Yesterday was a super warm and muggy day following on the heels of same the day before. However, there was a small breeze in the afternoon and I found it so comfortable in the shade of my new side patio that I brought the book club book out and did something I rarely do during the daytime, with a small bowl of green grapes and the rhododendrons above me in bloom.



I also bought a few more pots for the Stairway to Heaven and filled them with impatiens, which will soon be overflowing for the resident hummingbird population.

I also did some yard work, weeding, and tidying up yesterday and I see that the onions I planted a week or so ago are sending up thin shoots.

I also had fun with my new toy, a Black & Decker blower, very lightweight to carry, that makes cleaning off all the leaves/spent flowers that fall onto the driveway from overhanging shrubs a BREEZE to clean up.

This particular chore would probably take me at least a half hour to sweep up the old-fashioned way; now it's literally a 5-minute job.

On Friday evening I drove over to friend R.'s condo and we hung out and talked with his dog. I tried to help him print out some stuff from Aviation Week which he wants to use for the helicopter museum he's been involved with for years. I had more luck when I tried to do it at home. On the way home from his place around 8 p.m. I came upon a massive snapping turtle lumbering across the road. The females risk life and limb to cross roads at this time of year to lay their eggs. I pulled over to the side of the road to ensure no one hit it, but the other drivers seemed very considerate and willing to wait, so I got back in the car. What I SHOULD have done is snap a photo but forgot I had the camera with me.

I also spent more time on the family tree research and this time discovered 2 sisters of my paternal great grandfather on my grandmother's side.

Also found more addresses I can check out in person, where my maternal great grandfather lived in Garfield, NJ, for instance. Occupations like "wire tester," "caster" and "mill worker" abound, reflecting the industrial revolution of their time.

I also now have the maiden name of my great great grandmother, another Irish name, as well as the name of my great great grandfather. They all appeared to have remained in one county of Northern Ireland until they emigrated to the US, which makes it easy to spot other connections to the tree.

The June meeting of my town's genealogy club, the final meeting of the season, is, with perfect timing, to focus on how to use the "new" ancestry.com. Perfect!! I have fumbled my way around with it but I am sure there will be a thing or two I can learn from this meeting, so I can't wait!

I've continued to implement the recommendations of the T. Rowe Price CFP. It really has been fine-tuning, nothing major. I somewhat diversified my small cap allocation to now be 9% in both small and mid cap stock. I also diversified my largely investment grade bond allocation to include a small, 3% allocation to high yield and 6% to international bonds. I still have 21% of my total bond allocation in investment grade bonds.

My short-term/cash allocation remains at 10% while I got rid of the REIT (a sector fund) and ratcheted up my international stock allocation from 15% to 18%.

Last night I spent a few hours fleshing out what I knew about my great grandfather and his 8 kids. All the kids except my grandmother were born in the US; she was born in Ireland. Hers was not a happy childhood, due in large part to her father.

I'm sure getting away from her father and starting a new life with her husband in New Jersey must have seemed very appealing to my grandmother. The rest of the family and all her siblings remained in the Philly area where they were born.

Probably one of the biggest successes of my few hours of research was finally learning where in Ireland my great grandparents were from. They came from a small hamlet called Derrytrasna in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Today it has just 250 people residing there and it's largely agricultural from what I can tell.

My other big find was the maiden name of my great grandmother, which opens up a lot of further research using that family name.

It was quite thrilling to be able to view and then print out copies of the original World War II draft registration card of my great grandfather, for instance, which revealed that the patriarch feared by the entire family, who was often drunk, was just 5'4" tall and weighed 154 pounds. He had blue eyes and dark hair with a "ruddy" complexion. Who would have thought you could capture information related to physical appearance by researching the family tree?

I relied on 3 primary sources to get myself started on ancestry.com; 1st, the "mini" family tree I wrote as a term paper for a college course. I relied on my letters to grandparents as a source of information for this project. I also got a great deal of info from a single letter I received back from my great cousin Peter in Reichenbach, Germany. He passed away a few years ago which I deeply regret; i remember him telling me he was the last surviving H....in Germany.
My 3rd and final source was my dad, who provided little details as far as the names of my grandparents' siblings, a detail I hadn't captured prior to this though I remember hearing certain names here and there.

I was getting so excited last night about what I was learning and I wanted to tell someone about it. It was then that I realized the only person I could share this with whose enthusiasm would equal mine was my father, so I drove over there this morning to share all the details.

He suggested we spend the night at a cheap hotel in the area of New Jersey where he grew up, and where all of my grandparents lived. We could look up some of the houses they lived in during their earlier years (before I was around), although to me it would be more interesting to check out the family home in Philly since it involved an earlier generation. This is what I love about my dad; at 83, he's still up for an adventure! I checked Zillow for all the addresses I had and the ones in Philly must be in a very bad neighborhood as they are condos now going for about $160K a piece. Or maybe real estate prices are just that much lower there, I'm not sure.

I found photos of the address where my dad grew up and the house (actually, 2 attached condos now) was built in 2015, leading me to realize that the original home must have been razed. The Philly rowhouses mentioned above were built in 1900 and they still stand.

I even printed out a copy of my great grandfather's death certificate, which reveals an amazing amount of information. He was 75 when he was hit by a car at a specific, named corner in Philly, brought to a hospital with a fractured forearm and that led to bronco pneumonia. The "informant" listed on the certificate was a name I recognized as one of his sons, and the address also correlated, so I could positively assert this was correct.

There's a lot of detective work involved in figuring out if the over one million records that pop up when you type in a relative's name is in fact your relative. That's why it's helpful to have any kind of info like birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, names and ages of siblings and the like.

I even have the name of the vessel my great grandfather came over on from Ireland, to the port of NY. (I found it much easier to focus on researching 1 person at a time, that's why so much focus on this one person for now.) And life several others I researched, he had just a 5th grade education. He listed his occupation as "Laborer."

Looking at the lives of my grandparents, they all were able to make comfortable lives for themselves by working hard. The ones who had the most success included my paternal grandfather, who was an auto mechanic and owned his own gas station, and my maternal grandfather's brother, who owned an insulation business. Which is just reinforcement of what we all know already, that the real money is to be made, not by working for others, but by working for yourself.

Of all my great grandfather's children, only one went to college, at LaSalle University in the Philly area. After graduating, he worked at the post office but was fired for some reason. After that he became a teacher but only did that for a period of time. After that, he became a bar owner and that was his most successful endeavor. My dad remembers him telling him that the illegal slot machines at the bar were the biggest money maker.

It would take another generation, my dad's, before more descendants got a college degree.

As for my dad's father, the one from Germany, I briefly mentioned to dad that I had just stumbled upon a concentration camp record from Dachau, which coincidentally was the one I visited when I was in Germany 30 years ago. It listed a Friedrich H. (my last name) as having been brought to that camp as a prisoner in 1942 and the homeland was listed as "Germany/Austria." He died there but there wasn't information about when. I don't know if he is at all related (there seemed to be plenty of others with the same last name although you would think it very unusual), but since he appeared to be German, I wondered if that meant he must have been Jewish. Unless he was a German caught doing something pretty bad, like helping Jews escape? (My grandfather was Lutheran and so all of us became Lutheran also.

I know that outside of Germany, they were putting certain eastern Europeans and gypsies in the camps, but I hadn't thought they did that to fellow Germans. Definitely something to continue looking into but the problem is that I don't speak or read German, so this is a big stumbling block in my research. That's why I quickly searched to researching my grandmother's side of the family since I knew it would be in English.

Aside from this, I bought 2 cucumber seedlings at a local farm and later in the afternoon i drove over to my friend R.'s place where we sat on his front lawn with his dog as I told him all about the family tree stuff and other things. I just got home a little while ago.

I hope to stay pretty close to home this weekend without having to drive all over the place on errands, but I will be going to yoga locally tomorrow and getting some free compost at the landfill. And definitely spending more time on the family tree.

I'm working from home today and I have tomorrow off, so my 4-day weekend has almost started! It will be an easy day, although yesterday in the office was pretty busy.

I have a week off coming up in mid-June, and I'm planning on having a garage sale to try to sell a lot of odds and ends of my mother's. I think I'd like to try to spend some time this weekend starting to bring things to the garage and pricing them. At least this time I have plenty of shelving and tables (also my mother's) which I can spread out on the driveway and use for the sale.

My friend R. has been asking me to come visit him in a town about 40 minutes from here. I was thinking since I have extra time off, this weekend would be a good time, but he works 6 days a week (not full-time, just 3 or 4 hours a day). So he wants me to come at probably the worst possible time during the entire long weekend, 5:30 pm tomorrow night! I'd have to leave at about 5 pm during rush hour when the crazies are out.

I have always butted heads with him, but we've been friends for 30 years now. He has insisted there is no west to east traffic on a certain road i would need to take to get to his place, even though i know that to be untrue since i drive it to commute in to work 3 times a week. He wrote in an email that I was "overreacting again to a nonexistent traffic problem." Which pissed me off, so now I don't want to go. It somehow often devolves into a contest of wills and he is always quick to externalize the source of the problem: me, overreacting. He is definitely pushing my buttons; he may as well be doing what Trump did, referencing me having my period or something.

This week I started physical therapy again for my numb toes on right foot. The numb toes developed after pulling my hamstring last spring, but I only went to physical therapy for 2 visits before my mother's health declined and I had to stop.

So I'm committed to going this time for a full month, twice a week, to give it a fair shot at possibly helping with the numb toes. I am not especially optimistic since it's been over a year now, but I feel it's worth the time and expense to give it a fair shot.

I have daily homework exercises to do too, twice a day, which I plan to be diligent about. It's 6 different exercises that stretch the tendons in the back of the leg and for symmetry purposes, I'm doing them with both legs.

This past Tuesday night I went to see The Race at our local one-screen movie theater. It's about the life of the athlete Jesse Owens. It was pretty good.

I'm entering 3 smaller pieces of my mother's in another art exhibit, this time at a frame shop in her hometown; she was very fond of the people there so I feel good about showing there. It's not going to sell if it just sits at my place. The fee is $20 for 3 pieces not to exceed 24" in length and the theme is "Summer." I've already picked out the pieces: one is a woven tapestry of tulips, another is a paper abstract of flowers and the third is a "woven painting" of sailboats on the sea. The drop-off isn't til early June; it would be great if something sold.

So far in the veggie garden I have a few rows of onions very recently planted, along with 2 good-sized eggplant seedlings I put in this past Monday. I also have basil, peppermint and 2 cherry tomato seedlings in large pots in my driveway.

I am wanting to get cucumber seedlings next, along with some elephant ears which I thought would look great with its large foliage against the corner by the stone wall and paver driveway. I've set up a small table out there with 3 chairs and it looks quite inviting.


Here it is in the early morning light. You may not think it looks like much, but this is so much nicer than the ugly gray asphalt that was there before!



The dark area behind the chair in the middle is the stone staircase leading to the backyard. This whole area does get early morning sun but for most of the day, as the sun turns in the sky, it is quite shady, cool and inviting. That's why I have a pot of impatiens hanging in the rhododendron. Which by the way is going to look really spectacular when it's in bloom in another week or so.

The table has a round 36" diameter top and the 2 concrete legs were actually the base of a concrete bench I used to have but the bench was chipped and damaged when a tree fell on it during a storm, so I got rid of it but kept the base, which really works great with the glass top.


On top of the table you can see 8 or 9 very round stones. I picked these off a beach somewhere (for the life of me I can't remember if it was a beach in Costa Rica on the Nicaraguan border or somewhere near Montreal, which is not on the coast(!) so really can't recall exactly where) but I will always remember that because when we returned to the US, the customs officer inspecting our trunk saw them and really yelled at me. However, he did not take them away from me. I did feel bad (I guess it is like people picking up seashells, which someday will be gone if everyone keeps doing it), but I have always loved using them in my garden displays.

I'm also seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as probate goes. I'm saying that because I'm nearing the end of the 5-month period of time you have to give any creditors to step forward and present any outstanding bills. I'm pretty sure we're done with all bills except for one last one from her accountant; i'm still waiting for him to complete the estate tax return for state of CT, which is due June 28. In July, I'll be able to file the next form with probate, which lists outstanding claims/bills paid, not including funeral expenses and accountant, which for some reason are to be listed on another form that comes a little later.

I spent some time last week comparing the total balance of assets upon death, subtracted bills paid and final expenses, and while it was off by about $1,000, a trip to the bank and a helpful banker there helped figure things out so everything balances out. I am hopeful to be able to disburse remaining assets of about $88K to my sister and myself as beneficiaries. (We started out with about $108K in her checking. This was the money left over from sale of her house, but I had a few big bills to pay to the nursing home (about $12,000) and state of CT for reimbursement of Medicare withholding (about $7,000).

She had quite a bit more money in May, when I first moved her to assisted living, but assisted living, and then the nursing home, quickly ate into her assets during just a 6-month time period before she died. It makes me sad, just becus of how the system works to suck up what would otherwise have been our inheritance. I knew this all along and I don't begrudge the nursing home/assisted living payments for services rendered, but the sheer size of the bills is scary frightening and seems disproportionate, I guess, when you consider how quickly $6,000 a month bills will erode a nest egg.

If I had my way I would have moved mom to assisted living earlier because she was having lots of problems and it was all very scary trying to deal with it, but she didn't want to move and so for probably a year I was there on my weekends and on the phone with her a lot trying to manage things that were increasingly confusing to her, like bills, new locks on the door she couldn't figure out, how to use her thermostat, an air purifier and the like. There were so many little crises concerning things that previously had not been confusing. But mom resisted not just moving elsewhere, but even having an aide come to the condo a few times a week to help her. She was used to her independence and I can't say I blame her, but at the same time, I knew she badly needed help.

In hindsight, if I had moved her earlier, it's very likely I'd be looking at a much smaller estate now, if one existed at all.

The big picture: mom's total assets before moving into assisted living were about $110K in savings and the condo sale netted out at $129K, for a total of $239,000. My sister and I will have received a total of roughly $89,000 each by this fall, which represents about 75% of gross assets before we incurred all the bills.

So once again I find that mom unknowingly preserved more than half her estate for her daughters, something I know was always firmly in the back of her mind. Thank you, mom.

Once I complete that particular responsibility by around September, I hope, I can breath a sigh of relief it is done. I can then continue to focus on showing and selling art for some time to come, certainly through 2016.

Thought you'd like to see some pix of my trip to the Poconos to meet up with Dido on the Delaware River.



Here's where we stayed, with direct frontage on the Delaware River. Also within walking distance was the nation's oldest (circa 1800) wire cable suspension bridge. While waiting for Dido to show up, I walked across that bridge from PA into New York state and back again in about 20 minutes.




Some bucolic views from the bridge overlooking the Delaware River.

We had a great lunch in a cute little town yesterday and then wandered down the very small main drag and aw this, which I think is a grain elevator:



Before heading home today, we went to Grey Towers National Historic Site in Milford, PA and we wandered around the beautiful gardens for a while.






Walled garden




How interesting to see a bust set into the stone wall of the home, which once served as the residence of a Pennsylvania governor.


Scrollwork detail on garden gate


One of two ivy-covered towers



On the drive home I found an inch worm crawling on my left hand as I drove on the highway. I was able to transfer it to my right hand, and then to a fabric sandwich baggie I'd brought some fruit in, which I laid on the passenger side floor of the car.

I stopped for gas and at a local garden nursery form some veggie plants before arriving home. I looked for the little inch worm but could not find him and worried that he'd bake to death as the heat inside the car built up once I got out.

I fed the cats and gave them some TLC, pulled off a heavy shirt I was wearing, as well as a tank top and put on something lighter to garden in. I sat down on the bed for a minute and lo and behold, the inch worm was on my left hand again!! How did that happen???

I brought him outside.

May can be such a spectacular time of year for all things that bloom.

Taking center stage in my yard is a doublefile viburnum that was just a wee stick seedling about 15 years ago.

Now we have this show every spring:



This shrub is really huge; actually, it is the mama shrub and many smaller seedlings gone wild surrounding the original plant, growing wider in circumference with each passing year.

I have to prune the branches when they begin to overhang the driveway on the right.





I went out there today to get these pix and the bees are loving it. It must be like a beacon for them. As dusk approaches, all becomes dark, except the brilliant white of this viburnum still stands out.

My results:

Money Avoidance = 2.20

Your score on the money avoidance scale suggests that you do not exhibit significant money avoidance beliefs. In fact, research has shown that your score on this scale is similar to those who have been identified as wealthier, wiser, and more highly educated.

*Money Worship = 4.00

Your money worship score suggests that you endorse money worship beliefs.

At their core, money worshipers are convinced that the key to happiness and the solution to all of their problems is to have more money. Individuals who score high on the in the area of money worship are more likely to have lower income, lower net worth, and credit card debt. Yikes.

Money Status = 1.71

Your score on the money status scale shows that you do not hold money status beliefs.

Money status seekers see net-worth and self-worth as synonymous. They may pretend to have more money than they do, and as a result are at risk of overspending.

*Money Vigilance = 3.50

Your money vigilance score indicates that you endorse money vigilance beliefs.

The money vigilant are alert, watchful, and concerned about their financial welfare. They believe it is important to save and for people to work for their money and not be given financial handouts. Research has found that higher money vigilance scores are positively associated with higher levels of financial health.

I recently signed up for Ancestry.com. I really haven't made any startling discoveries yet, or traced beyond my grandparents' parents, information I already had, but it's still a thrill to verify certain information and see your great grandparents' signature on census rolls when your grandmother was just a little girl.

My grandmother was a bit of a storyteller, so when I interviewed her for a mini family tree project when I was in college, I wasn't sure how much of what she told me was true. Her parents were from Austria and supposedly my great grandfather on my mother's side made clocks and music boxes for this guy, Franz Josef I.



So I've known all along I'm a bit of a mutt, with Polish, Austrian and Russian on mom's side and German and Irish on dad's side. But hopefully I'll learn more. I really haven't had time to learn my way around Ancestry.com or dig for something new, I just reviewed their "hints."

After work today I had an EMG test done on my right leg/foot. It's a nerve conduction test and I wanted to see if I have any nerve damage that's causing my toes to be numb since last year.

It was kind of an unpleasant test where he was sticking little needles in my leg and sending electrical impulses that made my leg or foot jerk. Of course, compared to the 2 or 3 spinal taps, I've had, this was nothing.

The tests showed that everything is normal, which is sort of good news cus no permanent damage. Doc said i could have a pinched nerve or sciatica, which "could" be helped by physical therapy. But he said if it doesn't improve in a few weeks, it probably won't ever, and I'll just have to live with it. He said usually they figure out what area to focus on by whether the pain you're feeling is relieved, but in my case there's no pain at all, just numb toes that came on shortly after I pulled my hamstring in that leg last year. I began physical therapy then but could not continue it beyond a few visits because things were getting worse with my mother and I had to focus on that.

Thursday I have to drive into New Haven with 2 colleagues to hear our company chairman talk. Blah.

Today we met for a pizza lunch as a send-off for a woman who worked for us as a contractor for about 3 years, then was let go, and after about a year of being unemployed, finally found a job in Columbus Ohio. She is driving out there next week to find an apartment to lease in about 3 days and starts the job end of May! Not much time to get ready! I did that when I entered law school in my 20s and had to find an apartment in the Boston area in a single weekend. Needless to say, the place I found was kind of a dump, but the price was very cheap. I just didn't have time to look longer.

So I have this gorgeous new driveway that everyone compliments me on. However, there's been a problem with the asphalt portion. Down in one corner near the road, the GRASS is GROWING through the asphalt.

My feeling is that the asphalt is too thin. He wrote on the invoice that they'd lay 2 and 3/4" of compressed asphalt and this is maybe a quarter inch tops in that area (and looks on the thin side everywhere else, though maybe not quite so bad as this spot). So no wonder.

Luckily, the guy hasn't left me high and dry. He sent his man up 2 weeks ago and to my surprise the guy used a blow torch to melt the asphalt and presumably kill the grass.

But now the grass is back so I called the contractor again and to his credit he immediately called me back. His son is graduating this weekend but he promised to come up and see what's going on next weekend, so I'm satisfied with that.

This weekend I have a fun little excursion to a little town in PA, about a 2-hour drive, where I am meeting a fellow blogger from here! I don't know yet if she wants me to say who it is, so I won't. It's just a fun little trip that is just one overnight becus we both have pets that prevent us from going on a longer trip. I'm looking forward to a change of scenery, some good conversation and maybe a hike...weather looking cooperative.

Dad and I saw The Revenant last weekend. It had a rather gruesome bear mauling scene, but otherwise, not a bad movie. Leonardo was pretty good.

I met a nice woman at the Mindfulness lecture I went to who was a book club member,so it's motivated me to start attending that group and reading their books, which I'm doing now.

There are so many groups I want to get involved with in my hometown. It sort of reminds me of college, where you could join any club you wanted! It is kind of a liberating feeling.

Making good progress spending toward my target bonus on my new TD Bank card. I've already spent $952 on my way to spending $1500 and haven't even gotten the 1st statement yet, so I'm in good shape.

I hope to plant onion sets in my garden this weekend.

All the lovely phlox are in bloom alongside my driveway. Everything looks great.

In 2015 my goal was to attend at least one meeting or event a month, as a form of social outlet. I never hit that goal because I was taking care of my mother, and even when I had time to go to something, I was too tired, both physically and emotionally.

This year, I kept that same goal up on my sidebar and I've hit that goal out of the ballpark!

There is SO much to do in my hometown. In all my 20 years here, I mainly hit most of the fairs, festivals, craft shows and that sort of thing. I made it to the evening book club a few times but that was about it. I worked full time, and there were some jobs that entailed a very long commute. One job I had for 7 years involved a 75-minute commute which was really exhausting.

I'm doing much more in town now; keeping busy is helping me get past my mother's death, which is still on my mind when I am not doing anything. So it's best to keep busy.

The big reason I can start doing these things is because I still have the 2 work at home days I started when my mother was ill, and I wanted to see her during the day, during the week. Now that I'm no longer going to the nursing home on my lunch breaks or after work, I've found those 2 days at home open up so much extra time in my life. And not having to commute on those days means I also have more energy and interest in doing things right after work.

For most of my working life, work and the commute were so draining that I had little appetite for doing anything else during the week, the result being that I crammed everything I had to do, personal errands and stuff around the house, on the weekends.

This past week I went to a talk on mindfulness at the library. It was presented by a man who was very upfront about his struggle with depression and anxiety, which led him to mindfulness as a way of living more fully in the present. It was pretty interesting and gave me a little more insight into how to achieve it, because my mind is always going in a million directions.

There's a young man in town who has begun organizing volunteers to plant a grove of fruit trees along our new walking trails. No particular reason why, he just wants to do it, though i remember a quote I read where he said he just wants to make my town "as close to heaven on earth as possible."

There are a lot of wonderful things happening here, and many of them came about following the dark days of the 12/14 shootings.

The families of many of those children have formed different groups that pursue various things, depending on the special interests of their child. One of the little girls was a big animal lover, so there is a foundation setting about to establish a new animal sanctuary in town. It was also this group that sponsored the meeting I attended on how to care for your pet rabbit.

Next weekend is a traditional Irish music concert at the meeting house. I would love to go to this and am looking for someone to go with me.

Our town's forest association is busy eradicating invasive plants from some of their land holdings and I donated some of my perennials that I was selling to the forest association which they already planted in an open field they intend to turn into a wildflower meadow. It's on a main road so I will see it often.

We have several different garden clubs in town, another one of the groups I eventually want to get involved with. One of them is responsible for caring for all the little gardens that occupy our traffic triangles. I would like to see them establish a flower garden at a largish "traffic triangle" at the intersection of two of our paved walking trails. It would be so nice to see a pop of color amidst the woods. In any event, I'll be hitting their big spring plant sale next Saturday.

My dad wanted to see The Revenant (which I think will be a little bloody/violent) so I'm taking him to my town's single screen, $2 movie theater, which I think he'll enjoy. This is the 1930-built old town hall which is in the middle of a fund drive to replace the original balcony seats in the theater. I donated $150 and my employer will match it.

After the movie, we'll do a late lunch somewhere and I would like to run up the gallery to pick up the latest framed pieces. But first, this morning, I am going to yoga class, the church tag sale, the library (so I can get next months' book selection), WalMart, gas for the car, the pet food store and Lowes, for some veggie plants and maybe some lavender.

A lot of things to do, and I am really enjoying it.

Earth's Treasures

Today I had my follow-up call with T. Rowe Price Advisory Services.

Here's the big picture rundown:

Based on my total annual savings (which they erroneously recorded as $37,500 annually instead of $31,000 annually), they recommend that in my 1st year of retirement, I withdraw $35,455 as income ($2,955 a month) instead of $43,000 a year ($3,583 a month). Every year thereafter I would adjust for inflation.

This is not too much of a biggie to me since I've been generally aiming at between $40 and $43K income in retirement.

They did not include Social Security income at all, so whenever I do decide to begin collecting SS, it will just make things that much easier.

They also did not factor in any inheritances, other than what is already in my accounts.

They are not suggesting many changes, only fine-tuning, in my overall and current asset allocation of 61% stocks, 25% bonds and 14% short-term investments.

They're recommending 60% stocks, 30% bonds and 10% in short-term investments. So they are mainly suggesting I move some money that's now in "cash" into bond funds, for upside growth potential.

Based on what I told them about my investment preferences, they're recommending I remain in a "balanced" portfolio.

Getting into more detail:
Domestic stocks: Increase my mid cap and international exposure by 3% each, decrease my sector/specialty exposure (a REIT and healthcare fund) from 6% to 0%.

Bonds: Decrease investment grade bonds by 4% and increase high Yield by 3% and international bonds by 6% (i currently have no exposure to international bonds or high yield).

Short-Term Investments: They recommend I decrease my short-term investments, which includes my CDs my online money market accounts as well as my Vanguard money market, by 4%. I would still have nearly 2 years of living expenses, or $80,000, in short-term investments after doing so.

She's going to make some final adjustments to her numbers based on my correcting her on my annual savings, along with new info on the 401k employer match I received (an extra $3536 which I guess I can count on annually) and then I'll be able to access it online again. The revised report will have suggested retirement withdrawal amounts each year, which includes adjustments for inflation, so I don't have to trouble my math-challenged brain.

They will also check in with me annually or I can contact them in the interim if there are any big changes to my financial life, like a layoff, inheritance being finalized, etc.

In other news: I met with local florist today and she chose 5 of the 8 pieces of art I brought to exhibit for sale in her shop. They are priced on the high side, so not sure how they'll do. Each time I draw up a little contract agreement, I do a better job of it! I also created some take-home bios for anyone who purchases a piece, so they can learn more about the artist.

Also followed up on the first real estate brokerage I contacted about long-term art exhibits in their offices. It probably wouldn't work there because they don't have extra wall space, but she asked me to send jpgs and prices anyway, which I did. She meets and knows a lot of people so she could possibly send them my way maybe.

In the meantime, I've decided that each week my goal will be to do at least one tangible thing to find new markets or further market my mother's art. It all takes a fair amount of time. So next week my goal will be to contact a 2nd real estate brokerage in my hometown, with the same query/offer about showing my mother's art. This idea had been suggested to me by someone at the art association who knew someone else who had done pretty well selling their art in this way. I would focus on the larger pieces for the brokerages since the smaller stuff can go in various gift shops/galleries.

I still have at least 2 more local shops in mind that I might like to approach. Also, the florist suggested, since I had mentioned how some of the art might appeal to interior decorators, of an interior designer who just set up shop in Sandy Hook Center. Couldn't find him online so will go down there in person to get the name.

I'm getting plenty of activity at my new suction cup window bird feeder, but it's driving Luther nuts as he lunges toward the birds each time he sees them. So they're a bit more timid that usual and I'm debating whether to move the feeder elsewhere.


My new windchimes, made out of grandma's silverware.

After all the rainy weather of the past week, the sun came out around 1 p.m.

Perfect timing. I sold another $28 worth of perennials and was ready for my hike at the Audubon Bent of the River.

A red-crowned sparrow greeted me in the parking lot:



I decided to head for the Cascade Trail as it promised a small waterfall.



There were small boardwalks like this one as I traversed a small brook at the bottom of the waterfall.



As I got deeper into the woods and headed upward in an s-shaped curve, the trail narrowed and became more indistinct.



The lovely Cascades..



After all the rain we had this past week, everything was draped in lichens and mosses.



The loop back was a quiet woodland...




...followed by one more boardwalk that meandered alongside the riverbanks where I saw swallows nesting in the sandy bank.

I see a lot of you are talking about various diets and like me, you probably want to lose some weight.

I came across an excellent USDA site for this years ago and really like it then, then lost track of it until I searched for it now and found they revamped it so it's even better.

Check out supertracker.usda.gov

You can get all sorts of detailed information about the nutrient/caloric makeup of different foods, but what I really like about it is that you can keep an online food and exercise journal while inputting your goals and so on.

You have to enter the foods you've eaten one by one, with an estimated amount/volume, so it can get kind of tedious if you eat something you made yourself that has a lot of ingredients. So for breakfast this morning, I had my usual homemade granola, but I'd like an accurate measurement since mine is very low fat. So I had to individually add oats, raisins, walnuts, olive oil, flax seed, etc. So it looks like my usual granola breakfast comes to 871 calories, or close to half what my daily intake should be given that i would like to lose 12 lbs.

And just from entering the ingredients of my breakfast granola, I can see from their bar chart that I've reached X% of my recommended fruit target,, etc. This is where I don't like the program, becus the USDA is using their recommended guidelines which I disagree with when it comes to how much dairy, protein, salt, etc I should be eating. In fact, based on the fact I ate a whole banana and about 1.5 oz of raisins, the site indicates I've reached 91% of m y daily fruit allowance!! Obviously way off for a vegan, who is going to load their plate up with fruit, veggies and grains and eliminate the dairy entirely. So far I don't see a way to customize the program to eliminate certain things you don't agree with.

The exercise portion of the website is just as detailed.

You can monitor and track your progress with their nifty charts, etc. IMO, this is even better than the Vivofit I spent $99 on which most of the time has trouble syncing with their website online.

However, the USDA site only allows you to input how much you walked, for instance, by time spent, not distance traveled in steps, as the Vivofit does. You have a choice on the USDA site of choosing from about 6 different paces, eg, 2.8 miles per hour, but there's no guidance given on how to estimate how many miles per hour you walk, so I'm just guessitmating.

So anyway, I'm very excited about this really detailed program. You just need to set up your profile to get started..

I've had gazillions of bird feeders over the years, but this is the first time I've tried a window feeder with suction cups.



I was a little skeptical at first about how well those suction cups would stay adhered to the window, but they actually seem quite sturdy. Sturdy enough for a cardinal to perch on, in addition to the house finch shown here and some black capped chicadees.

I think the birds are still a bit wary, possibly because Luther may have lunged at them more than once. If I see a bird come to the feeder, I'll turn off the indoor lights so it's lighter outside than it is indoors, and thus harder for the birds to see me.

I've been a bird watcher for about 20 years, ever since an old boyfriend turned me on to it.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I am hoping this day won't be too difficult. We just had another passing rain shower but it's supposed to be sunny by mid-afternoon. Before the sun comes out I plan to head outdoors to an area Audubon sanctuary for a solo hike. I've only been there a few times, probably because, at least in the past, they requested you "schedule" your visit so they could be sure there was no overcrowding at the sanctuary! It's a pretty big place; in fact, the last time I hike there with a date, we got lost, and it was a very long walk back. But having to schedule it just seems like a real nuisance. I'm just going over there today; it's doubtful many people will be on the trails with the dark and rainy weather we've been having and it being Mother's Day.

I sold another $20 worth of Amsonia Blue Stem and some Jacob's Ladder yesterday. I would say selling perennials on Facebook tag sale sites, especially this time of year, is extremely easy, easier than selling most anything else.

I've decided to enter the invitational art exhibit put on by the Easton Art Council here in Fairfield County later this month and into June with a lovely paper abstract by my mother. You can see the piece I'm entering here:
http://paulareneemulti-mediaart.blogspot.com/

While it's just a two-week show, I decided to enter anyway because there is no entry fee and they are only asking for a 20% commission on "sold" items, which is pretty reasonable. Its soft pastel colors are a good choice for a spring show, I think. My mother priced it at $400.

I'll be dropping it off this weekend and hope to attend the opening reception May 21.

Working from home today.

Early this morning I brought the car to local garage to see if they could get to the bottom of the slow air leak I have in a back tire. I've brought the car to Town Fair Tire probably 5 times since last winter, and still the "low air pressure" light comes on every so often.

Happily, I didn't have to leave the car at local garage as I envisioned; they replaced the valve stem so I'm hoping this will finally fix it. Although Town Fair advertises free tire repairs, even if you didn't buy the tire from them, I have to wonder how carefully they do those repairs. You get what you pay for, maybe?

I am trying to make better use of newfound time right after work when I work at home (and also on my lunch break). When I work from home, I am fine heading out after work since I've been sitting inside all day at my desk. I'm also not feeling tired or stressed from the usual commute.

So today on my lunch half hour I'll run to the local cobbler to see if I can get some shoes repaired, and right after work at 5 I think I may head for BJs. These are things that would normally have to wait until the weekend, so by doing them midweek I not only avoid the weekend crowds but free up that precious weekend time for more pleasant activities.

I am still dreadfully itchy from my poison ivy.

Just a month after getting a brand new driveway, half paved and half pavers, I noticed GRASS growing up through the asphalt near the bottom of the drive by the road!!!

This can't be right. The contract said he was to lay down 2 and 3/4 of an inch of asphalt but it sure doesn't look that deep to me.

I was wondering how difficult it was going to be to get the contractor back out here after I paid him. I procrastinated a little, but called him tonight and left a message. Five minutes later, he called me back and we talked. He said he'll be up in a few days to look at it and said they'd take care of it. He asked if i could take some pictures and send them, which I've already done.

It's not a lot of grass, but in 2 areas I see a half dozen or so blades coming up. GEEZZ! If the grass can come up that easily, I really worry about the pachysandra on one side of the driveway, which can grow through anything.

In my mail tonight was yet another Medicare statement regarding of my mother's medical bills. I am so sick of getting these statements. They are not the bills themselves since that would come from whatever creditor was involved, but i can never make heads or tails of these bills or when they will end becus of overlapping time periods. This latest bill says I "may" owe another $333 or so to 2 different medical supply companies. It's possible I don't. Maybe I should call them tomorrow but I kind of feel like just sticking my head into the sand. It just stresses me out and I can't wait for this process to be over. To be getting bills from November and December on May 2 is a little ridiculous.

Oh, one more thing to moan about: my low air pressure tire indicator came on AGAIN this a.m. on my way into work. It's been an ongoing problem for at least 6 months. Each time I go to Town Fair Tire where they advertise free tire repairs. Well, i guess you get what you pay for becus I've had the car over there at LEAST 5 times for this same problem, same tire. The last time was 2 weeks ago and they told me they found a tiny piece of metal in the tire. Before that, they said it was a nail. Before that, they said it was the valve stem leaking air. Strange that all that should happen to this one tire. Maybe they patched it and the patch didn't hold and they're embarrassed to admit it.

On my way home i stopped at a nearby Sunoco station and he checked the tire and said it was the valve stem leaking but couldn't replace it becus the tire has an electronic sensor on it and he wasn't sure if owner had the right one for my car or would have to order it. So I have to call tomorrow morning and try to get it taken care of on my work-at-home day.

The piece I picked up yesterday, my latest framing, is the abstract birdcage at right.



I had the other 2 at left framed previously. All told, I believe I've paid to frame 6 large pieces like these.

I got another good idea for selling some of the larger pieces. Someone at the arts center yesterday told me about a woman in my situation; she had inherited a lot of art from one of her parents. She was able to sell quite a bit of it by approaching a local realtor and hanging the art in their offices, for sale. I am not sure having colorful art to adorm their office walls is enough motivation in itself without having to offer them a commission or not. I wouldn't really be interested in another obvious thought, letting realtors put my art in various open houses. Becus the more you cart it around, the more your risk dinging, denting, or dirtying it and once that happens, you can't sell it. So I'd rather hang it in one spot.

I guess to sweeten the pot for the realtors, I could offer 10% of the sale price. Unless they know the art business, they wouldn't know the usual commission for a gallery sale is 3o% or 40%. So maybe 10% would seem reasonable, considering they're not doing anything to market it except give it the exposure to buyers that I don't have.

Rainy and rather raw weather has forced me indoors today. So instead of tackling some much needed yard work, I....

1. Made a small pot of pea/lentil soup. Usually I cook up enough to feed an army but today my goal was to use up small amounts of split peas and lentils sitting in the cabinet. I have about a ton of various rices, wheat berries, etc. sitting week after week in the cabinet; some was from my mother's kitchen. I hate to throw food away and dry goods tend to last a pretty long time, so I'm making a concerted effort to really start using more of it.

2. Last week I bought a beautiful eggplant at Whole Foods and am only getting around to cooking it today. It doesn't do much good to buy great produce if you wait til it's looking worn around the edges to use it. I'm making baba ganousch.

3. The hummingbird(s) is back! Refreshed the sugar water today.

So T. Rowe Price offers a free analysis of your overall investments/savings and recommendations for whatever your long-term goals may be, such as retirement.

The service is free as long as you have at least $100,000 invested with them. The person who works with you and prepares the report is a CFP.

You begin by filling out a fairly comprehensive questionnaire that includes what you'd like to know and listing all your current assets/investments and in my case, when I'd like to retire and how much annual income I'd like and so on.

After that, I scheduled a time to talk on the phone with the CFP; it was about a 40-minute phone call during which time she clarified and confirmed various things and we discussed my personal issues, concerns and points of interest. These included, can I retire BEFORE age 60? Will I enjoy the $40 to $43K annual income I desire? Will I outlast my savings?

Yesterday I received the emailed 20-page report which summarizes my original inputting information as well as their specific recommendations, not only in terms of the overall makeup of my portfolio but also recommended T. Rowe Funds to consider. Becus of course they would like it if this resulted in my investing more with them, even though they're aware much more of my money is now with Vanguard.

They also ran the Monte Carlo simulations to see how likely my money would last til the end (age 95 is the number I used) given different market scenarios.

But that's not all. They will schedule a 2nd meeting with me to discuss the report and respond to any questions I have, and to help me implement the plan if that's what I want.

And with my consent, they will check in with me on an annual basis after this, to see if there are any material changes in my circumstances, and so on.

I have to say, I'm impressed to have these resources at my disposal, at no charge at all. Guilt may cause me to invest more with them, even though I really do want to keep as much as possible with Vanguard, because they have lower fees. I also am very partial to index funds whereas T. Rowe would like me to invest more with actively managed portfolios. They're not being pushy at all.

I am very tired right now but I took a quick read of the report tonight. Based on my risk tolerance, among other things, they're recommending my asset allocation remain roughly 60% stocks/40% bonds/cash for the next 3 years, until retirement. I guess, too, this speaks to my current portfolio not being bad at all since they are not recommending wholesale changes. She commented that she thought it was very well-diversified. In retirement, they're recommending a 50/50 split.

They are suggesting some tinkering/tweaking of my current portfolios in terms of weighting of specific funds and one thing i remember her telling me on the phone is that they would not recommend sector funds. Meaning, I'm now invested in their Health Science Fund and a Vanguard REIT fund, both of which focus on a single sector. They feel these are too volatile given my statement that a 15 or 20% correction now, at this point so close to retirement, would concern me "very much."

I'm not opposed to closing those both out, though I do remember one reason i got the REIT fund is that I no longer have a mortgage, so it represented some real estate diversification that I don't otherwise have exposure to.

Anyway, I do have to study this in more details and I believe some of their numbers were off. I'd also like to get them info on my company match each year. Not sure if it's really that significant given I'll only have that for another 3 years if things go my way.

I will share more tomorrow.

In other news, Patient Saver IS crazy itchy itchy itchy. I have a bad case of poison ivy which i got last week. I'm hopeful that "any day now," i should turn the corner and start to see an improvement. The worst spot is on the inside of my left wrist. I have some also near my right elbow and on my stomach.

The itchiness definitely waxes and wanes. I've been trying to wear short-sleeves shirts when I can because even the slightest brushing up against it as a sleeve would makes it really scratchy. It's usually around this time i go see the doctor for prednisone, but if I can avoid nasty drugs, I would prefer that.

The part on my left wrist looks downright nasty. I was planning on going to a reception at the arts group today and i didn't want to repulse anyone with it, so I did wear a long-sleeved shirt to cover it up.

I spent a few hours at the arts place and spoke to a number of very nice little old ladies. They are all so friendly and sweet and kind. I decided to purchase 2 small framed photographs, one of just 2 sales today. I thought they were really quite reasonable, at $40 each, and then I learned that if purchased together, they were just $60 for the pair. They were photos of shorebirds on the beach with frames that looked "beachy." God knows where these will go, with all my mother's art, but I love birds and I wanted to support the arts.

They all seemed quite pleased, although the woman who took those photos wasn't there. She will get a phone call. I won't be able to take the photos home til the end of the show, when I pick up my mother's work. I had someone take my picture with my mother's work there and someone had prepared a half dozen tabletop tent cards describing my mother and her work. Plus I had her bio and framed photo there and 2 of her larger pieces.

I had a good talk with someone from the non-profit healthcare center here in town. She and the doctor who founded this place are going to come to my home to see what art I'd like to donate.

I went through about 2 dozen rolled up wall tapestries I hadn't even looked at yet and decided I'd like to donate most of them. They just aren't my style, take up a lot of space and I already have enough to sell with the framed and matted pieces.

I'm also thinking of donating up to another 10 paintings done in what i would call a primitive style depicting small village scenes based on photos my mother took in Morocco and Mexico. The Moroccan ones are interesting, because in some cases I have both the original framed photo of a particular scene as well as the painting, so there's added interest in seeing how the artist interpreted a particular scene.

At the same time, the Moroccan stuff looks very Middle Eastern; my mother was fascinated by the architecture and incorporated a lot of it in some of her work, but we're at a time now when Middle Eastern stuff might not be so appealing to a lot of people becus terrorism has given that part of the world a bad name.

This is all much more than I originally envisioned donating but I think I would feel mostly relieved to move it out of here. It would be going to a very good cause, one I believe in strongly (free healthcare for all) and a highly respected group in town. Plus it would stay in my town, which, after 20 years here, feels important to me.

I would just want to take a few photos of the installed art. Maybe with this size donation we could get a small plaque with my mother's name on it. I would really like that. So would she. My goal is to keep her name alive, and her art still enjoyed by others. This is what drives me.

They are moving into a 5,000 square foot space they'll own this October. So I don't know if they'd wait to put it all up til then or use it where they are now, a smaller rented space.

All that being said, we've had these discussions without them having seen my mother's art yet. To be perfectly up front, I am keeping what I feel are the best pieces, as well as those pieces i think are most sellable. The ones I'm donating I don't care for much and I don't know that they're as sellable either. I hope when they come to see it they don't agree with me or feel I'm trying to donate the least desirable stuff.

And art is so subjective...what if they don't personally like it? Well, regardless of their personal taste in art, my mother's art is very, very colorful, and it would certainly liven up the usual sterile doctors' offices.

My portfolio did pretty well for the month of April, thanks to the stock market. It was up $22,000.

The 1st woman showed up tonight after work with her mother to pick up some blue milkweed, a very pretty perennial that grows about waist high and looks like an ornamental grass.They spent $42 on the clumps which I was selling for $9 and $12, so I was quite happy they bought so much. Quite honestly, the larger $12 clump could be easily divided into 4 smaller clumps, so I think my prices are pretty reasonable.

It's really nice to be able to earn a little pocket money from something growing in the garden that was "in the way" and would have otherwise been tossed in the woods. Kind of at the last minute I decided what the heck, I've sold this before a few years ago, why not do it again? It makes me feel less dependent on my salaried job, which of course I am, but it still feels good to come up with creative ways to earn a buck.

I have someone else coming over tomorrow and a third person as well, although she seemed less definite.

I have my first case of poison ivy for the season. It's on the inside of my wrist. Ironically, I WAS wearing gardening gloves but the poison ivy rash is immediately BELOW where the glove ended. It's a nasty-looking welt but so far I don't think it's spread.

Just now, someone on Facebook said they wanted 3 yarn cones I've had posted for a while. Waiting for her to ok the ship cost. I recently gave away 3 boxes stuffed with assorted odds and ends yarns that i was having trouble selling becus it was just a single skein in 1 color, for instance, or one small cone. It's all been sitting around here long enough (!), I'd say, since last June, so just about 11 months!! I have just one small table of yarns left, and these are priced at dirt cheap prices. Just to move them out of here. At some point, I'll likely donate any of these that are still left, too.

I've found that one effective way to get people to buy more is to figure out the shipping cost when someone indicates they want something, and then I can often point out that there's room in the box to fit more yarn cones. I've learned from prior experience that adding 1 or 2 additional cones often does not increase the shipping at all, so the buyer is essentially getting those with free shipping. People have thanked me for pointing this out. So it's a win/win!

When I dropped off art for my mother's tribute show last night, one of the women on the board asked me if I'd want to present the Best in Show award, but I quickly declined since as you may recall, i don't like speaking in front of a crowd. Although I think I could handle saying like 5 words. She accepted that, but she also mentioned they would say a few words about my mother, and recognize me as her daughter, at the start of the ceremony. So I have been shanghaied into going to the opening reception this Saturday, which I hadn't really planned on doing. Oh, what the heck, I may enjoy it. They told me the person who last year's show was dedicated to (i think also the child(ren) of someone who died) sold their work at the show, even though it technically wasn't part of the show, becus only live people can take part. I brought 2 large pieces of my mother's, and one woman on the board commented that the prices I had on them, $400 each, was very reasonable, which confirmed what I felt was true. But again, I need to start moving some pieces.

I think I will bring my camera and ask someone to take my picture standing in front of my mother's work. The women there are so kind. I will get a better idea of the cross-section and makeup of this group at their Saturday function.

I also had a meaningful conversation with a woman when I got a postcard in the mail from a arts/cultural center in Pearl River, NY. It was about an art opening, and I knew my mother had exhibited there before, but I figured since I could safely say I wouldn't want to schlep art that far (an hour away, and it would mean 2 trips, 1 to drop off and 1 to pick up), I decided to call the phone number to get my mother (me) off their mail list, as I have done for countless other types of unwanted mail.

As it turned out, the woman who ran the gallery answered the phone and she knew my mother very well. She knew my mother when she was still married to husband #3, and that's going back many years. She also was the one, she told me, who introduced my mother to a well-known sculptor, now deceased, who collaborated with my mother when she wove a silk tapestry for the Chapel at West Point. It was one of the high points of her career. I am in possession of some correspondence she had with the sculptor, along with a very nice thank you note on West Point stationery.

Anyway, she was saddened to learn of my mom's passing. I knew there would be people close to my mother whom I wouldn't necessarily know about by looking at her phone directories. The woman said she also does a lot of exhibits at hospitals and healthcare centers and that Pearl River is only her base and that she travels a lot. So even though I'm not up for "schlepping," we did agree that when I had time I would email her some jpg photos of my mother's work that I'd be up for selling. And I'll see what, if anything, comes of it.

Coincidentally, she said she and her husband were driving from Vermont that very day, where I guess they live, down to Manhattan, to meet the sculptor's widow for dinner, who must have met my mother at the time of their collaboration. They said they would mention my mother to her.

And the week after next, I have an appointment with the local florist in town, who also had a very nice gift shop. I will bring representative pieces of some of my mother's styles/genres but they have very limited wall space so it has to be "small."

So each place has their own requirements and I am trying to be thoughtful about which pieces to offer where. I still haven't heard back from the medical facility where I'd like to donate a few pieces. Maybe tomorrow, my next work-at-home day.

It's going to be a very busy day. Tomorrow I also am getting a call from T. Rowe Price. Assuming you have a certain minimum invested with them, they give you a complimentary evaluation of how you're doing after you input all your balances and tell them what you are most concerned with knowing. It'll be a 40-minute meeting so I'm curious to hear what they have to say.

i was really looking forward to voting for Bernie today. Unfortunately, when I showed up at the polling place, they informed me I was "Undeclared/independent." I thought I changed over to Democratic years ago, but I guess not. DARN IT. I have been very independent all my life, but let's be real -- I've never voted Republican, so why not just register Democratic so I can at least vote in primaries.

I am back to selling divided perennials from my gardens, not because I have to, as I did around 2010, 2011 and 2012, when I was underemployed, but only because I wanted to dig up two large overgrown clumps of blue milkweed and after planting it in 4 different spots around the perimeter of the yard, still hated to toss any away.

As before, there were plenty of people expressing interest in my blue milkweed! It's different, people aren't familiar with it, and yet they should be, because it's deer-resistant, attractive and looks similar to an ornamental grass with pretty blue star cluster flowers in the spring. I have people scheduled to come over today, tomorrow and Thursday. Very cool.

Right after work I'm off to Arts Association to drop off 2 large pieces of mom's art for the spring juried show which will be dedicated to my mom's memory. In addition to the 2 pieces, I've created 2 8.5 x 11 desktop frames, one with her bio and one with her photo and a short quote by her on her art running along the right column. It all looks good.

I will wait til after this show is over to tell them I don't want to do the solo show in the fall. It's just too much work and the chances of a sale or sales after just a 1 month exhibit is pretty limited, IMO.

Went walking with a good friend at work yesterday. She was very supportive when I was going through all the stuff with my mother, because her husband had been through the same thing with his mother just 6 months prior. To treat themselves after a few very tough years with the Alzheimers, they took a weeklong trip to some Caribbean islands to a very expensive resort that cost them about $7,500 for 3 people. It was a heavily discounted packaged. She raved about the resort, the trip and entire experience. Wow. I could probably tour western Europe for 2 months for that price! But they can afford it; she and her husband both make good money.

Technically, I believe Earth Day was yesterday, but many towns are celebrating today.

There's so much you can do to keep the planet we live on healthy. How many of these are you doing? This list is oriented toward other homeowners; I am sure if you rent you could come up with your own lists just as easily.

1. Pick up litter. Each year my town has Lose the Litter day where volunteers fan out across town and pick up litter on their own streets or on assigned streets. Organizers hide special gold soda cans with free movie or restaurant tickets hidden inside.

Litter is a blight and shows disrespect. As a vegan, I believe my body is a temple; in the same way, I feel the Earth is our home and should be treated with respect.

I've picked up litter for years, tho not always during the town-sponsored Lose the Litter days. I must admit to getting out of the habit in recent years, but i do still pick up things I think could hurt wildlife, such as broken glass or deflated balloons that can be mistaken for worms by birds.

2. Recycle. When I stop to think about all we recycle these days, it's a lot. But so much more needs to be done. Debris floating around in the ocean and choking marine life is in itself a terrible thing.

In my town, I recycle cardboard, clean, dry paper packaging, copy paper, newspapers, magazines, junk mail, plastic food containers, metal food containers, glass, plastic garden nursery pots, coat hangers, kitchen "organics," meaning food waste, clothing (via GoodWill) and shoes/sneakers, when I learn of a drive going on, household hazardous wastes. My town also recycles mattresses, used motor oil and large bulky metals like refrigerators.

IMO there's an urgent need to find a way to recycle Styrofoam and soft plastic bags.

3. Drive an energy-efficient car. I think I'm on my 5th Honda now; the next one will be a Prius. If you're lucky enough to live in a urban area where you don't need a personal car, even better. Here in suburban Connecticut, mass transit is sorely lacking.

Low gas prices are definitely not here to stay. Even though they're low now, I still try to consolidate trips whenever possible.

4. Here's a controversial one: Consider having just one child. Let's face it, the Earth is over-populated. If you consider how many resources it takes to raise just one individual, and how many resources that one individual will consume in their lifetime, just think how much impact choosing to have one child instead of 2 or 3 could have on the planet.

5. If you can afford the upfront costs, which have dropped considerably, put solar panels on your roof.

6. Make sure you have adequate insulation, especially in the roof, where most heat escapes.

7. Use a timer for your lighting, furnace and hot water heater, none of which need to be on 24/7.

8. Consider leaving a portion of your assets to worthy environmental groups in your will, and donate during your lifetime.

9. Use electric or cordless outdoor landscaping equipment. These days, battery or electric lawnmowers, trimmers, edges and blowers are readily available. Who wants to mess with dirty, noisy gas-powered equipment and have to store flammable liquids in their garage? The neighbors will thank you each weekend when they get to enjoy their outdoor barbecue without the roar of your mower in their ears.

10. If you have children, spend quality outdoor time with them so they come to love the solitude of a walk in the woods, understand the wonder that comes from watching a dragonfly flit above a meadow or a box turtle plunk into a pond. The more time kids spend glued to their iphones, ipads or iwhatnots, the less they'll connect with nature, and the less inclined they'll be to protect it.

I'm so excited to have found this there:



A Japanese lantern! I saw a new one like mine on Amazon for $141,



though it appears mine is missing the roof. It also has one broken leg, which I also was able to retrieve from the concrete/masonry waste pile at the dump. Too bad I didn't have the roof. But it still has a very distinct Buddhist temple-like look to it, which I like.

It was quite heavy but I managed to haul it into the trunk of my Honda. You never know what you'll find in the masonry rubble pile! Once I found some perfectly good, unbroken terra cotta pots, including one that was quite nice with a weave design, which I still have. Another time I found a few dozen Belgian blocks, which I used to line some perennial beds. I'll have to check there more often!

As far as this lantern goes, without the roof, there's a round hole where I can put a plant in. And believe it or not, the lantern stands fine without the 4th leg, so if I wanted to just turn it so the leg was facing into some shrubbery, you wouldn't even notice it missing.

I am wondering if there's a way to repair broken concrete stuff?

Yeah, so The Human is fond of saying she is "a writer's writer." Meaning, she has a passion for what she does and she was born to do it.

Snort.

Where does she come up with this stuff?

To which I say, Hey, lady. If you're a writer's writer, I'm a cat's cat. Hear me roar. I am Cat. Forever wild and free.

It makes me chuckle when I think about how the only place "safe" for The Human to pet me is on the top of my head or back of the shoulders.



Occasionally, she can scratch my ears.


Anywhere else, and those human fingers are fair game.

She just doesn't learn. She says my giant paws with the hair growing between my delectable Maine Coon toes is just too hard to resist.



Unwisely, she tries to touch them. This triggers my bite reflex, but somehow the years of domesticity have softened the 3,700 pounds-per-square-inch strength of my jaws, so I will lunge for her paw, clamp down on her tasty little finger in my mouth, then immediately lick it a little to let her know she'll get off with just a warning...this time. She still hasn't taken the hint though. Slow learner.

Allow me to properly introduce myself.

My full name is Luther Hoover Patient Saver. I was named Luther partly for the German theologian who began the Protestant Reformation, and also partly because if you say "Luther" very fast it sounds like Lucifer, the devil, and umm, that sounds like me.

As for my middle name, I was NOT named for our 31st president, as you might think, but for the venerable vacuum cleaner that, like me, sucks up everything left on the floor. Stringies, rubber bands, giant wandering ants, bits of strangely alluring dust and captivating, captured flies are just a few of my favorite things.

I am daring and dashing when it comes to anything food-related. The human says I'm "food-oriented." I don't know about that, but I can tell you nothing stands between me and FOOD.

Like, every night, we get our after-dinner snack. When The Human heads upstairs for the evening, I know the first thing she'll do is head into the bedroom to draw down the blinds. I like to race joyfully into the room ahead of her (practically tripping her in the process and often eliciting a loud shouting of my name), so I can leap atop my giant cardboard cat scratcher. This will put me about 12 inches higher and 12 inches closer to the aforementioned snacks when they fall from her paws onto the floor. One needs to be prepared.

So last night at the all-important Snack Time (something I've petitioned Obama about...you know, declaring a national Snack Day) The Human put a few snacks in front of me on the scratching post and a few in front of my bro, Waldo, who was lying on the bed.

I wolfed mine down in .45 of a second. Surprisingly, Waldo didn't touch his. What can I say, sometimes he's in the mood, sometimes he's not. I jumped on the bed and Waldo, who's such a push-over, allowed audacious me to gobble up HIS snacks from right between his paws, with nary a protest.

Wow. He's so mellow. It's hilarious.

Like me, Waldo can only be petted very carefully. But not because The Human could lose a finger from him like she could from me. It's because he's still so gosh darn shy. As long as The Human doesn't move too fast or try to scoop him up in an embrace, he's good. As he tells me all the time, he's a lover, not a fighter.

I guess that's why we get along so well. Cus I'm the alpha, and he's not. It works for us.

Well, it's 5 a.m. and I need to fit in another cat nap before daybreak. hope you enjoyed these little insights into the workings of the feline mind.

Up Next: Me, the Escape Artist

I decided to work at home today because I think I have a cold. It's either that or the allergies I mentioned yesterday. I'm really not sure becus if it is a cold, it didn't come on like they always do, starting with a sore throat.

I found and hired a new guy to mow my lawn this year, at the same price I paid last year.

I called at least 4 guys who said they didn't travel this far out; i had called them because they ranked high on Angie's List.

If the first guy I reached had gotten here last night when he said he would swing by to look at the lawn, I would have given him the job right then and there, because he is fairly local and matched the price I paid last year. But he was a no-show last night and while I touched base with him this a.m., he didn't say when he would be here so I waited here all day; he didn't show up til tonight.

But by mid-afternoon, I had lost faith he would show up at all, and so I found a guy in my hometown who also matched my price. I decided to go with him because he told me exactly when he would come by and he arrived on time.

They were both very nice but if the 1st guy had that much trouble just getting here, I was wondering if the mowings themselves would be a problem.

I decided to give 4 large boxes of yarn odds and ends to a weaver friend of mine; she came by mid-day to pick them up and we chatted for a while. These are half used cones or small volume skeins that wouldn't be of much use to most people but i thought her weaving groups might be able to play with the yarns all the same. Seemed a shame to throw them out but it was getting harder and harder to sell them, especially since most at this point don't have labels as to fiber. I still have 1 small table of yarns I am selling, and the weaver friend purchased $20 worth. I helped carry the boxes to her car.

I have an electrician coming over Saturday morning for 5 small jobs; i don't know that he'll be able to do them all.

When I was at work Monday, I stopped in at a new French Vietnamese restaurant for something as I was still hungry after having my own tomato/brussel sprout soup.

I got a coconut tapioca and was wondering why it cost so much ($5). Well what a treat it was. It was the large pearl tapioca with something crusty on top and under the tapioca was some gelatinous chia seeds and under that was pineapple chopped up very fine. The whole thing was very delicious, so much so that it inspired me to search for chia seed tapioca recipes. I made a super easy chocolate version. What happens is that the chia seed turns gelatinous when you combine it with a liquid like almond milk, so it works great in any kind of pudding. I made it for tomorrow's breakfast but it may not last that long. (

Tomorrow I have to go over to the local IRS office to verify my identity by filling out a special IRS form, all so they will accept/process my mother's federal tax return. What a pain.

We're expecting a possible frost tonight so I decided to cover up quite a few ground phlox already in bloom, along with tulips and other tender bulbs also in bloom. And I cut myself another bouquet of gorgeous, gigantic daffodils, just so I can enjoy them in the house, becus i couldn't cover all those up.

I started deadheading other spent daffodils.

Wow, 9 pm already..time to watch The Good Wife.

No sooner did I receive a letter in the mail from state of Connecticut acknowledging my payment of $7,000 from my mother's estate did I get another unwelcome surprise in the mail, this time from Medicare.

The document ("This is not a bill") indicated I owed $17,000 to Masonicare for my mother's care. This money would come out of my pocket indirectly, since it would be deducted from my mother's estate.

Needless to say, I was very alarmed but I also knew there were some much smaller doctors' payments owed, according to the Medicare statement, but when I called the doctor's office, they said it was covered.

These Medicare statements are also very confusing in that they often seem to cover overlapping periods of time.

Anyway, I was able to quickly confirm that I don't owe Masonicare anything more than I've already paid (which was a lot)! Really big phew.

Today I got my new TD Bank card. It was very nice that the rep, without being prompted by me, confirmed that after spending $1500 in 3 months I'd get $200. I was glad she did this becus usually I take a Print Screen of the offer in case there are any issues upon redemption, but this time I forgot and for the life of me I could only find $150 offers online. So anyway, it should work out okay. Time to spend.

The strangest thing has happened to me. Yesterday morning at work I realized I had a very itchy right side of my nose; it felt like I was going to sneeze. All day. And since then, I've had a stuffy nose. I had heard you can develop allergies any time during your life, and that was my first guess, because the tree pollen levels are high right now.

But it's also very upsetting becus, while my mother and sister have always had allergies, I never did, and to think I've gone my entire life blissfully allergy-free only to develop them now, in my 50s??

It's kind of depressing because it's not that enjoyable. However, today I'm wondering if I actually just have a cold. I say that only because from yesterday's itchy and occasionally sneezy nose, it's now more stuffy, probably on both sides.

Yet it seems odd to get a cold now, and besides, I always start off with days of just a sore throat, and then it develops from there. This time, it started off with a very itchy nose, just the one side, but now today I am feeling kind of tired/achy.

So which is it? I'm actually not sure. I'm not aware of any other symptoms.

For those of you who might be interested, I thought I would share the link to the little art blog I helped my mother set up while she was alive; she never really got the hang up making posts on her own, but since she's been gone I have been trying to keep up with it occasionally when I have news of an exhibit. Here's the link; I encourage you to "follow" us!
http://paulareneemulti-mediaart.blogspot.com/

One bit of encouraging news...after actually being turned down TWICE by non-profits who weren't interested in donated art (who knew this could be so hard), I connected with one that is interested.

It's a very special kind of place, a healthcare center right here in town, run by a doctor and nurses who volunteer their time to provide free healthcare tho those who could not otherwise afford it on their own. I believe they are moving into larger quarters soon, still in town, so perhaps that is part of the reason they are interested in art!

They haven't actually seen mom's art yet; i just inquired via a phone message. I was reluctant to email jpgs this time around because my photography skills aren't that great and I don't feel my photos really did the art justice. I wasn't really given specific reasons why the 2 other groups weren't interested, and I did feel bad, wondering if they had a personal negative reaction to the particular pieces I'd earmarked.

The woman isn't around this week but hopefully next week we can schedule a time I can come in and show her a few things in person.

I think my mother would love the idea. I know she wanted me to donate some art, but a not-for-profit medical facility is something especially worthy, I think.

I made a bunch of phone calls this morning for someone to mow my lawn this summer and an electrician. There have been some communication problems with the guy who mowed for me last year, and he billed me for a mowing I'm not sure they did. In October, I left him a phone message, sent him an email and wrote on a bill I mailed payment for that I wanted him to stop mowing. The reason being that I like to run my own mower with its mulcher blade on it over the fallen leaves so I don't have to rake. His mowers didn't mulch.

However, his mowers still showed up and luckily I was home and told them they weren't supposed to mow anymore and sent them away. I also remember there being an issue where they kept scalping my lawn, and after pulling up tufts of grass, weeds would grow back in their place. I asked them not to mow so low and they kept doing so...i think there was a language issue as he's Latino.

Finally, i found him through Angie's list, where he offered a 5% discount. I assumed this would be applied all summer long; he didn't say otherwise. About halfway through the summer, he stopped deducting for the 5% and I paid the bills without noticing until toward the end. When I brought it up he said that was for new customers only.

Anyway, he's feeling disgruntled becus he thinks I owe him for one last mowing, and I'm unhappy for the reasons listed above. So I'm hoping to find someone else who will do it for about the same price as it comes out to about $1,000 for the season, which is a lot to spend on lawn mowing.

I felt so indulged yesterday.

After breakfast (mom always feeds us boys before herself), I was brushed all over with the wire brush that I love. I can work up a purr just seeing it when it comes out of the drawer. It's like heaven, and I oblige mom by periodically turning over so she can get every bit of me. Mom got a lot of hair off me, as I'm shedding my winter coat. Ahh, it doesn't get any better than this.

After that brushing, it seemed only natural to do what I do best: nap. In fact, while mom and Luther were rummaging around in the attic and knocking around the kitchen, I continued to nap and had the bed all to myself til lunchtime. Yes, we boys have a lunchtime, a small tin of Fancy Feast. I mean, some day, we'll look back on times when people only fed their animals once or twice a day and realize how cruel that truly is. Luckily, Patient Saver bends over backwards to keep me content.

That afternoon, I basked in the warmth of the sun room as I lay on the chaise lounge. Well, mom was laying on the chaise lounge; I was laying on her! This is my favorite room in the house, because we've got a great view of all the goings on in the backyard. Over the years, we've seen foxes, lots of turkeys, skunks, wood chucks and of course deer in our backyard. And the occasional intruder cat!

But today, our main visitors were the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees and what not looking for a handout. Luther eyed a tufted titmouse pleased to discover sunflower seed in the little bird feeder that's been empty all winter.

So we whiled away the day pretty well. As is my wont, I energetically pulled up an edge of the frayed family room carpet with my scratching, and this time, mom did nothing to stop me. It's probably too far gone. He he he.

Then, oh lordy, the best treat of all: I shared dinner with mom, a heavenly wild Alaskan sockeye salmon (the only salmon mom eats) that tasted of the sea. I figure I snagged about a third of it, and it was oh so good.

In the evening, we watched an episode from The Good Wife (we're into the 3rd season) and another from Curb Your Enthusiasm (2nd season). The 3 of us barely fit in the queen sized bed, but we make it work.

Here's to the good life. Never in all my days at the shelter could I know that, one day, I would be dining on salmon, getting belly rubs on demand and cuddling under the covers with such a wonderful woman, Patient Saver. I am living in the moment.

I am pooped but got a lot done. Not as much as I wanted, naturally.

Saturday:
1. Morning yoga
2. Post office: finally found a certain type of Priority Mail boxes I wanted.
3. Lots of yardwork which I found tiring. I just don't have the stamina at 56 that I had in my 30s. Sadly, I also don't really enjoy it as much as I once did. Partly because there is just too much yardwork to do, and I can't ever really get on top of it because of the many invasive things like bittersweet, garlic mustard and nasty pricker bushes that truly threaten to overtake my property.
4. Opened up the porch for the year, moving furniture in.
5. Dragged all my potted plants out from the garage onto the front stairs, cutting away the dead leaves, etc, seeing what survived. Also brought out some lawn chairs from the basement.
6. Replanted 3 or 4 large trays of ground phlox I had to dig up when they put in the new driveway; i replanted it under my large viburnum, alongside the new driveway.
7. Dinner with dad.


Sunday:
1. I pulled up part of the fencing around my veggie garden and shrunk the garden by 50%. Because it was just getting too much to undertake, although I really love my homegrown vegetables. It had become like just another chore, and I found that in the heat of summer I really couldn't keep up with the weeding, and a good portion of the garden was really neglected.

The downsized garden is still a good size for one person, probably about 7 x 9 feet. I just have to find something else to grow that isn't tomatoes or beans, which seem to have built up overwintering pest populations, and any kind of root vegetable, becus i have a real problem with voles.

Maybe I could do onions.

2. I dug up a peony in the wrong place and moved it to a better place.

3. I picked up my mother's 2 art pieces from art association. In another week I'll need to bring 2 to 4 more for the tribute show in her honor. After that, though I may rethink entering my mother's stuff in a solo show this fall. A solo show would require 30 or so pieces, which I've found is a LOT of work. Everything needs to be cleaned and then wrapped carefully, becus the more you move things around, the more chance something could get scratched or nicked and once that happens, most people don't want to buy it.

To do all that work for a show that only lasts maybe a month tops, and that mostly draws people from the art group, maybe not the general public as much (just my hunch) means it's less likely to sell than maybe if I found more high end gift shops where i could leave things on consignment indefinitely. I won't get the gallery prices at a gift shop, prices need to be lowered, but i think i'd have a better chance of selling some of the many smaller pieces I'm not attached to.

This is something i just recently came around to thinking. And so last week I called a local florist which I noticed, when i was there to pick out flowers for my mother's funeral, they had a very nice gift shop. I could see some of my mother's work selling there. So i called them more recently and the woman said the owner does take stuff on consignment but that she was away for a week, so i will call back and hopefully be able to bring some stuff down there for her to take a look at.

There's also a very very nice garden nursery with a gift shop where i was thinking of making the same kind of phone call. One step at a time.

I have sold I believe 5 things now at the first and only gift shop i have mom's stuff at. With her 40% commission, I'm really not making much money on these sales, but again, these are pieces I am less attached to.

4. Went to Home Depot to see how heavy the Ego 56 volt cordless blowers are...too heavy...I may wind up with a less powerful 20 volt cordless blower for just driveway/patios which is just 3.7 lbs.

5. Spent $40 at Trader Joe's.

6. Talked to my neighbor and showed off the new driveway.

This couch has some legs! Meaning, it's been around the block or two.



I've had it for 20 years, and when I bought it, I bought it used for $500 from someone in my town, who also delivered it.

But as you can see it has a lot of crazy colors, and now with all my mother's art here, it would be way too busy. I've grown tired of its design, though it is still a very well made and very comfortable couch.

But I just don't have room with mom's stuff and its bright colors would compete with mom's art. I'm thinking eventually, not right away, maybe not even til I move, I'd like to get a neutral/tan replacement couch so that mom's art will take center stage.

I asked just $20 for it because I had tried last fall to sell it on facebook without success, and i knew if i didn't sell it this time, I'd have to PAY money to leave it at the transfer station as well as PAY someone to help me move it out of here. Complicating such a move would be the fact I don't want anyone parking a heavy truck on the new driveway.

So 3 cheerful Latino men showed up to look at the couch. I had been in touch with his wife on Facebook. He said he mowed lawns for a living, and I was glad to be helping a family of modest means. They carried it down the driveway no problem, and now I have room in my sun room again so I can move a chaise lounge in there and a chair.

The twin bed I bought for my mother when she was in assisted living is now occupying the space where the couch used to be. Kind of like a day bed. I envision for the first time in 20 summers that I'll enjoy sleeping on it when the nights are too warm and humid to sleep in my upstairs bedroom.

Now that the couch is gone, I had also wanted to then get rid of the 20-year-old green wall to wall carpeting in the family room, which has been puked on numerous times by the cats, had coffee spilled on it by a careless boyfriend and scratched at mercilessly by the cats. The wood floor under it was painted an ugly dark brown but even that might not look so terrible for now with some area rugs thrown on it. Anything but that carpet.

I'd like to do a lead test on the paint as I'm not sure when the family room addition was added on to the house; can't find it in the town hall records. If the paint tests negative for lead, I might consider (if I could otherwise dispose of all the art in there) getting the floor stripped and then staining the bare wood.

So many things I want to do around this place, but I really feel hamstrung by mom's "stuff." Hence my delight in getting rid of one big piece of furniture today.

Talked to Dad, who just returned from another trip down to Jersey. He's decided to lease his house rather than try to sell it. I'd rather not see him have to act as landlord becus at some point all his frequent trips down to Jersey, whether to get stuff at the house or for doctor's appointments, will have to stop. He just turned 83.

I told him I can easily use my vacation time at work to drive down there with him and do whatever it is he needs done. There's always something. He needed to change the lock on the garage, which is not going to be part of the rental; right now the same key that opens the back door also opens the garage, which is packed with stuff he's accumulated.

With his vision issues and walking issues and overall strength issues, he really could use my help. But the biggest challenge is convincing him of that.

I put the hummer sugar water out today. I've seen the males arrive in early April so I wanted to roll out the welcome mat.

I see that the Citi Thank You Premier offer of 40,000 points after a $3K spend is no longer available, so I decided to go with a more modest offer of $200 after a $1,500 spend with the TD Bank card.

However, I kick myself becus I usually take a screen shot of the offer so there's no question later about the reward. I saw the offer for $100 all over the place, but couldn't relocate the $200 offer.

So I just have to hope there are no snafus. The rep on phone assured me it would be fine.

I have someone coming over tomorrow early evening to look at the couch I want to get rid of. When I posted it for free last year, I got no serious inquiries. When I changed the price to $20, I got some interest by a Latino family in nearby small city. The wife kept asking me to give her my phone and address, which I wasn't about to do on public Facebook page, and I sent the phone number three times via a Private Message. Then someone named "Angel" called and we connected. I assume that's her husband.

I told them they can't park on the driveway due to the new asphalt; I don't know what kind of vehicle they're bringing, or even if they could possibly take it tomorrow when they come to look at it, but with a bit of an language issue, I don't want to take the chance, so I'll probably park my own (lighter) car at the bottom so they can't pull up.

The next challenge is getting them in to see the couch. I don't really want them traipsing through my living room and family room, and possibly bumping into my mother's art, so I plan to take them around behind the house (I will tell them it's on account of "our dogs") so we can enter my sun room, where the couch is. The sun room also has a wider door than front door, so it would be easiest for them to take the couch out that way.

The charity that had said they would take the couch a few weeks ago has since declined after I told them they wouldn't be able to drive their big heavy truck up the driveway, and could the men carry it down the driveway.

So that's why I'm back to trying to sell it myself and hope they can carry it down the driveway. Cus if not, the only other alternative would be trying to get my handyman to help me load it onto his truck (also too big to drive up the driveway) and we'd both have to carry the darn thing, which I'm really not up for.

My place is just bursting at the seams here and I have NO space, so I just don't want that couch here for another year, which is how long I'd have to wait til the driveway completely "cures."

Today I went to a memorial service for my ex-boyfriend's mother, who died about a month before my mother. She also had dementia, but at 90, she outlived my mother by 9 years.

Because he invited me, I made a point to go. I was feeling kind of jittery about the whole thing because it's been 20 years since we were together and I knew I would know no one there. More importantly, I knew his wife would be there and most likely would not be pleased to see me.

The memorial was held in a beautifully renovated barn on the property of an Episcopal church in the beautiful wealthy countryside of North Salem, NY.

So, confession: this is the man I should have married.

Coincidentally, we both are writers, we both began our writing careers as journalists and we both have a parent (my mother, his father) who was a professional artist. His father was a pretty well known painter of horses and achieved quite a bit of success.

They were horse and dog people, they rode in local fox hunts, traveled widely, entertained a lot and lived a comfortable life that seems out of a story book somehow. And they stayed together.

Their son and I have remained friends. He introduced me to his wife and daughter, and while his wife shook my hand, she most definitely did not seem happy I was there. I told her i was sorry for her loss (it was her mother-in-law) and really didn't talk to her after that.

I enjoyed hearing R. speak at length about his mother, and then about 5 other people spoke, each one giving their unique perspective on the kind of person R.'s mother was.

They had some great o'douerves afterwards. I could never spell that word, but you know, SNACKS. I briefly sampled some of the food and then decided to quietly leave as I didn't want to make anyone super uncomfortable.

It was all kind of bittersweet and of course it made me think of my mother. More than that, it reinforced this feeling that a generation of people has passed, and that a new generation has taken their place.

Other news from this weekend, I sold quite a bit of yarn since Friday night and have a total of 5 packages to walk to the PO tomorrow on my lunch break. I love using the pick-up service where the USPS will come to your door for the packages, but I don't want the truck driving on my new asphalt, so for now I prefer to bring them to PO myself.

Here's some of the yarn i just sold.



I picked up another piece of framed art from area gallery and left another one for her to frame. I may not frame too many more. We chit-chatted for about an hour.

Today turned out to be a brilliantly sunny day and I REALLY have some yardwork to do, but didn't want to get all dirty prior to the memorial service.

Last night I made a cauliflower soup which also called for 4 or 5 cups of fresh spinach; instead, i used 3 small wads of frozen organic greens I wanted to use up, and i guess it was too much greens, cus after pureeing the soup it looks more like pea soup than cauliflower! It has no cheese or milk in it but instead I used a cup of cashews to thicken it up.

Today I stopped at Whole Foods on way home from memorial and picked up some goodies; i try to only buy things there that I won't find elsewhere, or else their house brand, which is cheaper.

Made a big salad for dinner and then walked around the block. In for the night.

I redeemed my final wellness incentive reward from Cigna for 2016 and I redeemed it for a $100 gift card for Whole Foods, a place I like to shop becus of all the unusual brands and selections, and of course the organic variety. But it's so darn expensive I don't go there routinely.

I hope to squeeze in the trip this weekend.

I was having trouble at work accessing some required compliance training so we wound up getting me updated to Windows 7 and IE version 11 at work. Wow, welcome to the 21st century. I'd been using XP for quite some time.

These days, I am into preserving memories. So I was excited this weekend to find a creative way to reuse an old set of silver-plated flatware I inherited from my grandmother. I used it for everyday use for quite a while (my grandmother only brought it out for the holidays), but some time ago I put it away because I couldn't tell if maybe the silverplate was coming off a bit, and I didn't want to take a chance of accidentally consuming it. So it's been sitting in its box getting dusty in the basement.

When I was much younger and living in Vermont, I bought a cute little windchimee very cleverly made out of vintage forks and spoons. At some point it broke and that was that.

But while browsing Etsy I came across a woman who makes very similar windchimes, and I decided this would be a great way to hold onto at least some of grandma's flatware without feeling like it was just sitting around taking up space and being useless.

I contacted the artisan who was very happy to use my silverware to make 2 sets of windchimes for me. I also wanted to use some of my own favorite beads and some old buttons that my grandmother, a dressmaker, had given me. After polishing up the silver, I shipped all of it out today to the artist, up in Rochester, NY area. Her prices were so incredibly affordable I wondered how she could really justify spending the time doing it, but I guess that's her decision.

So after paying for shipping her out the silverware, the cost of the 2 wind chimes and also for her shipping back to me, it'll come to about $43, which is still fairly reasonable for 2 sets, I think.

Saturday's shaping up to be another busy weekend day. I have a few events I wanted to do with conflicting times, so for the first time, I'm thinking I may skip the bereavement support group. I'm not sure if there's anything else for me to get out of it. I guess I've been 3 times now.

Because after yoga class there's a 2-hour presentation at the library on saving grassland habitat for birds which I'd like to attend.

I recently decided to donate $150 to a local society here in town that's charged with preserving our old town hall which was built with money from the town's benefactress, a single woman and grand-daughter of a prominent judge who was responsible for a number of the town's buildings, like the library. The old town hall, built the same year as my house (1930) contains our town-owned movie theater (one screen) and they're doing fundraising to replace the balcony seats. Thanks to my employer's matching gifts program, the group will get $300 toward the seats and in return I'll get 2 plaques for 2 chairs next to each other and I think some gift vouchers from area businesses.

I live about a mile from the movie theater/town hall and like to catch a movie there when I can. It's a beautiful old brick building with a great deal of character.

You can see it here behind the crowds at a Labor Day parade.



It's where I get my yoga lessons. There are some beautiful murals of local landmarks and historic homes painted by a local artist inside the stairwells.




In this painting, the red barns you see are at the end of my street. It makes it seem very rural, although we're more suburban, really. But we do have some nice old barns on the street; there is one fewer these days, ever since a bad snowstorm caved in the roof of another barn just across the street from the ones you see here.