did that he didn't like. He said the day before I had turned out the dining room chandelier light, and that annoyed him. I turned it off when he left thee job for a while. It had been a cloudy day, but then the sun came out and since the chandelier is pretty dim anyway, I didn't think he'd need it on.

And then he went on and on about the pavers, that he knew where this was going, etc. He just went off on a rant.

I tried talking to him and explaining why i turned the light off and that i hadn't said anything about making him pay for the pavers, but when he remained agitated, I just went inside the house and thought maybe it was best he calm down by himself.

He's coming and going out of my dining room (i went upstairs) so after a while i look out the window and i see him packing up his stuff!

He was walking off the job! I tried to go out and talk to him again, asking him if he could just stop for a minute but he refused and the whole time I'm trying to reason with him he's walking back and forth collecting all his tools and equipment.

He said so many things that were completely irrational, that it just wasn't his day, etc.

I just can't believe this and now I'm wondering who the heck I'll have to find to finish this job. If he showed any interest in finishing it with maybe a small apology, I would gladly let him finish, but he was just so off the deep end I doubt he'll do that.

I'v known this guy for nearly 20 years and hired him off and on over the years and never had this happen. He has had some run-ins with the law and I do remember my girlfriend, the one who first gave me his info as a good handyman/carpenter, telling me a story about him getting arrested after he showed up at the police station with a rifle in the truck.

I think he has some anger management issues, clearly. He had several chances to just calm down but he just made things worse instead. I know he was upset about the car accident and the cop, but he could have recovered from that. You don't go yelling at your customer when clearly I had nothing to do with that, and if the pavers and my turning off the light really bothered him, there were better ways of dealing with it.

I'm holding out small hope that he might call in the next day or two to smooth things over, but I am a little doubtful that will happen. This really stinks.

Today is day 3 on the bookshelves. Carpenter only worked a half day yesterday. I'm happy with the way it's turned out so far.



I'll have him do a bench under the window with 2 cabinet doors that open to reveal a single shelf inside. Above the window, I'm going to have him build 6 small square cubbies where I can display mom's miniature art pieces.

There will be trim with the vertical lines and rosettes on 4 vertical parts of the shelves which will really finish it off nicely. Similar to this, which matches what I have on my family room French doors:


I guess I'll do the painting myself (not looking forward to it). First primer, then a semi-gloss waterborne enamel like Sherwin ProClassic, which will harden better than your typical latex paint. I had all sorts of problems with stickiness and paint lifting off my doors when I tried using a latex on them, despite lengthy dry time. I don't like using oil-based paint due to clean-up and odor issues.

I've researched the best paints for doors and shelves, things that either have pressure applied when they're closed, or have things put on top of them and both Sherwin Williams ProClassic and Ben Moore Impervo are said to have the advantages of an oil-like finish without the drawbacks of oil. I sure hope so.

FINALLY, I surpassed $900,000 in savings...$900,308, to be exact. I'd been eyeing this particular milestone for the last 3 months.

I hope I can hang onto it and not see it dip below $900K again due to my "under-employed" status. That is just one way the contract job could be helpful.

I was supposed to start on Monday but now the client has changed direction and they won't have things ironed out til later next week, so new start date is next Friday or maybe the following Monday.

Despite the big savings milestone, I'm in the red for the month of April, the 2nd consecutive month that's happened. Not including my capital outlays for the built-in bookshelves this month, my expenses exceeded income by $1200.

It's not that I spent that much but I only had $1330 in income.

I don't regret My little April "splurges:" a $75 birthday lunch with dad and $30 on Easter goodies for my friend's nieces.

I also had to pay $500 in state and federal estimated taxes for the 1st quarter, which I wouldn't be surprised I overpaid. It sure seems like a lot, given what I earned. The estimated tax forms are ridiculously involved and I just don't want to spend hours upon hours doing it. Instead, I use my own highly simplified estimate which in the past has resulted in over-payment. But I'll get it back and the main thing is not to incur a penalty for under-payment.

My annual transfer station (dump) fee has risen to $95 this year. It irks me to pay that much given that most other area towns charge far less; my father, in nearby town, pays nothing.

So I spent 4 hours today reading all the bank material, highlighting key stuff and looking over competitor websites. All this while my carpenter was banging away downstairs and really making a racket.

I just got an email from the agency saying the bank has changed course and they will need to re-brief me again but they won't have things firmed up til end of next week.

So I will NOT be starting there Monday after all; more likely, he said, it will be next Friday or the following Monday. It's possible I won't get paid for the 4 hours spent today since recruiter explicitly told me not to do any work yet til he got back to me on Friday. I'm pretty sure he was going to make sure I would be paid for at-home work (even though the guy at marketing agency said yes, please, go ahead). I'm not sure whether or not I should tell recruiter I did not follow his directive.

Can you believe it??? I really felt I HAD to start the prep work asap to be ready to go on Monday. Oh well.

On the plus side, it appears I will now have plenty of time to have my carpenter continue work and finish the bookshelves. He put in a full day today and while progress was a tad slower than I'd hoped for, we did spend a lot of time determining the number of shelves and their dimensions, which will carry through to the other side of the window, so it was necessary to spend that time.

He has a mid-day doctor's appointment tomorrow so I guess I will hang around here til then. Once he leaves, I'll do my grocery shopping and also run to Macy's, as I would like to get a few tops and some new shoes, just to make it easier to get dressed in the morning in something presentable.

I feel a little bummed, and even worried now that this job may not pan out if the client bank doesn't know what it wants. I hope that's not the case.

So as mentioned in yesterday's post, I really felt kind of ambushed when I showed up at what I thought would be a job interview but what turned out to be a kick-off meeting meant to debrief me on the work I'd be doing.

When I say "ambushed," I don't mean they were trying to do anything unkind, but it certainly threw me off kilter as I struggled to comprehend the scope of a very involved project and what they were asking of me.

I don't blame them; they are obviously behind an eight ball with the deadline for this project and had no in-house talent to execute it, but it makes me wonder why they would take on such work if they didn't have resources IN PLACE. I guess their attitude was, 'shoot first and ask questions later.'

I want to make best use of my time between now and Monday to clear my plate of various errands or other things so they won't become a distraction when I'm neck-deep in the project. I'm only going to focus on essential stuff to do, and then I plan to get into the reading they gave me so I can absorb as much as possible and as the manager said "hit the ground running" on Monday.

My carpenter has arrived to set up his tools and saws for the built-in bookshelves. He's just left to go buy the wood and will start later this morning and can work today, tomorrow and Saturday on it.

Here's my list of things to do:

1. Pick up more meds for Waldo before they run out.

2. Laundry

3. New central air test of system this a.m.

4. Fill up gas tank.

5. Fill out all the recruiter's paperwork for: a)confidentiality agreement, b) IRS withholding form, c) Paychex timesheet, d) contract, e) direct deposit of my paychecks, which will be every 2 weeks.

6. Haircut

7. Dump run

8. Groceries

9. I may also do some clothes shopping. Altho it's casual attire (jeans) I may want a few things just to make it easier to get dressed in the morning without having to figure out what in my closet looks okay.

I may have to give up going to the local climate march on Saturday as planned for many weeks. Disappointing but I really need the time.

Once I get my personal stuff out of the way, I want to concentrate on the following, definitely for Sat/Sun but maybe even starting tonight or tomorrow:

10. Reading and absorbing all materials.
11. Sketch out an outline for the first brochure.
12. Closely review the bank's website.
13. Start a competitive review of other banks' private banking pages, printing out stuff I can bring to the office on Monday.

Now, the recruiter had told me NOT to do any work until he checked back with me tomorrow because I know he wants to make sure I'll get paid for time spent at home. I could just listen to what he told me, but honestly, I will be the one bearing responsibility for getting this done on time, so I'm only hurting myself by sitting around twiddling thumbs. I think I can safely say I'll be paid for at least 4 40-hour weeks, so I'm not too concerned about a few hours here or there. I'm kind of looking at it as a single project that will pay me $8800 rather a weekly paycheck.

So the recruiter for the short-term contract job set up an interview with the marketing agency I'd be working for.

As mentioned earlier, they didn't require an interview and were ready to hire me based on my resume, but the recruiter had very little information about what, exactly, I'd be writing, so for my own comfort level he agreed to set up the meeting.

He told me it could be brief and basically be a meet and greet and I could be out the door quickly.

To my surprise when I arrived, instead of an interview, they had scheduled a kick-off meeting for the 4 brochures I'll be writing! There were 4 employees there, all very nice, but it was a little overwhelming. They threw a whole bunch of reading material at me so I could write the 4 brochures in 4 weeks, which is a very tight schedule. The plan is to read and absorb it all over the weekend and I'd feel much better if I could also do some kind of rough outline for the first brochure.

It's going to be a challenging job, for several reasons:

1. The audience is very affluent people with assets of $3-$15 mm or something like that. I need to write at a sophisticated, intelligent level but still find a way to make the prose friendly and approachable.

2. I'm writing full brochures from scratch, which again can be challenging. I've done it before, though more often a group of people determines the outline and what content falls on which brochure panel. At a typical company, one brochure would take 2 weeks to do and that would be by someone already familiar with the client and the content.

3. He wants me to review all the written material and "hit the ground running" on Monday, which is starting earlier than I'd wanted to.

My carpenter, for instance, was supposed to start work on the built-in bookshelves tomorrow. I haven't heard from him (he was supposed to buy and drop off materials tonight in my garage) but it would be great if he could work Thurs/Fri/Sat and then maybe have one more day to do it when i'm not here.

Not crazy about not being around, but may have to do that.

But just entering a new work environment where everything's "new" is hard to do and then immediately achieve high focus on the task at end. The people are new, the workspace, hopefully they use PCs, not Macs.

The pay is excellent ($55/hr) and there's a good chance that if they like what I do with these brochures, they'll have me work on another project that will extend through the summer.

I'm feeling very stressed mainly given the tight deadline. It's going to be sink or swim.

In my last post, I described 2 job possibilities: the perm job at fertility healthcare company with the long drive, and the 6-month contract job that paid much better and was closer.

I mentioned also that the contract job employer wants to hire me, sight unseen.

Late last night, I got another email from that recruiter in which he explained he'd made a mistake: that it wasn't a 6-month contract but a 4 to 5 week contract!!

I was incredibly disappointed because I was leaning toward that job. No wonder they didn't feel it necessary to meet me for such a short-term job.

That recruiter knew I had the interview today with the faraway perm job and I touched based with him today after the interview. Basically, I explained I would now only take the contract job if the other job fell through. He perfectly understood though he upped the rate to $55/hr. The job is still there for me but he has to know by TOMORROW at the latest whether I want it or not.

I've passed this info on to the recruiter for the fertility job and asked as a courtesy that if they don't want me for whatever reason, that they let me know quickly so i can grab the contract job at least. I doubt that will happen and I'll probably wind up calling the contract job recruiter and telling him go ahead and re-advertise it.

So I could end up with neither job, which would be kind of a bummer despite my reservations about the fertility job. It was a heck of a long drive down, I think 65 minutes, although driving home in non-rush hour traffic I got back in 50 minutes.

They are 98% sure of moving in a month's time to a location a bit closer to me on the same highway which would shave off 10 minutes from the drive, so it could become a 50- or 55-minute job. Still long. It would really pile on the mileage on my car.

I met with 3 people there, including the 1 I knew from an old job 8 years ago. He gave me a writing assignment, an email he'd written. I discovered when doing research to rewrite the email that he'd totally plagiarized a particular website, so I guess it's a good thing I mostly rewrote it.

One of the people there said i could work at home on snow days in winter but that they otherwise want people in office to collaborate. I would still intend on asking for 1 or 2 workdays at home once I got settled in the job, maybe after 6 months or so. And I guess if i got the job i would continue my job search so that in case they say "no" to partial work at home schedule that I can look for something else.

I'm frankly sick of job hunting but that's the best I can come up with. I think I could live with the job working at home 2 days a week but if I can't, I don't think I'd want to stay there for long.

PS The cats killed a snake and left it for me in the basement!! They don't go outside, and Waldo has arthritic legs and doesn't jump on anything but the bed and upholstered furniture, so I'm sure it was Luther. The poor snake must have just emerged from hiberation, or perhaps it even hibernated in the space between sill and foundation.

I was shocked to find it, dead, on the floor. I had just done laundry yesterday, so it must've happened last night or today. Thank god they didn't carry it up...live...to main living quarters as they have done with mice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JOB UPDATE:
Heard back from recruiter for perm job. They found a writer with 20 years of experience in the fertility industry so they want to hire that person. I'm a great writer but I can't compete with someone with that much targeted experience.

I'm a little perturbed because I put a lot of effort into the written assignment today when my current freelance assignment, which I planned on working on, is due tomorrow. And they probably knew about this other person when i came in to interview, so I'm not sure why they even had me come in.

At the same time, I'm also a little relieved as I won't have to deal with that commute.

But anyway, recruiter said they really liked my work and want to hire me to do contract writing.

As soon as I hung up from him, I called back the recruiter for the 4 to 5 week contract job, told him what happened and said I'd like to take his job now, with or without an interview. (He told me before they hadn't asked for an interview but I had, just becus i wanted to get more info about what I'd be doing.)

At this point I'd prefer a phone interview as my carpenter is coming on Thursday to start the bookcase and tomorrow is due date for my current freelance assignment. Once I turn it in, I will take a break from that work til things settle down next week and I know what's going on with the short-term contract job.

AY yi yi!!

So I unwisely accepted this humongous 40-school assignment with a Wednesday due date, because I wasn't 100% sure I'd have a job interview to go to this week. I do, on Tuesday.

So (gulp) I had to go all out for the past 3 days so I could free up all day tomorrow to prep for the interview, and then a half day on Tuesday for the interview itself and one hour drive there and then back. (I did free up time to have dinner with dad at the Chinese place last night.)

So I wrote 10 school summaries each of the last 3 days, which really wasn't easy since most take me 50 or 60 minutes to write. I worked from 7:30 am to about 5 pm yesterday, and from 7:30 a.m. to 3 pm today. Got done what I needed to. Phew. I will never do THAT again but it's hard to turn down a paying job in my situation.

I sort of don't even want this job I'm interviewing for but one thing led to another and since my friend J. is the recruiter who's been leading the charge, I feel obligated to follow through as I don't want to disappoint him. Tho I may have to if I get an offer. At my age, I'm just not sure I have the stamina for a 2-hour commute (RT) every day and who knows how long they'll expect me to stay each night.

At the same time, I feel a need to consider it because I need affordable health insurance and have 8 months left on COBRA before s*** hits fan.

As usual, this is my conundrum. I feel like I've faced this dilemma a thousand times.

I could take the risk of passing on this job and not getting another perm job interview for a long time. The last perm job interview I had before this was shortly after I was laid off last summer, so yeah, the quality job interviews are few and far between.

I could try it for 6 months or so and then ask to work at home 1-2 days a week, which could change things mightily as far as my tolerance for the drive. Or they could say no, and then what?

I look in the mirror and feel I look so old, going in for a job interview, it makes things even harder. No spring chicken here.

In other news...

My sugar snap peas are FINALLY emerging. Took rather a long time. I intend to have them twine around the metal vertical poles of the shelving system they'res sitting on, out on the sunny, sunny driveway. All the parsley and some of the butterfly plants have also emerged.

I heard back from driveway guy about the weed poking through the new asphalt, as happened last year right after they paved. He agreed it shouldn't be happening and said he could try an extra thick coat of sealer. I asked if he would do the whole driveway or just that one spot and haven't heard back yet. Becus I have a feeling this is going to keep happening and how may times can I reasonably expect him to return.

I gave $500 to my carpenter so he can buy materials for my built-in bookshelves. Hooray. I had to delay his start on them due to my job interview cus I wasn't sure I could think straight with him hammering away downstairs, etc. So he's going to start this Thursday and while I can't wait to see them materialize, I'm not looking forward to probably 4 full days of no privacy and banging noise here. I'll have to make sure to pill Waldo his meds before he arrives or he'll never take them.

I am excited about getting them and the ability to design as we go along, as I'm not sure if, under the window, I should go with a window seat that opens from top, a cabinet or a cabinet with pull out drawer. He'll do whatever I want.

I think I'll skip the window seat that opens from top as I don't want to have to clear whatever's on top of the window seat everytime I want to open it. Cabinet doors are kind of boring/predictable so I don't know.

He's also open to using matching fluted vertical trim with the little rosettes to match the trim on my double set of French doors in the living room/family room.

I'm glad he's looking forward to doing job nearly as much as I am but even though the job interview prep will be out of the way by the time he comes, will his work make it hard for me to work on another writing assignment? I'm turning in this assignment later on Wednesday. Carpenter starts work on Thursday; I don't know if he'd want to continue over the weekend, but if not, he might not finish up til Tues/Wed. I suppose I could afford to take a break from the writing, but maybe I should anyway because I'm kind of house-bound while he's working here so I'll need something to do anyway.

I took an hour walk today.

Tomorrow I'l take a break from my interview prep for an MS lunch in neighboring town. (I don't really need an entire day for it, but I do also need to assemble my portfolio, lay out an outfit to wear and write down directions.)

OK, so the very best deal I've come across after researching over 260 schools YTD for this freelance job of every kind is this: If you attend any CUNY or SUNY 2 or 4-year university in NY full time and if your family income is less than $100K, you get FREE tuition.

The only catch is, you have to have lived in NY for at least once year before applying for the program, and you also have to agree to reside in NY for at least as long as it took you to earn your degree. So if you went for a bachelor's degree, you'd have to agree to live in NY for 4 years following graduation. You could defer this requirement if you were planning to continue with grad school, but you would still have to meet the requirement after that or risk having to pay back the money. The program is called the Excelsior Scholarship and it starts this fall. It's the first program of its kind in the nation. The idea is to help make a college education affordable for middle-income families. In the next few years, the income cap will increase to $125K.

Wow, I wish I could have taken advantage of this program.

This is the f/t perm job about an hour from here at an IVF fertility healthcare company. I used to work very closely with the recruiter when we both worked as writers for a certain employer about 8 years ago, and the person I would be reporting to is also someone who worked at that same place! I didn't know him well at the time.

So I'm putting together my portfolio and will be prepping this weekend. I think my biggest shortcoming as far as they're concerned is my relative lack of healthcare copywriting experience.

In other news...

Dad asked me to order him a second magnifying glass as he lost the first one. I got it from Amazon and he came over to get it. We had lunch at the German restaurant nearby.

A recruiter called me about a contract job I'd applied for yesterday: a 6-month contract for an agency about 35 minutes away. My client would be a national bank. This job could pay much better than the one described above ($85-$90K) and it's a reasonable drive, but of course it's just for 6 months. He said there's a possibility it could go longer, but who really knows. I'm not crazy about working for agencies but I would do it for 6 months.

The seeds I planted are finally coming up: parsley (for the butterflies), assorted flowers like Mexican sunflower (for the butterflies) and snap peas for me.

One of the tiny cacti that I bought a few weeks back at the cacti and succulent show is sending forth what looks like a flower bud. So exciting!

I had my driveway paved last spring. I thought he laid the asphalt very thin, and several times I had him return because WEEDS were growing THRU the asphalt. Now it's happening again and I'm sure since it's been a year he will be less inclined to come up. I can spray weed killer, but I shouldn't have to!

I was notified by Kiva that I've received some repayments on my loans and have enough to make another $25 loan.

As you may remember, I started with $100 and made 4 $25 loans, and then 1 more, for a total of 5 loans. The five loans were made to women in Armenia, Pakistan, Uganda, and Moldova. Of these, one loan is currently delinquent.

I am searching now for the 6th recipient, and there are so many people I would like to loan to.

You can use filters to narrow your search, and I have narrowed mine to include only women. It is very hard to be a single woman in a third world country. Of course I don't know for sure that these women are all single, but you can sometimes tell from the description of the loan request.

I also favor those who want money for basic necessities, like sanitary toilets, an education or to start a business, like farming or for any green enterprise. I've noticed there are a lot of women who want to buy a sewing machine.

I won't loan money to pay for a wedding or for someone's husband's business, or for pesticides/insecticides or for someone trying to raise cattle in a desert environment.

I am trying to loan to as many different countries as I can, so I decided to make the loan to a married woman living in the Gaza strip with her husband and daughter. She wants to buy solar panels to deal with chronic power outages.



It may be a while til I get another chance to make a Kiva loan, since the loan terms can be a year or more, but today I pledge that if I get a full-time perm job with benefits, making another $200 in Kiva loans will be something I do after I get my first paycheck. That way, I'll have 8 outstanding loans and they will be repaid at more frequent intervals.

So my Easter was fairly nice but fairly uneventful. I did have fun shopping to create some Easter baskets, one for my friend's 2 young nieces, 1 for his sister, who was hosting the dinner, and 1 for the mother of the 2 nieces. I only spent about $24 on everything.

The 2 little girls are spoiled and quite chubby at such a young age, around 5 and 7. They were pulling stuff from the baskets out of my hands as soon as I walked in and had to be coached to say "thank you." They also walked right by me when I was leaving because they were more interested in their ice cream. Oh well.

Yesterday and today I settled into my normal routine: working all morning on my freelance work, breaking for lunch and then going out for a longish walk. My afternoons are free to run errands, although I didn't have any today but I did enjoy lounging in my sun room.

Called my cousin M. on Easter and caught up with her. She fell on her outdoor stairs when there was black ice in March and bruised her ribs, which laid her up for 3 weeks out of work! She lost another cat due to kidney failure.

I had my scheduled 2nd phone interview regarding that part-time proposal writer job. This job has all the trapping of a full-time job without the pay or benefits.

There are various regularly scheduled weekly calls, training in Denver and mandatory attendance at the national sales conference each year and yes, that 10-2 pm daily availability even though I wouldn't be paid for that.

I think it would be very difficult to do this AND my current p/t job as the learning curve for this new position would be fairly intense. It amazes me they plan on paying just $15-20 an hour.

I was honest with her about my concerns regarding time and travel, so I doubt she'll call me back. She said she would know by week's end who she'd be calling back for a 3rd meeting with the other proposal writers.

Given that these p/t jobs are not my ultimate destination and I still need a perm job with health insurance, I don't want to get entangled in another commitment. Much easier to work on increasing my billable hours at my current job which has unlimited work and I'm getting fairly good at doing it. I had applied for it hoping the pay would be better than what I'm doing now and when I learned in the first interview that it would not be, I just decided to keep mum and see where it would lead. Now I know: a dead end.