Save More, Spend Less

I had dinner with dad last night at a new-to-us restaurant, which was pretty good. He had swordfish, I had scallops.

Afterwards, in the car, I read him the article I found on the region in East Germany where grandpa was from, an area known as being a violin-making capital of the world, prior to WWII when the Russians clamped down on everything.

Today began as a bright and sunny day, just perfect. I paid my federal and state estimated taxes for the 2nd quarter. I just winged it and paid 15% as the calculations using their forms rivals the 1040 form and is just ridiculous. For the amount I have to pay, it just doesn't feel worth it to spend hours figuring it out. If anything, I overpaid, and I'll get it back when I file my regular taxes.



I spent a few hours in "the courtyard" (aka, my paver driveway) potting up some parsley seedlings in hopes of having a black swallowtail caterpillar population explosion. Also planted a few more cucumber seeds. I have now used up every available pot.



I used the blower on the driveway and swept up a pile of fallen rhododendron leaves.

I used the trimmer around the yard since the mower did his thing Friday.

I watered assorted potted plants.

I contemplated throwing down more grass seed on some bare lawn spots, since I've got the seed and it's going to be off and on rainy into Thursday, but i just didn't get to it.

I sprayed all known areas of poison ivy with a straight vinegar solution. It works, but you have to spray several times and be patient.

Now it's cloudy and it already rained a bit. I've just been tidying up inside, nothing special.

Plans for after I wrap up this job on Thursday:

1. Call plumber to recharge my well so I can use my outdoor faucet/garden hose again, to water my many potted plants. I'm loathe to do this as it will cost over $100 and hopefully not too much more but right now I've been making due filling up my watering can indoors and then carrying it outside, 3 or 4 times a day.

2. Inviting dad over for a weekday lunch; I feel bad because since my sister's at work all week, he has nothing much to do. He has a garden which is engulfed in kudzu and probably loaded with ticks. I see him every Saturday but weekday get-togethers are nice too.

3. Get my driveway sealed for free by the guy who paved it last year....free because I've had weeds growing thru the new asphalt!

4. Use a $5 coupon from Kohls plus a $15 gift from them on account of my having an account with them for 15 years.

5. Deep clean: When looking for Luther's live mouse, I was pulling furniture away from the wall and noticed how dusty it was back there. I'd like to wipe things down with a damp paper towel.

6. Call my cousin J.from Harrisburg, PA area and schedule his visit for later in June for a few days.

7. I'd like to get some impatiens started as they do so well in the shade by my Stairway to Heaven. And it's so easy to root clippings once they're established.

8. I'm sure I'll think of more.

Garden report: Peonies and mountain laurel now in bloom.

So, in May my savings just barely spilled over into the $900K range, at $900,308. As of June 1, I am now solidly in the $900s, with a net worth at $917,462. This is what's so magical about saving a wad of cash; the month-to-month gains (or losses) can add $17K to your investments without too much trouble.

My goal, of course, is not to see that number go south.

This is kind of exciting; it means I have achieved about 92% of my goal of saving $1 million for retirement.

I'd be too young to retire and live on that money now but I'm getting pretty close. Ideally, I'd like to save another $131,000 (see my sidebar) purely for healthcare expenses over my remaining lifetime, and not having any idea what the state of our healthcare system will be in the 8 years before I can pick up Medicare.

On the face of it, saving another $213,538 (for healthcare costs and to hit my remaining goal for retirement) in 3 or 4 years seems like a herculean task. But thanks to an incredible bull market and the power of compounding, I've come this far already, so who knows?

Well, there are a few good things about my contract job ending soon. I can attend the MS lunch the following week. I can go ahead and schedule a visit by my cousin in PA and generally enjoy the summer. I can try to do more things during the week with dad.

My cat drove me nuts the last 2 nights. I had just turned the light out, dead tired, at about 10:30 pm when, lying in the darkness, I heard the telltale scamper of little cat feet. A certain kind of scamper I have become familiar with, the light-hearted dance of a very excited cat. I got up to find a live mouse hiding under my dresser which Luther had carried up from the basement to show off. Sigh. When Luther retrieved him, I yelled at him with the aim of getting him to run down the stairs into the basement, mouse in mouth. He did, and I then closed the door to keep Luther in the basement.

Later, I went down there so I could remove the mouse, but it was nowhere to be found. Luther lost it.

Last night I went to bed and again heard the scamper of little cat feet. Luther had a mouse again, and I assume it was the one he caught...and lost... the night before. He'd brought it up to the main floor of my house and it was hiding by the sewing machine. This time I used a broom to sweep it into a cardboard box and dumped it outside. It was dead.

I went to bed again and unbelievably, Luther caught a 2nd mouse. Got this one in the box in the sun room and released it outside, still alive.

I'm not getting much sleep.

I went to see my neurologist last week. The one I usually see for my MS. I felt that my numb toes had gotten worse, that it's not really numbness now but extreme stiffness involving all 5 toes and part of the pad of the foot, just under the toes. His nerve conduction test a few months ago showed no lasting nerve damage from a pulled hamstring a few years ago and I just wasn't clear on what exactly the problem was. Arthritis? MS? Something else related to stepping on glass years ago? I had seen 3 podiatrists about that, years ago now, and all 3 said there was nothing in my foot.

My neurologist said he didn't think it was arthritis since part of the ball of my foot is affected, and he doesn't think it's related to the pulled hamstring of years ago since any inflammation caused by the pulled hamstring would now be gone. He thinks it's my MS.

I was surprised, since I've had no major issues for the past 9 or 10 years. He explained that as part of the normal aging process, we all lose "reserves,"
so little deficiencies or ailments are magnified.

I guess this may be true, becus the fact is, nearly every MS I've had involved my right side. Lesions in the brain, depending on their location, cause certain symptoms. He said to come back about it only if the stiffness spreads to my ankle or up my leg; it would be a sign my current medication is not working and an MRI would then be warranted to see what's going on.

I forgot to ask him if this could go away spontaneously or am I stuck with it forever. With relapsing/remitting MS, which is what I have, symptoms do come and go; with progressive MS, symptoms gradually worsen over time and don't disappear. Some MS people who start out with relapsing/remitting MS go on to develop progressive MS over time.

At this point, there are more effective MS drugs available now than the one I'm on, but all of them come with much more serious potential side effects and may require regular checkups to ensure no kidney damage, for example, and stuff like that. I'd prefer to avoid those drugs as the Copaxone is nearly side effect free.

My contract job, in flux since I started 4 weeks ago, will come to an end next Thursday. This, just 2 weeks after my manager told me I could expect to work all summer.

The client bank decided to eliminate the 4th marketing piece I was to work on, and the junior writer they hired shortly after me can handle the sub-projects, apparently. So after next week, there will be nothing left for me to do.

At least I got 4 days notice and was able to gross an estimated $9,680 from 21.5 days of work, spread over 5 weeks. My net of about $7,000 will at least cover my recent bookshelf construction and replenish my coffers for living expenses for about 2-3 months.

I managed not to waste money on buying lunch at the cafeteria for all but 2 days.

I am really disappointed, but there's nothing to be done. I asked if he was happy with my work performance and he said yes. He explained that the bank client is not on retainer but calls them every so often with projects out of the blue, so it's my hope, after confirming my departure has nothing to do with my performance, that they might call me back down the line.

However, I can't help but feel, too, that their decision to let the junior writer finish the sub-projects was based probably on his lower rate of pay. When I checked his Linked In background, I could see he has about 2 years of experience in the field spread over 2 jobs. But they like him, and I'm guessing he wasn't making as much as me.

Thanks for your suggestion of a treat ball to keep Luther occupied. I wasn't familiar with them but found them on Amazon.

I may get one. Luther would love them as he adores dry food (he now gets exclusively wet food), although Waldo has no teeth so crunching on dry food would be tough on his gums. Maybe I could try using just soft treats.

Luther enjoyed watching a dozen different videos of cats using the treat toy. He seemed very interested.

It's a chilly and rainy Monday. I couldn't quite work up the enthusiasm to continue painting the bookshelves for the 3rd day straight, so I gave myself a break as it's kind of dark to do so anyway.

Instead, I:

1. Did 3 loads of laundry.
2. Changed the hummingbird sugar water.
3. Wasted time on Facebook.
4. Whipped up a batch of granola.
5. Did my monthly expense report.
6. Tidied up.

There have been unwelcome signs that Luther is getting "bored" again now that I'm away all day at work. He scratched off some wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. I found his tooth marks on my copper spoon plant and he knocked off a small cactus in the sun room. Bad, bad Luther!

I now have a pair of wave petunias hanging on either side of the front door...nice!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend.

Today was Day 2 of painting the bookshelves. I worked on it 2 hours this morning and 2 hours this afternoon. It's very tiring. My arm was killing me using the paintbrush all that time, although with the roller it was better because I can use the roller in my right hand as well as my left.

I was wearing a respirator the whole time because the paint stinks. It's hard to breath thru the respirator. I opened the windows and had a box fan running so the cats wouldn't have to breathe it all day.

I'm only about halfway done and it's possible I'll even need to buy another gallon of paint!

Aside from painting, last night dad and I went out to dinner at a fusion Chinese/Japanese place. Dad's really into good food, and he remembered 30 years ago having a delicious bass dinner at a Chinese place where they served the whole fish, head and all, on the plate, and he wanted to re-experience that again. Well, they had it on the menu and he seemed to enjoy it. Except for all the fish bones.

After dinner we stopped at Starbucks, as we sometimes do, and got something to drink, then drove to a nearby park to sit in the car and talk til it got dark. I'm so thankful to have all this quality time with dad.

This afternoon during my painting break my friend R. stopped by to say hello and to check out the bookshelves. He invited me to dinner with him and another couple in a few weeks that I have never met. So that will be fun and a break from my usual routine.

His cancer has spread to his lymph nodes. He has started an immunotherapy that involves taking his blood, treating it somehow and then putting it back in him. It costs $93,000 (it's covered) and only extends life by 4 months, he said.

When he was first diagnosed with prostate cancer, he was very fatalistic about it. Now that the drugs he was on no longer work and his PSA is rising again, he has started seeing a naturopath (at my urging) and is taking a ton of supplements and trying to eat better. He says if he doesn't see results in 6 months' time, he's going back to bacon, burgers and pizza. He probably has a year to live and I don't know much longer he will be feeling well enough to go out and socialize. I wish there was something I could do. It's a terrible thing. I will lose my oldest friend and I don't want him to suffer.

Somehow I found the energy after painting to go to Trader Joe's as I'm vegan and I'm out of beans! I bought about 20 cans of kidney, chickpea and white beans; the cashier must've thought I was crazy.

I hope to possibly finish the bookshelves tomorrow although that would be a tall task.

I may hit BJs tomorrow morning first thing before starting the painting again.

Washing out paintbrushes and rollers is such a royal pain; I'm trying something new this time. My dad left his Starbucks cup with lid in my car, and I put the used paintbrush in there, filled it with water just to the top of the bristles (don't want to rust out the metal part), then widened the hole you normally drink out and slid the handle of the paintbrush thru that, and closed the lid on the cup with the paintbrush in it.

Then I tool the 6-inch wide roller and put it in a plastic ziploc bag. Both techniques seemed to keep the paint moist during my break of a few hours, and I hope it will work overnight. If not, I have a spare roller and maybe I'd just use one of my not-as-good used paintbrushes to finish. With the roller, I'm seeing much better results with the paint job where I just use the brush to cut out all the corners and borders of the shelves and then use the roller to fill in the center and make everything uniform.

Probably more info than you care to read about painting techniques but this is what I'm up to this weekend.

I haven't spent nearly any time at all on genealogy stuff since I was so intent on making money, first at the education job and now at the marketing agency.

So I was totally surprised to get an email from Pastor Anders from the small German town where my grandfather grew up.

I had asked him a long time ago to take a photo of the address he had uncovered as being the family home when my grandfather was born in 1905. At that time, he sent me a photo which simply showed a few modern-looking single car garages evidently being used by private home owners, with a steep slope behind it. Whatever residential building had been there, was there no more.

Tonight he provided me some details about grandpa's home, and even better, some photos he obtained from the city archives!

Interestingly, what I assume was a multi-family home was built in 1884 as an extension to an adjacent building, which was built in 1778. The owner was, guess who? My great-great grandmother, or my grandfather's grandmother! And in 1853, the older building belonged to her father, my 3rd great grandfather. So perhaps he found some advantage to put the 2nd building in his daughter's name, or maybe he was just trying to set her up in life.

Here's the building:



Not at all what I was expecting! If you look carefully you can see some people looking out the 2nd story window. For all I know (and I guess I never will know), that could be family!

In all the research I've done on both sides of my family, this was the first evidence I've gotten that anyone was anything but of very modest means! Perhaps she inherited from her father, then; the pastor's research shows one other sibling, a son.

Here is a 2nd photo; i have no idea who the family is in the foreground, but the building in the background is again my grandfather's ancestral home.



To complete this little story it would be wonderful to find out when and why this building, and possible the whole row of buildings, was taken down or destroyed. Was there a fire? Did the city want to redevelop? One can only wonder.....

I would love to ask the pastor, but he seems so busy and he has already done so much research for me, getting nothing in return. So I feel funny asking.

I just activated a new $200 bonus credit card, a reward I'll earn after charging $1,000 on it in the first 3 months. That means I must charge EVERYTHING on this one card. It's the Wells Fargo Cash Wise card. They asked me to disclose name of my employer, how much $$ I make and even a phone number. I provided all that without mentioning it's a contract job, and I gave the toll free number that goes who knows where, not my local office number. It's a huge company so I don't even know if they got thru to the right HR person. They did not provide the immediate online approval I'm used to, which seemed ominous, so I was happily surprised when I got the card in the mail anyway.

I managed to work til 5 today at work, even though most people left much earlier. I take all back roads home so extra traffic wasn't an issue; in fact, it was lighter.

I'm truly surprised that my credit has managed to stay north of 800 even with all these random credit cards I keep opening.

Really ANNOYED that the person who said he wanted to buy my miter box did not respond to my message this a.m. suggesting we set up the pick up this weekend.

I love the long summer days...got up around 4:30 a.m., unable to sleep. (Of course I konked out last night at 10 pm).

Happy to be wrapping up week 3 of the new job today, although I want to ask if I can stay til 5 today (I'm sure others will be leaving early for the long holiday weekend) since I am already losing pay for the holiday itself and a half day the following Wednesday for a doctor's appointment.

This is what sucks about being a contractor. You don't get paid for holidays, or time out for doctor's appointments.

They had another happy hour (with alcohol) yesterday at the office around 4. I guess it's a weekly event! I chose not to go on either day because I don't think it's appropriate for someone getting paid on an hourly basis to be drinking while doing so.

I think I have a buyer for a nice miter box my mother used to make frames. The price is $25 and it's heavy duty metal; everything new now is plastic. I thought I sold it a year ago and drove 20 minutes to meet another guy, who then offered less than I'd asked for in the ad. So he was counting on me caving to the lower price becus I had driven all that way. Wrong. That pissed me off; didn't appreciate the less-than-honest tactics.

Anyway, this is my first attempt using Facebook Marketplace.

I did get my first paycheck and so after grossing $4166, I only netted $2841. The biggest deduction was for federal taxes, at $784!!

Still, this one check (for 2 weeks) pretty much covers my monthly expenses.

I want to revisit my witholdings. That little table on the back of the W4 is not very precise, IMO. Based on using that table, I am claiming 2 deductions, but I think I should be claiming 3 to have less money withheld from my paycheck. I know there's a way to fine-tune it (a calculator, maybe?) but I'm not sure. I'm very sure I'll remain in the 25% tax bracket.

This has happened to me before with higher paying contract jobs; too much is withheld, resulting in a large refund at year's end, when I would much prefer to get that money now.

The one big goal for the long weekend (heavenly) is to finish priming and then painting my new bookshelves. I primed about a third of it before using up the quarter of primer I had. And yes, it's going to take a lot of time. I would also like to ENJOY my holiday weekend and I need to hit Trader Joe's, BJs, Aldis, the dump and the gas station.

I found tiny butterfly eggs on my parsley (now that I know what they look like). Wow, that's early! I have released about 4 emergent black swallowtails this month that had overwintered from last year. Truly amazing that life inside those tiny cocoons somehow survived the cold of winter.

The idea behind raising them in an aquarium is that you are boosting their survival rate compared to the predation they'd face from birds and parasitic wasps if left to fend for themselves.

I thought I was getting paid today. No pay, all day, so left some messages with the agency. He replied back explaining that while he sends the time sheets in to payroll place every other Monday, I won't see the money til Wednesday. Sigh. Two more days.

Today was a stressful and trying day at work. We had a noon conference call with the client and I was making last minute changes and writing up "talking points" at 11 a.m.

Later in the day what I thought was a near perfect 2nd writing assignment drew lots of questions and declarations that certain copy was "clinical" and didn't "tell a story."

So we'll meet again tomorrow after I pull together some revisions.

I really don't think I'd want to do this permanently; people are continuously telling you what's wrong with what you've written, and this is long before the client even sees it and adds their .02. What an exhausting process, one I'll have to repeat 50 or so more times before I finish this job by September 1 (because that's about how many more writing assignments I'll have). Big sigh.

So it's disheartening. This is one reason why they're paying me the big bucks, no doubt. But still.

Today is the weekend I wanted to start work on my bookshelves. As they say, the prep is what takes so much time. I had a lot of caulking to do where all the corners meet, and I was using wood putty for the little nail holes. It took a lot of time, plus 2 trips to the hardware store and 2 trips to the paint store because our local Sherwin Williams "says" they open at 8 am but actually were buttoned up tight at 8:15 a.m. when I left, annoyed as could be.

Caulking is a messy job but I had noticed an influx of carpenter ants, some of whom were on the bookshelves or on the dining room floor, and I suspect they were coming it thru some of those above-mentioned cracks.

So I think I used 2 tubes of caulk. I just had no energy or motivation to do it, for some reason, but of course I want to have it done.

In addition to doing that, I did drop off some stuff at the household hazardous waste drop off site as I didn't want to hold onto it for another year. Interestingly, they took some old perfume and baby oil but not 3 old smoke detectors.

I also had to go to the dump.

My goal for tomorrow is the following:

1. Sand everything.
2. Vacuum up all the dust from sanding.
3. Prime.
4. grocery shopping
5. Fill up gas tank.
6. Think about what to make for my work week lunches.

Painting will have to wait til next weekend.

Went to dinner with dad at the Barnwood Grill, right in the center of town. It was very noisy, very busy. Dad wants to do Chinese next weekend so he can have bass done a certain way he's had before.

He has volunteered to come to my house on a day I schedule to have a water guy here to get my pump running again for my outdoor water. I have a ton of stuff planted in pots but have to carry it out from the kitchen because my pump was running last summer during the drought and would not stop, probably becus there was no water. So I turned the power off all winter but now it's still just running, so something is not right. I hope it's not expensive.

Anyway, I don't see how I could have the guy come over to troubleshoot it now that I'm working f/t again, so having dad here that day would be a huge help.

I also want to get an electrician over here to take care of some minor issues but he moonlights so I know he could come on a Saturday.

And the weekend is here, just like that.


There's a family of at least 4 chipmunks who seem to have taken up residence in an old vole tunnel close to my front door. They seem unusually tame to me, and Luther's not happy about it.



Here's a slice of orange I tried feeding the black swallowtail butterfly with until the weather cleared and I released him:



Hard to believe I wrapped up 2 weeks at the new job. Pay day will happen on MONDAY and I can't wait.

There were a zillion more rounds of edits to my piece but it goes to the client Monday.

In just the 2 weeks I've been there, they've already had:
1. Thursday afternoon alcoholic drinks at 3 (I skipped this and wasn't sure it was appropriate for me, a contractor, to partake)
2. A hot breakfast this morning of scrambled eggs, bacon and French toast!
3. A gourmet style food truck and all you can eat off their menu, compliments of the company. (I checked with HR and they said it was fine to join in)

So...nice!

I have a ton of stuff I want to do this weekend. At the top of the agenda is starting the paint job of the bookshelves. Or at least the priming.

I'm totally overrun with disgusting black carpenter ants, mostly in the kitchen, but elsewhere too. I think all that rain is to blame. And I thought I had found a way to seal off my kitchen. Apparently not. I still don't know exactly how they get in. Sprinkling ant bait is also high on my agenda.

I am trying again to sprout broccoli seeds for my daily salads. I need to go to Aldi's. I have to go to the dump and the household hazardous waste drop off is tomorrow. I want to spread a bunch of mulch on some perennial beds and plant more flowers for the butterflies, and veggies for me. I need to buy the paint for bookshelves. There's a plant sale at the middle school.

I am pooped just thinking about it.

First, the bad.

I must have told myself three times to write myself a sticky note and put it on my thermostat. The note would read: Do not turn on central air without taking outdoor cover off.

You know what happened, right? Yesterday was the first of 3 very hot and humid days, up to 95 today. Before leaving for work I set the thermostat to kick on when indoor temps reached 80 degrees. This was the very first time I'd be using it since having it installed in April.

I forgot to take the cover off.

I'm not sure when the AC would have kicked on yesterday, but maybe about 1 pm. All windows were shut and blinds drawn. So it was running, on and off for about 5 hours, until I came home from work and suddenly "remembered."

The hottest it ever gets indoors without AC is about 84 degrees.

It was noticeably cooler (tho not by a lot) and drier when I came home yesterday. So it had been on and running.

I went online to look for info on whether I damaged my AC. Some people said forget it, if you run it with the cover on, it's fried, while others said there's an automatic emergency shut-off switch that prevents it from overheating, but if that kicks on it won't run again until you manually reset it.

Well, my AC is running fine. I'm not sure why it would NOT have overheated. The cover that was on it does not cover the entire unit. The bottom 6 or 8 inches are left exposed even with the cover on, to prevent condensation from building up and rusting parts all winter long.

Maybe that helped? Maybe it helped that I set the AC to run at a relatively high temperature and it didn't need to run as much as I thought?

Maybe there's an automatic shut-off switch that doesn't need a manual reset? I don't know but I am SO SO SO thankful my idiocy does not "appear" to have damaged my new unit.

I'm happy with how it's operating though I must say the upstairs is, as usual, warmer than the downstairs. I'm not sure at what temp I should leave it on while I'm at work.

The cats make do and lay low in hot conditions, but my main concern when I'm not here is protecting my mother's art from humidity. I think I have it set at 75 now and it feels okay upstairs, but I'm wondering how many $$ that's going to add to my electric bill. Which is a good reason to re-check current electric rates. I usually lock in for a year when possible, but you can switch suppliers if you find one at a lower price without penalty, if that's the kind of plan you signed up for (and I always do). So rates could have fallen since I last signed up.

I will be very interested, and a little fearful, to see how running the AC affects my monthly bill.

In other news, I'm trying to organize my work and home schedule moving forward and asked my new manager to clarify how long I'd be working for. He said the next project will probably start in a few weeks and may overlap the existing project I'm working on now. So it sounds like no break in between. They hired a 2nd writer to help.

The deadline for the 2nd project is Sept. 1 but he's not sure at this point if I'd be working non-stop or if there would be little breaks/intervals throughout (which I'm rather hoping for, so I can play catch up on personal stuff, but not if that would reduce my overall income from this job).

Thinking about it now, I guess the deadline is the deadline. So I may just need to buckle down without breaks if I want to maximize my income because if I don't do it, the other writer will probably pick up the slack and draw from my hours.

But the good news is that instead of grossing just $8800 for 1 month's work, I am looking at earning over $35,000 for 4 months' work!

I have a doc appointment end of this month so will only work a half day that day. I am going back to my neurologist about my toes on right foot. They became numb 3 years ago shortly after I pulled my hamstring and that never disappeared. I saw 3 podiatrists, who did x-rays, and the neurologist, who tested and found my nerve conduction was normal.

Now my toes feel more stiff than numb and I'd like to rule out MS, Lyme and arthritis. I don't think it's the 1st 2, really, but not sure about arthritis. I just know the toes are very stiff and hard to flex and I might say the ankle is a bit stiff too, compared to the left foot. And I also can't walk barefoot anymore or that foot becomes very sore very quickly.

Today was the 2nd "reveal" of my copy internally, at the marketing agency where I'm doing a contract job. After the first review, she wanted me to come up with 2 more versions; at this review, they cherry-picked what they liked and asked me to make some minor revisions to 2 versions only, instead of 3.

The 3rd reveal will take place Wednesday, still internally. God willing, it will then go to the client. I'm sure I'll be sick of it by that time, but I've already finished the 2nd assignment, modeling it on the first and hoping the client likes the first.

They hired another writer, a young guy, to help me with the larger assignment that comes after this one. I guess I'm okay with that since it answers my question that yes, I will definitely be able to pick up more work at $55/hour!! Yippee yay hi ho!

For all I know, this could be my only big paying job this year. Whenever it ends, I'll be going back to my very LOW paying job with the higher education company. What a difference: $15 vs $55/hour. Which would you rather have?

I'm already planning on devoting the upcoming weekend to priming and painting my bookshelves. To clear my plate, I drove home from work a different way so I could return a top I bought for this job at Macy's.

Of course, now that I'm working f/t, I MUST go the dump and do my grocery shopping and fill up the gas tank on the weekend, but I should still have time leftover for the bookshelves.

There have been plenty of warnings on the local news that this is going to be a particularly bad tick season becus we had a mild winter and lots of rain this spring. They are right, and I am kind of freaking out because yesterday, I found a large deer tick crawling around (unattached) on Luther. I pulled it off and flushed it down the toilet. Then I called my dad to warn him becus his garden is for sure infested with ticks plus he can't see them due to his eyesight. I assumed he or the carpenters had carried the tick inside the house since the cats don't go outside.

After I hung up from dad, I was going to sit on the front stoop on a lawn chair and I found a 2nd tick crawling on the metal part. I flushed it, too. Later that day, I found ANOTHER ticket on Luther; they can't seem to attach to him becus of his incredibly long hair.

Today, I found a 4th tick again on the lawn chair, this time on the arm rest!! What is going on? The lawn chair had sat for several weeks in a shaded area of my courtyard/driveway, under the canopy of several large rhododendrons. Yesterday I moved the lawn chair to the front stoop. Could the tick have fallen onto the chair that I'd been sitting on?

It's amazing to me how the ticks were somehow transferred to Luther, whose like a magnet becus he rubs against everything. Maybe the 2 ticks I found on him were on my legs from the lawn chair and then he picked them up.

The whole thing is making me very skittish.

Here they are:




This is the seat/cabinet under the window. I need to buy knobs for the 2 doors.

I'm very happy with it. It came to $1600 but I have some unused trim to return for a refund, so it will be somewhat less than that.

If the rain stops, I will get paint and supplies tomorrow. I will use a good quality brush and a sponge brush to get in back of those small cubby holes above the window.

Eventually I will buy some thick foam for the cushion on seat.

After they finished up, I went to gas up my car, deposit some cash and get groceries at Aldi's. They had pints of blueberries for $1.69, which I think is a good deal. Although I remember when you could get them for $1 at summer's peak.

It's been raining all day, so this am as I was clearing space for the carpenters, I glanced at my butterfly aquarium and saw that the last of the unhatched pupa from last summer hatched into a butterfly!



I don't know how long it had been like that but I have not released it because it's so chilly and rainy. Tomorrow will be windy. I'm hoping I can release on Monday; for now, it's protected from the rain in its aquarium with screened lid, in my sunroom, with a slice of orange, some zinnias I cut from my potted plants, a water dish with marbles to perch on and a paper towel soaked in sugar water. I've check on it though and it hasn't moved from where it's hanging onto a twig from the underside. It's only about 50 degrees.

Tuesday for sure will be in the 70s and it can be released then, but I'm not sure it will last that long if it doesn't eat/drink something.

Dad's coming over tonight to see the shelves and then we'll have a great dinner at a very good Italian restaurant in town.

Cell phones and me just never clicked. I just rarely find the need to chat with anyone while I'm away from home, though certainly I recognize there are times (infrequently for me) when having a phone on the road would be very handy.

I let the minutes expire on my smart phone last February. Being unemployed, I didn't see the point in spending another $100 to keep me going for another year. It's an Android Trac Phone, pay as you go plan.

Today I had to complete 2 different time sheets for my new job. I got them signed and used the company fax to send them to the recruiter's office, who will be issuing my paychecks. The fax indicated only 1 page went thru the first time, so I sent it again and this time, the 2 timesheets went through.

That was around 4 pm and I didn't see the 4:30 m email right away from recruiter saying call me, there's a problem with your fax. Maybe he sent that after I sent the first fax, where only one page went thru. Maybe he didn't, I didn't know.

So I sent a quick email to say i was heading home and would call him when I got there. I couldn't call him at the office becus 1) i didn't have my old smart phone with me and 2) the company doesn't use normal phones. They use something called Fuze, which is a phone via computer, and I haven't set it up yet. No one's really around to help much and I thought I might even get thru the whole monthlong assignment without needing to.

I got home and there's another message from recruiter saying call me there's a problem. Of course he doesn't say what the problem is. If it wasn't that the fax didn't fully come thru, it could be becus yes, I did claim the 4 hours of at-home time I worked for the company before starting on-site. This was done at the request and blessing of my new boss there who gave me a pile of reading material to absorb about the client so I could "hit the ground running" when I started the job 4 days later. So maybe the problem was the recruiter was going to tell me I couldn't bill for that.

I still have no idea because although I immediately replied to the email, called and left a message AND scanned and emailed the 2 time sheets in case neither fax went through, the recruiter never got back to me. Even though it was just before 6 pm when I tried to call him back....not that late.

So anyway, if I'd have my own phone with me I could have easily found out what the problem was while I was still at work. So I'm thinking I should activate the stupid phone again.

Here's why I don't like using it:
1. The on/off button is hard to push. Do most people just keep the phone on at all times and then have to recharge like every day?
2. Half the time when I tried to check personal emails on the phone while i was at the bank, the internet connection did not work. I was using the bank's wifi to connect. This was totally annoying. I just don't know enough about using the settings to know what do so, especially since the phone didn't come with anything more than the briefest instructions.
3. Figuring out how to send photos I'd taken to my computer was also a real pain in the butt.
4. The phone was synced with great difficult with the Bluetooth in my car but then inexplicably was disconnected. This happened more than one.

The phone was fairly straightforward to use, so I guess for that alone I could use it but every other function just seems so complicated and a hassle. I could just get a basic phone with no internet, but then i couldn't sync it with my car's devices, and that's one of the coolest things about it! I can make calls using buttons on the steering wheel. Truth be told, once again rarely had need to do that, and the number had to be one already stored in the phone. But it was still cool.

I got the first feedback on my first completed assignment at the new job. She said it was "strong writing" and she liked it a lot but asked me to do 2 additional versions so the client "has a choice." On Monday we'll meet with 2 other senior people to review the versions and then she thinks we'll be ready to present to client.

I will have today (Friday) to do that; the copy can stay the same but she wants me to experiment organizing the content in different ways, with different subheads. Kind of a pain, since each time you move paragraphs around you lose some of the connective language which you then have to adjust.

Personally I feel it's just a time-waster as I carefully thought through how best to approach the topic and the approach I chose really is the best.

My concern is reserving enough time to do the remaining 3 pieces. They kept giving me important background reading material until the eleventh hour on this first assignment, even after I'd already written it. Not the best organization.

And I'm anxious that my content passes muster with the client after the Monday meeting. I picture myself as a runner on a track clearing little hurdles.

But I hate working full time! No time left to do ANYTHING! I'm getting up earlier in the mornings, around 5:30 or so, so I can have a leisurely start to my day and not have to leave for work until 2.5 hours later.

I've been leaving the contract job at 5:15 or 5:30, getting home around 6 or 6:15, and by the time I finish with dinner, the dishes and feeding the cats, it's 7:30. Then I check emails (I'm still applying for jobs when I see them) and I am addicted to watching new episodes of The Americans (I usually try to fit in 2 full hour-long episodes), before hitting the sack at 10 or 10:30 at the latest.

There just isn't much time to think about "me" stuff. I just have to keep reminding myself how much I've grossed so far. To date, it will be about $1,760 by the end of today...just 4 days work. Yay for me!

I did decide I will be putting in for 4 hours of at home reading on my timesheet today. This is for time spent before starting the job. It's not my fault I got conflicting information about doing so, with my boss at the new job saying yes, do it, it's really important, and the recruiter saying no, don't do it because all the paperwork hasn't been finalized. I did it because I knew I wouldn't be prepared otherwise to "hit the ground running" on my first day on-site, as my boss said he wanted.

While waiting for the meeting to review my work yesterday, I was finally able to get the required online courses to launch at the office, and got them out of the way. Practically everything you try to do at the office requires a password, even the computer phone system. It was more than a little frustrating because you just get automated responses from the help desk and no one's there to walk you through things if you have a tech problem.

Tomorrow I am HOPING my carpenter shows up to finish the built-in bookshelves. It's just the cabinet below the window he needs to do. However, we're expecting rain for most of the day, starting at about 9 am. He can set up in the garage, but he'll need to keep running out in the rain with the wood he cuts. I just hope he doesn't try to bag it because next Saturday is his daughter's graduation, so it would mean at least another two-week wait, and this bookshelving thing has dragged on long enough. It still will take me quite a white to prime and paint it so my entire downstairs will remain in disarray until it's done.

The job is doing okay. Day 1 was a little overwhelming as "everything" was new...They use Macs, which I haven't used in 8 years, and there were various accounts to activate, an electronic timesheet, figuring out which drive to save my documents on, learning people's names, where's the kitchen and the restroom, etc. All the little things you take for granted once you've been settled into a job for a while.

Yesterday, I ate at my desk and basically took no lunch break, but today, I returned to my usual routine of eating at my desk and then walking for a half hour wherever I can. This job is in an office park on a busy road, so my walking will be restricted to in and around the buildings and a few picnic areas in the office park. It's better than nothing.

I've met about 5 or 6 people I'll be working with directly, but otherwise most people don't always bother to get to know contract workers becus they know they may not be there long. It doesn't bother me, to be honest, for the same reason: I won't be there long.

Because it's a marketing agency (consumer packaged goods), they have all these cutesy decor items around the place, like outdoor umbrellas and lawn chairs, a foos ball table and stuff like that.

I was largely finished writing the 1st of 4 marketing sheets on my first day, believe it or not, and just played with it some more today, massaging it a bit here and there and reviewing some last minute background materiaL they just gave us. I was so stressed out about having enough time to do a good job, but with all my advance prep at home (which I probably won't try to claim on my time sheet) and reading, I was pretty well prepared to write it.

See, this is how agencies operate. My opinion is this one spent way too much time talking about tone and voice and brand; they threw so much reading material at me it took me longer to read it all than it did to write the marketing collateral. I could be doing the same kind of project for a company and they would spend maybe 15 minutes talking about it and then they'd expect you to do it. But agencies turn it into a long, drawn-out "process," maybe as a means of justifying their existence.

Of course, what I've written still has to pass muster with the agency and I'm sure there will be some changes. I'm also a little nervous because the people reviewing my work are used to reading stuff for CPG (consumer packaged goods), not financial services.

I just hope none of the changes they may propose are massive. The real test is when they run it by the client bank; it makes sense to let them see this 1st piece to make sure they're happy with the voice and tone, before I move on to the other pieces.

It's a little nerve-wracking having so many pairs of eyes critiquing my work. Maybe that's one reason I never liked working for agencies.

The drive is about 38 minutes long and a pretty one at that, going through the woods and passing the reservoirs. But when I get home, I sigh with relief but have no time to get anything done. A familiar complaint, I know. I am doing this solely for the $$ and will be glad when the assignment is over. Though of course I will take the extra work this summer if they offer it. If I can just get at least a few days' reprieve in between assignments.

Still, I'd rather be doing this job now than in the dead of winter when I'd be getting up in the dark and driving home in the dark.

So it's Sunday morning and I'm enjoying a late breakfast around 7:30 am, sitting at the kitchen table by the north-facing window. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of black. Behold, it is one of my neighbor's cows.

She disappears and I run to the back window to see her racing the length of my backyard. Most people rarely see cows move that fast. She paused at one end by my toolshed and then cavorted across the lawn once again. I can only describe her actions as gleeful and joyous, and she reminded me very much of the fawns I've seen racing around the back lawn with their mother nearby.

Then the cow disappeared up a narrow footpath through the brushy overgrowth, headed back toward my neighbors.

I called neighbor at 7:40 am and she thanked me for telling her, then went to call her husband. She said the cow is just a year old; her mother had also escaped a few times, going down to the road and getting the police involved to help corral her.

I feel sorry for their animals because I constantly hear the cows and sheep. Although they have their dogs and cats, they are not sentimental people. They are keeping the animals to raise their own meat and milk, which I "get," but I don't get the idea they are especially concerned with treating their animals humanely.

Don't know why the cows are always mooing and the sheep baaing, but if they were contented, I don't think they would be so vocal. Are they hungry? Do the cows need to be milked? Why wouldn't you board up the gaping window-sized hole in the wall of the barn so winds don't make wintry nights even more frigid? Why would you leave a ewe to deliver a lamb without veterinary assistance if it ran into trouble? The answer is, they don't want to spend the money, so as he put it, "One of 2 things can happen: either it delivers a healthy lamb, or it dies." Case closed.

Had a great dinner with Dad last night. I had sea scallops and risotto which was very good. Today for lunch I'll have the last of my wild Alaskan salmon from the freezer. After this, I will be eating strictly vegan except for my weekly dinners with Dad.

I'm very happy that tomorrow the carpenter is coming to finish the bookshelves; namely, building the window seat and cabinet below it.

I may spend some time today investigating where to buy the particular enamel paint I learned was best for things like bookshelves. I could even start sanding and priming today if I wanted.

I finally got word: I start the contract job Monday.

I'm about as ready as I can be: I read volumes of material they provided me and even drew up a rough outline of the first brochure (assuming I'm still writing brochures). Based on what manager said, the parameters of the job have likely changed.

I bought some new clothes, I figured out (roughly) what I'll pack for lunch, will test alarm clock tonight, etc.

And now my nerves have kicked in. Not at all unusual when starting any job, but I feel nervous about this one in particular, just because of what's expected. I walk into so many places where the existing writing is so bad that it's easy to shine in comparison. I'm not confident they'll love what I do. Worst case scenario, they let me go prior to the full 4-5 week term, bruising my ego and of course less money.

The commute is 35 minutes, all back roads and very scenic. It's the exact same route I drove to work 8 years ago to Norwalk about 4 miles further down the road.

So I passed the personal background check but am not sure about the employment check. They only check the last employer, and so I listed the education website. I gave them the general Houston number i found on their website (we've never had a need to talk on the phone) but learned later that my contact there works remotely out of Seattle.

So the firm running the check ran into problems, I spoke to recruiter, then they ask for W2 or equivalent. I had to explain they don't issue W2s to freelancers, so then they email another note asking for tax return signed by third party or 1099.

I do my own tax return so it's not signed by a third party and I don't have a 1099 since I only started with the website in Nov/Dec and hadn't made enough money ($600) for them to issue me a 1099 in 2016. And I won't get one for this year til end of year, obviously.

I really wouldn't like to send my personal tax return to some firm based in India. However, the recruiter had forwarded to me a brief email my contact at the website had written saying when i started there and that I'm doing a good job. I hope that suffices. They're only checking to confirm employment during the times I stated.


"Job, humbug!"

Amazingly, I have nothing special planned this weekend. Maybe one more load of laundry. I suppose I could even find the right paint for the bookshelves and start priming, but would rather do that on a sunny day and it is very dark and gloomy today. Lots of rain coming. No more drought.

OH! One exciting thing that happened in the midst of my bookshelving construction yesterday: I happened to be in the garage and glanced up at the aquarium I'd moved there for safekeeping while the carpenters were going in and out. (It was previously located on my front porch so I could monitor any activity.)

I saw that 2 brand new butterflies had formed from pupae made by caterpillars last summer! I wasn't sure they would survive the winter. I took them out into the bright sunshine and removed the screen top while they rested a bit and prepared for takeoff.

First one and then the other spontaneously flapped up and fluttered out of the aquarium that had been their home all winter and aloft they went. I even called the carpenters over to have a look.

Now you can see they've really taken shape.


I'm very happy with the way they turned out. I designed everything as far as the dimensions of the shelves, the divided shelves on the top 2 rows, the cubby holes above the window and still to come, the bench and cabinet below the window.


Can you see the detail here? There are 4 little rosettes above 4 pieces of vertical grooved trim on either side and either side of the window.

They left here around 2:30 pm because they ran out of materials. So the one guy has to return to do the seat and cabinet below the window.

I can't wait to fill these shelves up with stuff, but I will have to prime and paint it first, which will probably take forever. I already researched paints and knew that plain latex would NOT be a good choice because when I used it on my 2 entry doors, despite having a lengthy time to dry, the paint lifted right off when I closed and then opened it.

Oil paints smell too much but I think I found something that doesn't have the tackiness of latex paint. It's called a waterborne enamel.

I'll be doing a white semi-gloss to match all my other trim. I am still thinking about whether I should paint the back of each shelf in a pale turquoise color to match my repainting of the risers on the main staircase which is close to the dining room. I got an idea from Better Home & Garden where you paint each riser, (or every 2 risers) starting from the bottom successively lighter shades of the same color. To make sure the colors match, you just go to the paint store and pick your favorite colors from one of those sample color strips. So you would use maybe 3 or 4 shades of the same color and my favorite color is turquoise.

I would use the palest shade of turquoise for the back wall of the shelves to tie that room in with the staircase, since the staircase is open on both sides, to the dining room at the right and the living room to the left.

I still don't know the status of my contract job situation. Am supposed to hear today when or if I'm to come in on Monday. If I do start Monday, I may have to wait til the following Saturday to have carpenter back to do the bench/cabinet. Which is ok, but I just don't want this to drag on too long.

Otherwise, if I don't start that contract job, he can come back on Monday to finish.

So here's the dollars and cents part of it. I gave the first carpenter $500 cash, and a day or two later, another $200 cash, for materials. I have the receipts so I now he spent about $550, leaving $143 left over which he kept when he left here so abruptly.

However, I kept track of his time spent and I calculated that I still owe him $250 in addition to the $143 he kept. For the life of me I can't understand why he thinks he's been paid in full. He's not the kind of person to be charitable and I can't imagine he miscalculated.

So to date I've spent a total of $1227 on the bookshelves; I'm hoping when he comes back (I assume without his helper tho I will check) that he could finish the bench in 4 hours or less, so total not including a few extra materials would be $1447, which I'm happy with. There are also a few pieces of molding/trim that weren't used, so I will bring back for a refund.

Last night I emailed the person who would be my manager at the contract job that was supposed to start late this week. I asked for the latest status of my start date.

He replied back this a.m. and send they are "reevaluating" whether they need to bring in extra help and will let me know later today.

I had a feeling this could happen after seeing how this job unfolded. I understand from the company's perspective how they just want to be ready to go once they get the green light; unfortunately for me, it may end up petering out.

There is still some sort of project he had mentioned over the summer. I'm still hopeful that whether or not this assignment pans out, I can still do the 2nd assignment.

If neither of those things pan out, I intend to ask recruiter if I can get reimbursed for the 6 hrs at-home time spent prepping for this project. I know the recruiter had told me NOT to do any work before the contract papers and background checks were complete, however the hiring manager 1) gave me piles of reading material to do before arriving there 2) emailed me more reading material that night and 3) when i asked if in addition to the reading, i could go ahead and work on an outline and even start writing at home, if i found time, he basically said god yes.

My time spent only comes out to $330 so I don't think it would be a big deal for the company to pay it especially if they might like to use me for the summer project. I won't push it but I would like to at least make the case for it.

So I'm trying to knock things off before my contract job starts. I haven't heard from my manager there since last week (he was supposed to email an update Monday) so I will email him tomorrow to see if they have a firm start date for me yet.

In the meantime, my replacement carpenters are coming tomorrow at 8 a.m. I was wanting to have my dad over for lunch, just so he could hang out with me and I wouldn't have to be alone with 2 new carpenters, but dad moves pretty slowly and would probably in the way just trying to get in the house. So I guess I won't do that.

I was able to switch a dentist appointment I had for tomorrow to this afternoon instead, so it was good to get that out of the way. My dentist likes to get to know all his patients and actually keeps notes on things, so when I came in today he mentioned that last we spoke I was in a jobs transition and was I still. I said yes, yada yada yada. He's a nice guy. He plans guitar in a band with his grown son at local bars when he's not doing dentistry. I'd like to see him play sometime.

When I go to pay, i told the woman I no longer had dental insurance and would just pay out of pocket. Umm, I knew it would be a lot but I didn't realize it would be $195. She said she would check with the dentist to see if he would waive his fee (so I'd just have to pay for the cleaning). I'm pretty sure he did that for me once before but had forgotten about it. I am crossing fingers she will call me back to say she will refund me some of the money I paid. That would be nice.

May is the nicest time of year at my home. I look outside my office window and see a gorgeous old apple tree with a canopy filled with white flowers. There's also 2 white dogwoods, a salmon azalea and so much more to come with the enormous viburnums I've got around here and the rhodies. Today was my first mowing, but he's only doing it every other week, so it will cut my bill in half.

It's getting down into the 30s tonight so as a precaution, I took plastic sheets, tarps and some plastic pots turned upside down to cover tender plants just coming up. I can't cover everything, but at least I can ensure a few things don't get zapped by frost.

I went to Macys and Kohls two days ago and spent more than I should have on a bunch of tops and shoes but I felt that I had nothing to wear and the insidious weight creep makes everything feel a little more snug than I like.

Yet I hate to get rid of most things in case I can lose weight, so as a result, my 3 closets are always bulging with clothes I don't wear. Maybe I should fold up a bunch and put them in an underbed storage container. I have one of my mother's; I just was never in the habit of storing clothes under the bed.

Tomorrow while the carpenters are here I plan to make a wheat berry salad I can bring to my workday lunches, and a fruit salad. It's quite possible they won't want me to start til Monday, or even later, but I like to be prepared.

It's been really nice this past week not having to do any freelance work for the education place. The problem with that work is that the work takes a long time to do and you "feel" extremely busy, yet the pay doesn't reflect that. There's a danger you'll allow yourself to just keep doing that once you get into the rhythm of it, but it's not enough to cover all the bills.

I redeemed earned rewards from US Bank credit card for $108 in statement credit.

Have been enjoying sitting out on my little sun room with the kitties. The afternoon sun this time of year is very nice, not too hot. Hummingbirds are already back at the feeder, and I've also seen rose-breasted grosbeak and a flycatcher buzzing around here. I repotted some cacti I purchased at the show in April. I have one succulent called Horse's Teeth that is putting out a skinny tall stem I presume will be a flower. Very exciting. Can't wait to put out certain plants for the season to reclaim some much needed room indoors, particularly in my bathroom.

I bought a butane grill lighter to see if I could use it to burn the grease/oil stains off my pavers. It didn't work. I suspect the flame is not strong or hot enough. I may try a propane torch yet though that's more money, like at least $20.

After my first carpenter walked off the job, I contacted 2 other carpenters. One, recommended by a friend of mine, said he could come over to look at the shelves last night, but late, around 9 pm. He never showed up.

The other one came over this morning and carefully looked at the already purchased materials in my garage and listened to what I wanted.

He agreed it would be about a day's work but wanted to bring in a helper who would make the same rate as him, at $45/hr. He said the job would go faster with one guy cutting in the garage and the other working inside.

So I'll be paying $90/hr x 8 hours = $720, but I asked about a cash discount (ALWAYS do this) and he offered 10% off, so I'd pay him $648.

So while the hourly rate sounds high, it's just one day and it's possible they could finish up sooner.

Just for comparison purposes, this rate is considerably more than my original carpenter would have charged, which would have been $200 for a day's work. What a difference!

However, according to my calculations, I still owe the first carpenter about $250; he hasn't tried to collect it, nor have I heard from him since he walked away last Saturday. I may have figured his time spent more generously than he did.

The new carpenter can't start til Thursday morning. My new contract job could start the very next day, so it's pretty important they finish this up same day. I had a dentist appointment on Thursday but miraculously I was able to move it to tomorrow.

I was surprised to be able to find someone else to do this so quickly. The 2nd carpenter was recommended by a builder I found on Craig's List who often employs him. That guy at first recommended a cabinetmaker who also works for him, but it turned out the cabinet maker (who charges $65/hr) was busy working on someone's yacht.

Crossing my fingers this will all go well. It always makes me a little nervous employing someone for the first time. There's a lot of trust involved.

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.