Now that the 3rd quarter is behind us, I thought it would be a good time to project my total 2025 income and see if I could manage a small Roth conversion while still staying in the 12% bracket, which tops out at $48,475. Cus I'm not sure my income would ever exceed the 22% bracket, which tops out at $103,350 for a single person, so not sure during a Roth conversion now and paying 22% taxes would offer any benefit.

To my surprise, my projected income this year, between annuity payouts, traditional IRA distributions and a few taxable mutual fund distributions, total about $63,000, and that's not including dividends or cap gains on two taxable brokerage funds. That was surprising since my expenses have remained in the low $40s for many, many years. But then I already forgot the January purchase of my new SUV, and the whole idea of taking out a loan for the purchase was to avoid a larger $30K bump-up in my income that would push me into the 22% bracket. I've been aggressively prepaying the loan in addition to the regular payments, and all told, all those car payments do seem to account for most of my income increase. (I plan to have it paid off next year.)

Although my income will be over $63,000 this year, with the standard deduction of $15,750, my adjusted income will be roughly $47,416, just within the 12% bracket. Cap gains and dividends will likely add another $3,000 or so to that total, but I guess I can live with that.

Wow, the Shark cordless vaccum (the PowerDetect) that I bought 3 months ago (which I love) has jumped in price by $80. I gave it a 5-star review on Amazon.

Violet's owner picked her up 2 days ago. We had a nice chat about the dog and also their travels to Berlin and Prague. I am definitely missing the dog, but I am also enjoying me freedom again. I would not be opposed to dog sitting again should the opportunity arise. 

Didn't do a heck of a lot today. I am STILL sick; it's been harder to get rid of than I thought. Which stinks, as I want to go to the gym, get back to invasive work, etc. Well, I did manage to change the bed sheets and vacuum. 

Yesterday I pulled up my tomato plants but am still picking squash and snow peas.

...

I am nearing the end of dog duty this week but unfortunately came down with a cold (!) that forced me to curtail the twice daily walks totalling about 70 minutes to just a single, 25-minute walk. (She still gets out 4x daily to pee and poop.)

I've gotten a little attached to the dog and in some ways will be sorry to see her go. She is so exuberant when she's going for a walk and is very easy to care for. She follows me around the house wherever I go. I could see myself pet-sitting again in the future if the opportunity arose. I actually lost 3 lbs just walking with her!

Today is the first day I'm feeling more energy and I think I've turned the corner. However, out of an abundance of caution, since my friend is coming to pick up the dog on Friday and since I've had a low fever (99.4), extreme fatigue and hacking cough, I decided today to get a covid test. Luckily, I tested negative, but I'm supposed to retest myself in 2 days, right before my friend arrives.

A friend and neighbor dropped off some dog food and a box of tissues the other day, which I really appreciated. She's a nurse, and I think she chose the right profession because she is a very caring individual.

Otherwise, not a whole heck of a lot new. 

I have 10 more transactions I need to charge on my credit card in the next 8 days ( by month's end) to earn my $100 credit.

Looking forward to some much needed overnight rain.

I like to make my money work for me, especially when I don't really have to do anything to earn more/get more back, aside from being alert to various promotions.

Today, in a single trip to BJs, I was able to take advantage of 3 separate offers:

The 1st was spending at least $100 at BJs to earn $10 off. Done.

The 2nd was to purchase $30 in "baking goods" to get $10 off. Since I was already getting walnuts and Truvia, I threw an extra bag of walnuts into my cart to earn that. (They freeze well.) Done.

The 3rd was that by getting gas and then groceries at BJs, that was 2 more transactions on my US Bank Altitude Go credit card. Specifically, transactions #36 and #37 toward 50 transactions by this month's end, to earn $100 credit. (It was a 2-month thing.) Done.

Dog sitting has been interesting. She wasn't eating her food, so her owner said I could try canned. She LOVED the canned food, which I first served straight out of the can to make sure she'd like it; the next meal, I mixed 50/50 with her regular food, to try to reduce the number of cans of dog food I'll need to buy for the remainder of her stay with me (another week). It's kind of pricey. I'll be reimbursed, but I think he's kind of price-conscious.

She has been very cooperative about peeing and pooping. In addition to her 2 walks a day, she also gets 2 quick trips outside just to pee. At first I was thinking I might want to use the garden hose to dilute the urine on the grass so I don't get dead spots, but that really hasn't been necessary since she has taken to peeing exactly where the grass meets the asphalt part of my driveway, and it ends up trickling down the driveway. Once it rains, it will rinse away.

She absolutely LOVES her walks, and I suppose you could say this is her one bad habit: pulling me along on the leash. I haven't had the heart to reel her in because she is just so happy and exuberant; she has at times PRANCED on the leash in her enthusiasm to carpe diem. The rest of the time, she is very good about not pulling on the leash, especially as I walk out the door with her or when she has to wait for me to put her leash on or off.

Still, I will be glad to have my life back when I give her up to her owners next week. Right now, all my personal chores (mainly, weekly trip to the transfer station, grocery shopping and the gym) all revolve around her schedule and needs, and then I fill in my my errands in between her outdoor time. The weather has been absolutely perfect for an extended period of time; I can imagine this kind of schedule would not be so painless in the dead of winter or rain, so I'm grateful for that.

I'm trying to take her with me when I can, just to give her more stimulation in between walks; so far, we've been to the bank drive-up window, the local Stop & Shop for a quick run in, the library (to return a book using the drive-thru thing), the transfer station and the healthy pet food store, where she got extra attention and a treat from the clerk. 

For the 2 walks a day, I've mostly been sticking with a large campus (maybe 200 acres) in the center of town very popular with dog walkers and walkers, baby strollers, etc. Lots of paved walking paths, a fruit trail, victory garden for the food pantry, municipal offices, volunteer ambulance, community center, pool, senior center, ball fields, the gym I belong to, a micro-brewery and the location of our farmer's market, road races, arts festival, etc. It's getting a little boring becus I'm going there often twice a day (not including when i go to the gym), but I like it because they have poop bags, which I've run out of, and trash cans, plus I can avoid other dog walkers, which I have been doing just to play it safe. 

I tried taking her on a newly built sidewalk that extends from my neighborhood for about a half-mile to a small park, but that road is so busy with traffic it's not that enjoyable. I also tried a larger park that is made of of a small pond and grassy areas, but there's a lot of geese poop and the grass is pretty high. So I just return to the large campus in town. It's a convenient 5-minute drive, although one of her walks is at 5 pm and it can be tough making a left turn off my street during rush hour.

I continue to be impressed by how price competitive places like Whole Foods and BJs can be. The BJs price on organic cosmic crisp apples were better than Wal-Mart. Whole Foods also continues to beat Stop & Shop on a variety of foods, I've noticed. 

Making slow progress on assembling things I have purchased, a chore I HATE doing. I've assembled everything from a full size outdoor composter to a desk and other stuff, but I've also returned something once (a simple bench!) that just wouldn't assemble.

Lawn mower

The Greenworks lawnmower arrived yesterday and I was relieved there was not much to do beyond charging up the battery and inserting the battery. I like to mulch my grass and leave in place, so I didn't even need to attach the bagger.

I had found a mower guy who was $5 more expensive per cut than my last guy, so I just gave him the job, and he said he'd be here today, so I just briefly tried out the Greenworks and liked it very much. I want to do a full mow to see how long the battery lasts and just to assess overall performance and if it's easier to push with the somewhat lower weight, so since my mower guy will only come every other week, I'll do a full mow on alternate weeks, starting next week. But so far I am very much liking the simplicity of design.

Meanwhile, I posted the old Black & Decker mower on Buy Nothing and even with the needed wheel repair issue, I already have a taker who has picked it up.

The new mower was here. Actually there were 2 mowers who also did trimming and then blowing. What a racket. I'm going to ask him to skip the blowing. It's too noisy and I have pollinators around here that could be harmed. But anyway, without having gone out there yet, they seem to be more thorough; my old mower had his son doing the trimming and he did a half-a**** job.

Fancy water filter

My Biroux water filter is another story. Right out of the gate, I had a really vexing problem priming the 2 filters. They give you 4 different ways to prime them, and none worked. Beyond frustrated! They shipped out a replacement filter and auto primer, but that still took 6 days. I was so relieved the new auto primer worked exactly as it should. You charge the primer, attach to the filter, hook on the side of chamber, then push the on button and the Start button and it does its thing. It runs for about 2 minutes and then shuts off. Then you do the same thing with the 2nd filter, which is about the size and shape as a rolling pin.

Next step was doing the red dye test. Had to do it a 2nd time as pink water came out when it should have been clear. I don't think one of the filters was attached correctly.

I thought I was NEARLY ready to go using this thing, but once filled up with water, the spigot developed a slow leak/drip. There's a bunch of washers on it where it attaches to the lower chamber of the unit, but it's not leaking from there; it's leaking from the spigot itself. So the company just told me they will have to send me a replacement spigot. I'm hoping that's not another 6-day wait. I thought there might be a workaround for that. I have a wood floor in the kitchen so I have to be absolutely sure there's no leak.

Yardwork bag holder

I bought a bag holder thing on Amazon that I thought would be very helpful when doing yard chores. I often collect the berries of invasive plants I come across on the property and bring them to the transfer station to reduce the repopulation cycle going on here. It would be very helpful to have something that holds open the large trash bags I use for yard work so I can just dump stuff in there instead of holding the bag open with one hand while putting stuff in with the other. I gave away some old trash cans on Buy Nothing a year ago; I suppose they would have worked as well.

Anyhoo, the highly rated bag holder I ordered on Amazon never arrived, even though they said it had arrived at Teterboro Airport, and then Manchester, CT, but then no further updates since a week ago, which I thought was strange and maybe means they lost it. I finally decided to cancel that order and order the same item from another brand, but now I have to wait to cancel per Amazon's rules.

Dog-sitting

Ms. Violet is very well-behaved and couldn't do anything to be easier to manage. She's very quiet, sleeps through the night, etc. The real challenge for me is 2 of her 4 daily walks, at the very beginning and end of the day. Getting up and dressed to bring her outside around 6 am, even just to my driveway area. The noon walk is her biggest walk, at around 40 minutes at a popular spot in town that dog walkers and others love with its paved trails, ball fields and lots of open space. I've been only going there as it's the easiest place to avoid other dogs if you want to, though, because Violet's parents say she loves people but other dogs is a 50/50 proposition, and I don't want any problems.

The 5 pm walk is a bit shorter, at about 20 or 30 minutes. The last walk is at around 10 pm. That one is hard to get up for. I've been getting away with letting her do her thing alongside the driveway or across the street in a grassy area between homes. I thought today that i would try to use the garden hose where she pees so i don't get dead spots on the grass.

It's just that now, at 8 am, I am feeling tired from having gotten up too early and the 10 pm walk kind of wakes me up at a time when I'm usually already comfortably ensconsed reading in bed.

She is not a big eater, though, which her parents said was something new, that she doesn't immediately finish her meals, so breakfast may sit around til noon. Her meals are just dry food with some pumpkin puree mixed in. She does seem to have a strong interest in people food, but owners are not in the habit of feeding her that, so while I gave her small bits of chicken or cheese, I'm thinking I'd better curtail that or she'll let it be known at the table when she gets home with her and her parents won't appreciate it.

In other news...

It's funny how your chosen careeer and line of work kind of lives on even when you're retired. I worked as a marketing writer and journalist, and that's largely what I do as a volunteer for my groups. It's what I'm good at, and I really do enjoy it.

I started a series of interviews with "leaders in the litter cleanup community," which I've posted on our Facebook page. I bet you didn't know there WAS a litter cleanup community, but indeed, many small towns around here have their own dedicated litter cleanup group. The first guy I spoke to had such an interesting background and strong leadership traits at just 23 years old that I decided to interview him and write about it. The man I interviewed today, from a different group, told me his most interesting litter "find" was a $100 bill! I'm waiting for him to send me his photo and then I'll post it.

I'm trying to grow the presence of our little knotweed group, which is becoming better known elsewhere in the state simply because most towns don't have this kind of group. We are now on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky, in addition to our own website. I am new to Bluesky but am flummoxed by the 300-character limit on posts with no way to edit them. You just have to delete them and start over if you want to change something. I still like Facebook best.

This month we're meeting with the sustainability director of nearby city who expressed interest in seeing our demonstration plot, which shows a stand of knotweed divided in 2, with one side having been merely mowed and the other treated with herbicide. There's a pretty dramatic difference in how many canes came up on the mown side (hundreds) vs the herbicide side. We've done this multi-year project becus there are a lot of people who hope to kill knotweed by tarping it or cutting it repeatedly so as to avoid using herbicide. Neither work.

Later in the fall we're putting on a training station for our town's Dept. of Public Works. We hope to raise their awareness of knotweed, learn how to identify it and then avoid mowing it when they mow the roads, or if they must mow due to sight line issues, then collecting the fragments, the smallest of which can resprout into a new plant.

For such a small group (5 of us), we're doing a lot.  There will also be a public knotweed presentation at the library soon.

I attended a native plant sale and bought 4 plants (3 butterfly weed to expand on the few tht I have, and a buttonbush, whic would make the second). They are small seedlings and have all been planted now.

I have just 3 more weeks left in my current credit card promotion. I need to make 21 more transactions of $10 or more in that time (for a total of 50 in 2 months) to earn my $100 statement credit. I think I can do it, but I may have to intentionally make lots of small purchases at the grocery store toward the end if I find I haven't quite nailed it.

.

This week I reviewed Kiva loans from Philippines and Kenya, about half and half, and one from Uganda. As is typical of all Kiva loans, about 90% of the borrowers were women. All of the Philippine borrowers were people who fished for a living and wanted money for a boat engine. All of the Kenyan borrowers were farmers wanting about $175 for fertilizer and good quality seeds.

The average annual income in Philippines is about $4,000 and in Kenya, it’s closer to $7,000, so even a small loan of $175 is a big deal.

I finally finished writing out 200 postcards to encourage environmentally oriented voters in Virginia to vote in their upcoming November general election. Then I’ll just need to certify I completed the project with the Environmental Voter Project and then mail them on the designated day this month. 

Saturday I went to a new-to-me native plant nursery with 2 friends. I bought 6 plants.

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before this happened. As you may have noticed, I am very health- and nutrition-conscious. About 5 years ago, I bought a countertop glass water pitcher with a charcoal filter in it that’s supposed to filter out certain things, but who knows if it really is?

So after reading a lot about microplastics, nanoplastics and PFAs (forever chemicals), I decided to spring for a decidedly more expensive reverse osmosis system that’s supposed to be highly effective at filtering out a bunch of stuff, including what I’ve just mentioned.

I was hoping to have the whole thing assembled on Saturday, but hit a stumbling block when I tried to prime the 2 filters but could not fit the rubber gasket thingie they provide onto the end of my modern kitchen faucet, so the alternative way to prime the filters is to soak them in water for 8 hours, which I did.

The good thing is that I only will have to do this once a year, cus that’s how long the filters last. And next time, I will know to plan ahead so it’s not an inconvenience. But then when I did the red dye test, to make sure the filters are working as they should, well, only about a tablespoon of water percolated thru one filter, and none from the other. It's possible I overtightened the nut on the ends of filters, or maybe they're not really primed? At this point, I want to call customer service regarding next steps, and due to the holiday, that won't happen til Tuesday.

Anyway, I’ll be excited to get this system working and see how or if it changes the taste of my water, which is supposed to retain whatever beneficial minerals it already has.

So, very recently I was actually toying with the idea of getting a very part-time job, just for a little pocket money. I retired in the spring of 2023 and by all accounts I will be perfectly fine, financially, but I can't help feeling a little stressed by constantly rising prices on just about everything, and it makes me feel a little insecure.

Every time I use a calculator, and also, Dido from this site tells me this, I will have about $7,000 a month in income for the rest of my life. This boggles my mind. Me, a lifetime frugalite. But I think that's once I start collecting Social Security, which won't happen for another 4 years, so I do feel cautious about going on a spending spree.

Then I was having a phone conversation with an old friend who is heading to Berlin for a few weeks with his wife this fall (so very, very jealous) but was having a hard time finding someone to look after his dog. I volunteered, and so I have my first pet-sitting gig that should yield about $500. They are very well off, like, the top 5% based on net worth, but he tells me $30 a day is on the low end for pet sitting services. They are coming up next week to leave their dog with me for a few hours so the dog becomes acquainted with my home before the 2-week visit.

This should be interesting. I have not owned or lived with a dog since I was a child. I imagine that by the end of the dog's visit, I will know for sure whether I might like to get my own dog (a retirement dream for many years during my working life and having cats) or not.

The dog is used to going outside to pee like around 6 am, which is a little early for me, and then the last outside visit would be 10 or 11. It might get a little old, but we shall see. By all accounts, she's a very well-behaved and easy to care for doggie. We have met before.  I don't have a fenced in yard and I don't really feel I want to walk the dog in the yard because there are always ticks around here; so I'll have to get in the car and driving a short distance to a nearby, better manicured park.

Also along the lines of making extra money, I'm currently working on 2 different credit cards for various rewards. I'm just about done with the spend requirement on the one card, which will give me $250 in credits for entertainment stuff. Which is fine, cus I've wanted to focus more on doing FUN stuff in my retirement at the same time I'm a bit concerned about rising costs.

The 2nd card could give me as much as $100 if I charge I think 50 purchases of $10 or more on it by August 31. I have no idea how many purchases I charge among all my cards, but it's a lot.  There are very few things I'm unable to charge, like my lawn mower guy, my property taxes and stuff like that. And I'm paying closer attention to the higher cash rewards different cards offer for different kinds of purchases, something I never could be bothered to pay attention to before. So yeah, I'm always using my Discover card this quarter at gas stations for 5% cash back.

My auto and homeowners policies are set to renew this month. They have both increased again this year, though I have a perfect record with no claims. I know it's based on other drivers and homeowners. I asked my agent if she thought the price hike for the car was reasonable, something I was having trouble determining since I just bought a new, more expensive vehicle in January. So she offered to shop it around to see if I could do better somewhere else. I'm not expecting another insurer to outdo Progressive though. I've been with them maybe 4 years now?

I recently purchased a cordless, rechargeable fan, about 8" diameter, and I love it! Being cord-free means I'm free to use it anywhere I like, including outside, which I may try at some point when I'm doing yard work. Although I don't often stay in one place. But maybe sitting on my patio under the umbrella table would be a good place to use it.

I had a birthday recently and my cousin wanted to send me flowers a few days before my birthday. When she called me on the day of my birthday, she asked if I'd received them, which I did not, and when she called 1-800-flowers they said it was delivered and gave her a time of delivery (but no photo). They promised to deliver them to me the next day, so I hung around here all day, but again, no flowers. She called them again and this time they admitted they didn't have the right flowers for what she had ordered, and promised to deliver today. Why would they lie the first time? I finally got them today. This florist isn't even located in my town, so that to me would be the first mistake, to tell a florist 20 minutes from you to make my delivery. Oh well. They ARE nice flowers.

I pulled out my 2 cucumber plants since they had succumbed to insects, but I did get about 20 cukes out of them. And now in their place I've planted a late summer crop of snow peas. In a few weeks, I'll pull out the first bed of string beans I planted, which are nearing the end of their productive life, and plant lettuce.

I always feel good when I can increase the weight I lift, pull or push at the gym. Today, I was able to increase the weight I'm lifting when doing Romanian deadlifts to 65 lbs. I hope to lift much more than that eventually.

I hit BJs this morning, then the dump and the gym this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'm taking my dad to physical therapy, and then to lunch at a cute country spot we used to love but then it closed. It's reopened as a Mexican fusion type place, much more casual than we usually eat but I think it's worth going just for the location, and actually, when I had lunch there with a friend following a protest rally this past Saturday, my chicken burrito was really very good. It's just that neither of us likes to order sandwiches or other foods you have to eat with your hands at a restaurant, him because it can be messy and me because I'm touching a lot of other stuff that grosses me out.

On the subject of the protest rally, this was one of the nicest groups of people I have yet to meet at any demonstration. This town is a very rural but wealthy country town, and the overall size of the group was modest, maybe about 35 or 40 people, but then again, its population is only about 2200 people. I just had some very nice conversations with different individuals, and all were very welcoming. 

I need to pick up the pace on my postcard writing for the Environmental Voter Project. I have 6 sheets of names and addresses, with each sheet having about 33 names. I have just a little over 6 weeks to write them all before they must be mailed, so that means one sheet a week. I am behind right now, but still have 3 more days.

I discovered weeds growing in my gutter in front. Wow. I never have that gutter cleaned out cus it has metal mesh covers on it but apparently, stuff does get in there. Have to see if my handyman might be able to do that for me. He's back from vacation in Maine soon.

Tomorrow I'm going to another rally with a new friend, this time in a different town, a country town. Then we'll hit the small deli down the road for an ice cream that happens to come from a farm here in my town, which I don't get to enjoy that often becus there is always a long line unless you go during a thunderstorm. 

It is with great sadness that I report the demise of my cucumber plants, due to cucumber beetle. The cucumbers were coming fast and furious. I got about 10 of them although 2 went soft in my fridge becus i couldn't keep up with eating them. 

The same may happen with my yellow squash and zucchini although so far, so good. Stringbeans have begun producing and I'm just waiting for the green tomatoes to ripen. I was at Tractor Supply today and bought some lettuce seed and snow pea seeds for a late summer crop that I may plant in late August.

This week in my Kiva volunteer work nearly all the loans I reviewed were the same (a little unusual). They were all from women in Pakistan wanting a loan to purchase a buffalo, to add to their herd used for milking and selling milk. I felt sorry for the buffalo: all were quite gaunt and underweight.

Geez, these Chase offers are getting into serious money...

Of course, they want serious money, too, which won't be forthcoming.

Tempting to think about though.

I went to one of those retirement planning programs last night. They always talk about Roth conversions. Which I understand can be very helpful in reducing taxes you'll pay once RMDs begin, but I don't think they're necessary for everyone, and they didn't mention scenarios where they wouldn't make sense.

There's a John Lewis/anti-Trump rally tonight, the first one I'll be skipping. It will be a muggy 90 degrees here at 6:30 pm, when the rally starts. It's just too darn hot.

This is a Great spangled fritillary on purple coneflower.

Liatris (blazing star) with black eyed susies.

I got a new Shark vac and tried it out today. Pros: It's definitely better picking up stuff on both bare floors and rugs than what I had, and I like the easy empty feature. It automatically adjusts its setting after detecting whether I'm doing a rug or floor so I don't have to keep pressing buttons.

Cons: It acts like a self-propelled Ninja on rugs. Kind of like a dog pulling on a leash. It's pretty loud, so I'll continue using headphone thingies. It's also still fairly heavy, but I guess you can't have it all. 

I brought my Toyota in for its very first, 6-month service, which will be free (ToyotaCares) for I think the first 2 years? 10 years? I'll have to doublecheck. But at this juncture, all they did was top off fluids, rotate the tires and reinsert a small plastic cover that I accidentally dislodged that goes over one of the license plate lights in the back.

Bummer.

Today was the day Home Depot was to install the new Andersen storm door with retractible glass/screen in the door (not interchangeable, where you have to physically remove one or the other). The arrival window they gave me was 11 am to 3 pm. They got here after 5 due to some delays and they brought the door up, still packaged. Thank god we chit chatted about the door and I discovered the door they brought didn't have the retractable feature which is what really sold me on the door because it would eliminate the need to drag the heavy glass insert up from the basement each time I changed it in spring and then again in fall. I was able to show him my original order on my phone; he said the guy at Home Depot gave him the wrong door. 

So he will try to return with the right door, hopefully on Friday cus he's on vacation next week.

A young woman is supposed to come over tonight with her fiance and truck to take a Victorian couch I got from Buy Nothing a few years ago and decided I don't want. They are moving into their first apartment together and need everything. I could have posted it as a regift on Buy Nothing, but I didn't want to hurt the feelings of the person who originally gifted it to me, should she see the post, so this way, I don't have to do that.

The heat is still brutal here. Even at the gym, where it's air conditioned, I could barely do 15 minutes on the treadmill. No doubt my electric bill will spike cus I've had the central air on quite a bit. The highest I can bear is 78 degrees but it's usually set at 77. The problem is that while the downstairs usually feels ok, the upstairs always feels a good 5 degrees warmer. I always say I'm going to sleep downstairs, but I never do.

Tomorrow is dad day: physical therapy, probably the bank and then lunch, hopefully at one of our favorite cafes, which is closing this week. They have plans to redevelop part of the center of town and possibly related to that, the landlord jacked up the rent, forcing the restaurant owner to make plans to leave. It's a very cozy place where he literally knows everyone by name, just like in Cheers. He will come over to your table and lovingly recite all the ingredients in his different dishes. There's not really a menu; it's all verbal. The food is good, the portions are huge and the price is reasonable. And it's in a very picturesque area where you can sit outside on a deck that overlooks a river. And he always serves you a pair of complimentary mini cannolis for dessert. He really makes you feel taken care of there and I'll be so sad to see it go.

There is a decent chance of rain overnight so I'm going to skip watering the garden. A welcome break. 

What's growing in the garden
The garden is reaping benefits. I've been enjoying lots of green/red lettuce for a while now, and it is only now starting to bolt.  I will miss it!  

I've also been picking small zucchinis, yellow squash and cucumbers. Not sure how long the zucchini will last as it's beset by cucumber beetles that I pick off when I can, and the leaves are riddled with tiny holes, but I don't feel comfortable spraying Neem as I noticed bumblebees nesting at one of the raised bed.

I decided to underplant everything becus in the past I squeezed in too many plants in 3 4 x 4 raised beds and they grew so much i had trouble even getting in there. So I just have 1 yellow squash, 1 zucchini, 2 cucumber plants, a row of lettuce, a row of string beans just starting to flower and 4 tomato plants.

Really, the one disappointment so far is the tomatoes, which I consider my most important crop. I only planted 2 initially, but we had an unusually cold spring, so while they were alive, they appeared stunted. I bought 2 more and just added them without pulling the original 2 out in case the first 2 recovered. So of the 4 plants i currently have, only 1 appears to be the right size for this time of year.

Next Day Trip
My "one fun thing" this week will be a trip to visit Wickham Park, which seems to have a ton of stuff to see (aviary, arboretum, many different gardens, nature musuem) and yet I hadn't ever heard of this place until about a year ago. It's about an hour away but no tolls.

Kiva Loans
This week I reviewed Kiva loan profiles for borrowers in Jordan, Kenya, Phillippines, Tonga and Uganda. 

Any Cordless Vac Recommendations?
I need a new vacuum.  I have a cheap cordless stick vacuum that only does a very modest job on bare floors and is not really good at all on rugs, but that's okay since I have just a few area rugs and a backup vac. I LOVE the cordless but need something more powerful but still lightweight.

I also have a corded canister vacuum which is VERY powerful but also pretty heavy and loud so I don't like to use it.  

Based on reading a zillion reviews, I've come to the conclusion that a good cordless vac doesn't exist and will settle for a corded one as long as it's 1) lightweight and 2) powerful "enough." I don't need it to suck up everything within a 5 foot radius and sound like a fighter jet, but it should be strong enough. If you have one you really like, let me know!

I had a nice little day trip to New Paltz, NY as planned. It was a guided tour of Historic Huguenot Street, an area occupied by the Lenape Indians up until the 1600s when the Dutch and French settled there, with their slaves.  There were just 3 of us on the tour.  Here are a few pix I took.

The Lenapi Indians were widespread in the NY/NJ area, and in fact they occupied the town in New Jersey I grew up in, at Ramapo Mountain. I went to high school with so-called Jackson Whites who were said to be descendants of the Lenapi and/or fugitive slaves, and who were somewhat ostracized. Today they are a recognized tribe with about 5,000 members.

My goal is to plan at least one "fun" thing to do every week. This week I'm thinking of asking a woman I know out to lunch at one of my favorite cafes in town which is closing this week. She is someone in town who gave me some plants from her garden a few years ago, and theN we met again in the gym last week and started talking to each other without realizing we had met before. 

I had my front door installed 2 weeks ago. The door is beautiful but there were issues with its installation like a pretty prominent scratch on the front that I guess I'm stuck with. The worst thing is the way they left my storm door. I have an old Andersen storm door I thought i could keep, but it doesn't work with the new door as they could not screw in screws for the molding so they were flush. Hard to explain but you can see screws half screwed in up and down either side of the storm door molding.  It looks terrible. Installers said they warned Home Depot about this and that Home Depot "should have" warned me, but they didn't. 

So I plunked down more money, about $600 on a new storm door, which I was excited about since it solves another problem for me: instead of having interchangeable glass and screen inserts, like my current door, this one has glass and screen that stays in the door itself, so no more heavy lugging of a full size glass insert up the basement stairs twice a year.

Installer guy said he would pick up. I started getting automated reminders from Home Depot that the storm door needs to be picked up. I texted the Installer company and he said don't worry, they're just reminders. Well, yesterday i got another message from Home Depot saying your order has been cancelled because no one picked up. Installer guy hasn't responded to me message. the job was scheduled to be done this Wednesday. I'll have to call Home Depot tomorrow. Super annoyed. I already left a bad review. 

I went to another rally/protest in a neighboring small town on Saturday. Probably about 100 people.

The End

My mason was supposed to finish up the basement walls today, but was MIA. He said he'll be here tomorrow.

It's very easy for me to waste an entire day basically reading stuff online. So, since we're in an awful heat wave and I don't plan on going out except to the gym after lunch, I decided to do more decluttering. I really can't stand living with so much stuff around that really has no place to go (but OUT) in my small (1650 sf) home. 

It often drives me nuts. I really like the concept of "Every thing has its place." That has hardly been the case here for 10 years, really since my mother passed. I've been gradually letting go of her things for the past 10 years but I just wish I coud speed up the process. Plus just the fact that having lived in one spot for 30 years tends to encourage "accumulation."

So today I chose to tackle clothing. This one's hard for me. I look at things in my closet, some of it not worn for YEARS (like dress clothes), and I say, well, it's a little stretched out but I can layer it under something. Or, it's something I wore to the office, but maybe I'l need it. Or, I bought this in the last few years, but it was a "mistake" and now if I get rid of it I'll never "recoup" the loss. And so on and so on.

I was able to purge 15 pieces of clothing, plus a Mexican blanket and a pair of sneakers. I think I could do more, clothing-wise, but I also hate to waste money. Still untouched are 2 homemade things that don't fit me, but my grandmother made: a robe and a sweater. Also 2 or 3 items that belonged to my mother that also don't fit me but were in her favorite color: turquoise. I still get emotional contemplating getting rid of them. People say just take a picture, but that would not really make it any easier. I don't know what they're going to take.

Over the weekend I decided to offer my big chair and a half on Buy Nothing. I've had it forever and am just tired of it, and am generally trying to lighten my load before I possibly move within the next few years. It's in very good shape and has washable cushions. Right after posting it, I saw a nice oak bench with cushion that someone was offering, and I jumped on it.

Sigh. i brought it home. But only one person expressed interest in the chair (maybe the timing is bad due to the heat wave) but turns out she has no one to help her carry it, and I have a bad knee. So she passed on it, even after I offered to ask for help on our local town group, where people will occasionally ask for a ride or help of some sort, and get it.

So now I've made things worse by adding a bench I have nowhere to put. I'm my own worst enemy.

I could wait til fall and post the chair and a half again. That often works. 

I have been gifting lots of other stuff these past few weeks, mostly stuff from the attic, where I have tons of art and even just frames I probably will never use. 

Also today I was in the linen closet and gifted piles of standard sized pillowcases, which I don't need because I now use 2 longer length pillows, which I just prefer. (I kept a few of the standard size for the fold-up twin bed guests very occasionally use.) I must've gifted 25 pillowcases! So now the linen closet only looks "moderately" stuffed instead of "greatly" stuffed.

I want things to look SPACIOUS so when potential homebuyers come, it will be more inviting. I mean, I am one person, yet my clothes take up 3 closets (1 in each bedroom). Then I have 2 linen closets upstairs: one has nothing but sheets, blankets and a bulky comforter (plus my vacuum and 2 hampers) and the other holds towels mostly, plus winter scarves, hats and purses. I just have too much of everything!

I think I'll take a break for lunch.

PS I recently communicated wtih "Jon" from this site and told him about the main SA glitch I've encountered: how you will often lose your entire post upon hitting the Publish button. Long ago I got into the habit of saving all the content as a precaution, but anyway, he said he would fix that; if you have any other issues, let me know, or just send a message yourself.

Early spring was a little frustrating because I couldn't seem to get any of my planned on home maintenance jobs going.

Now, things are moving along. 

After the back stone stairs were rebuilt last week, my vinyl siding guy has arrived today and is working to replace siding where 2 small holes were made during 2 different storms. In the last storm, the Internet wires were literally ripped out of the side of my house! The 1st hole appeared the day after a bad storm years back (I've kept it sealed from weather and insects with color-matching duct tape) so I have to assume a tree branch somehow hit it at just the right angle to actually puncture it.

He said he would not bill me for doing this (!) because I've been chasing after him since April and he kept saying he would be here and then he wasn't. However, I decided I should pay him for his work and didn't really feel right about it; it was only $220 that he asked for. It involves removing siding from the bottom of the north side of my house (that people don't often look at) and using that siding to the vinyl with the holes so that the color matches more closely; otherwise, natural fading of the vinyl from sunlight would really make the new siding obvious, especially since the one hole is right above the garage door.

So I told him I would pay him and he said don't worry about it and that it would make him happier if I left a good review for him.

Another project I felt I should do to get this house ready for possible sale down the road was to recoat my concrete basement walls. This is an old house, and some of the concrete you can even scrape off as dust with your finger. I thought crumbling concrete is not a good look.

I had my old mason (Alex) do 2 walls, in 2 different years becus it was expensive. And not long after he did it, I got lots of hairline cracks in the concrete, as well as some unsightly discoloration.  When I showed that to him, he didn't really seem to have any solution for it.

Now, my new favorite mason (Jeff) who just did the stone stairs outside gave me a price to recoat the 2 remaining baement walls for a price that is actually less than half the cost of what Alex charged me for 1 wall! And he knew why the hairline cracks had appeared, and said the solution was to apply a coat of a type of primer first. The discoloration can't really be helped, but he said he/I could, after the concrete dries, apply Dry Lock to cover up the discoloration. His charge for the Dry Lock application was $800, which seemed like a lot, so I may try to do it myself. I've done it before, but it's messy becus it has a consistency of water, so drips all over the place.

He told me unexpectedly he could do that job possibly starting today. (As it is, the siding guys are here and I need time to clear areas in the basement anyway.) But I want to get it done fairly soon becus in our conversations he mentioned he is 50 and will retire in about 5 years, so I'm thinking i want to get any remaining masonry projects done before he retires, becus his prices are great.

The front door install happens next Friday. The only other remaining maintenance thing I want to do this year is have an appliance guy come over to check my dishwasher for a possible leak; I haven't used it in a while becus it smelled mildewy when I was using it.

Oh, and Tabs, if you're reading this far, you wanted to know if cayenne pepper worked to keep the chipmunks out of my raised beds. Short answer is no. They still have an entry hole at the bottom/outside of one of raised beds but I have liberally been shaking the pepper on the soil on top where I'm growing veggies. The chipmunk is still digging around here and there but the digging is not too keep and he is not treating it as an entry hole that goes all the way down. I consider it an uneasy truce; as long as he doesn't ruin my veggie plants and stays in the ground, not the raised beds. I got a large container of cayenne pepper at BJs but it cost $8 and that stuff goes fast when you're sprinkling it like I am. Each time it rains, it washes some of it away, and even just watering the plants while trying to avoid wetting the pepper is not really doable. 

This am, I went to the gym to squeeze in a workout; later this am, my handyman came by and together we put together the tuteur I bought so that the coral honeysuckle a friend gave me could climb up it. Can't wait to see it grow; pollinators will love it.

He also brought his chainsaw and sawed to pretty much ground level 4 small tree stumps scattered around the yard; my mower guy will appreciate that.

After the handyman left, I decided to transplant some culver's root and mountain mint to different locations: the mountain mint was planted in a bed where a small serviceberry tree has been beset by destructive little green worms, and someone suggested that the minty smell will keep the insect that lays the eggs away. We'll see. Otherwise, I'll keep hand-picking the worms off, EARLIER in the year before they do more damage.

As for the culver's root, for 30 years it survived in the shade of a very large azaela bush I have, but as a sun-lover, it never thrived. So I've moved it to a much sunnier spot in another bed. The one clump I moved there last year is looking very good, except that it's too close to the tuteur, so I will likely have to move it again, if not this year, than next, depending on how fast the honeysuckle grows.

I'm already indoors to wait out the heat (and sun) of the day. When I go back out this afternoon, I want to:

1. Take the cover off my AC compressor thingie.

2. Cut back the many hydrangea branches rubbing against the corner of my sunroom. We don't need an ant highway there.

3. Repot a crowded haworthia (indoor succulent) that has a lot of babies.

4. Unpack and set up the new patio umbrella I bought in the table on the back patio.

5. Perhaps being overly ambitious, I'd like to put some screens back in on the upstairs windows.

6. If I have any energy left, I'd like to start my least favorite task: pulling poison ivy away from an area I cleared a year or two ago, by the mailbox. It was impossible to completely eradicate it because it was growing in and around the birch tree clumps. I suppose I could have sprayed, but I really try to reserve that for absolutely essential situations so as to avoid harm to pollinators.

7. I'd also like to clear brush and weeds away from some amsonia I forgot I'd planted on the north side so it's not swallowed up.

8. Start edging any one of a half dozen garden beds.

I am still monitoring the raised bed where the chipmunk appeared; cayenne pepper has been sprinkled heavily. I am doubtful it will work but you never know.

But first, there's lunch to think about!

This post will probably bore anyone who is not a homeowner or not interested in a myriad of details about home improvements, but I try to learn as much as a I can from each contractor who does work on this house.

I've been trying to jumpstart a few projects around here. I had a local contractor come out a mnth ago to replace my front entry door; he took measurements and gave me his price, which I agreed to, but I've been unable to get him over here to do the work.

(The old door is probably 1950s vintage, just a beat up wood door I once tried to paint with latex, which was a mistake. The new door is fiberglass (more energy-efficient with a clear stained glass panel insert in the top. It cost a lot of $$ so I hope it looks good!  I need jobs like this done should I decide to sell the house at some point. That old door is really an eyesore.)

Anyway, when the first contractor ghosted me, I tried calling a bunch of others, and their prices were substantially higher than his, and most couldn't do it anytime soon anyway. I was starting to feel a little anxious since, based on the 1st guy's assurance my chosen door would fit, I purchased the door, and there's a return window I didn't want to run up against.

The door has been sitting in my garage for weeks. Finallly, in desperation, I called Home Depot. They sent a guy out today to measure the doorway dimensions and make sure the door would fit. I started feeling anxious about this since, worst case scenario, I don't have the means of returning this door by myself and as mentioned, the local contractor is not returning my calls.

Luckily, Home Depot guy said it will fit. Now I just have to wait for their scheduler to call me to schedule the install. I won't be surprised if it will be another few weeks, but at least I'll know how long it will be and that they WILL show up.

Their price is higher than the original guy's price, but lower than all the other local contractors I called. I mean, the spread beween the lowest and the highest price was $1,000, just for labor, which seems way out of line.

In other exciting news, I had a plumber here to check the anode rod in my newish heat pump hot water heater. I had a different plumber here over a month ago to inspect and possibly replace it but they discovered they could not remove the rod due to lack of enough clearance between the top of the water heater and the basement ceiling. So I had scheduled for them to return; for over $900, their solution was to saw through the 2 copper pipes on the water heater so they could TIP the water heater to the side enough to allow removal of the rod. Then they would install "unions" on the copper pipes that would allow them to simply unscrew them next time I wanted to check the anode rod.

The junior plumber who was here at the time said if it were him, he would go back to the original plumber who installed the water heater a year-and-a-half ago to complain, becus he had never warned me that I'd be unable to remove the anode rod due to the low clearance in my basement.

I thought about that and ultimately decided to email the plumber (or his wife, who manages the business end of it) and very nicely explained the whole situation and asked if he'd be willing to cover a portion of the other plumber's bill, which I attached.

Maybe a little unusual (at least for me) but i figured the worst that would happen is he says no.

So the original plumber calls me and said the 2nd plumber was really overcharging me and that he could take out the old anode rod and replace it with a "sausage link" style rod (which is bendable becus it has joints) for less than half what the other guy was charging.

And so he did; they cut thru the original rod to remove it. And so I saved over $600 going back to the original plumber, and I thought he and his wife were very smart in the way they handled it; instead of handing over $$ to me to cover the added work that would be needed, he took the job away from the other plumber and got me back as a customer by not being so greedy.

I know that most people don't bother having the anode rod inspected and so in those cases, this wouldn't be a problem, but inspecting the anode rod can lengthen the lifespan of your heater, and since my uber-energy-efficient heater was an investment (not cheap, in other words), I wanted to protect that investment.

When the 2nd plumber took the cover off the top of it, I saw the top of the anode rod only. It looked pretty roached to me, very corroded and all. So I thought it needed replacement after just 1.5 years. Once the 1st plumber removed it last week, we could see the rest of the rod was in very good shape; so next time, he said, you don't need to inspect it for 3 years.

My handyman fixed a loose wheel on my lawn mower. I cut down a dead 8 foot high shrub myself, save for the 4 foot trunk at bottom, so he'll return with his chain saw to get rid of a total of 4 stumps I have around here. He's also buiding me a platform for my frontloading washer/dryer.

Once I get the front door done, i'll try chasing after the mason who said he'd rebuild my stone stairs leading to the back patio. Another one who ghosted me. And I have 2 small holes in my vinyl siding, another guy who ghosted me but still emailed me asking for a review!

I have a chipmunk (maybe more than one) that seems to have taken up residence in a raised bed where I'd planted lettuce! He ruined any chance I had for veggies in that box.  I bought some cayenne pepper today and hope to dissuade it, but I don't know if this will work.

Warnng: This post is only marginally related to personal finances. Proceed at your own risk.

One thing I noticed in recent years is all the different free skin cancer screenings they used to do at area hospitals are now nowhere to be found. They are usually held in May. Yes, I could make an appointment with a dermatologist, but I probably wouldn't bother unless I had a pressing concern. Still, I like to take advantage of the free clinics just as a peace of mind thing as I do have fair skin and have my share of freckles and moles.

So after wading through the many online notices of such clinics from 5 years ago (wish they'd take those things down already), I managed to find one for this year in a town about 40 minutes away, down county, and I decided to go.

I was also trying to schedule a possible walk, workout and coffee with a friend of mine after we'd already cancelled once. This is a friend who lives literally around the block from me but whom I don't see very often, just once in a while. Still, she is so appreciative as I've helped her get serious about her bone health and exercise; she's a nurse, but works these crazy hours and has a lot of demands on her time. She also is very health-conscious, as I am, so we have a lot in common. She told me yesterday that I was her inspiration and that she was so glad she met me. Which kind of melted my heart.

When I told her about the skin cancer clinic, she really wanted to go, so she joined me, and we were able to fit in some extended quality time together on the ride down there. Then we walked downtown to a local coffee shop with a lot of personality (kind of a funky vibe going on, which was surprising in such an upscale town) and ended up having a light lunch there.  I dropped her off back home and we reconnected again at the gym around dinner time, even getting one of the trainers there to show us the proper form for doing a Romanian deadlift. All in all, a fun and productive day!

Today is a day I set aside for yard work and more mowing. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to an afternoon program on the battle at Gettsyburg. Seeing as how I just returned from a trip to Gettysburg Nat'l Park, I thought it would be interesting to see how the speaker at today's program either reinforces what I just learned about that moment in history, or adds to it.

Then on Monday a small group of us from 3 different local environmental groups are coming together (thanks to me!) to walk a section of a local high vaue river and tape knotweed, the hope being we can return after July (optimal time to treat with herbicide is July-October). 

It's in a very sensitive riparian area, so we won't do foliar spraying, which is very nontargeted, nonspecifc and harder to control.  (You can't dig this stuff out; the roots go down 10 feet.) We may use an injection method for the herbicide (depending on how much knotweed we find, it may or may not be feasible), or possibly paint it on with a small paintbrush.

I have also ordered, for my own use at home, 100 very small mesh bags with a drawstring attached (typically used for wedding party favors). I plan to use these on the cut stems of an invasive vine I have in my yard. Out of an abundance of caution, I will attach these small bags around each cut stem I treat with painted-on herbicide so that no insects are harmed by landing on the stem. So I'm going to ask the people in these other groups if they'd want to use them also. They're very inexpensive. However, we have not secured any permits from the town or state yet, and that could really delay us big time. We have the town land use director joining the walk so am hoping he agrees the need to tackle the knotweed is urgent.

I am back, safe and sound, from a 4 day trip out to see Dido. It's a 3-hour trip there, so I spent Monday night, then Tuesday we left for Gettysburg, which I believe is another 2 hours.

Gettysburg National Park was really really awesome. I especially liked seeing the battlefield, which is quite spread apart and maintained by the park service as rolling hills of green, but you can definitely see how the hills were used by both sides for defensive purposes.

We signed up for the guided bus tour and I was delighted to find out that the two of us were the only ones on the tour (!) so the guide gave us his full attention. He said he'd been doing the tours for 41 years, so yes, he had an encyclopediac mind chock full of all sorts of fascinating details.

For example, there is a memorial/statue dedicated to the last documented Civil War veteran to die at the age of 106, in 1956. He was a Union Army drummer boy from Minnesota who enlisted at 14.

One of my favorite photos above.

This is part of the cyclorama, a massive, 360-degree painting done in 1883.

This is the Pennyslvania Memorial, the largest one at the park, representing the 34,000 Pennyslvania soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Each state that fought there has its own memorial.

This is Little Round Top, site of a pivotal battle and intense fighting that purportedly decided the direction of the war.

General George Meade, who President Lincoln put in command of the Army only 3 days before the battle at Gettysburg.

You can also drive around the park yourself and look at the many statues and plaques.

There are 3 battlefield observation towers, and we climbed this one.

From atop the tower you could see the small stone farmhouse that had been purchased by a newly freed slave who worked very hard to fix up his farm, only to have to run with his family for their lives when the Confederates were coming. When he returned after the battle of Gettysburg, there were shallow graves dug all over his land, the farmhouse demolished. A sad story. He got reparations, but less than he asked for.

Before leaving Gettysburg, we also stopped by the farmhouse that Eisenhauer purchased upon his retirement. It's pretty modest for a former president, but he had many famous visitors, including Winston Churchill, Nikita Khrushchev and Charles De Gaulle. This is the back of the house. We were not allowed to go inside, unfortunately.

After that, we stopped at the Hawk Mountain raptor center and walked the trails to take a break from the driving.

I have been busy as a bee since my arrival home Thursday. I mowed the lawn, planted my vegetable garden, went grocery shopping, went to the gym, etc etc. I missed the May Day demonstration in my town.

It's good to be home, but it was a really great trip. The weather was divine the whole time, there were no crowds and I hit no major traffic jams coming or going!

The weeks are so chockful of stuff going on. Tonight a friend is driving over, and then we'll do about a 12-minute walk from my house up to the town flagpole (in the middle of Main St) where we'll attend an outdoor candlight vigil for those who were wrongfully deported and detained in El Salvador.

I started a fundraiser on Swing Left to raise $$ to win back just 3 Democratic seats in the House to take back the House in the mid-term elections next year, which would go a long way in impeding the orange man's Project 2025 plans. Just 3 seats is all we need! (And not to lose any.)

So I made the first contribution; I was so happy to find someone I know in town made the next contribution, but otherwise, it's been quiet.  My friend who I'm seeing tonight is chair of the town's conservation commission, and I think I can also count on her for a donation (if she remembers). My goal is to raise $1,000 by the middle of next year, so I have some time, but still, I was wondering how to drum up more contributions as up til now, I had just about 85 or so Facebook friends.

I came up with the idea of expanding my Facebook network by friending more people with similar political views. It was easy to find them. So now I have well over 400 "friends" on Facebook, but so far that hasn't led to any more contributions. I also did 2 posts about why I'm doing this. If anyone is interested, I'll send you a link!

I really hate asking people for money. Back in the day, I used to participate in a lot of MS walkathons where I looked forward to the challenge of a 20-mile walk, yet disliked raising pledge money.

Today I had a handyman come out to repair one of my raised beds. He was very reasonably priced and came out right away. I would love to have him build a platform for my front-loading washer/dryer to save my back. Today was my first time using him. He was recently retired from other work and decided to do handyman stuff and couldn't believe how many single/divorced women have a need for this kind of thing. I know I certainly do.

I've been less successful getting other home projects going. One guy gave me a price to replace vinyl siding in 2 places where there are small holes, and I said great, let's do it, but twice now he failed to show up when he said he would. Becus it's a small job.

My go-to mason gave me a ridiculously high price for rebuilding some old stone stairs here and when I called him on it, he quickly dropped the price by nearly $2,000. This bothered me, and it's still a high price, so i had someone else come out but still waiting for his estimate. The large outfit (that means high overhead) quoted me a price that was even higher than my go-to mason, so that's not going to happen.

And still waiting for a price on front door replacement. I'll wait for Easter to pass, then will start pestering certain people again.

Tomorrow I'm taking my father to a German restaurant that's new to us. It's been 10 years since my mother passed, and traditional holiday celebrations like Easter have come to a grinding halt. It's crushing to me, but it's forced me to find new ways to mark the day. Some years I do nothing and have a pity party, other years a friend invites me over and in recent years, I've taken my father on barn tours and then dinner out. I think we've done 3 barn tours locally here, so I think we're done with that.

After Thanksgiving, Easter has always been my favorite holiday because there is not the pressure of gift-giving and it concides with spring. And what's not to love about bunnies and daffodils and eggs.

I planned to spend some time working in the yard today, and while I did, the time wasn't spent on what I hoped to do. That's because I did one more walk along the road front looking for invasive lesser celandine, which I found last year and dug up as thoroughly as I could. I didn't see any more on my first 2 "inspections," but that's becus it wasn't blooming and is otherwise very inconspicuous without its bright yellow flowers, which could be mistaken for dandelion if you didn't know better.

Anyway, I did find a good size patch of it in bloom near a culvert and wet spot where the skunk cabbage is coming up. It took some time, but I got out what I saw, but walking back I saw yet another largish clump of the stuff that wasn't yet in bloom. Sigh. I'll have to do that another time, but very soon, because once it does bloom, it becomes nearly invisible.

It all came from my neighbor across the street's house, jumping the road. She also has knotweed on her property, which I pointed out to her and she was very grateful I told her about it, but I'm not sure she's sprayed it yet. (Cutting it makes it grow more vigorously.)

So after successfully recruiting someone to serve as treasurer for my litter group, I found 2 more people who expressed interest in serving on our board. One of them will join us at our next cleanup in a week or so so that we can all meet him. The other one I need to talk to on the phone first, and then i will likely invite him to the cleanup for the same reason. Getting both these 2 people on the board would be a real accomplishment, especially since someone else who is currently on the board plans to resign in June.

Update: I would say at least 300 showed up tonight. Here are some pix:

That's my street to the right of the Meeting House (looks light a church).

This is the Episcopal church at the flag pole intersection.

So far, I've participated in 2 rallies and 3 protests. The rallies were different in that they were indoors and featured a series of very inspirational speakers making testimonials. One of my favorites was from a local church pastor. I would love to see more faith leaders speak out on what's going on.

At the last demonstration on Saturday, we got about 500 people to turn out in my little town of just 28,000, so that felt pretty good. And of course, there were much larger protests going on in major cities.

Here we can see be seen walking up Main Street to the flagpole while others are already returning.

My latest online fixation is watching short video clips of young, ungroomed men with long hair be transformed in a barber shop. It seems to be a thing. And once you watch one, a whole bunch more show up in your feed. It's amazing how much better someone can look with a simple haircut.

My other favorite is watching crowds of voters booing and shouting at Republican legislators at town hall meetings as they attempt to defend what 47 is doing.

I still have not looked at my brokerage balances becus I know it will make me anxious. However next month I'll be needing to take a distribution, so seeing my balances will be unavoidable. Luckily, I have about 3 years' worth of income sitting in a Vanguard settlement money market fund, so I won't lose additional money when I take the distribution.

Here are some handmade candies direct from Ukraine. I only tried one so far and it was very good.

Spring has sprung here in the Northeast but the temp are more like March.

Work with 2 of my volunteer groups is heating up, and these days, my rallies, demonstrations, phone calls and letter writing is very much another p/t job, so I guess you could say 3 of my volunteer groups are heating up.

I am very excited to have succeeded in building consensus between my environmental group and another nonprofit here in town that seeks to protect a certain river that is a sole source aquifer and supplies drinking water to half the population.

More recently, I joined a book club and the person who heads it up is none other than the chair of the river group. We got to talking about a certain thing we observed on the river that we both recognize is a problem.  He was very excited about the possiblity of partnering with us to tackle it. I was ready to make a presentation to pitch the idea at our meeting this past week, but too many people could not make the meeting. Nonetheless, I got buy-in from 2 key people and finally got the go-ahead to invite the river man to come to our next meeting for further discussion.

In my 2nd volunteer group, I also scored a win by recruiting someone to act as our group's treasurer. We are desperate for board members; he's got a lot of good experience. Someone else may be bringing on 2 more new members whom we have yet to meet.

In the more immediate term, we have a beach litter cleanup this weekend, and then I organized another cleanup in another town for late April. I'm picking up more of the detail work that our former exec director did. I have to write a donor acknowledgement letter, and after that create a flyer to publicize the 2nd town cleanup on social media. A lot to do. I don't have a graphic design background, so that part of it has been a bit of a struggle.

Not much else new at the moment. Just trying to watch my spending and maintain my exercise and healthy diet habits.

It's impossible to ignore everything that's happening in the world around us. I've become increasingly involved in local rallies, letter-writing and so on. I went to a rally yesterday in my hometown and listened to a series of heartfelt testimonials by local people. Included among them was the mother of a child killed in a school shooting here who somehow has the strength and determination to fight gun violence. 

I did not expect that this is the turn my retirement would take. It often feels overwhelming, but I strive to do at least one small thing each day, and I'm trying to build a network with like-minded friends. Nearly every town around here has formed some sort of group that people can join. It's really heartwarming. I sometimes wonder how history will look at this period 10 years from now. I want to do my part, and be on the right side of history.

In other news...

My credit score has I believe risen a notch with my new car loan payments. It stands at 834 now, and I got the same message Dido did. He he.

I'm trying to avoid making purchases at Walmart, Amazon and Target. It hasn't been that hard. 

I attended a wonderful democracy rally last night with a few friends. I'm so proud of my little hometown. The old gymnasium was packed to standing room only, and there was a very inspiring array of speakers, including representatives of the ACLU, local politicians, the local Indivisible chapter, and multiple other organizations fighting the felon. I think my favorite speaker was the pastor of our Congregational church. I was just impressed at his impassioned speech. Impressed because so often faith leaders retreat from political upheaval and play it safe by remaining "neutral." He was not. We also heard from a young Mexican immigrant who had already witnessed ICE arrests in nearby local city, some local high school students and a 97-year-old woman.

The snow and ice have finally begun to melt with warmer temps forecast all week before turning cold again. I took advantage by going out and doing some pruning: a fairly large branch of a Japanese maple growing straight into a mountain laurel, and a hard prune of bluebeard so it doesn't outgrow its space. Soon I am looking forward to cutting pussy willow branches to bring inside.

Now that I'm pretty much recovered from my cold, I did return to the gym for 2 days last week, but decided I would make Sundays my day of rest, and pull back the workouts from 4 days to 3 days a week. Since I was also going to the gym the other days of the week to use the treadmill, the whole schedule felt kind of demanding. Hopefully having Sundays "off" will make it feel more reasonable; it's not like I'm not going to do stuff so I will get some steps in anyways....

I am beginning to think more about various home improvements I want to do. There's always more than I can handle. I guess the first priority is repairing 2 small holes that were punched into my vinyl siding after storms. The 2nd  one occurred just last week when ice on some old cable wires caused the wires to literally rip out of the side of the house. I didn't even know the wires were not needed when I upgraded to fiber last  year, but they chose to leave them there. I have since had someone from the cable company come out and remove them, but now want to repair the holes to avoid insect or moisture infiltration.

I have actually been considering replacing my roof earlier than anticipated; it was last done in 2013 so it's just 12 years old. I would like to get metal roofing for over the garage and the front entry way and I would really like to get the guy who did it last time because he was honest and gave me a great price. I also have 2 exterior doors I'd like to replace plus a bigger fridge and would love to get an induction stove. And also redoing the stone stairs leading to the back yard.  Obviously I'm not going to get all of that done this year; I tend to knock off the "easiest" projects first so who knows what will get done, and when.

Happy to say I have already gotten both state and federal tax refunds totalling about $3k.

I decided this afternoon to go get some soymilk at Target as I was running low and this is a staple in my house. I usually get 4 half-gallons at a time so I don't have to go there so often. Hopped in the car, drove out there, parked and grabbed a cart.

If you've been to Target before, you probably know they have those nifty little compartments in the top front of the cart,  perfectly sized for your cell phone.  That's where I put mine as I headed down the long aisle to the refrigerated case.

I got what I needed, checked out and left the store, came home and did some reading, both online and off. At some point, I was on the computer and to log into a certain website, I needed to get the code from my phone. Except I couldn't find it. Anywhere.

I tried to locate it in the house with the Tile thing on my key chain, but nothing was beeping back to me.

It dawned on me that it was POSSIBLE I left it in the cart at Target. Oh no. Between my keys, my Faraday pouch that securely contains my car key plus my groceries, my hands were full and I am easily distracted. I called Target to see if anyone turned in the phone. The phone rang and rang and rang, and no one ever picked up.

Feeling desperate, I grabbed my coat and jumped in the car to go to Target. It's about a 15-minute ride to a neighboring town. About an hour had lapsed since I'd been to Target.

I began mentally to recall what was in my cell phone case: multiple credit cards, my driver's license and a small amount of cash. A lot of valuable stuff. As I drove, I was thinking it was POSSIBLE the cart could still be where I'd left it, up against a small island in the parking lot further away from the store since my car is still new and I don't want it dinged. So I've been walking further to any store I go to.

I pulled in to the Target parking lot and headed to the exact spot where I'd parked before. I saw the cart and pulled up as close as I could, but there were other vehicles on either side of it. MY PHONE WAS STILL IN THE CART. And all its contents.

I felt like doing a Hail Mary right then and there. Anyone who'd pulled up to park there could have grabbed the cart and found it, and may or may not have been honest, but I'm guessing with today's bitter cold, most people don't want to walk a freezing cold cart into the store when there are usually plenty already inside. The phone is in a brown faux leather case which has a pretty low profile and apparently was not seen laying in the front of cart. I am so relieved!!!! Also glad someone collecting carts did not find it, because from there, who knows....

I guess I'll have to go back to lugging a purse around.

I'm about 95% recovered from the cold (or whatever I had), and I am running very low on certain food items, but strangely, I feel little motivation to go out now after being cooped up for 2 weeks. I did go out and knock most of the ice off my car but still have to work on the roof. I guess it's the cold weather...about 25 degree high today.

I feel like I've gotten NOTHING done, and I don't even feel like rushing back to the gym. I am usually very disciplined about doing stuff. I do plan to return to the gym sometime this week.

I did already get my IRS tax refund and am waiting for the state tax return to be  processed.

I purchased a security key that I want to start using with all my financial accounts; hopefully I can set it up without too much trouble.

I spent $8 on a dozen eggs. I don't eat many, but like to have them.

Thanks for all the well wishes on my last post. That night I was feeling a bit more energy, but waking up the following morning, I felt just as sick again. It reminded me I've always experienced this pattern of feeling sicker in the morning but better in the evening, and this worked in my favor as a child since my mother would see how I was doing in the morning before deciding whether or not to send me back to school.

But today I am definitely feeling more energy and have a load of clothes in the dryer. It was on my list of things I really want to do, along with my state tax return and shoveling my driveway. Doing the laundry is easier, so that's where I'm starting. Now I've gotten real ambitious and am laundering my bedsheets and duvet cover.

One thing I really appreciate when not feeling well....I can sign into my US Postal Service account and use Informed Delivery to see what mail will arrive/has arrived in my mailbox today to see whether I need to walk down the drive and collect it or not.  I recognize the sound of the mail truck engine coming down my street so lazy me, I can check what mail he is leaving me WHILE he is leaving it.

I'd also like to walk down into the front yard and see if there's any sign of pussy willow catkins yet. Probably too early, but last year I was too late. They are very much an early spring arrival. I'd like to cut some to bring indoors, plus cutting them back helps keep them a reasonable size.

I see so many tracks in the snow. I know I have opposums and bobcat and not sure what else is roaming around. I keep a heated water bath for all. Last night's full moon illuminated the yard.

My plumber hasn't yet gotten the "sausage" anode rod he wants to use as replacement, if needed, in my heat pump hot water heater. He was here to do some annual maintenance but inspecting the anode rod was the one thing he couldn't do because I have very low ceiling clearance in the basement. Hard to pull the rod out from the top when you have just 6" or so. The "sausage" rod apparently fits in differently.

I like this plumber because he explains everything he's doing to me in great detail and will patiently answer my questions.  I'm one of those people who tries to listen and learn as much as I can about what any contractor is doing. Knowledge is power and all that. He said most people don't care to hear it all, but I do. The more I know, the less likely some other contractor is going to rip me off, and believe me, many do, in different ways.

I also think his pricing is fair, and I like the discount they offer on furnace cleanings after the first one. He is from a local town, and his wife manages his scheduling via text. There are two plumbers in my town that have a lock on business, or so it seems. People on the town FB group recommend these two over and over again, almost to the point where you wonder if they are the only 2 plumbers in town. "Best in the business, hands down" and all that. I have hired both of them and found them lacking for different reasons.

Actually, there is another local plumber I discovered when a rusted-out pipe end cap burst in my basement last summer, whom I also liked. It's nice to have 2 plumbers in the mental Rolodex for any future plumbing issues.

Given the Felon-in-Chief's abrupt, autocratic, bull-in-a-china-shop style of decision-making about wide-ranging programs, I am feeling more nervous about my future Social Security income. My plan all along has been to wait another 3 or 4 years before collecting, but will it be there, intact? I had always reasoned in the past that if one Administration or another started making changes that I likely would be grandfathered in to existing rules given my age, but I'm feeling less certain of that now. If I felt changes were imminent, I would move to start collecting sooner, but would really rather wait.

I've been sick with what I assume is a bad cold for nearly a week now. I've gotten vaccines for Covid, the flu, RSV and pnuemonia, but still I got sick! First time in many years.

It started out with at least 2 days of just a sore throat, which then progressed to a dry, hacking cough and fatigue. Now it's congestion and sneezing. Can't wait to shake this thing.

There was a point I was so tired I didn't even have the energy to read or watch TV, and I've already lost over 3 lbs. cus not much appetite and I was just eating the simplest things like toast, fruit and cheese. But I am dethawing wild salmon now for dinner.

Thank goodness a neighbor I don't often talk to texted me, I mentioned I was sick, she offered to get me anything I needed, and so I did ask her to get me cough medicine. I am more than halfway through that bottle already. Luckily, I'd done a big grocery shop right before I started feeling sick but those weights are going to feel extra heavy once I get back to the gym.

We had about 4" of snow last night but I'm not planning on shoveling, even though 2 more storms are headed here later this week.

In other news, I joined a Nature Book Club in town (we have 3 book clubs) so I'm reading a book about beavers now. The prior book, which was hard to get through, was about the high intelligence level (on a par with dogs and porpoises) of octopi.

I'm annoyed with myself because, well, I'm not used to driving a vehicle where you press the release latch on the back door to open it, and as I was feeling around for that latch, I inadvertently pushed inward (not that hard) on one of the license plate lights and detached it from where it was securely seated. So it's loose. Now I'm wondering how much $$ the dealer will want to fix that because the door is completely sealed in as far as I can see. Unless they have some sort of special tool.

I like the Toyota dashboard for my loan repayments, and I made the first of 2 big prepayments this past week. Still a ways to go...

                                                 

The tariffs imposed by our Idiot-in-Chief go into effect Tuesday in what he foresees as "America's Golden Age."

 It could be more painful than that. Remember, rising prices won't likely be seen immediately, due to existing inventory, except for non-durable goods like food. We get an awful lot of food from Mexico. And I do worry about opportunistic and unethical price gouging by those seeking to take advantage.

I recently started thinking about stockpiling a few things like paper towels, toilet paper and the like.  If I had a spare freezer, I'd fill it up, but since I really have very limited storage here, whatever buys I do now will likely have minimal impact on my spending in the months ahead.

My oil tank is still 3/4 full and should see me through most of the winter, but if tariffs remain in place through summer, it will definitely impact my usual dead-of-summer heating oil buy, when oil prices are usually lower. If I were an optimist, I might say this would all come to an end in 6 months' time, but who really knows.  Still, I'm glad my car purchase is out of the way.

What about you?

In other news, I finished my taxes but am anxiously waiting to get the email from the IRS telling me my filing submission was accepted. In past years, I put zeroes in a few blank spaces that caused my return to be repeatedly rejected. It was a very frustrating process because the IRS does not precisely spell out what the problem was.

But anyway, despite having made about $5,000 more in income than I predicted and thus having to pay back about $500 to the Affordable Care Act, I should still wind up with a $1400 federal refund. At some point when my income becomes more consistent, I will tinker with taxes I have deducted, but right now it's still a bit of a moving target.

I'm eager to begin next on my state tax return but can't do that til the federal one is accepted.

Recently, my 10-year-old Canon laser jet printer finally stopped working, and I had to buy a new printer.  I paid more upfront for a laser printer, hoping to do better in the long run than spending increasingly ridiculous amounts of money (like $35) on those little ink cartridges.

I decided to just get a b/w printer. I don't use it often but do require it from time to time, for things like my upcoming tax return, which I do myself and so need to print out all the forms.

I got a Brother model that came highly recommended by a few review sites.

But oh, brother, what a hassle it was to connect it with my desktop computer. I had to call my Internet company (Frontier), and since I couldn't remember my rarely used PW for my WiFi, the rep said I'd have to change the password. That's really what started all my problems, because then my 3 Rokus no longer worked. It took a good part of yesterday afternoon to get this all sorted out. They decided to ship me a (free) Eero for the fiber, but even though we had finally fixed the problem on the phone, she said just keep it in case I have problems again.

I was hoping to cool it on the spending spectrum after the car purchase, but alas, my 10-year-old printer is kind of kaput. I guess it was a good run. The rollers were just not feeding the paper in anymore, and after doing some research, there is a cheap little spring in there that often is the culprit and can't be replaced.

Since I wanted to print out my bank statement and then balance my checkbook, and tax season is right around the corner, I didn't want to delay too long, so after investigating whether I could insert a sponge, believe it or not, like one story I read, I just decided to spring (no pun intended) for a new one.

I rarely have need of color these days so I decided to go for a more economical black and white laser printer. Economical not in terms of upfront cost, which was about $200, but in terms of how many pages one toner cartridge wil print compared to an inkjet printer.

Although I hate Best Buy (horrendous customer service), Staples did not have the model in stock and I wanted it today, so that's where I went. I have not got it up and running yet and I absolutely hate having to do that sort of thing, but hopefully tonight.

I have many things I'd like to get done today but I know I won't get to most of them. Work out at the gym. Make lentil soup. Make date brownies. Hang the 2nd bird feeder. Winter pruning and invasive work in the yard since it's mild-ish today.

And now I'm feeling incredibly sleepy. Having green chai now.

I noticed the other day while driving that when I did a quasi-rapid acceleration, the chapstick thing I'd put in the little shelf in front of the stick shift flew out of there; I didn't really see where it went, but when I went to look for it, it was nowhere to be found. Could it be that the missing 2nd remote key to the car flew out of that little storage area in a similar fashion?

Again, for probably the 7th time I searched the floor of the car, front and back, and in between the seats in the center. I FOUND the chapstick but NOT the remote key. Dealer said it would cost $350 to replace and I'm still waiting to hear back what it would cost to install blind spot assist.