Save More, Spend Less

If there's one New Year's resolution I'd like to achieve, it's losing 10 lbs.

I don't usually do too well with resolutions, but if I had someone to be accountable to, it could make a difference. So I was thinking, is there anyone out there who would like to join me in a weight loss resolution?

Here's what we would do:

1. On New Year's Day, weigh yourself and put it in a post entitled New Year's Resolution. Along with your starting weight, describe as specifically as you can how you plan to lose the weight and the deadline by which you want to lose it by.

Speaking for myself, I would like to lose 10 lbs. by March 31. That's a reasonable time period, I would say.

2. Then, every Saturday, weight yourself and put that weight in a blog post with extra info if you can, describing your successes.

I haven't done a group diet with others before, but I'm sort of hoping that with that extra little nudge from others who might join me that this will be enough to keep me motivated to eat right and exercise.

So how about it? Is anyone interested? If so, let me know and on Jan. 1 let's all get started!

My holiday vacay is HERE. Hooray!!!!!

Now that I am totally chocolated out, maybe I can fit in some meaningful exercise during the coming week.

I got so much candy and chocolate little gifts at the office; I am a dark chocolate snob, so all the milk chocolate and white chocolate junk I will offer up to guests, but I don't expect many of them here. Another wasted office gift I got was a big tube of "body butter" with the usual assortment of unhealthy ingredients. I've also gotten particular about skin lotions and things that stay on my skin (as opposed to soap or shampoo, which is rinsed off). I mostly stick to Burt's Bees products now.

Hope to get together with 2 different friends, maybe take my mother to the movies and do my usual running around here and there, get my humidifier serviced, all before Christmas. Christmas eve day I figure I'll be cooking/baking.

I was able to wrap up my self-evaluation for my January performance review. Since I've only been perm since July, I won't be eligible for any raise, and I don't know if there will be any raises anyway, since I'm told there weren't for the past 2 years.

I'll also be wrapping up my own expense and income analysis for the 2014 year, one of the highlights of each December. I know I've spent way more than previous years since getting this job, but I can afford it and so it goes. Just yesterday I impulsively spent $60 on a pair of turquoise Foo dogs from "no refund" One Kings Lane. I like the variety of stuff they sell but feel uncomfortable with their no returns policy. Plus, their online descriptions are very brief. This will be my 2nd purchase from them so I'll see how it goes.

I plan to eventually redo my family room decor, and the new colors will be gray, turquoise, silver and white. The biggest expenses will be replacing the sofa (I bought a used sofa for $400 about 16 years ago) but I don't really want to do it now and risk the cats scratching the new one. Don't think I want to wait 10+ years before they pass on, so I don't know exactly what the timing will be. I also want to get rid of the stained and rather old wall to wall carpet in there too and either leave the floors bare wood (problem is the wood is painted and I don't know if lead paint was used or not, have to figure out when that addition was built) and either put an area rug down or new wall to wall in gray.

I noticed in the local paper they were offering free 15-minute chair massages at the Resiliency Center today. I have never had a professional massage, so this seemed like the perfect time to do it.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked in. There were several dozen people in a very cozy, homey space sitting around talking, eating. They were extraordinarily nice and welcoming. This is their mission, after all, to help Newtowners heal from the 12/14 shootings. You may be surprised this is still going on 2 years after the event, but there are quite a lot of activities in town related to that, including the beginning of a new park and memorial (my own handyman is building a bench), along with construction of a new school after razing the old one, and lots of kid-friendly activities all over the place.

I had to wait a while til the masseuse was free and the other people there, mostly women, were friendly and chatted with me a bit.

The massage was GREAT and really did relax me, although her mellow flute music was drowned out by the beating of drums as they were starting a drumming session downstairs.

I feel a little funny about disrobing for a massage, but I would happily do another chair massage like this one with my shirt on. They charge about $90 for an hour at spas around here.

I'm doing laundry today (2 loads) and I also washed the road salt off my car. I also filled the bird feeder and vacuumed both floors.

Still waiting for delivery of my Amazon shipment; it was supposed to arrive here yesterday. Most of my gifts are wrapped.

Talked to my friend M. His contract job ended a week ago so he is back to the job search. But at least he no longer has to commute from Connecticut to Hoboken, NJ., one heck of a train ride.

Also talked to my friend D. last night. I told him I was looking for fun things to do Christmas week, which I have off, and he suggested a few days on the Cape. That's a bit more of a trip than I planned; I'm really just looking for little day trip destinations. I may just let him take me out to dinner.

I wrote out all my Christmas cards and they're ready to mail.

...and for others affected by gun violence.


http://action.sandyhookpromise.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15290&track=documentary_shp_e&utm_source=shp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20141212_documentary&utm_content=1305386

What are yours?

I honestly don't have any financial resolutions. Everything is on auto pilot now, and as long as this job continues, I don't feel I have to worry about it too much. I am saving over 30% of income with ample funds left over for home improvements and fun.

I am still ruminating on personal resolutions that have to do with cultivating more patience with my mother and seeking out more opportunities to volunteer, possibly, or get more involved in my town.

Today, for example, I aim to go to a rare Saturday meeting on opening up a large (over 1,000 acres) parcel of land in the center of town to multi-family housing.


Looking up at the ceiling of one of the original state mental hospital buildings that was rehabbed and now serves as our beautiful municipal offices. The origami doves were one of several given to the town following the school shootings, one dove for each child or educator killed.


A closeup


One of many buildings on campus that will either be rehabbed or torn down.

The property, a former state mental hospital, campus style, was given to the town by the state over 10 years ago and the town has very slowly been redeveloping it by tearing down selected buildings deemed too far gone to rehab, creating lovely walking trails in the woods and meadows, new ballfields and relocating municipal offices there, along with a huge sports complex and a new ambulance facility.

After the 2012 school shootings, GE gave the town quite a lot of money toward construction of a new facility that would serve both seniors and teens...it will be located somewhere on this same property. This is where our Victory Garden is, where volunteers grow food that goes to the food pantry. It's also a great place to have road races and our arts festival, not to mention various events for dog lovers. I walk there often myself.

I have to say that when this town builds or develops anything, it is done in a very classy way. However, the townspeople have been surveyed and polled several times before and each time said no to more housing. Now they're asking again becus developers are breathing down their backs and promising lower taxes, which we all know never happens. We the people want to keep this rare parcel of open space for active/passive recreation and for town needs, not for developers who want to make money off rentals and yet more stores.

They must be expecting a big crowd becus the venue is the intermediate school gym. I hope that preparations for the upcoming holiday, just a few weeks away, don't keep people from showing up.

I recently posted about an old, iron, rusty, leaking septic pipe in my basement. It needed to be addressed but I'd been procrastinating becus plumbers are so freakin' expensive.

I called a plumber I've used before, and after I sent him pictures, he quoted me a price of "probably $700 or $800." You know when they give you a range that it never comes in at the low end of the range.

But since I'm making good money and know I can afford it, I was feeling lazy and wasn't going to bother calling other plumbers. I scheduled the job for the next day off I had, later in December on Xmas week.

But then my sister and friend urged me to call around after I told them what the problem was during Thanksgiving dinner, and the quoted price.

I'd forgotten I paid for an Angie's List membership so I went online and found a guy in my area who got a zillion positive reviews. I sent him the same pix and his guys just left here after replacing the pipe for $525, saving me $175 to $275.

When I called the first plumber to cancel the scheduled repair, I made a point to tell him why I was cancelling and that I found another plumber to do the job for a much more reasonable price. Maybe he won't be so greedy next time when he's quoting a job to a customer.

Note to self: Being lazy can cost you!

In other news:

My 1 year promo rate for voice/phone with AT&T Uverse expired Nov. 30. AT&T sold all its UVerse accounts to Frontier, so I had to negotiate new rates with them. I didn't get it any lower, but I pretty much the same rate for another year; then in years 2 and 3 it will go up by $50, she said. Who knows what will happen at that point. I may go with some other carrier.

While I am still acutely aware of how grateful I am with my new job and all that it provides, Sunday night thinking of Monday makes me go "blah."

The next few weeks will bring a few office Xmas parties that I'll be expected to attend, with the requisite Secret Santa gift exchanges with people from other office locations whom I hardly know. I could care less, really, and going to parties I'd rather just skip introduces a degree of stress in my life I wish I could avoid.

NPR had a great series of interviews this afternoon with people who chose to test their personal physical endurance by rowing across the Atlantic Ocean (a woman) and the French guy who walked a high wire across the Twin Towers in NYC years back.

The French man was very interesting to listen to; asked why he did it, he mentioned something about wanting to do something more important and meaningful with his life than feathering his own nest. The woman rower said that although she was petrified with fear the first 2 weeks of rowing alone, with no backup, what kept her going was realizing she was even more afraid of having to return to work in a little cubicle.

The first comment made me wince, the second one made me laugh. They both hit home. Sometimes I feel that my only goal for a long time has been amassing enough savings so that I can retire "early" from work.

My conundrum for years has been that either I'm working and I have "no time" to do the things I want to do, or I'm unemployed and have "no money" to do the things I want to do.

I think it was Monkey Mama who once spoke about the importance of balancing saving for the future with enjoying life now. I need to follow that advice better.

I'm at that point where I'm assessing my life in its entirety, and the ugly truth is, I do feel it lacks purpose. Unlike most people, I can't say I raised a fine human being. And I've worked mostly for private, profitable companies where the bottom line is how much money is made, not making the world a better place.

In my own defense, feeling "secure" has probably been more important to me than many. Due to divorce and multiple moves before I turned 10, I have to say my childhood was very unstable and insecure. We lived in more than one scummy apartment complex; I remember as a kid seeing rats swimming in the stagnant lagoon separated from our apartment building only by a chain link fence.

And although my mother claims not to remember it, I very much remember being told to use no more than 4 squares of toilet paper at a time, and to not drink so much milk, because we didn't have a lot of money.

Perhaps it's been an internalized determination not to live in squalid surroundings and, seeing my own mother's marriages disintegrate, not to depend on anyone else, that's made financial security a pretty big priority for many years.

But I'm getting close enough to reaching my financial goals to see I need other things to focus on. Paying off the mortgage in 2012 was a biggie, and I imagine reaching $1 million in assets a few years from now will also be huge, but after the initial euphoria, what then? I mean, it's not the kind of thing I can go around shouting from the rooftops anyway.

Volunteer work might be part of the answer. I've volunteered in the past for animal organizations and a food pantry. I always have to fight my natural introvert tendencies to get involved, and truth be told, I can be perfectly content to watch movies or do a crossword puzzle, alone.

But I hate committees and meetings, and would rather be DOING something positive. I remember one animal shelter where I volunteered to write an article for the newsletter and I pitched my idea for a story about how destructive to local bird life (not to mention other critters) domesticated house cats can be when allowed to roam free, and the dangers posed by texting drivers, coyotes, dogs, etc.

The woman running the show asked me for an "outline" of my article in advance, and I told her I don't work from outlines. So then she had a long phone conversation with me where she attempted to learn what my "approach" was going to be and how exactly it would be written. She made me feel like i was in the 3rd grade. She was a very controlling person and wanted to vet everything, right down to how I wrote the story. It was a great way to disenfranchise a volunteer. She might as well have written it herself if she didn't trust another person to do it. In the end, I wrote it and it was published, but I never volunteered again for that group.

Contrast that experience with the food pantry at a local church. The leaders there were very amenable to any suggestions I had for improving or expanding on the services the group provided, and they let me run with it. When they experienced shortages of donations, I found a hunting group that agreed to donate venison.

There were a series of discussions, and while in the end the group decided not to take the venison (the hunters didn't want to break down the meat parcels into less than 5 lbs each or something), it was still an interesting initiative that I spearheaded. When a local organic farmer donated some leftover produce, it was my idea to interview him and do a press release that would benefit both the food pantry and the farmer. I found the work there very empowering because I was encouraged to come up with ideas and then run with them.

I was going to hit the mall for my once annual trip but after spending about 2 hours at some other non-mall shops, I hopped on the Interstate to head west to the mall and Trader Joe's. It was all backed up. Just not worth it, so I took an exit home. I was getting a little tired and hungry, but I may try again tomorrow.

I do really need to hit Trader Joe's as I'm low on food and they have a number of items I can't find anywhere else, like the recently discovered frozen julienned root vegetables (beets, parsnips, sweet potatotes). Really, really good, like the frozen marinated zucchini and eggplant slices I like.

I did go to a lovely garden nursery gift shop which has many nature-inspired ornaments and gifts. I got a small glittery copper-colored Xmas tree which will probably go to my boss. I'll save one of the 2 bottles of wine I got last night for the Secret Santa gift exchange, a safer bet for someone who might not be Christian.

Here's the new shelf my friend installed for me last night.


I filled up the gas tank and browsed a mineral/geode store. Also picked up some air filters for my air purifier at Lowe's, but they didn't have the reusable mouse traps I also wanted.

I am kind of glad I have the evening to myself now. It was kind of a tiring day.

Last night I shoveled the entire driveway in the dark. This morning, I could see we didn't get nearly as much snow as they'd forecasted, so I was able to get everyone to agree to meet for dinner today as planned.

I went out to shovel down by the road some more and then I vacuumed the first floor.

Then I drove to mom's to pick her up but before we left, I shoveled off all the snow on her car and also shoveled around her car so she can drive out easily.

Then I brought her back to my place, waited for my friend to show up and then we met my sister at the restaurant. We had a great dinner.

The bill for 4 of us came to $200 (!!!), including the tip. Yikes. Three of us had the lamb (with butternut squash soup, dessert and tea for me) and my friend Dave had a traditional turkey/stuffing meal. It was the 3 glasses of wine that added considerably $19) to the total tab. My sister chipped in $60, so my portion of the bill (I was also paying for my friend's meal, since I invited him, and half my mother's meal) came to $140. That's a lot, and no doubt much more than if I'd made dinner myself, but I didn't feel like cooking, and I can afford it. Thanksgiving only comes along once a year.

Plus, my friend brought over not one, but two bottles of wine (a red and a white), plus a store-bought apple pie. Since I don't drink much, I can use both bottles as Xmas gifts for 2 people at work I wanted to get something nice for. I could even use it at the Secret Santa gift exchange. Either way, I'm covered, and then I just have to get 8 much smaller gifts; I was thinking small bags of chocolates or something.

After we drove my mother home, my friend helped me install a new 40" long shelf I'd purchased. It required a bunch of anchors but it's all pre-finished and looks great above my computer desk. I gave my friend a 2015 wall calendar compliments of the local paper; everyone seems to want one of these.

Tomorrow is a big shopping day. I have 9 stops to make. Then Saturday is more shopping, locally, for Small Business Saturday.


One of my Japanese red maples earlier this fall.

It began snowing right on schedule, around 8 a.m.. It was more like rain when it started, but it has since changed over to snow.

I am snug like a bug in my house. I could've done some grocery shopping beforehand, but this storm won't be sticking around. I hope to start shoveling this evening.

One good this is that there is no wind associated with this storm. When it winds down, there will only be about 11 mph winds. I always worry about falling trees as I have had a lot come down over the years. At least the 2 big ones towering over the house are gone: the white pine was sheared off at its trunk during Hurricane Sandy and it came down frighteningly close to the house; the other tree, a giant ailanthus, I had taken down a year ago.

After taking advantage of the Amex/Petco 50% off deal, I also signed up for Visa Checkout, which simply expedites the checkout process when you're buying something online. The reward for signing up is a $10 prepaid Visa card from Bank of America.I have 3 BOA cards (planning on cancelling one of them soon) but I can only get one prepaid Visa card as a reward.

They're predicting 8 or 9 inches of snow to start tomorrow morning and go until the early morning hours of Thanksgiving. With that timing, I'm not sure I'll be able to dig out of my driveway, nor is my invited friend sure he wants to drive 45 minutes if the roads are still bad around noon time.

So we all agreed that my sister and I would consult again Thanksgiving morning to assess the snow situation and make a final decision. If we cancel Thanksgiving dinner, we will reschedule our restaurant dinner out for Saturday, same time.

The restaurant even said they would hold both reserved times open for us, so we have that flexibility. The downside will be that they won't be serving their special Thanksgiving menu on Saturday, but what can you do?

I have off the rest of the week. If, say, the snow unexpectedly ended early, like by tomorrow early evening, then I could be out there shoveling and wrap it up Thursday morning with time to spare. But that's not what the weather forecasters are saying.

I picked up a pizza on the ride home from work and inched my car into my rather tight one-car garage. I pulled out the snow shovel and scraper for the car, and brought my rubber boots inside so they won't get filled with snow. I guess I'm as ready as can be.

The boys caught yet another mouse last night in the basement and brought it upstairs. I was able to chase them back to the basement before they dropped the (live) mouse en route. Much as I hate them handling icky mice, Waldo does look awfully cute with a small furry mouse stuffed in his mouth. I doubt he does much damage to the mouse because he's missing most of his teeth. However, his claws, and Luther's, are like hypodermic needles. They lost the mouse and I think it found safety under the washer or dryer.

I was very upset to learn today, by overhearing other employees talk about it and then reading a news story about it, that the wild turkey that had been hanging around the bank where I work, located right in the downtown of a small city, was killed by two local thugs. I don't know if they caught who did it, but eyewitnesses said they saw 2 guys who looked to be about age 20 or so run out of their car to grab the turkey. And then they broke its neck and tossed it in their car and sped away. All this in broad daylight. Sad. The bird seemed attached to its reflection in the plate glass windows of our office building. There's always some loser who ruins a nice thing.

In other news of the unfortunate kind, I learned from talking to a plumber on the phone that the rusty, leaking old iron septic pipe in my basement will cost about $800 to repair. I emailed him photos and he estimated 4 or 5 hours of labor at $100 an hour (hard to believe), and another "couple hundred dollars" for materials. They will have to cut the pipe and replace it. He said they couldn't just reapply the sealant between the 2 connections becus mine has old lead sodder and isn't up to code. I guess it's just as well to get that out of my basement. I have the money, but of course you hate to spend it on things like that. I had a feeling it was going to be expensive.

I dread seeing what this one's gonna cost me, but I noticed some time ago that the large main septic pipe going that goes thru the concrete floor of my basement is rusting and leaking. Most of it is newer PVC pipe, but there's a long (4 foot maybe) section of old wrought iron. It's leaking at the point where this section connects to the PVC, and of course, I have no idea how far into the ground the iron pipe goes before the next joint/connection.

Plumbers around here are enormously expensive. You're talking several hundred dollars just for routine switching out of faucets and that sort of thing.

I guess I'll have to call one tomorrow. Maybe someone can come out this Wednesday, which I have off.

Didn't do much all day (intentionally, trying to get rid of this cold once and for all). I did vacuum the upstairs and make some tomato/brussel sprout/lima bean soup but otherwise just watched some movies on Netflix, including a very interesting one called The Trail (2013). In a way it's similar to All is Lost; both are movies about survival and contain little, if any, dialogue. The Trail is about a woman fighting for survival in winter on The Oregon Trail after Indians kill her husband.

I am always looking for good movies on Netflix; if anyone has some good recommendations, I'd be happy to watch them.

Last night I discovered an Alzheimer's support group that meets two SATURDAYS a month, including today, and I was so excited because truth be told, it's hard to drag myself out at night on a weekday. After a day's work, I just want to relax.

So....I was GOING to attend the 9:30 a.m. meeting today but I got lazy and skipped it. I REALLY REALLY need and want to go, but I guess the meetings will still be there for me when I'm ready.

Once again, it's my weekend, after all, and I just didn't feel like rushing out the door this morning when I can linger at the computer with a hot cup of tea and two kitties nearby.

I did eventually rouse myself enough to get dressed and head out the door around 10:30. I DO want to largely take it easy this weekend as I'm not completely over my cold and sure don't want this dragging on into the holiday.

Nonetheless, there were a few things I was able to knock off my list:

1. I stopped by my local newspaper office and snagged 4 of their free 2015 calendars. It's kind of a retro, old-fashioned looking calendar that I've always liked. I got one for a friend at work and 2 for me (home and office) with one extra in case someone wants it.

2. Filled up the gas tank at $2.97 a gallon but was chagrined to see BJs price was $2.87!!!

3. Went to a supermarket/closeout kind of place and got some cheap ribbons and notepads plus some suet for the birds. I was able to give some helpful birdseed advice to a woman who was buying birdseed as part of a large holiday gift basket for her church that would later be raffled off. I explained that the black oil sunflower seed is best and to steer clear of the cheaper seed mixes filled with junk seed that birds don't like.

4. Made a pitstop at a craft show at a local hotel after seeing signs, but it was a waste of time. Less than 10 tables, and most of them were jewelery which I wasn't in the mood to waste my money on.

5. Petco: I don't usually shop here anymore, but Amex had a deal where you charge $10 there and you'll get a $5 credit, which is basically like getting 50% off if you only spend $10. I wound up spending $18 on expensive specialty cat foods which I like to occasionally mix in with the cheaper Friskies and Fancy Feast the boys usually eat. My cats' favorites are anything with rabbit in it as well as a sardine/mackerel mix, which I would consider the healthiest of any seafood they could eat, given that these fish are low on the food chain and thus low in mercury.

6. On the way home I stopped for a few groceries, including mushrooms, so I could make a barley, onion, mushroom/carrot casserole tonight for dinner.

I feel ok energy-wise but am still blowing my nose and sometimes coughing, so Must Force Self to Take it Easy.

I am really in a mood to shop this holiday season. Because I'm saving north of 30% of my income and still have money left over. That's how it works when you have a good paying job and no mortgage. Life is good that way, and I intend to enjoy it since it hasn't always been like that.

So don't yell at me when you learn I purchased a largish starburst style mirror from Ballard's Design recently, or a green bubble-glass jar from One Kings Lane. In fact, all the things I looked longingly at but didn't buy are staring me in the face in the advertisements on this site. And I still haven't even hit the mall yet It is only the current state of my health that is keeping me from going.

I would like to get basic cable again. Last time i had cable in 2012, just TWO YEARS AGO, I was paying just $18 a month. Now, the cheapest cable with the same company, Charter, is $46.98 a month!!! Yeah, you get 200 channels, yada yada yada, whereas before i got maybe 12, but my god, what a rip-off. I want to get network TV so I can get my local news. But I guess I won't at that price. There's no competition here in my town and this is the only cable company. It sucks. BUT NO THANKS. (PS I'm not interested in bundling phone and Internet, unless Frontier raises its fees. Right now, I'm paying $55 a month for unlimited phone and pretty fast Internet.)

I'm finally feeling better (more energetic and less severe cold symptoms) since I came down with this cold last Friday.

I've been working at home all week but after my boss made the comment, after I informed her I'd be staying home for the 3rd day in a row, "Oh, 3 days...that's a lot...feel better!" I took that as a maybe not-so-subtle hint that I should return to work tomorrow.

It irks me that she said that since she knows I've been just as productive at home as I would be in the office; I have not been slacking off.

Not to mention that I have a coworker who has worked at home every day now for the past few months due to feigned "morning sickness" from her pregnancy. On the few days she came in previously, usually about once a week, I noticed that shortly after arriving, she'd go down to the cafe in the building and return with a big breakfast; a few hours later, she'd come back with lunch. Not once did I see her hesitate to finish everything or complain about morning sickness.

Ideally, I'd like to stay home one more day as I don't want to risk this cold lingering on into next week, and the holiday, as sometimes happens when you go back to work too soon, BUT I will since the bigger picture is, this is a pretty decent job that I only need to last 5 more years. So might as well play nice and do what she wants.

I haven't especially been looking forward to Thanksgiving since it's me, my mother and my sister and my sister always has such a bad attitude that get-togethers can be painfully uncomfortable as she answers most questions with a "yes" or a "no" but not much more. She doesn't try to share parts of her life with my mother because it requires lots of explaining to my mother, and lots of repeating, and it's probably easier for my sister not to bother. But not very nice to my mother.

Solution: I decided today as i balanced my laptop on my lap in bed with the covers pulled up and a box of tissues at my side that I would invite my friend Dave to our dinner. He was never a close friend but we sort of have kept in touch and he's always been a super nice, upbeat and kind person to me. And I remembered that he took care of his mother, who lived with him, for several years before she died of cancer, and that he is not close to his 2 brothers, who are married with children. Dave is divorced, no children. He seemed very happy to accept the invitation and he will be the PERFECT addition to our now group of 4 since he is very talkative, congenial and pleasant. His presence will force my sister to be on her best behavior and my mother will surely be charmed by him. And it will make the whole dinner thing a little less dreary for me.

Although the price fixe restaurant menu includes dessert, I think I will make an extra dessert anyway (I have the day before and after TDay off) as a reason for my mother and Dave to come back to my place and linger for a bit longer, like people usually do for Thanksgiving. My sister won't be interested; she usually uses her chickens as an excuse (she has to put them in the coop for safety at night) but truth be told she still wouldn't be interested even without the chickens.

AT&T recently sold a bunch of their landline phone and Internet customers to a company called Frontier. I noticed only by chance when looking at my bill that I will very soon have to renegotiate both plans as one of them has a monthly discount that expires this month and the other plan in March of next year. This was always an excruciating process and you could only really get anywhere by threatening to leave them as a customer. Right now I'm paying $56 a month for both Internet and unlimited voice, which i consider reasonable, but I don't want to pay anything more. I'm worried the new company may be less interested in keeping my rates low and may use this opportunity to jack them up.

I'll have to put this on my list of things to do on the day before Thanksgiving as that's my next day off.

Stayed home from work on account of my cold.
It's rainy, gray and overcast.

I pushed up our Thanksgiving dinner at the restaurant from 2 p.m. to 1, so there wouldn't be any chance of my mother having to drive home in the dark.

I also spoke for the 1st time with my mother's occupational therapist, who was looking for more info on how she could help my mother. She got an earful from me but also told me about a state grant that would probably entitle my mother to at least a few hours of free housekeeping help each week, on account of her dementia diagnosis. (She has the money to pay for it herself, but she won't.)

I go through spurts of trying to help my mother and then "giving up" after a while because she rejects most offers of help and I feel frustrated and defeated. I have to also remind myself I have achieved a few things: I got her to go and get the neurological testing that led to her dementia diagnosis, I got her, by practically twisting her arm, to get the driving test, which she narrowly passed and I got her to start going to see this occupational therapist. I also spoke to her mechanic and got her car thoroughly checked out and I got 4 new tires on her car.

She has yet to accept help in the form of someone coming to the house during the week for housekeeping or whatever. I've come to the conclusion that if I try to talk my mother into it or try to persuade her this is what she should do, I will never get there. It will only get done if I make the arrangements and get it going, either by having someone come free like I've just learned may be possible, or paying myself out of the joint checking account I now have with my mother. I've hesitated doing the latter since this would be the first time I spent her money without her permission and she might have a screaming fit.

In the meantime, I watched an episode of Lilihammer and balanced my checkbook.

My ultimate goal for my mother would be to get her into an assisted living facility, but I'm afraid if I do that too early (like now), then at the going rate for these places, around $5,000 a month, they will suck up all her assets within 4 or 5 years. (She has roughly $135K in savings plus her Social Security of about $925 a month, plus the value of her condo at around $155K.) Once they go through her savings, then she would have no choice but to go into a nursing home, and that would be a fate worse than death to her. She would go kicking and screaming.

So for now, my more immediate goals would be to have someone coming to the house regularly to do some housecleaning and maybe help with miscellaneous things that pop up with my mother. I'd like for her to cede control of ALL bills to me and also give up email. Not gonna happen yet. I'd like to see her stop spending on average $100 a month on vitamins/supplements she reads about that "cure" dementia/Alzheimer's. I'd like her to stop trying to exhibit and sell her art and be content to simply create art. I'd like to find a way for her to socialize and expand her social activities that doesn't require me to take her by the hand and accompany her.

Friday at work I was feeling fine but as soon as I arrived home that night, I said uh oh, I have a pretty bad sore throat. And things have deteriorated from there.

So I had some shopping plans this weekend that I just shelved. I am not one of those people who can just power through a cold.

However, my handyman FINALLY finished the work on my office ceiling, and it looks very nice. I think he had to make 4 trips here on account of having to do several layers of joint compound on some cracks.

The nearly full gallon of white paint I planned to use I brought up from the basement but upon opening it I saw that it was mostly solidified. So I had to run down to the hardware store yesterday morning and they have a neat thing I never came across before. It was white ceiling paint that goes on with a purply tinge but dries white. The purple helps you ensure you don't miss any spots when you're painting white on white. It seemed to work well.

After he left this morning, I made a trip to Walgreens and picked up some supplies for my cold, including some soft tissues and a nighttime decongestant. OMG there are a lot of cold remedies out there! I must've spent 15 minutes trying to find the exact best one, but mainly, I wanted something that would help me sleep tonight.

Mostly a stuffy, yet drippy nose, sneezing, tired. Oh, what fun.

Luckily, I brought my work laptop home with me on Friday, so I will be working from home hopefully the next few days. No use spreading my germs around. It annoys me to no end that I got sick to begin with. You can never be too careful.

I have pretty much moved back everything I had to move out of my office for the ceiling work. I also bought from Amazon a 40 inch long floating shelf which I think I'll hang in front of my computer desk.

I don't know what got into me, but I bought a violin on Amazon, which I have already returned. It was only $60, and I guess you get what you pay for. The description indicated that it was a wood neck and sides and back, but didn't say what the front is, and I swear that front just didn't look like wood to me. It almost seemed metallic, or maybe particleboard. They also didn't say anything about it being for left-handed or right-handed people, but in reading one of the posted questions, someone asked, do you make violins for left-handed people and the violin maker replied with a link to a much more expensive violin labeled as being for lefties. I'm a lefty, so the one I bought wouldn't do. I used to play when I was in like 4th grade or something, but it's been a very long time and so it didn't even occur to me that a violin would be for lefties or righties.

I don't think I will get another one. I have ALWAYS admired the shape and form of musical instruments, especially the violin, and would even like one just as a decoration around the house, but that seems a little silly. In truth, to really learn to play again I would need to take lessons, and I'm not sure I have time in my life to do that right now.

There was an estate sale I missed in town that listed "musical instruments" among other things, but I just forgot about it and so that's that.

Did you remember to register your Amex card today for Small Business Saturday? I did. You're essentially getting $30 worth of free whatever.

There are a half dozen possibilities around here: gift shops, an upscale grocery store and Agway. I will have no trouble, and I won't even have to leave town.

Amex had 2 other deals I signed up for, unrelated to Small Business Saturday. Charge $30, get $10 back at HSN and charge $10, get $5 back at Petco. The latter is like 50% off if you charge just $10.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, although we are only going out to dinner to celebrate. But, I have both the day before and the day after off, so yes, I will do some shopping then.

Here's a study that will interest anyone who is now, or may be purchasing health insurance via the Affordable Care Act next year.

Prices are dropping or remaining stable in many states, according to this detailed study. In a few rural states, prices will rise.

http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2014/rwjf416395

In my own state of CT, the study reports prices will drop around 6%. That's great news, even though I now have private health insurance thru my employer.

Today's doings:

1. Last pickup for the season at the farm CSA: head of cabbage, 2 heads celery, 2 apples, bunch of scallions, bunch of kale, 3 small heads of red lettuce, 2 acorn squash, 3 small peppers.

The farmer said I could pick all the daikon radishes I wanted, as well as Swiss chard and kale. We already had a frost here so I don't know how his fields escaped that. I only pulled up 3 of the white radishes and peeled them into a salad for lunch, and I rather liked them.

2. A load of laundry

3. Grocery shopping at Shop Rite

4. Made some corn chowder for my workweek lunches.

5. Blanched a bunch of celery leaves and froze them for use with future pots of pea soup. They add a lot of flavor.

6. Baked a pumpkin pie.

7. Took a walk (where we walked that time, Dido, if you're reading this and ran into my mailman with his dog, along with some other people and dog walkers, whom I enjoy small-talking with.

8. Went to a craft show and wound up buying 2 pendants which are actually a kind of stone whose name escapes me but her prices were incredibly reasonable. Each one cost $12, compared to another vendor who had gorgeous gem and mineral jewelery but at much, much higher prices.

So it was a pretty nice day and only have to work tomorrow and then have Tuesday off.

In my hometown weekly paper last night, I read with sadness of my neighbor-across-the-street's wife's death. I did not even know she was ill.

In fact, I never spoke to her in 19 years, but he, my neighbor, always had a friendly word for me when I saw him out mowing or walking his dog down our street.

He lost his twenty-something daughter to a car accident just a few years ago. So sad. He has a son left. His own parents also died together in a car accident many years ago.

I don't know why these things affect me so. I am not close to him. And now the 2-year anniversary of the school shootings is coming up and so there is a somber mood in town.

I had to pay $100 for really nothing this morning when i had an overhead garage door company come out to repair my door. It hadn't been opening and closing properly, but he saw something that slid out of something and fixed it in 30 seconds. He said he could "service" the door to make sure it was balanced and so on. It took him 10 minutes. Oh well. He pointed out a grinding noise inside the motor, which he explained was plastic shredding and eventually, it would go. Maybe next week, maybe in 2 years. I declined to have him replace that.

I am annoyed at my stupid handyman guy, who really isn't a good handyman; he's more of a carpenter who has trouble finding steady work. But the price is right. He taped a taped seam that was coming up in my office ceiling, I believe 2 coats, and is to come over Tuesday, a day off for me, to finally paint the ceiling, but the taped section looks terrible. The compound he used cracked, and you can still see the netting that holds the compound in place. I haven't been able to put my office back together because i knew the ceiling needed painting.

On top of that, he had said he could do the whole job in 1 full day. That was to include the painting. The only reason why he didn't is because he took a very long break about mid-day, over an hour, outside, in my garage. When i went down to investigate, he was talking on the phone. I don't think I should be paying for that.

He's cheap enough that it won't kill me to pay him another $50 for 2 hours of ceiling painting, but I'm just annoyed. I'm so tired of contractors who try to suck whatever they can out of you.

I'm in a bad mood, can you tell? I did a bit of shopping at Kohl's with a coupon and filled up the gas tank at a remarkable $2.99 a gallon. Then I mowed lots of leaves on the lawn. I am quite aware of my using shopping and spending as a salve for my depressed mood. It's a bad habit. In fact, I was wanting to go shopping, although I need nothing, and only didn't do more damage because I couldn't think of any stores nearby where I wanted to go.

For the last 2 months of this year, I'll be contributing 30% to my 401k. Without the mortgage and with much cheaper health insurance, my minimum monthly expenses are now down to $1500, from $2,000 when I was unemployed. I am grateful that at least I don't have financial pressures now.

I stopped at Boston Marked for lunch today but have no idea what I should do for dinner. It will be a Netflix movie night. A guy I dated a while ago had recommended I watch "Californication" on Netflix, and so I watched a few episodes but it's already getting old. A directionless loser/writer with talent but no focus sleeps around with a bunch of women while he wishes he could get his ex back. I can tell why the guy I dated liked the show; the women just flocked to this guy and since this isn't on network TV, there are some pretty suggestive sexual scenes. But in truth, this guy would not be so desirable in real life. He's kind of a jerk, actually.

It's a blustery, sunny day here in Connecticut, just perfect for cooking up 2 butternut squashes I got from the farm. All I added was onion, garlic, sage, stock and parmesan cheese, and this creamy soup is to die for. Will be part of my lunch each day for the coming week.

Yesterday my carpenter replaced the decorative mullions that criss cross my office ceiling (and 2 other rooms in the house). I've always liked it...it looks like a tic tac toe grid. My original intent was to have him sand and scrape off all the old paint, but after considering there was probably lead paint in there somewhere, I had him remove and replace the mullions instead, to minimize the dust. I even bought a HEPA vaccuum cleaner and 2 face masks for lead paint removal. His labor was $175 for an 7-hour day and it was another $100 or so for supplies, counting the drop cloths and some caulk and joint compound I needed to repair a crack as well. I still need him to paint the ceiling. (I hate painting ceilings, and this one hasn't been painted in the 19 years I've lived here.)

One of the worst things about getting work done around the house is that it forces me to hang around and wait for him to finish. I did make banana bread and granola while he worked, and picked up around here, but it was still tiring to hang around, and every time he banged something, I kept thinking about my soft fir floors. He also left dirty handprint smudges all over one of the walls, but I have to repaint that wall anyway after having to repair some more cracks above the door frame.

Today I returned some disposable overalls he didn't bother to use and 2 drop cloths, and also picked up a few things at BJs, and a ton of cat food at Wal Mart.

At the CSA I got a head of celery, an acorn squash, 8 small bell peppers, scallions, lettuce, 4 apples. I think I have 2 more weeks to go for the season.

This morning I also wrapped my hot water heater with insulation.

Saturday was an emotionally draining day. It affected me all day, and that's part of the reason why I'm only making a brief mention of it here. I shared with my mother the letter from doctor saying she HAS to take the driving evaluation or she'll lose her license. Of course, she could lose it if she fails the test. She got very, very upset. I have her scheduled to go on Wednesday. This was the 2nd time I scheduled to test so she'd better go.

The IRS increased its contribution limits for 401(k) for 2015, and after crunching some numbers, I should be able to easily max out my contributions for the 401k, 401k catch-up, IRA and IRA catch-up, to the tune of $30,500.

Right now I'm contributing to a traditional 401k in the hope that these contributions will lower my taxable income enough so that the traditional IRA contribution I made earlier in the year, before I knew I'd have a perm job, will be fully tax-deductible. To be fully tax-deductible, I have to get my taxable 2014 income down to below $61,000, or at least below $71,000 for partial deductibility.

I THINK I can do that, and this is one reason my current 401k contributions per paycheck are so high, at $1,000 per paycheck.

But next year I will do a Roth 401k and Roth IRA as I'm trying to create a more balanced mix of Roth vs. traditional retirement accounts. I've read about some interesting tax strategies you can use when withdrawing retirement money as income, and having the ability to withdraw a combination of both traditional and Roth IRA monies offers the best tax savings.

Right now, I have much more money in traditional IRAs as I have never felt my tax rate in retirement would be higher than it is now. But for the reason just stated above, I will attempt to create greater equilibrium in Roth vs traditional retirement monies.

Update on my mother:

After my mother told me she didn't want to take the meds which could slow progression of dementia or take the driving assessment, I called the doctor's office to let them know she changed her mind, and was there anything else they could do. I left the message on the nurse's answering machine but the doctor called me back later that same day.

He was very concerned about her not wanting to take the driving assessment, based on her test results, and he stressed that if she would not take the test or took it and failed and continued driving and then got in an accident, that she would be 100% liable because it would become known that she was driving against doctor's orders. She could be sued for everything she has.

I asked the doctor if he would compose a letter on his letterhead reiterating everything he'd just said to me and send me the letter, which I would then go over with my mother.

I called the driving school and cancelled the original appointment; they agreed to do a driving test with her on a Saturday, when I can take her there myself and make sure it gets done.

If she does flunk the test, I have the very unpleasant vision of having to take my mother's car keys away, as well as the car. I'd have to get my sister to drive over with me so that one of us could drive away my mother's car. I would then sell the car for $2,000 or so to a private party and deposit that money in the joint checking account I have with my mother, to be used to help defray the cost of having an aide come to the house a few days a week. This was something my mother already rejected out of hand, but if my mother couldn't drive herself, she'd have to have someone to drive her to grocery shopping and doctor's appointments at the very least.

Although the hourly rate of around $15 to $20 an hour seems reasonable, even having someone come just 2 hours a day twice a week really adds up, to $4,000 on an annual basis. My mother gets just $942 a month from Social Security ($11,304 a year) but she does have $130K in savings. We would have to dip into savings a bit to cover the aide or other transportation options.

(There is a regional, low-cost shuttle bus for seniors that I looked into once before, but they have a fairly involved process and rules for making reservations which seemed a bit beyond my mother to remember. If you are a no-show just a few times they stop accepting your reservation; i guess that was a problem with some riders in the past.) I'll have to call senior center to see what other options there may be.)

To sell the car, however, I need the title, which I noticed was still sitting on my mother's desk when I was there yesterday. She had it out because we had been talking about buying her a new (used) car and we thought we would trade in her current car when we bought the new one from a dealer.

However, after having my mother's mechanic check out her current 96 Subaru wagon with 110,000 miles, he said there was nothing wrong with it save for an issue with the rear differential that if it got worse, would cost more to fix than the value of the car.

So I don't think we would want to sell her current car now anyway as the mileage is not too bad and although it looks like an old car, mechanically it's in decent shape. It just needs new tires, which I'm wondering if I should replace with just middle of the road new tires so that I could sell it more easily.

So though I was tempted to take the title when I saw it on her desk, I was afraid, if she saw it was missing, that she'd go nuts looking for it again after she had such a hard time finding it to begin with. So if I wind up having to take the car keys, I will need to remember to also get the title as well.

Right now I'm in a holding pattern, waiting to receive the doctor's letter this week which I will then show to my mother. I also need to talk to my sister about it, who's been largely out of the picture.

I did go an AARP meeting Friday night for caregivers. It wasn't exactly like a support group but she did go over various resources and such that I haven't had a chance to dig into. I have so little time to make phone calls and such since I have just a half hour during my workday, during my lunch break, when I can make a private call or two on my cell phone sitting in my parked car in the parking garage. If I can't reach someone and have to leave a message, it's a problem since if they call me back at my work phone, I can't have a personal conversation there.

In January, that situation should improve quite a bit as the company, in another cost-saving measure, is going to squeeze 200 people now on 3 floors onto 1 floor of the building. To do that, they have to reconfigure the seating (get rid of the cubicles in favor of long rows of side by side desks...UGH) and most people will be required to work at home to some extent.

I am hopeful that I'll be able to work at home at least 2 days a week, maybe 3, and have already let my boss know I'm really concerned about my ability to write (it's difficult now) when people will be sitting in such close quarters. There are some very loud people who talk in their normal speaking voices or louder as they talk to coworkers sitting further away and there is no custom of hushed conversations as there were in other workplaces I've been in. It amazes me that people can be either oblivious or just not care whether they're disturbing others.

I am just so f****** frustrated with my mother right now. I feel like I've had it.

Everything I've done to try to maintain her quality of life (ie, living independently in her condo)has been refused and rebuffed.

Two weeks ago I arranged to have a representative of a home health aide agency come to the house to discuss what they could do to help her. He spent a long time there, but after he left, she said she wasn't interested.

Yesterday I used a vacation day to accompany her to a followup office visit with a neurologist to discuss the results of her testing. He told us she has early dementia (something I long suspected) and recommended 3 things:
1. A medication that can slow progression of memory loss and cognitive decline
2. A driving evaluation to make sure she is still safe driving.
3. So-called physical therapy where they teach you ways to compensate for the memory loss.

I scheduled an appointment for the driving test as well as the physical therapy and she got her prescription. I thought we had made great progress and were at least attempting to take control of things.

Then today she did what she's always done. She read the warning label on the prescription drug, which listed possible side effects of diarrhea and digestive issues, and even though the doctor told us NONE of his patients experienced any side effects, she no longer wants to take the drug.

She has also reneged on taking the driving evaluation because she says she thinks it's "premature" and is doing "fine." And she doesn't want to spent the $185 for the evaluation.

Keep in mind she has plenty of money. She's not frugal. She's just a tightwad.

I am just so upset with her I told her I didn't want to speak to her again. She doesn't get the connection between the medication slowing progression of dementia and prolonging the amount of time she can live as she always has, in her condo. Most rational people would at least try the drug if there was a chance it could improve memory loss, but she has always been anti-medication because she routinely reads prescription warning labels, freaks out at the long list of possible 1-in-a-million side effects and refuses to take the med.

Will I really not speak to her again? I probably will, but I feel like this is my last option, the very last bit of leverage i have. Because I am the only caregiver; my sister wants nothing to do with it and hasn't helped at all.

Why should I jump through hoops to try to help someone who doesn't want to be helped?

I have a neighbor who had her mother, who had Alzheimer's, living with her for a number of years, but the disease worsened and her mother any number of times would wander outside the house late at night (they live on a busy road) in her nightgown screaming that my friend was trying to poison her. Paranoia is a hallmark of late stage AD. Finally, my friend couldn't handle her anymore and she signed over responsibility to care for her to the state, who assigned an attorney to oversee her mother's care. At that point, she was put in a nursing home; I don't think the attorney ever even met the mother.

I've spent so many years planning for a comfortable, fulfilling retirement. I am not looking forward to 10+ years of wrangling with my mother.

I plan to go to a support group this Friday night. I feel constant stress and frustration and I am tired of sacrificing my own time and happiness for nothing. I am angry at my mother for being so god **** stubborn. I am angry at my sister for not giving a s***, and apparently not even caring if she ruins her relationship with me (not that we ever had a good one).

I made plans to accompany my mother to her followup visit with a neurologist to go over her test results for dementia/Alzheimer's.

Since I had both that appointment and a podiatrist visit of my own, I had to take the day off today instead of the Friday I had originally planned. Well, I guess that's what PTO (Paid Time Off) is for.

I wasn't sure how my mother was going to take it. I was already pretty sure she has dementia and I know it's been on her mind too.

The doctor didn't make a grand pronouncement, but indicated her test results showed she did somewhat worse than others her age. He then started talking about a medication that can help slow the progression and preserve what memory you still have. My mother was a good candidate for this since she's considered early stage.

My mother's first response was (as I knew it would be) "I don't like taking medications." But between the doctor and me, we talked her into trying it. So she starts at half the normal dose, 1 pill a day for a month, then she goes for a followup visit to see how she's doing and to begin the full dose schedule. A month's supply of the drug only cost her $2.50.

So I asked what the difference was between dementia and Alzheimer's and he said Alzheimer's s just one type of dementia and when I asked point blank if my mother had dementia, he said yes, but in a way that perhaps my mother didn't pick up on.

In addition to the meds, the doctor also suggested what they call physical therapy, but which are actually one or more sessions where they teach the patient different ways to compensate for the loss of memory. I thought this could be very helpful to my mother. Right now she has little notes all over the place, but just keeping track of the notes after a while is too much. So I urged her to try a session of this and and we made the appointment.

Finally, the doctor recommended she get an evaluation of her driving, and I scheduled an appointment there as well. It costs $185 and of course Medicare doesn't cover that, so while my mother protested the high price, she didn't flat out say no or object to the appointment....until later, that is, when she emailed me and said she didn't see what the hurry was and thought it was premature and that it might rain next week. I told her I'd reschedule if it rained, but otherwise, I'm not going to let her off the hook. I sure hope she doesn't give me a hard time becus this appointment is during the week and I can't keep taking days off to take her to her appointments.

When we got out of there, I wrote down all the appointments and what she needed to do on a single piece of paper and she was very appreciative as she said it was all "overwhelming."

After that, I went to drop off trash at the landfill, got my hair cut at Great Clips and did some grocery shopping. When I got home, I raked a part of the lawn where the pine needles are too thick for the mower to mulch, and I also raked up piles of leaves collecting in the driveway. I made some baba ganousch with 2 eggplant I had and a big pot of soup for lunches for the rest of the week.

One other thing happened that concerns me. Last night when I got home I noticed one of the cats had spit up on the stair. It's not an uncommon occurrence but this time it was bright red and looked like blood. Both cats appear perfectly fine. But last week was when Luther ate a long (3 to 4 inch) pine needle, although he later barfed up a hairball and I could see tiny bits of the pine needle embedded in it. I don't know if that was part of the pine needle or all of it.

And Waldo last night was sort of acting like something was stuck in his throat. As I said, they both seem fine now.

I was debating whether to try catching Waldo to bring him to the vet, but I honestly don't know which cat may have spit up that blood, given the little bit of background I told you about here.

Luther also does play too rough with Waldo, but again, it looks like bright red spit up. So I am still worried about it but haven't done anything about it. The good thing is there's a new 24/7 vet's hospital right down the road from me and you don't need an appointment. They are open day and night. So if I need to, I can zip down there with either cat.

I had thought maybe it was a dental issue or abscessed tooth with Waldo, but he has been eating fine so I don't think he would be if had a bad toothache.

All in all, i feel like I got a lot accomplished today without too much stress. I'm very appreciative of having the ability to take a day off from work and still get paid, a perk of a perm job. Tomorrow it's back to work. It was nice to have this breather in the middle of the week, even if the things I had to deal with were not so pleasant.

I bought a new hot water heater insulation wrap at Lowes since I replaced the hot water heater last year sometime. I'm not sure I'll get to putting it on today (in fact, I probably won't), but it'll go on my To Do list for next weekend.

Tuesday is going to be a tough day. It's the day my mother has a follow-up doc appt. when we will learn if she has dementia or Alzheimer's. I don't know how she will take it but I know it is definitely a concern for her.

I have a podiatrist appt of my own in the morning and then I will head straight to my mother's doctor's office after that.

I had only been planning on working from home Tuesday, but now with my mother's appointment, I might tell my boss I'll take the day as a day off so she doesn't think I'm taking advantage or anything. The doctor appointments will take up close to a half day.

A friend and I were supposed to take my mother car shopping Saturday but I decided to defer this until we hear from the doctor on Tuesday. If the doc says it's not safe for her to drive, it doesn't make sense to buy her a car beforehand. Although I doubt she would comply and stop driving if the doc said she shouldn't anyway. As it was, she couldn't find the title for her current car but then she found it Saturday morning after I had already cancelled car shopping with my friend.

I also plan to call her mechanic Monday to ask why specifically he was saying she needs a new car. Putting a few thousand into the 96 Subaru might still make sense if she's only going to drive another year or two, compared to spending $10 or $12,000 on a new (used) Subaru, plus higher insurance, registration, etc. I just can no longer assume my mother's capable of having this kind of conversation with her mechanic. If I ask her what someone said, I never get much of any detail from her.

The advantage of moving forward with a car purchase would be that I'd be removing a small portion of assets from her overall estate and converting it into something (a car) which I don't believe a nursing home would go after and claim. Other than this, I don't anticipate my sister or I seeing any inheritance. I'm fairly sure whatever savings my mother has now will be taken by a nursing home when the time comes.

Some of you were asking what happened with the potential paraplegic date I had. I decided to not respond again, as he'd requested, and did not see him. I know some of you probably didn't like my reaction to the prospect of getting involved with a paraplegic, but I have to assess my own life right now and decide whether I would have the time or energy to deal with that. Looking at the facts (he lives over an hour away, I work full time with a 35-minute commute and I have the responsibility of looking after my mother and an old house I'd like to fix up enough to sell) I don't see how it would work.

I did meet someone else who lives right in my hometown. Soooo much better. He is a cop (in another town an hour away) and works the nightshift. So that would be a challenge, too. He also had bariatric surgery sometime ago and said that while he has lost a lot of weight, he still has a ways to go, and having met him once, I basically agree. Partly because of the weight issue, I'm not sure I'm romantically attracted to him, but he is a super nice guy and I know the weight should not be an issue if I can be patient and understanding about that. (Most men wouldn't give a heavy woman a second look, that I know for sure.) So that's why we're getting together later today for a 2nd meeting. Actually, I'll be getting to meet his horse, his 3 dogs and his chickens, and then we'll be going out to dinner before he heads to work later tonight around 10 pm.

I could really use a supportive person in my life because dealing with my mother can often be frustrating, draining and stressful. In fact, it's the biggest stress in my life these days.

I do have friends that I talk to about things that come up, but there's nothing like having someone close to you whot you can really lean on. Right now I have to make a lot of decisions about my mother on my own, and I often feel I totally screw it up and do things with a sledgehammer when it doesn't have to be that way. It's just that my mother resists every suggestion I made to help her and I have to spend all my time cajoling, persuading etc. etc and actually that doesn't always work anyway. As mentioned before, patience is not a virtue of mine.

At least now the lack of money is not a problem. I am saving 22% of salary and still have plenty left over to spend on home improvements or just stuff that pleases me. And, maybe as a way to deal with the crappola and stress, I do spend on myself. Yesterday I went to a craft fair and spent $52 on a beautiful dried floral arrangement, which I would show you if the photo problems on this site were ever fixed.

I got another 30% off Kohl's coupon so I bought my sister a shirt for Xmas and one for myself for just $15. I also dropped off a few things as donations for Good Will, filled up the gas tank and spent an hour or so at my mother's to go through her "paperwork."

When she wasn't looking, I trashed a bunch of junk mail which she insists she wants to read but I know she never will get through. She has piles of such junk mail in various rooms of her condo which I consider a fire hazard and an obstacle if you're walking. Most of the time she insists on going through each individual piece of paper with me explaining what it is before she will agree that I can toss it; this process takes hours. So when she went to the bathroom, I grabbed handfuls of stuff I knew she'd NEVER MISS.

I mowed the lawn and leaves on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I picked up produce from the farm (cabbage, eggplant, peppers, apples, kale, butternut squash) and blanched a bunch of kale, which is drying now and just about ready for the freezer.

I'm running my new dishwasher for the first time right now. Seems to run fine and now I have a functional dishwasher. I'll have to remember to use it more often. The main thing was i needed the new one for when I sell this place.

Luther, the death-defying Maine Coon, just used up another of his 9 lives. That leaves him with 6.

On Saturday, I tracked in a white pine needle off the wet pavement outside. White pine needles are 3 to 4 inches long and rather pointy at both ends. I absentmindedly noticed the needle on the seat of a chair.

I walked into the kitchen to do something and mentally told myself to remove the white pine needle before Luther found it.

I walked back to the dining room chair to see the needle was GONE and Luther chewing on something in his mouth. I sprang for him but of course he ran and swallowed it before I could catch him.

I had visions of him puncturing his intestine. Either that or he would throw it up. I debated whether or not to bring him to the vet but decided I would watch him closely for any signs of discomfort or, hopefully, vomiting.

No vomiting. Yesterday, each time he went down into the basement, I followed to see if he pooped. No signs of the pine needle, and I really was not sure if he swallowed the thing whole (shudder) or at least chewed it into pieces.

Finally, this morning, I was downstairs when I noticed he threw up a hairball. I put on some latex gloves and examined it closely. There were pieces of the broken pine needle embedded n the hairball. I did not pull the whole thing apart to see if the whole pine needle was there, but I am feeling greatly relieved nonetheless.

Luther has been his usual unconcerned self.

If you're keeping track, Luther used up 2 other lives by 1. Jumping out of a 2nd story window onto a brick patio below and got away with just a sprain and 2. Swallowing a foot-long piece of string, which can be deadly if it wraps around his intestines.

It's a long holiday weekend for me. Yippee!

Yesterday morning I had an appointment to visit a second assisted living community for my mother, this one in my hometown. It seemed pretty nice, but the cost seemed nearly as much as the top of the line one I went to a few months ago. I was surprised, because Masonicare is a non-profit. I've also come to the conclusion that my mother isn't ready for an assisted living community; the people there seem so out of it. She would never accept having 3 meals a day prepared for her. She's a health nut, like I am, and she is very particular about what she eats.

Most of yesterday afternoon I spent with a rep from a home health aide agency trying to convince my mother to have someone come over at least once weekly. Nope. Basically, she doesn't want to spend the money. It will be about $20/hr. As is usual, she wound up giving the RN a tour of her art in her condo. It covers every square inch of wall space, including in the bathrooms. He just kept saying "wow." I guess I'm used to it, having grown up seeing my mom's space that way.

After the very nice male RN left, we went for a walk around her condo complex. She's still getting around very well for an 80-year-old. I may try instead for simple, periodic housekeeping services. I would have preferred home health agency visits instead but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

After I left my mother's, I filled up the gas tank at an incredible $3.29 a gallon. It's so low here. I also stopped in at Lowe's and used up 2 gift cards to buy a new broom, which I tried out last night in the driveway and outdoor stairs. It works quite well, maybe even better than the corn husk broom I had for years.

I watched another World War II movie on Netflix last night. I admit to being preoccupied with WWII and today I found myself wondering what side of the war my German relatives were on. My grandfather came to the US as a teen from a small town in Germany and I figure that was at least 10 years before the war started, but he had brothers he left behind. Were they in the German army or part of the Resistance? I wonder. I exchanged a few letters with Peter H., my cousin and the son of one of my grandfather's brothers. He never married or had children, and my dad and I learned he died a few months ago; I guess he was in his 60s and as I understand, he was the last of the H. line there. I wish I could have asked him some questions about that.

Thank goodness my 2 half-brothers have 3 little kids between them, or my entire family line would cease to exist after we go.

Today I managed to mow the front lawn and mulch the leaves and pine needles at the same time. I also picked up my produce at the CSA. I think we have just 3 more pick-ups left in the season.

Today I got some big 'ol tomatoes, potato fingerlings, a butternut squash, apples, kale and yes, more eggplant.

I bagged some sunflower seed that I'm going to bring to work. It's the strangest thing...there's an Eastern wild turkey that is hanging around downtown in the city where I work, right in front of our building. It is very much out of place and I can't imagine why it continues to hang around. It does not appear that afraid of people but there seems to be nothing for it to eat. Hence the sunflower seed. I am sure the security guards in our lobby will scold me if they see me feeding it, so I'll do it out of sight of them.

Tomorrow my new Whirlpool dishwasher will be installed. The guy is supposed to call today/tonight to tell me what time.

I emptied out my sun room in preparation for the winter season. Since it's unheated in there, I take most things out, although I don't know if very cold air alone will harm things like a bamboo mat or an upholstered lounge chair. As it is, I put all the stuff from the sun room in the family room, which I also close off for the winter. (As an addition, it's the only room in the house with electric heat, so no use adding to my bills just to heat that one room.) I also already put up the insulated curtains on the French doors to that room.

My boss has ok'd me reverting to my "winter hours" at work once Daylight Savings Time ends in a few weeks, which means 9 to 5:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 to 5. I'm up at the crack of dawn with the summer sun, but in winter I can't stand getting up in the dark, so the later start helps with that. It will be dark when I drive home, regardless, but at least I'll have a more leisurely morning routine.

I called my handyman to see if he could tackle my next home improvement project in 2 weeks when I am taking a Friday off. I'm trying to steadily knock off a long laundry list of things that need to be done.

This project is all about the ceiling in my office. It has some wood moldings that criss-cross the ceiling that I've never seen anywhere else, kind of like tic tac toe. I like the look, but there is so much old paint, and some ill-advised caulk that I applied, that it looks kind of crappy. I want him to hand sand all the criss-cross moldings and then paint the ceiling. It's probably something I could do but it's a little labor intensive and I know his full day charge is $200. I figure it's worth it for him to do. Maybe it wouldn't even take a full day, but maybe it would with all the prep work.

So for the past year or so I've been dabbling in online dating. Nothing to date worth mentioning here, as I've met a few people one time and decided not to pursue it.

Recently I met a guy who seemed pretty appealing. He's written 3 books and is a writer like me. He does live 1.5 hours away from me, but becus of what i saw as common interests (he's also vegan like me) i told him i was willing to take things a step at a time and see what happens. Then he suggested we get together for lunch at a restaurant midway between us.

It was only when I tentatively agreed to do that this weekend that he said oh, by the way, I'm a paraplegic following a diving accident in the 1990s. He uses crutches to get around (a wheelchair in the house) and that it doesn't stop him from doing most things, but he does do them more slowly.

This is when I started feeling queasy and like a real shit. Do I, with my f/t job, aging parent issues and old house to keep up really want to take on a long distance boyfriend who happens to be a paraplegic? I don't think I do. Do I feel like a total cad for saying that? Yes.

In the email that he told me that, he said if i wasn't interested to just say nothing at all, in big bold letters. Evidently he has experienced rejection in the past, and I'm sure it's very hurtful. Yet i feel like he set me up for this, in part, by not telling my about this until after I'd agreed to meet him. If I were in his shoes, I would just put it all out there in his dating profile; that way, he could be sure that anyone who struck up a conversation with him was ok with it.

So I don't know what to say to him. If i tell him the truth, it would be rather hurtful. I was thinking of just telling him that since we spoke I met someone else from the dating site and hit it off fairly well with them and want to see where that leads. I did in fact meet someone else on the site who lives right here in my hometown and who I DO plan to meet this weekend. It's just that that hasn't happened yet.

Do you think I should say that? Or do you think it's advisable to just take him at his word and say nothing further to him, no explanation as it appears that's what he'd preferred. It seems pretty cold.

I went to the podiatrist today about the ball of my foot that's been sore since 2010. Two previous podidatrists had not taken x-rays so this one said let's do it, which we did, much as I hate x-rays, and naturally it showed nothing. Which is only to say that I don't have a metallic foreign body in my foot. There could still be a sliver of glass, a wood splinter or even a cat hair. So then we talked and he painted on some salicylic acid, which is commonly u sed to treat warts, except that this was heavy duty salicylic acid. I'm to wear the bandaid til tomorrow morning and return to him in 2 weeks time, at which point the acid will have dissolved my skin at the point of entry of whatever it was, theoretically making it easier to get whatever was in there out. If if's even in there now.

I know 4 years was too long to wait, but I didn't think a 3rd podiatrist would have any more tricks up his sleeve, and i found that by wearing padded band-aids I could get around just fine. That is, until i pulled my hamstring and all of a sudden my foot is sore again, with or without a band-aid.

We'll see what happens.

A man struggles to survive on a disabled sailing vessel in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Seventy-eight-year-old Robert Redford was outstanding in this movie made last year with no dialogue and only him in the movie except for at the very end of the movie. It makes you wonder whether, in similar circumstances, you'd lose it and give up or if you'd rise to each challenge that could determine whether you make it or not.

If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it. I saw it on Netflix.

Back to the more mundane aspects of my life...

Yesterday I picked up a new comforter set and some towels at JC Penney. I browsed Pier 1 but didn't buy anything. I bought a fall coat at Kohl's with my 30% off coupon (I will still have to take up the sleeves on it, which are wayyyy too long) and earned another $10 in Kohl's rewards. I picked up some Chinese and decided to eat it in my car so I could then go to TJ Maxx in the same shopping center and wound up spilling the tinfoil tray of food that was balanced on my car seat. I had to throw half the food away and hose down the floor mat. Also filled up the gas tank and vacuumed both floors of the house.

Friday night I mowed the front lawn. It's getting dark out earlier, so I knew I had to mow asap upon getting home from work or I'd be mowing in the dark. I made it.

Today I need to mow the back, as much to mulch fallen leaves as to cut the grass. I also MUST vacuum the car, which is getting a little too grungy and soon it'll be too cold to vacuum. I also have to pick up my CSA shares at the farm and make a pot of soup for this week's work lunches.

I had an idea this week about my family room carpeting. It's the only room in the house with wall to wall carpeting, and that carpeting is now grungy with its cat vomit and hairball stains and with the cats scratching and pulling bits of it up on a daily basis. I'd love to replace it but it doesn't make sense while my cats (ages 5 and 13) are still here. I remembered that when I bought the place, I saw there was hardwood flooring under the old carpeting I replaced with my own, but someone had painted it a dark brownish color. I'm toying with the idea of ripping up my wall to wall carpeting and not replacing it with more wall to wall as I was intending to do (at some point). The "distressed" look is in, and I think this hardwood floor might look distressed. I was thinking how good a white ultra-luxurious shag area rug would look against the dark floor color. Of course, the cats would scratch that too, so I won't do it now, although I could pull up the wall to wall carpeting and throw down a kilim 5 x 7 rug I already have which doesn't really shred when the cats scratch it.

The other option would be to strip the old paint and refinish the floors. I believe the addition was added to the house around 1990??? but I did just want to confirm that lead paint, which was banned in 1978, wouldn't be an issue. I tried to confirm the year of the addition by calling first the assessor's office, and then the building dept., but neither place could tell me. I know I saw the date written somewhere so maybe I can find something if I go thru my various files for the house.

Each week this month I have some sort of change in my work schedule which will frankly give me a break from the unending routine of working at the office. Tuesday I'm working from home so i can see a podiatrist. The week after that we have Monday off for Columbus Day (and I'm getting my new dishwasher installed that day), plus I have a dentist appointment mid-week which means I'll leave work a little early. The last 2 weeks of October I have each Friday off as PTO (Paid Time Off). Hooray.

I have an oval-shaped mirror that used to be my grandmother's with Victorian-looking, brass-colored handles with garlands or leaves around them. I believe it's meant to sit flat on a dresser and you put your little perfume bottles or what-not on it, although it could also be hung.

Probably not worth much, but it's rather pretty and has sentimental value. I don't really use it. It's been sitting in my closet. I've been wanting to buy an antique silver or silver metallic-type spray paint so I can change the brassy color to silver. There are so many choices out there so I haven't made the purchase yet, but I hope to before it gets too cold to do this outside.

Maybe I should just use the leftover spraypaint i have called Looking Glass Spraypaint. If you use it as directed, it will look like a mirrored reflection, but if you alternately spray the paint with spritzes of water, which you gently blot, you can achieve a surface that looks like mercury glass. However, that technique is only intended for objects made of glass; I'm not sure how it would work on the metal handles of this mirror. I'd had to ruin it, although i guess if i had to I could just spray paint over it again with something else.

I had to get a furnace cleaning so I was able to work at home today. The furnace guy is here now. It's yet another reason to get gas heat when I eventually move. I'm paying $150 for the cleaning, and that's a "special" early season price. I do it every year for peace of mind purposes. My coworkers with gas heat informed me they never do "anything" to their gas heat lines. It's maintenance-free.

I scheduled a lot of things for the month of October. A routine dental visit. A trip to podiatrist for a longstanding sore foot problem. A free flu shot, courtesy of my employer. And I cleared 2 days off later in the month, along with my dishwasher installation on Columbus Day, which is a paid holiday for me. It's a new Whirlpool model I got at Lowes; with installation it will be $592. The old one is broken and being 12 years old, I didn't think it was worth it to repair it.

I'm concerned about much higher electric rates in the coming year. In Connecticut, electric rates were deregulated years back in an effort to increase competition and bring down consumer costs.The state maintains a website where you can compare rates. The rate I currently have locked in for me and my mother is good thru Nov. 30, 2014 but then it will likely increase. I've been checking the state website but right now all the different choices are quite a bit higher, per kilowatt hour, than what we're paying now. And they don't seem to be offering the fixed rate in a year-long contract. All I'm seeing is 3 months locked in and then variable rates, which I'm not comfortable with.

My friend R. agreed to go with me and mother to go car shopping for my mother. Her mechanic has been telling her for some time now that she needs to replace her 98 Subaru. Now he's telling her the tires need to be replaced. No sense replacing tires when the car itself is getting too old. I don't like the idea of my 80-year-old mother still driving at all, but she's not going to give it up. AT least she avoids the highway and the vast majority of her driving is probably limited to a 5-mile square radius. So we'll go to the local Subaru dealer to find another wagon in the $10,000 range. I did a quick search of the dealer site and Kelly Blue Book and saw that the dealer has 5 Subarus from about 2006 to 2008 with automatic steering in that price range. I honestly don't know how my mother can drive the one she has, with its extremely heavy steering and spongy brakes. Hopefully the newer models will be a big improvement for her.

There is no way my mother could negotiate a car purchase on her own with the car dealer sharks out there (I learned that myself last summer and felt very ill-equipped) so I'm hoping we can find a car in a few hours at this one dealer. I really don't anticipation that at her advanced age she will driving a whole lot longer. She does have a good mechanic who could also check out the car if we could arrange that somehow.

I may hit Kohl's on Saturday....it's the last day I can use my 30% coupon. I'll also go to mall to pick up my comforter set and towels at JC Penney, and since I'm in that area, I may browse Xmas Tree Shop just for the heck of it. And maybe Pier 1 as well.

I want to start getting active with the book club here in town. There are 3 of them, but the 1 i want to join meets in the evenings. They have a new book (Reconstructing Amelia) so I have to get it soon and start reading before the Oct. 16 meeting date! Basically, I will have 1 week to read it. Maybe I'll zip over there after 5 and get it tonight to give myself a few more days.

Am I like the drunk stumbling around in a room full of teetotalers when I say that? I know most people here are trying to save money or get a handle on their finances.

I am, too, of course, but for the past 5 years I've lived on very little, so with a pretty well-paying job, I am feeling like a newly liberated shopper.

I did my monthly expense report a few days early this morning, and I see that year-to-date, I've saved $19,744. That's not counting any appreciation of my investments; it's just a strict accounting of income minus expenses from January through today. So I feel I can relax my frugal ways just a bit.

I'm not out of control, but I did just now spend $96 on some things at JC Penney. They're having a pretty good sale this weekend. I picked out a sheet and comforter/sham set plus some bath and hand towels. I chose to pick up at the store in a few days to avoid a delivery charge.

I also got a 30% off coupon for Kohl's, so I may go there for clothes, although i don't like their stuff nearly as much as I like Macy's. It would be tempting to hit the mall too, but I fear I may go overboard there.

This is going to be our last summer weekend with temps up in the low 80s. And perfect sunny days.

Today was pay day. I automatically have $1555 of pre-tax money going to my 401k each month. That's about 22% of my pay. I also paid about $1200 for both my homeowners and car insurance. That was charged to my credit card so I can at least score some bonus points.

I'm in a spendy mood. Usually I contain it by directing to to mostly food. But I'm looking forward to the new comforter and towels (an indigo blue) and sure wish I could pick them up this weekend.

My handyman Billy did a good job with the concrete filling in some cracks in my front landing and step. He only charged $80 for his labor and supplies. Even handymen around here want to charge you $100 just to show up, so I didn't mind paying him that at all.

I hope to hit a tag sale and a church craft fair this weekend, talk to my mother about her IRA RMD, plant some tulip bulbs and do a hundred other things. But hey! It's the WEEKEND!!!!