Yesterday I brought my car in for an oil and filter change. Note to self: Don't ever bring the car in to the dealer again. They're now charging $50 for an oil and filter change. The only reason I bring it there is because I always have to wait around while they do it, and they have a comfortable lounge area. Plus, I had wanted them to sync up the Bluetooth in my car with my new smart phone. Turns out the car was already connected to the phone, but i still have to figure out how to add contacts and then download the contacts to Bluetooth in the car. It's all a little confusing and I can't think of anyone I know well enough that I could lean on to help me with it. So ONE of these days I will actually sit down and read the car owner's manual. A painful process.

After escaping the dealer's I went to my mother's to see if her new door lock was really not working properly, or if it was my mother. It was my mother. The only difference between this lock and the one she had was that with this one, you use one key (with a special notch in it) on the top lock, and a 2nd key on the bottom lock. Before, my mother used one key for both locks, and this extra complexity is really, really difficult for her to understand.

I tried suggesting she just focus on using the 1 dead bolt lock and forget the other, but she won't remove the 2nd key on her key chain, so it will likely still throw her off. She took detailed notes about using the lock. Put key in vertical position. Turn left, Turn right. And so on. When she did the exact same thing with her old lock, but now that she has to think about it, it's a problem.

I got a new set of keys made for myself and also bought those little colored plastic caps you put on the top half of the key. I'm hoping that will help her remember which key goes in the lock. I had labeled the dead bolt key "Top" so she knows it goes in the top lock, but that label will probably rub off in no time. So the colored plastic might work better. It's exhausting having to spend so much time on such small details, especially the explaining of things over and over and over again. And then she gets upset when I lose my patience.

After that I went home and found that my handyman had already come and gone. He had cut and then nailed strips of vinyl wainscoting on the underside of a small roof that is over my front entry, supported by 2 columns. I was very pleased with myself for having found this wainscoting at Home Depot, as I wasn't familiar with what products might exist and what would be bendable enough to deal with the arc of the roof. Woodpeckers drilled 2 golf ball-sized holes in the old wood wainscoting and I was so happy that the new material looks pretty good because it has a scored surface just like real wainscoting. People apparently use this stuff for interior jobs, like a bathroom, but I thought it would be perfect for outside. As long as it doesn't sag or anything over time.

So the materials were about $72 and $50 for his labor. Next up: getting him to install new rubber treads on the basement stairs. I bought the contact cement and he needs to cut the treads lengthwise and depthwise, unfortunately.

Mid-afternoon I got an unexpected visit from my British neighbor, who seemed like he just wanted to talk. I was reluctant to invite him in becus my place gets so messy but he's had me over at his showplace home numerous times, so what the heck. We talked at the kitchen table for about an hour. He is still extremely money-challenged as he tries to get his toy business off the ground, deal with investors, one of whom (falsely) tried to sue him for embezzlement. Can't pay their taxes. And they are so tight on money he had to find another job, so he's training for a bus driver position. Their cow miscarried so still no milk and their overly food-oriented pig continues to torment them both.

After he left, my handyman returned and I was able to pay him and talk about the stair treads. Then he left, and I got in the car to head back to my mother's house since I knew she was going out to an art reception down the road. I wanted to take this opportunity to clear out a portion of the many piles of junk mail, 5-year old catalogs and publisher's clearing house pitches and so on littering her narrow little walkways. She won't even notice some of it is gone. Tough love, as so many people have told me.

I quickly filled up a single double bag of stuff. She gets too many solicitations for every non-profit in the world looking for donations, and my mother can't afford that. So I grabbed as many of those as I could find. I have to do this a little at a time.

After that, I headed to Trader Joe's and finally got home again around 6 pm. Watched another episode of the Sopranos in season 3. It was so long ago that I watched it that it all seems new, although I think I saw most of it except for the final season.

I am still working on charging $3500 on my US Bank card in 4 months. I am nearly at the 1-month mark and have already charged $1420 on it so I'm ahead of where I should be. For my trouble, I'll get $200 in gift cards.

As soon as I'm done with this one I want to try the Citi Thank You Premier card which has a much better offer. I think I had that card before, but it's been a long enough time that I would qualify again, I believe.

I took my friend out for lunch at work on Friday, a late birthday treat. I have to rein in the eating out spending; this month it came to $127, way more than I feel comfortable with. Under $50 a month would be more more reasonable. I tend to be overly generous when treating friends and dining out, I guess because I generally don't eat out that much or get together with friends, so when I do, I'm happy to do so.

Lots to do today but at least I'll have Tuesday to catch up on whatever I don't get done today as I'm working at home due to doc appointment. Seeing my neurologist for my annual MS checkup (annual as long as I don't have issues) and to see if I'm going to have to live with 3 numb toes on my one foot for the rest of my life due to nerve damage after a pulled hamstring (a real freak accident, climbing stairs) or what.

At this point in my life, I have a pretty good handle on what my strengths and weaknesses are. One of my weaknesses has always been fear of public speaking. When I had to speak in front of the class in high school, my face would turn beet red. I'm sure you knew someone like that in your own classroom.

As a writer, I've avoided most public speaking during the course of my career and have no intentions to go to Toastmasters to overcome this particular shortcoming, just as I have no interest in jumping out of an airplane with a parachute or white water rafting down the Colorado River.

At my annual performance review, I was supposed to come up with several goals to enhance/build my skill set. My boss suggested, among other things, a course on public speaking, but I declined and she didn't push it, because she is not the confrontational type. I mean, I was hired as a writer and do a very good job of it; why must employers try to force you to do things you feel uncomfortable doing, especially if it's not a part of your job?

If, for instance, my boss's boss attempted to force me to present in front of our entire group, which numbers about 40, I would actually rather QUIT MY JOB than do that. I am being dead honest about that. And with just a few more years to go until I take an early retirement, I have no interest in advancing my career or getting a promotion. I'm in it purely for the money.

At work my more immediate "team" of about 10 people meets weekly to discuss what everyone's doing. Because we work out of two different locations, these meetings always take place as a conference call. My boss has a new boss, and the new boss naturally wants to do things differently so she can feel she's making a contribution. Each week she picks on someone different to make some sort of presentation for the following week to the rest of the group. This past week she mentioned she wanted me to go next.

I guess it's not really that big a deal because I will be speaking into the phone at my desk, not in front of a live group of people who will be watching how much I sweat. Still, I'm a tad nervous. Silly, I know.

The other difficulty is talking about anything that will be remotely relevant to this group of people. I'm the only writer out of the bunch; heck, I'm the only writer in my location with about 200 employees. I don't know why I was lumped in with this particular group of people, but they had to put me somewhere, I guess. But I have felt like a fish out of water for a long time; when they discuss their jobs, I have NO IDEA what they're talking about. They couldn't be more different than my job.

The rest of my team is in product marketing, yes, but they are more or less like project managers who are responsible for shepherding each communications project, be it a letter, a statement insert, an email or whatever we use to communicate with our customers, through the various rounds of approvals and then producing and mailing it, working with one of our vendor partners.

They know all about the logistics of mailing something to 1 million customers using various specialized/proprietary software to do it, but learning how to write a regulatory letter or apply our brand is not part of their realm of experience.

So I guess my boss is supposed to discuss the subject of my presentation with me in the near future. She was out for the latter half of last week. I already created a 20-slide PowerPoint but it seems a little lightweight to me although it may be somewhat entertaining because I inserted some quotes by Aristotle, Warren Buffet and former SEC Chair Arthur Leavitt about the importance of writing clearly, as well as a cute baby photo.

My mother's new aide seems to be working out fine. From all accounts, she's doing a lot of housekeeping and going on lots of walks around the condo with my mom.

This is really just a stopgap measure but I do hope it will buy us some time before a bigger change...a move...is required to keep my mother safe.

As it is, every SINGLE conversation with my mother shows noticeable forgetfulness and her ability to grasp things is really affected. I am sure that anyone who interacts with her will see it. Even with the aide, or increasing her days/hours, I'm not sure how well my mother can continue living alone.

I gave her a $50 Target gift card for Christmas and I kept asking if she'd used it. She hadn't, and it became more and more apparent that she was confused about how to use it so I've finally decided I will give her the money and take the card and use it myself, to keep things simple.

She wanted to exhibit her work in a spring show at a nearby art and frame shop/gallery. I decided to help her bring her art there today, since this is a very local shop and she has given up other shows further afield.

Tomorrow is my "me" day and I hope to be going for a 20-mile bike ride with a friend on a nice paved bike trail in New York state. It's 10 miles up to a cutesy little town, where we can do lunch, and then 10 miles back. I need to call him to confirm that though.

I got the ok from my boss to work at home all last week so I could select and set up a home care agency to have an aide come in and look after my mother on a regular basis.

We had an in-home visit with the agency head and the aide they selected for us. It seemed to go well enough and she is scheduled to start this week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So I feel like I accomplished a lot.

I'm hoping this makes my mother feel less anxious about things and less inclined to call me every time she has a thought.

This past weekend, I took her to a memorial service for a friend of hers who died just short of her 100th birthday. Shortly after I got home after dropping her off, I get a message on my machine from my mother saying can you please help set up the new answering machine I bought for my phone. Pull my hair out time. It's always something, and no matter how much time I spend helping her with stuff, there's always more.

I suggested this is the kind of thing the aide can do. I arranged for the plumber's return visit to coincide with the time the aide will be there tomorrow as well so my mother won't have to deal with the plumber alone.

I tried to get my mother to move her many little jewelery boxes from out of plain site on her bedroom dressers to somewhere hidden. I said I'm sure her aide was honest and trustworthy, but there's no need to put a temptation in front of them. My mother said she doesn't like to assume the worst in people and didn't want to move her jewelry boxes. I did get her to pick out a few of her more valuable items and we hid them together under some clothing in a drawer.

I must confess that when she wasn't looking, I fished out a few more items I know to be valuable and took them home for safekeeping. Hopefully we can fully trust the aide, but if we can't, we would otherwise learn the hard way and the items would never be recovered, so why take a chance? I actually wish I could take more jewelery home for safekeeping as my mother has some lovely pieces, but I'm afraid my mother might notice and say something. As it is, I doubt she will notice the missing items I have taken, which just goes to prove my point: if the aide did ever take anything, she's never know it and that would be that.

Then today my mother tells me about some letter she has concerning property tax relief, which says you have until May to file, yada yada yada. I told her to save it for me til I could read it myself. She's filed in the past and you have to refile every 2 years. This is a big deal as it saves her a lot of money. After I hang up from her I check my emails and I find one from her outlining what the form says. In it she wrote that the filing deadline was May of 2014. So who knows if my mother took care of this...last year....or not. Yet another thing I have to look into, in addition to getting a grab bar installed in her shower and replacing the broken lower lock on her entry door.

Sunday was a day I had all to myself. I enjoyed it very much as it was a gorgeous day and I spent several hours gardening, doing general cleanup in the yard. So nice, and soon the daffodils and tulips will bloom.

Today I walked 40 minutes at lunch and another 25 minutes after work, as a stress reliever.

Luther has discovered a new basket on top of my dresser.

I finally decided on a lawn mowing company and got him to agree to $42.75 a week instead of $45. (I reminded him about their 5% Angie's List discount AFTER he gave me his price.

There was someone else here a few weeks ago who said "$40 or $45," but wanted to come back when the snow melted. I called him on Friday and again today to let him know all the snow is melted and could he come back, but never heard from him, so he must not have been needing the work that badly.

I don't think I could have gotten it for much lower than $40, and quite honestly, I don't have any time to debate prices on this any longer, so I'm prepared to live with $42.75 and I doubt that after this year, I'll ever want to go back to mowing myself.

I also had a good long talk with the agency recommended to me by a coworker, to come in and spend some time with my mother twice a week. Just having someone check on her and provide some companionship and perhaps someone to walk with will satisfy me; if they can manage to do one chore each day they're there, that will be icing on the cake.

He's going to get back to me with a final price (it will be $18 or $20 an hour) and when someone can come for the first time, as I'd like to be there.

I am also anxious to finalize the price, starting date and other details for the redo of my front walkway. I promise to take lots of pix so you can see the progress! He's supposed to let me know tonight when this week he'll be returning with his dad.

After work I got some laundry done and even spent about an hour clipping dead flowerheads off my sedums in the front yard. Soooo much yardwork to do to spruce up for spring. Of course the lawn guy wanted to help me with that but I can't go crazy with the spending.

Tomorrow I hope to start cutting back all the dead branches from my 5 or so butterfly bushes. The daffodils are beginning to come up.


Waldo does this funny thing. I call it "the toe hook." He likes to hook his one toe on whatever he's laying on (sometimes my lap) and he stretches it out so his toes are stretched way apart.


So photogenic....

Every fall, ladybugs crawl through my bathroom window and lay their eggs. For whatever reason, the eggs this year hatched way too early, in February, and I've been co-existing with a dozen or so ladybugs in the sunny bathroom for weeks.

They eventually expire, but I didn't have the heart to brush them outside while temps were dipping below freezing at night.

I've check the extended weather forecast and it seems there are no freezing temps in the near future, so I've been catch and releasing them all to the wild blue yonder.

I doubt their favorite food, aphids, are out and about now, but at least they'll enjoy their freedom in the Great Outdoors, where they belong.

This is absolutely not money-related.

Here's a recap of my 2015 new year's resolutions, taken from my sidebar:

1. Save $34,000. ($23,000 of this is on auto pilot via 401k contributions; the remaining $11K I will save in taxable accounts.)
2. Become more involved in my community thru book club, historical society, genealogy group, Alzheimers support group.
3. Cultivate a greater consciousness of how I spend my money and the degree to which any particular purchase enhances the quality of my life.

#1. Save $34,000. This is not a random number. It syncs up with my 5-year "Countdown to Retirement" plan that I've summarized toward the very bottom of my sidebar here.

I am not sure I will be able to save $34,000 this year. It was a very ambitious goal. The $23,000 that's automatically deducted from my paycheck for my Roth 401k and Roth 401k catch-up is doing fine. But I was hoping to save another $11,000 in after-tax savings, based on what I saved the previous year.

YTD, I've saved $2400 in after-tax savings, which puts me "roughly" on track to save $11,000 except for the fact that I plan to spend those savings and then some on a home improvement project, the redo of the front walkway, landing, stone walls. (See earlier post today.)

My Year 1 target savings amount is $723,000; as of April 1 my investments total $683,722, which leaves me with $39,747 to save in the next 7 months. I'm not sure how realistic that is, particularly if anything bad happens in the stock market.

#2 goal: Become more involved in community....
I haven't done this at all. No time, between work and trying to look after my mother. However, I am still very much on the lookout for meetings I want to attend.

$3 goal Become more aware of my spending. This i think I have done fairly well. After a rocky spending start where I was still spending a little too freely, an after-effect of having lived hand to mouth for so long, I think I've reeled in my shopping demons. There's really not much I am dying to shop for, although home improvements are another matter.

Well, obviously I can't do everything and I only have so much $$ to spread around. I have already chosen to proceed with the front walkway project because my old stone walls are not in great shape, some of the bluestone steps are cracked, the stairs are too steep and so on. The redo should really enhance things with much wider steps (4 1/2 feet wide instead of 3 feet) and the circular paver pattern at the top will be pleasing to look at, adding more charm to my already charming home!

I really like the idea of adding what they call "brick lights" to one side of the to-be-rebuilt stone wall on one side of the stairs. This area is always very dark at night, even with the lights at my front door and down on the garage.

However, there's the added expense of an electrician to hook these up; i have calls out for bids now, just to get a rough idea.

A cheaper way to go, and my friend at work gave me this great idea, is to have the mason drill round holes in some of the stairs along the side. I'm thinking 2 would do it as it's 9 stairs total. Into these holes I could stick a few of my outdoor solar lights, the kind attached to a stake about 1 inch diameter. I could make sure they fit perfectly into the holes and there I go..instant light, without an expensive electrician. Since the stairs will be 4 and a half feet wide, there's ample room, say 6 inches, for these solar lights, without impeding the walkway.

Clever idea, don't you think? The only possible hitch is that these solar lights might not be fully charged by the sunlight while on this staircase. Since the stairs have stone walls to either side of them, it is somewhat shaded except for when the sun rolls around to the south. I'm guessing the sun hits those stairs for a few hours before it turns to shade. In winter, I suppose the lack of sun would be more apparent. I could always move the lights to a sunny location nearby in my yard, but having to do that regularly would of course be a nuisance.

This was a very trying week.

Both my parents have been having medical issues; my dad, physical ones and my mom, mental ones.

It would be too lengthy and involved to get into the details here, but it was bad enough that I asked my boss to let me work from home today, and all of next week, so I could make the kind of highly personal phone calls I need to make (related to getting care for my mother) from the privacy of home, not my cube where 10 people would hear everything.

My boss is very accommodating, and agreed. I'm pretty sure that when I asked her to meet with me privately in a meeting room at work that she thought I was going to give notice and quit. So when I merely said I wanted to work at home for a week, she readily agreed and was no doubt relieved. I also got out of having to go to a quarterly "team" meeting out-of-state, a real pain in the butt because this time I would have to rent a car just to make a 3-hour trip up there, and then drive another 3 hours home. Due to the start time of the meeting, it would mean a very early start, and driving home at rush hour. I was stressing about it and just not wanting to go when I had so many other things on my mind, so she made it easy on me and didn't make a fuss about it.

I like my boss. I can't say I know her very well, as far as her personal life, but over the past year-and-a-half we've developed a kind of rapport and an understanding that seems to work well. She's learned she can rely on me to get a quality job done, quickly.

I wasn't able to make much progress on stuff related to my mother, though, because a lot of places are closed becus it's Good Friday.

Aside from those quarterly meetings, which I disliked from the start, I am enjoying my job. Lately I've been writing marketing collateral for the bank to talk up our student loans. Marketing is my background and so doing this all came very naturally to me; it adds some nice variety to my customer communications writing, which is probably 70% letters, 20% emails and 10% online banking messaging, statement stuffer messaging, statement stuffer inserts and that sort of thing.

I did have a lawn guy come out to give me a price on weekly mowings. I've done it for 19 years myself, but it's getting too much for me. He said the best he could do was $45, which includes trimming and blowing. Still, over the course of 26 weeks from mid-April thru October, that's over $1,000.

I had another guy here a week ago, when there was still too much snow on the ground,and he said "$40 or $45." But he wanted to return to look at the terrain when the snow melted, which it mostly has. If I can get him back here and agree to $40, I'll go with him. It's a pretty big new expense just for lawn mowings, but not only would I be GLAD to not have to have this particular physically challenging exercise, but it will save me SO much time better spent doing other things. So the money will be WELL worth it, although I will try to get it for the least amount of money possible. I am actually kind of excited at the thought that I could enjoy a summer without having to worry about lawn mowing.

I'm also still mulling over my 3 quotes for the redo of my front stairs, landing and stone retaining walls, plus a new, 8-foot diameter, circular landing done in pavers which should be very attractive and really enhance curb appeal as you approach the front door. I'm mainly negotiating with one of them and he plans to bring his father over again next week to doublecheck his measurements and give me his final best price. I know he wants the job and I believe they can do a good job, but I want to get the price below $10,000. After he gives me his very best price, I'm going to ask if he could discount further if I pay in hard, cold cash. This often works.

I will likely get it done sometime in April or perhaps early May, although this worries me as I have a lot of spring flowering bulbs that I will have to relocate at the worst possible time, during their bloom or imminent bloom. There is a fairly large azaela (well, about 2.5 feet wide and high) that could be saved, but I'm not sure if I want to as there's vinca and poison ivy tangled up under it. There are also 2 small mountain laurels that could be sacrificed if need be, as the deer nibble them to death and they don't look like much. But I also have a pile of perennials, mainly my prized autumn joy sedums, that will need to be dug up, temporarily stored under the shade to left of garage, until the work is done and I can put them back where they were.

Yet another "project" is my mother's heat system/heat pump, which plumber says needs some parts replaced to tune of $450. My mother wanted me to look around for someone who would do it cheaper, but quite honestly, for $450, I don't have time. It's bad enough I have to schedule these things for her and even possibly arrange to be there when he arrives. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up. I JUST DON"T HAVE TIME to chase prices on everything.

On the agenda this weekend, I'll be using $5 in Kohl's cash on something that doesn't get me to spend more when I don't really need anything. So a pair of socks will do.

I also redeemed $75 in wellness incentive rewards from my health insurance provider, Cigna, on $40 gift card at Whole Foods and $35 for Red Lobster, where I plan to take my mother. After signing up for Red Lobster email, I also earned a free appetizer or drink, which we can use when we do lunch there sometime soon.

Easter will probably be just the two of us. After an argument with my sister where I asked her not to come to family get-togethers with her bad attitude, she said she just wouldn't come, period. I doubt that after all these years she could change her attitude even if she tried, so I didn't bother to argue about it. So I'm just planning on picking up a whole chicken and some sides at Boston Market and that will be our Easter dinner. Afterwards, I might take my mother to Whole Foods, since she expressed an interest after I took her there once, a year ago, and I have that gift card now to use. I don't shop there regularly due to their prices, but if I see an opportunity to treat myself, like with my wellness incentive redemption, I will. Being vegan, I find very little at to buy at standard supermarkets.

I was excited to see that my local GP's office has added an acupuncturist to their roster. It was this same GP practice, basically 1 doctor and the APRN, who sent out surveys to their customers not once, but twice, attempting to gauge interest in a practice where you pay a whole lot of money upfront so you have 24/7 access to the doctor himself. This is a really elitist kind of practice that you see in affluent areas.

Apparently enough people who responded dissuaded him from pursuing that route, and I was happy to see that later, they added 2 more docs to their practice that enabled them to offer evening hours. And now they've got the acupuncturist. I was thinking how great it would be to see the acupuncturist for a possible 5 for 1 combo treatment: anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia and hot flashes, but unfortunately, I checked with my insurer and they don't cover acupuncture at all.

After work, I vacuumed the house.

I took my mother out to a violin concert featuring the renowned violinist Che Ho Lam. He's played at the White House (Obama's inauguration) and Carnegie Hall.

It was an hour of really great music. I loved watching him play, most of the time with his eyes closed.

If we saw him at venues like those, chances are we'd be peering at him through a pair of binoculars. But at the intimate Richter Center (seats about 50), we sat in the FRONT row and were just 5 feet away from this amazing master on the violin, accompanied by pianist Jiyang Chen.

I washed my car earlier and later noticed bird poop on it.

I am making something in the slow cooker for dinner, a stew with potatoes, cauliflower, sundried tomatoes, red kidney beans and coconut milk. It should have been done by now and is taking a really long time to cook so I am settling in with a glass of kefir and an apple.

Back to the grind tomorrow. I haven't scheduled any vacation time until May but I sure could use it, and have felt this way for weeks.

Tomorrow night I may catch Birdman, one of last year's top 10 movies, which is playing at our $2 movie theater for a limited time.

I got my new US Bank Flex Perks Travel Rewards Visa Signature card in the mail today. Gosh, what a mouthful.

You have to spend $3,500 in the 1st 4 months of getting the card to get $200 back in gift cards (or travel).

That's $875 a month, which is a lot, but if I make sure to charge everything to this one card through July, I think I'll do it.

I already spent $90 at Trader Joe's, $17 on gas and $35 on cat food at Walmart.

It was snowing all day today (crazy!) but not sticking to the roads. Tomorrow it will be back in the 40s so it should mostly melt.

My mason estimates thus far are as follows:
1st mason: $12,767, later reduced by $1,000 by cutting some materials.

2nd mason: haven't gotten the written estimate yet, but looks like no more than $8,000-something for an admittedly different configuration of the front stair/wall redo.

3rd mason: coming tomorrow

I wrote an unfavorable Amazon review about Goddess Garden Organics Sunny Body sunscreen, mainly because it's thick and pasty and is difficult to rub on and makes you look like a ghost. Someone from the company asked me to call them in a reply post, which I did, and they offered to send me some samples of other sunscreens in their product line and then if I called them back after trying them they would send me a full size replacement for the sunscreen I have. So I thought that was pretty cool, not to mention media-savvy.

I also thought I would get some estimates for weekly lawn mowings here. I just am NOT looking forward to the lawn-mowing season. It's more and more exhausting as I get older, and it takes up way too much of my time on the weekends. I had someone come over and while he guessed maybe $40 or $45, which I thought was a good price, considering all the obstacles in my yard and its size, he said he'd need to come back when the snow was gone cus he wants to see the terrain and make sure his 60" wide blades will be able to get around my yard. Mowings from May thru October at $40 a pop would total $960, not a small sum of money but something I think I'm ready to spring on. The price includes trimming and blowing.

I will call some other guys too, when the snow melts.

I see that Birdman is finally playing at our local $2 movie theater and I really want to try to see it before its show there ends next week.

Also can't wait for the annual cacti and succulent show at a local college in early April. I plan to spend a little money there and sit in on some lectures. It's a nice way to get in the spring mood.

I've mostly decided to pull up the fencing around my vegetable garden and put down grass seed where my veggie garden has been for the past 5 years or so. It was a good run, and I got some great tomatoes and many other things from it, but that garden also represented a lot of manual labor I'm just not in the mood for. Especially in the heat of summer when it was too hot to weed, it got overgrown and nearly impenetrable. And it slowed down my mowing. I will still try to grow dwarf tomatoes, herbs and maybe a few other things in pots in my driveway, which bakes in summer, but they will be easier to stay on top of there.

Of course, if someone else is mowing, I will have more time to do the garden, but I'm still not sure I want to do it anyway.

I'm taking a break from family issues today.

I took a short (half hour) walk on some town pathways. It is still pretty brisk for March and on the cold side, so I didn't dawdle!

I tried another new recipe I'd been wanting to try for the longest time, and it is definitely a keeper! It's sweet potatoes filled with an African-style peanut sauce. This would be the perfect thing to make for someone who believes that vegan food is bland and boring.

The sauce you pour into the roasted sweet potatoes is made of minced and sauteed garlic and onion, tomato sauce, fresh grated ginger, peanut butter, coriander, cumin and topped with chopped cilantro. All I can say is wow, how tasty. I cooked up 3 pounds of sweet potatoes for this, so I can bring them to work as one of my side dishes.

Being on something of a peanut butter kick today, I also made some peanut butter squares topped with melted dark chocolate chips. I probably won't make this one again but it does satisfy my peanut butter craving.

I also made time to do continue reading "Becoming Vegan."

I've also had some discussion today with the 1st mason to give me an estimate on redoing my front walkway. This is a major job..get ready...his bid came in at $12,767. I was hoping for no more than $10K.) This is why I skip, as much as humanly possible, wasting money on little doodads for the house, eating out a lot or on other stuff I don't really need, so that when it comes to capital improvements, I can do them. Not that I couldn't do a lot better at not wasting money on small stuff, but anyway that's another conversation....

The job entails creating an entirely new walkway leading from the driveway to my front door and would replace the set of 5 or 6 steep steps now leading to that same front door.

Because I've got a hill in front of my entry, making less steep stairs means starting the stairs further away so they can gently curve up the hill. There would in fact be a total of 16 steps instead of 6, and that is one thing I emailed him about after our conversation, cus I want to strike a balance between not having really steep stairs and having too many more shallow stairs. I'm wondering if 16 stairs is too much.

He would use pavers on the stairs with stone retaining walls (24 inches high) on either side to hold them in place. The entire length of the walkway he calculates at 48 feet, to give you an idea of the scale of this project. A new, slightly larger landing of about 8 x 8 would go in at the top in a half circle shape with concentric circles of pavers filling up the half circle. There are some other details associated with the job, but this is the gist of it.

His materials list shows that he needs 22 tons of bulk stone; that alone accounts for $3,080, along with 300 square fee tof pavers at $2.55 per square foot, 35 bags of cement, 5 tons of trap rock and so on.

it kind of boggles my mind that so much is needed. Here are some photos of the area in question.


This shows a portion of the existing retaining wall that runs parallel to my driveway; the stairs now leading to the front entry are to the left side of photo and are perpendicular coming up from the drive. The bottom of the new stairway would begin toward the end of this stone wall, and this stone wall would be repaired/recemented to stabilize it.


This is an older photo of the house before I got vinyl siding, but the existing staircase runs up between those 2 large round shrubs.




Here you get a good idea of the length of the entire retaining wall and a glimpse of current steps.


I plan to still get 2 other estimates before deciding what to do.

So I did call my dad yesterday, pretending it was just a random call, and he said he was "feeling better," so I had a reason to say why, what's wrong. He admitted only to a "bad cold" and said he was on his way to pick up the antibiotics and get lunch.

Perhaps it is just a bad cold or maybe it's pneumonia as he feared; in any case, I'm glad he got some meds and I will call again in a few days to see how he's doing. He doesn't like people fussing over him.

My mother is home from the hospital after calling 911 due to pain in her hand. Turns out she had colitis, which is a bacterial infection, so she, too, is on antibiotics. I will check in with her later today after I shovel myself out of the driveway.

Then my sister called last night since the nurse at the hospital called her, too, about my mother. My sister was speculating about something that was a moot point since she didn't know my mother had colitis, not the usual pain due to arthritis.

Since she called me, I told her that with Easter coming up, i really didn't want to repeat what happened at the birthday lunch we had a week ago, and that it is very stressful to have to sit through get-together after get-together when my sister is so nasty, short-tempered, irritable and snaps at my mother. Being in a restaurant didn't stop her for doing that again.

Without a doubt, my sister uses her anger to control and intimidate my mother, and it works on me too. We are both a little afraid of my sister. She is only like this, as far as I can tell, with me and my mother, although she is still generally short-tempered and very impatient.

Of course my sister got angry when I said all this and said I was putting her on a guilt trip. She acknowledged that her anger issues have nothing to do with me, but with my mother. Well, I'm there every time she sees my mother so of course I can't just ignore it.

I asked her to control herself and rise above it, reminding her my 81-year-old mother has Alzheimers and really can't help how she is, regardless of the fact my sister's issues with my mother were there years before the Alzheimer's surfaced. My sister 2 years older than me and in her 50s. She's not the type to see a therapist.

So I told my sister, why bother showing up for these family get-togethers since you are obviously so unhapyy about being there, and since you make everyone else unhappy, and why do you bother since you never lend a hand with mom? To that she replied well then I won't bother showing up. I said fine, and that was the end of the phone call.

Honestly, I'd rather not have someone like that in my life and since she's never helped out with my mother or taken any responsibility for her, I don't think I'm losing anything except a whole lot of unneeded stress and aggravation.

I vented to a friend of mine after that but it's still extremely upsetting. I didn't even bring up with my sister one more thing I know that she doesn't know I know...that's she invited my 82-year-old father who is shaky on his legs to live in her 2nd floor walk-up (outdoor stairs) loft apartment. I'm pretty sure her motivation is so she can collect some rent. And my dad's the only person in the family that she gets along with.

I already tactfully told my father I didn't think it was a great idea because of the stairs, and I even mailed him 2 listings for some very nice ranch homes, comparable to what he has now in south Jersey, but these homes are in the town my sister lives in, which is also just 15 minutes away from me.

I'd love to see him live closer to us so that I, for one, would be able to better look after him, but moving in to my sister's apartment I think is a very bad idea. If he became afraid of using those stairs, I could see him becoming very isolated in that tiny apartment, and he has no friends or other connections in Connecticut besides my sister and me.

Right now he has a beautiful ranch he's greatly improved over the years that is perfect for his needs with a large sunroom, a wood stove he uses all the time (no stove/fireplace in the apt), a small garden, a renovated luxury bath and buddies he meets at the diner every morning. He's just 2 blocks from the water and he enjoys being near the ocean.

He bought that house when he retired many years ago, but he is isolated down there as far as family goes. My 2 half brothers (from his 2nd marriage) live about 1.5 hours north of him in the Rutherford NJ area and as mentioned, my sister and I are even further north here in CT, so it would be difficult to help him in any sort of emergency medical situation.

I only found out about the planned move for my father after calling my half brother to wish him a happy birthday. He knew, but neither my sister nor my father had told me about it. My sister is always very secretive and doesn't share much about her life, so no surprise there, but my father? Perhaps because he knew I might disapprove.

Oh well. I won't say another thing about this unless my dad brings it up. People make their own decisions and I have enough on my plate already.

This morning since I was out of almond milk I tried out a recipe I'd clipped from Better Homes & Gardens back in October 2009! It turned out great...a pumpkin pudding with wheat berries (instead of rice)and I used coconut milk and topped it with soaked dried cranberries, chopped walnuts and sliced apple. Really good and quite filling. It did also include 3 eggs and I'd like to try it again with just 2 eggs and not the 1/3 cup sugar the recipe called for. It was pretty sweet.

Today and tomorrow are the usual assortment of errands including groceries, gas, checking in on my mother, etc.

I am grateful today to be working from home, in anticipation of some snow, but I'm feeling very distracted.

I called my dad's ex to wish her a happy birthday, and she told me my dad wasn't feeling well, thought he had pneumonia and is unsure whether or not he got in to see his doctor after waiting 5 hours at the hospital.

My mother called and left a wailing message the other day that her phone wasn't working, her computer wasn't working and couldn't I please help. Obviously her phone was working or she wouldn't have been able to leave me that message.

I am planning on calling my dad later today; his ex made me promise I wouldn't let him know it was her who told me about his not feeling well, so I'll have to pretend it's just a random phone call on my part. So stupid, but my dad doesn't' like people worrying about him but I need to make sure he sees a doctor as he's 81 and has diabetes, 2 risk factors and yes, i know pneumonia at his age can be dangerous.

I'm prepared to drive the 3 hours down there to help him out, maybe buy some groceries, whatever's needed, but he probably won't want me to. He lives alone; not ideal.

I'm anxious to get my next paycheck next Friday as it should reflect both my W4 adjustment and a small extra kick-in from my merit raise.

I had to fill up my oil tank. Prices rose somewhat compared to my last fill-up in January at the cheap cheap price of $2.15 a gallon. I got it for $2.49 but then saw it at $2.36 elsewhere so same day as I got the delivery I called them back as they advertise a "price guarantee." She said normally you have to tell them about the cheaper price elsewhere BEFORE you place the order but would credit me for the difference this one time. It's just a difference of $22, but psychologically I like the sound of $2.36 a gallon better than $2.49 a gallon!

Waiting for 1st mason to give me a price on redoing the front walkway and stairs to my home; a 2nd one is coming sometime today. He was supposed to come tonight but due to the expected messy weather, i called and told him i was working from home and if he wanted, he could come earlier. He's going to let me know. I suspect his price will be cheaper than the 1st guy, based solely on where these 2 different masons live: one in a high-priced town in Fairfield County, the 2nd in a depressed city in New Haven County.

I am reading a great tome of a book called Becoming Vegan. For someone who really likes to analyze and delve into details on things that interest her, this book is perfect. I am having little trouble being vegetarian, but eating vegan is much more difficult because there is cheese in practically everything you buy that doesn't have meat or fish in it. I don't have time to cook 100% of what I eat. And I also know that you can't simply go vegan and expect your nutritional needs will be met; I'm already supplementing with Vitamin D and B12, and I am armed wtih my recent bloodwork results from January physical, but I will be taking a much closer look at things. One mystery to be examined is why i haven't lost any weight. I do use some olive oil and coconut oil, but not to any great length, but I do also have a huge bowl of non-whole wheat pasta probably once a week. The sweet tooth is being contained, but not totally eradicated.

My quasi-vegan diet game plan is as follows:
1. I will eat eggs, but ONLY the truly free-range ones I get from my local organic farmer. The ones in the store may be cage-free, but the birds are still shoulder to shoulder, debeaked, etc and that just sickens me.

2. The only cheese I'm buying myself now are Parmesan or the reggiano hard cheese i grate fresh for my pasta and very occasional goat cheese. There is other cheese I'm getting on certain things I buy and don't look carefully enough at, but not a whole lot. But some.

3. No meats, fish or other dairy, generally. The meat and other dairy are pretty easy to follow and I very occasionally have a bit of fish.

I'm eating lots of fruit, veggies, beans, whole grains and even seeds. I've gotten into the habit of getting at least one container of fresh berries every week. Nuts I love anyway, but am trying to be content with some unsalted and non-roasted. Trying to avoid rice due to concerns about high arsenic levels, especially in US rice. (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/01/fda-data-show-arsenic-in-rice-juice-and-beer/index.htm)The study noted that more than 10 percent of the rice in China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is estimated to have arsenic concentrations exceeding 200 ppb, while in the U.S., more than 50 percent of the rice is estimated to contain arsenic at those elevated levels

So I found another credit card deal I wanted to pursue...spend $3500 in 4 months (that's $875 a month) on a new US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature Card and you get $200 back.

I was surprised when they didn't give me an on the spot approval; instead, they said it was "under review" and that I'd get a decision by mail in 7 to 10 business days.

They asked for my employer, my income and housing payments. Perhaps it was the fact I put $0 under housing payments since I paid off the mortgage.

Hmm.....

Anyone familiar with this card?

I'm quite happy with the results of my tax filings. I knew I had to pay back $1700 for Obamacare subsidies I no longer was entitled to since my income for 2014 exceeded $46,000.

But happily, even with that expense, I will still get a $300 federal tax refund and a $710 state tax refund. I hardly ever get a big state tax refund.

I KNEW the agency I worked for prior to joining the bank was deducting way too much.

I had to refile the federal return THREE times before it was accepted. The 2 fixes I had to make did not change any of the figures on the forms.

Anyway, maybe now I can turn my attention to adjusting my witholding on a W4 form so not so much is taken out of my paycheck.

I am so tired and the day just whizzed by. Met a friend for coffee at the diner, then met my 1st of 3 contractors/masons I called for a price on redoing the front entry to my door. I have a fairly steep and narrow set of stairs built into a high stone retaining wall. I want the stairs to be wider and more shallow, in a pleasing curved form rather than the hard-edge 90-degree angle I have now. With pavers, I also want a half moon shape design at the top landing

Who knows how much all this will cost. I'm hoping not more than $10,000. I spent a fair amount of time with the guy who was highly ranked on Angie's List. I meet with the next guy on Friday.

After I finished up with him, i started in on my tax returns and only finished that at 5 p.m.

Yesterday was the birthday lunch for my sister and mother at a good Italian place. My sister was very ill-mannered as she always is, yelling at my mother at one point. I can't stand having to engage in these get-togethers when my sister is consistently ill-tempered, unhappy and abusive, and has been for years. I end up as referee between her and my mother. Yes, my mother gets on our nerves quite a bit, but could you restrain yourself from yelling in a restaurant please? Maybe we are enabling her since my mother and I both are intimidated by my sister and her constant anger and irritability. I would like to simply stop attending get-togethers that include my sister, but that of course would cause my mother to get all upset and trying to change my mind (instead of dealing with the true problem). It's just more than I can handle sometimes.

After dropping my mother off after lunch, I filled the gas tank at BJs, used a $10 free coupon at Kohl's on a little pillow and dropped off some donations at GoodWill and the library.

I am relieved that the taxes are finally done. I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Luckily I'm working from home tomorrow as I have a mammogram in the morning. Once I get credited for that mammogram and my recent gyno appointment, I'll be able to redeem another $125 in gift cards/wellness incentives from Cigna. Nice.

I've started rewatching the Sopranos on Prime, starting at Season 1, so that I can eventually watch the final season which I never did get to see.

Six weeks later, I finally got a corrected 1095 form from the state of Connecticut. So I'll be able to do my federal and state taxes this weekend. Joy.

I'll also be going out to celebrate my sister and mother's birthdays on Saturday with them.

The snow is finally melting around here, but it's still knee high in my yard. It can't leave soon enough. My snowdrops are waiting to bloom!

There's a herd of 10 starving deer that are spending time in my yard, doing a real number on my rhododendron shrubs and eating anything they can. I will probably pick up a large bag of corn for them. Don't like their destructive habits or the ticks they spread around, but I also don't like to see them starve.

A zillion other errands this weekend; I'll see how many I can knock off my list. It's supposed to be a rainy weekend.

Monday I'll be working from home as I have a mammogram.

Tomorrow is my Amazon delivery of some vegan books I ordered.

So I learned yesterday what my merit raise will be: 1.5%. As mentioned before, I didn't really expect anything since I haven't been perm for a full year yet. But I guess because they do raises at the same time of year for everyone, they included me in. It's better than nothing although I'd sort of been expecting 2%.

Inflation for the first 2 months of this year was running at -0.1%, so that's good.

So I will use 1% of that, or $800, to increase my Roth 401k contributions from 22% of pay to 23% of pay. The remaining .5, or $400, will simply wind up in my net pay; I believe it will come out to about $18 more per paycheck. Ahh, living large....

By right I should put the entire raise into the 401k because I don't spend every penny of my net pay now as it is, which means I will just wind up paying more in taxes on my taxable savings.

However, there is something to be said for having the flexibility to spend the money on home improvements or other worthy purchases and if I don't feel I have the money at hand, I won't do it. So for the sake of having "options," I will allow a few hundred to come to me in the form of taxable income.

On tap for this year will be replacing the very worn rubber stair treads on my basement stairs with new vinyl treads, which I've already bought. They do need to be trimmed to size and glued on, and I think I'd rather have my handyman do it rather than have to sniff that glue.

I'd also like to get my upstairs fir floors refinished and get some treework done in terms of pruning branches or taking down dead trees.

That's just the start.

Oh gosh, I just glanced at my 2015 resolutions and see that I was supposed to have lost 16 pounds by the end of this month. I haven't weighed myself in weeks, and I'm pretty sure my weight hasn't budged at all. I still have been walking at least 30 minutes on most weekdays and I've been doing an incredible amount of snow shoveling here these past few weeks.

Earlier this week my new tire pressure gauge and portable air compressor arrived from Amazon. A friend at work told me she'd been driving on her tires for a week after her low tire pressure alert came on in her car becus her husband was going to get the tires filled, the following weekend, with whatever that gas is that apparently doesn't leak like air in cold temperatures.

So I felt it would be "ok" to keep driving on the tires until my delivery came. I'd been to the local gas station twice to fill up one tire that was low and he said if it happens again we'll want to take a look at it. Which to me meant, examine the tire for a nail or whatever which I felt there wouldn't be, since the low tire pressure has only been an issue this winter and last, and not in between. So I didn't want to spend the money.

Well, I checked the pressure with a highly rated gauge and it was fine, even slightly overfilled, in 3 of the tires. The PSI should be 32. But in the one tire it was 10 PSI!! And yes, when I pressed on the side it "gave" a little, unlike the rock hard other tires. Geez, I could have really damaged the tire/rim; I didn't think it was THAT low.

I filled it up Thursday night and my low tire pressure light has remained off. It was a pain to fill it, though, because the air compressor doesn't seem to indicate the PSI while I'm filling the tire. It has a dial on it that goes from 0 to 300, but when I turned it on the needle jumped to 80. Like I said, my correct PSI tire pressure should be 32 and it was down to about 10 when measured with a separate air gauge. So I don't know exactly what that dial measures. I had to run the compressor a while and then remove the attachment and check the pressure with a separate digital gauge I'd bought.

Today was my 3rd day working at home this week. I did go into work this morning, only because my boss scheduled a meeting for us to discuss my raise.

Wouldn't you know I drove in....the roads weren't great...and she stayed home! In fact, hardly anyone was in the office. So a few hours later I turned around and got back home by noon. I wanted to make sure my car made it up the driveway. It doesn't take much to make it slippery.

My Amazon delivery arrived today. It includes a tire gauge and an air compressor so I can keep my car tires at the right pressure. In the cold weather, I lose PSIs, which I guess is not uncommon. This probably happened with my prior Honda, but since it didn't have Low PSI alerts on the dashboard, I probably drove around with low air for months.

I guess I'll wait til tomorrow a.m. before work to fill the tires as it will be especially cold again tonight, down to about zero.

But Sunday marks a turnaround in the weather, solidly in the 40s, and the week after that, 2 days in the low 60s! That should melt the snow around here; we still have over a foot on the ground.

This a.m. before work I got the roof rake out and took some snow off my garage roof, which has a very shallow pitch.

I hope to take my mother to a matinee on Saturday to see Mr. Turner. He's an artist, so she should like that. I may arrive with Boston Market for lunch first, and then we can go to the movies. She doesn't know about it yet but I felt bad because I know she didn't do anything for her birthday. My sister and I are taking her out next Saturday to celebrate her birthday, and my sister's, at the same time.

Not much money news to report, but when I find out tomorrow what my merit raise is, I will let you know. I'm expecting 2%; anything above that would be great.

If it's 2%, or $1600, I'll take half that amount, or $800, and increase my Roth 401k contribution by exactly that amount, 1%. The other half will be "fun" money, if I wish to spend it.

I'd still like to winnow down the number of credit cards in my wallet, but I don't want to lose what rewards I've earned on any of them, so I need to keep concentrating spending on the next card I want to cancel, so I can more quickly accumulate the minimum number of points to redeem. That would be my BOA Cash Card or my Chase AARP card.

Sometimes when I am super stressed out about something I don't post about it here on the forum. It's just too upsetting to even put down on paper.

My issues with the CT healthcare exchange fell into this category, simply because in early February they mailed me an incorrect 1095A form, a new tax form that shows how much $$ in healthcare subsidies I received in 2014.

I paid for the insurance for the 1st 4 months of the year, while the form indicated I paid for it for 11 months of the year. The reason why this is problematic is because as you may know from reading my blog, my contract job turned perm mid year and I exceeded the income limit that allows you to keep the subsidies you got. I knew I'd have to repay the subsidies for those 4 months ($1400) but I certainly didn't want to have to shell out $3,850 when I never had insurance with them past April.

For a month I've been trying to straighten this out, but the healthcare exchange is apparently so busy that I had wait times on hold for upwards of 45 minutes and it seemed like their phone recordings were especially designed to prevent people from getting thru to talk to a live person.

It became even more upsetting when, about 2 weeks ago, I talked to someone there who argued with me and said basically it was my fault because I didn't cancel the insurance. I DID cancel but they didn't get the phone message or my scribbled note on a premium bill, etc. The fact is, I didn't pay any premiums past April, not did I make any claims. Yet he's trying to tell me they would treat me as an active policyholder. It was nuts.

I left him a message yesterday saying if I didn't even hear back from him or get the revised 1095 form i would write a detailed complaint letter to the CEO of the healthcare exchange, copy the CT commissioner of Dept of Public Health, which oversees the healthcare exchange and, if I needed to, I would call my state representative (because they sometimes get involved with wierd little things like this where you basically run out of options).

I don't even know if the guy listens to his messages. He was completely ignoring my requests for a call-back.

But lo and behold, when I got thru to someone else today, she said their records indicate my form was corrected as of yesterday. She couldn't tell what the corrected form says but I will assume it's correct now. HOPEFULLY I will get it in 7 to 10 business days and then I can finally finish my federal tax return and start the state return.

I feel like such a cloud has been lifted (partially) from my shoulders. I was feeling so anxious about this, knowing the clock was ticking on the tax return and fearing the state would never get its act together.

I am working from home today, after having already worked at home Monday, and it looks like I'll probably work from home tomorrow.

We had rain last night turning to ice and now it's warming up. I shoveled all the very wet slush off my driveway and threw some de-icer down but I'm really exhausted, and I'd like to get out there again mid-day and try to get more melted stuff off the driveway or it will refreeze tonight. I was getting a few little painful spasms in my back, which doesn't usually happen.

It seems my dad may be moving in with my sister this spring. Not exactly in her home, but in a fairly spacious 1-bedroom loft style apartment over her garage/barn. I personally don't think it's a great idea, although I love the idea of him living so much closer to us rather than 3 hours away on the Jersey shore. Becus to get to the apartment there's a double flight of OUTSIDE stairs to the apartment, which I'm sure would be treacherous in this kind of weather and my dad is not at all steady on his feet. He is 82 now. I think the stairs have a roof over them, but still.

He is not sure he will like it becus he doesn't know anyone here, so his plan is to just move with a minimum number of items and stay here for a few months but still periodically go back to check in on his house on the shore.

I told him I want to help with the move; i have plenty of time off to do so. I was also a little miffed that neither he or my sister told me about this; i learned it thru my half brother when i wished him a happy birthday.

The other issue with my dad moving is that I don't think he would pass the eye exam with DMV, so he'd have to risk keeping his out of state plates on his car and hope no one noticed. I brought this up with him and he said he thought he could pass the exam. This, after telling me last time his left eye is pretty much "useless." With just one eye you've got to figure he has no depth perception, and they do test for that herein CT. I know I nearly flunked the depth perception part of the test myself when I took the test many years ago.

It would almost be better, if my dad was intent on moving, to find a little place of his own, one level, that better suited his needs. Of course, he's got that now where he lives, on the Jersey shore. He's made many improvements over the years and it's perfect for him.

I suspect one reason, perhaps a big reason, my sister would like to have my dad living there is because she's tried to have renters living there and has had problems with tenants there and stopped renting it out becus she was tired of the issues. And she could certainly use the extra income. I think she overextended herself when she bought her house and she doesn't make a huge income. At the time she made the purchase, I think she was really counting on the extra rental income to get by.

Even at 82, my dad, bless him, is still a bit of an adventurer, maybe even a dreamer, and I'm not sure he has really thought fully about how problematic those stairs will be. I don't think it would make much difference if I pointed this out to him; both he and my sister are the kind of people who will do what they want and forge ahead. My sister bought this old stone house with 3 acres so she could farm it to her heart's content. And coming from a stone house previously, that's all she would live in. She loved the rustic feel of it. However, this house had a lot of things to be fixed; she doesn't share much with me, but i can tell by just looking at it that much of the maintenance has not been addressed. It's really unkempt and downtrodden looking. So here she is so unhelpful when it comes to helping my mom, who has Alzheimers, and now she's invited my dad to live up there with her so she can boost her income. And hasn't said a word about it to me.

After entering the 21st century with my new LED TV and Roku stick, I wound up buying an Android smartphone which at first I was going to return because I was overwhelmed by how much I had to learn to use it and no true user's manual, but now I think I'm going to keep.

It was $130, has the dual selfie/outward-facing camera, Google voice recognition when you're doing a search for something which I LOVE, no contract, just pay as you go with TracFone and triple minutes for as long as I own the phone. It's got a 4.5-inch screen, which is pretty big. It even has a built-in flashlight.

At least I can make a phone call now and I set the weather to my town. I can get online but it's a royal pain trying to type in my email password because I happen to have an underscore (_) in it and I can't seem to get voice recognition for my password to work. I also have no idea how to delete an email message. Sigh. I haven't even begun to explore apps.

When I first started working at the bank I was having major withdrawal pains from not being able to check my personal email from the office. Truth be told, after 1.5 years, it's not such a big deal anymore and since I'm not doing much freelance writing, there's really nothing urgent coming along via email that can't wait til I get home.

It can do so much more than my EXTREMELY basic cellphone with the teeny buttons. Now I'm practicing my touch and swish and slide technique.

I bought a shoe stretcher on Amazon and wanted to use it on a good pair of leather shoes that aren't wide enough. I wound up ripping out some of the shoe stitching by putting it in. Now I'll have to bring it to a shoe repair place because I like these shoes (I have them in 2 colors) and have had them forever. Just a basic loafer with a 1.5 inch heel.

I read online that using 2 cups of OxiClean with hot water is a good way to clean soap scum off shower tiles, but it failed to achieve the desired results. I want the tiles to shine and they are very dull.

The state of CT is preventing me from filing my tax returns because they issued me an incorrect 1095A form, which I need to show how much money I received in subsidies for health insurance for the 1st 4 months of 2014; they had me down as getting the subsidies for 11 months of the year, which would mean I would have to pay back nearly $4,000 instead of the $1400 I know I owe! As if simple failure to notify them I didn't want the insurance anymore is justification to penalize the policyholder.

I KNEW I hadn't told them I was cancelling but this was at a time when I was still focused on doing well at my new job and the health insurance company's hours were exactly the same as my bank's, meaning I couldn't call after hours. There's no privacy in my cube for that kind of call and I did once or twice go in the stairwell to call but there were always long wait times. I scribbled "Cancel" on one premium notice and mailed it back to them but apparently that didn't register. It wasn't til November that I finally got someone on the phone and that's why the 1095 form they issued me indicated I cancelled in November, when in fact I'd stopped paying for the insurance 8 months earlier.

Since getting the 1095 A form in early February, I got bounced around to different phone numbers and then either got a consistent busy signal or got a phone that rang and rang and rang. I did talk to one guy, apparently the right guy, 2 weeks ago and he argued that because I didn't effectively cancel the insurance when I went on another plan that I would be considered still on their plan, even though I 1. stopped paying the premiums after April, 2. Filed no claims after April and 3. Was paying for insurance via agency that hired me as a contract worker. At the time of our conversation he said he would call Healthy CT, which is the health plan I had been. Well, I haven't been able to talk to him since but I did leave a phone message telling him I found at home a letter Healthy CT sent me in July which proves I wasn't a policyholder through November. In the letter they basically said we see you haven't paid your premiums since April and if we don't get those back premiums due, we'll cancel your insurance as of May 31. I told him I could scan and email that letter to him.

But I still haven't heard back and can't get thru on the phone. It's extremely trying becus I REALLY want to get my taxes behind me and I can't, and I feel completely helpless to do anything about it. They simply don't answer their phones and their customer services is non-existent.

If I don't hear from him or get the darn revised 1095 form, I may write a long and detailed letter to Access Health president, the Commissioner of the CT Dept of Public Health, which oversees Access Health and possibly even appeal to my state representative to intervene on my behalf. Becus I really don't know what else I can do. I am hoping that just the threat of my doing so, if left on another phone message, may be enough to get the form. If he even listens to his messages.

Last night I tried the first pill of some free samples my gynocologist gave me for hot flashes. I've dealt with hot flashes for 5 years and I am pretty sick of them by now. The daytime once have eased up; i still feel all heated up maybe 4 or 5 times a day, but it's nothing like the once every hour routine I had when they started in 2010. Nighttime hot flashes are still a problem, though, and I feel I toss and turn all night, first I'm hot and throw off the covers and tear off my pajamas, then I'm cold, then I'm hot, etc.

But the pill caused digestive issues and a mild headache; can't deal with the former when I'm at work, even though the label said it was only in the 1st 4 weeks of use.

I researched some non-prescription, non-hormonal alternatives online and ordered I-cool from Amazon, so we'll see how that works.

Doctors are so quick to prescribe a med that's often got side effects as bad as what it's trying to fix.

I got a Macy's and BB&B gift card in the mail last week as rewards for wellness checkups, so today's goal was to go spend them.

At Bed, Bath & Beyond, I found a nifty (small) teak cabinet with door and 2 shelves above, about 12 inches square and 45 inches high selling for $99. They had the assembled display model on a high shelf but I couldn't find any in the boxes anywhere. The woman said they could order it online for me so I could take advantage of my 20% off 1 item in-store only coupon, and then it would be delivered to my door. But they were out of stock online. I asked if I could buy the display model so she checked with the manager, who said yes. With the coupon, it was $80 and it was fully assembled, another plus. It just fit in my back seat.



I also bought a liquid soap dispenser for my bathroom, to replace the one I got at the $ store which leaks every time you use it. I also got a much needed lazy Susan type spice rack with 2 levels.

At Macy's, I found a nice Charter Club sweater marked down from $129, if you believe the price tag, and with my $10 off coupon, it was just $23. Correction: The sweater was already marked down to $23 and my $10 off coupon couldn't be used because I hadn't met the minimum purchase of $30. The clerk returned the coupon to me, but it would have been nice if she had told me this because I also had a 10 or 20% off coupon which I don't think had a minimum purchase requirement.

I filled up the gas tank, bought some stuff at BJs and also hit a totally mobbed Trader Joe's.

I got home before the snow started and before the water main break on the main road by me. Now it's snowing steadily and the car is safely tucked in the garage.

Tomorrow I hope to get my hair cut with a coupon, do laundry, and make a broccoli soup and a pea soup for freezing and for work week lunches.

Also today, I bought my first smartphone, a 5-inch display Android, on HSN. It comes with no contract, just pay as you go with TracFone. It comes with 1200 each talk minutes, text minutes and data and 1-year tech support, plus the cover and car charger. It cost $129.

I have waffled on doing this for a long time. I'm not a big talker and didn't want to be locked into a contract. The 1200 minutes they give you expire after 1 year if you don't use them, but if you order more minutes before they expire, they'll be rolled over and be good for another year. The least amount of minutes you can buy at 1 time is 400 minutes for $100. However, all minutes I buy will be automatically tripled for as long as I have this phone. Does this sound like a good deal to you?

My costs with this phone will be as follows:

Year 1: Cost of phone only ($130) as I know I won't use up 1200 minutes each of phone, data, text.
Year 2 and each year thereafter: $8.33 a month, or $100 a year.

So, not too bad, and I can enter the Electronic Age. Coincidentally, the cheapie basic pay as you go phone I've had for years I can't find, so perhaps this is timely as I would at least like to have a phone for emergencies when driving. I'd also like to be able to check my personal email while at the office or elsewhere, although I don't think I'll ever be one of those people who walk around mindlessly staring at their phone.

I don't know if other phones are better than my basic one, but when you turned it off and on, you had to wait probably 20 seconds for it to be on and ready to dial.

So yes, I feel a little spendy, but I'm still holding true to old habits of earning free gift cards whenever I see an opportunity, using coupons and the like. And I'm trying my best not to incur ongoing monthly costs in particular, as those seem to be overlooked but add up over time.

So for instance, although I did recently spring for the $100 a year Amazon Prime, I decided to cancel my Hulu Plus and even my Netflix. After browsing their titles, I feel they have plenty of stuff for me to watch without it being necessary for me to pay extra for another movie subscription; I can only watch so many movies at one time, and I have over 100 in my Amazon queue. I am disappointed at having to give up American Idol on Hulu Plus, but that's really the only thing I think I'll miss.

I've spent most of my 3-day weekend in solitude and watching movies/Downton Abbey due to the very cold weather and snow, but I did have an old friend come by for lunch today.

For the 1st time since I went vegan, I unapologetically made a vegetable soup for our lunch. (Also some guacamole and carrot sticks, some bread and for dessert, plain yogurt with fresh blackberries drizzled with honey. In the past, I would break my vegan-ism and make something with meat in it to accommodate my guest.

Fortunately, my friend seemed to like the lunch I made, and he brought me a half dozen eggs from his chickens, which to me is always something special. I won't eat store-bought eggs anymore, in fact.

The leftover soup will serve as my lunch for the rest of the work week.

In a previous post I wrote about the Origami collapsible metal shelves I bought from Amazon and how I had to return them because they were damaged. When I went online, I indicated I wanted to do a return and opted for replacement rather than a refund, as I really do like these shelves.

But then Amazon directed me to drop off the shelves at a UPS store, which I've done before, but I was so annoyed they were damaged and especially upon finding a former customer's return label for the shelves (because they were defective), so I decided to call Amazon and the woman I got agreed to have UPS do a pick-up at my door, which at least would make it a little easier for me with all the snow and ice around here.

They were supposed to cal me to schedule a pick-up but the driver showed up at my door during my lunch with my friend, so that was fine with me and I gave him the package.

But after my friend left, I noticed the replacement shelves from Amazon had already been delivered and were already sitting in front of my garage, but they had somehow delivered 2 replacements instead of one! I'm guessing it's because I started the process online but then when I talked to the woman from Amazon on the phone, she probably processed another replacement without realizing I had already indicated I wanted a replacement online.

I haven't yet been charged for the 2nd set and I'm wondering if I will be. Because it's kind of a pain to do the returns, I will just keep both. They are really quite handy and would work well in the basement, garage or in a kitchen pantry, if I had one.

One big benefit of having my friend over is that I had decided I wanted to give him a tour of the upstairs, so I cleaned the place from top to bottom. Everything looked pretty good, I have to admit. If only I could keep it looking this way. Normally, when guests come over, I only worry about cleaning the first floor.

Tomorrow it's back to my regular work routine although I MIGHT wind up working from home, depending on the weather. They're calling for 1 to 3 inches, and if it's coming down steadily when I get up, I may just stay home. Right now there's just a 66% chance it'll be snowing between 7 and 9 a.m. so we'll have to play it by ear. If it's sticking to the road, I'll stay home.

It's snowing pretty seriously now and the wind is due to pick up tonight.

I think I mentioned that I redeemed $125 in wellness incentive dollars from my employer, so today I treated myself to a Whole Foods shopping trip. They're way too expensive to make a regular habit of it, but I did find a variety of organic apples I don't think I usually see, as well as some nifty bottles of lemon and lime juice, both organic, with NOTHING but the lemon/lime juice. I used to buy bottled lemon juice for years because of the convenience factor until I realized there were other unhealthy ingredients in them. So I switched to fresh lemons/limes, but of course I never seem to have them on hand when a recipe calls for them. So the organic bottled lemon/lime juice was a "score" for me.

Somehow I didn't realize that I had NOT charged up $500 on my new AARP card. I THOUGHT I had but when I checked my account online, I saw I only charged $318 and I need to charge more to earn the $100 cash back.

So I used that card today to get gas at BJs, a few groceries there, and Petco. The statement closing is next week, I think, and it would be nice to finish up that card this week so I don't have to wait another month for the credit.

Talking about statement credits and card rewards, I cashed out my rewards from my BOA Susan Komen card and got the check in the mail today for about $25. Then I promptly closed the card as they seem to pile up in my wallet.

Since getting Amazon Prime, I've been enjoying watching Downton Abbey, starting at Season 1. I thought I had never watched it, but in truth I remembered most of the 1st season, so that must have been around the time I cancelled my cable in 2010 or so. Since I didn't remember all the details, I decided to start at the beginning, and I'm already starting season 3.

I read a story in the New York Times about how historically accurate that series is and they go into lots of detail in all the seasons; I debated whether or not I should read it and spoil for myself what will happen. I did, and I am very sad to know that Matthew, my favorite character, will die in a car accident, and that in fact was very common in those days (circa 1920) because they had yet to institute any speed limits. Also, the youngest daughter is going to die in childbirth.

After I finish Downton Abbey, which won't be for a month or so, I will also be watching the White Queen (highly recommended by a coworker) and The Great Buck Howard, also Joe, with Nick Cage. If anyone has any other recommendations for good movies, let me know. I sometimes look to see the NYT Best Movies for any given year and then look to see if they're free on Amazon Prime. A very small number are, but it's worth it to me to find them that way. Less interested in having to pay since I already am paying for Netflix and Prime.

The month of February has been extremely snowy and very, very cold. We'll have lows of -7 for the next few nights and a high tomorrow of just 17. I hate this weather, but the thought of soon seeing my colorful tulips come up right in front of my house warms my heart.

During my errands today I picked up some wild sockeye salmon (breaking my veganism) and I shared it with my cat Waldo, who was in heaven. Luther isn't really interested in "real" food.

First off, I really like Amazon. I find they have great customer service and return policies. While I have received a number of items damaged over the years, they generally do not hassle you about getting a return or a refund.

For this reason, and because they have such a great selection and (sometimes) better prices, I've been buying more stuff through Amazon, and everything else being equal, I'll buy from Amazon because I trust them more.

However, the Origami collapsible metal shelves they delivered today had a little surprise extra inside the box.

Aside from one of the metal rods supporting the middle shelf being broken, which meant I had to return it, I found the most shocking thing...it was a return label dating back to 2012, apparently for this same set of shelves. The buyer was a woman who lives in New Mexico; her full name and address appeared on the label. She bought the shelves from HSN in October of 2012 and then returned them for a refund because they were "defective." I assume because of the same broken rod I saw.

Somehow, instead of taking this out of inventory, Origami decided to try selling it again, not through HSN but through Amazon this time, and 3 years later, I'm the unlucky one who got it.

A really big warehouse goof, I'd say.

The packaging was also non-existent. Basically, it was metal shelves shoved inside a cardboard box and shipped that way...no bubble wrap, even paper stuffing inside to cushion it or keep it from jostling around inside.

I might also add that Amazon rejected my online review because I talked about getting the other customer's return label inside the box. They want you to stick to talking about the product. So who knows how often this really happens, because you'd never read it about it in the customer reviews.

We've got an awful lot of snow and ice around here on roads and sidewalks, with a forecast for more. And below zero temperatures, so I don't relish the idea of having to return this thing.

I called Amazon to complain and she did at least agree to have UPS come to my house to pick it up.

I really like the shelves otherwise. I once tried buying some other shelves you had to assemble and because everything is machine made, the screws simply did not not fit inside the holes and i couldn't put it together.

These shelves require no assembly other than putting the casters on the bottom (another nice feature). The whole thing unfolds with hinges. So yes, I did go for a replacement instead of a refund and I really debated that for a while, and may be still am, because given how they ship it, what are the chances the replacement will again be damaged in some way?

The shelves did get very high reviews. I want to set these up in my basement to store extra grocery inventory.

Aside from that, I'm glad the weekend is here. I got out of work at 3 p.m. and hoped I'd feel motivated to run my errands this afternoon instead of tomorrow because the snow will start mid-day, but as I knew would happen, once inside my warm little home, I didn't want to leave again. All my coupons were here so I couldn't just go straight to my shopping errands.

I was happy to see I've already earned $125 in wellness incentive rewards for getting a physical, my flu shot and biometric screenings. I redeemed these for gift cards at Macy's, Bed, Bath & Beyond and, as a little splurge, at Whole Foods, world of obscene prices. Whole Foods is one of my little errands tomorrow.

I'll be able to earn another $125 for the year by knocking off a few other doc visits.

I could have easily finished my federal tax return last week except that I needed to wait to receive my 1095-A form from the CT healthcare exchange.

I got the form yesterday, but it was very, very wrong. I only had health insurance through them for the 1st 4 months of the year; after that, I became eligible to sign onto the private, much cheaper health plan offered by the agency that hired me for the contract job that became the perm job I have today.

Unfortunately, the 1095-A they sent me indicated that I had insurance with them for 11 of the 12 months of 2014.

I have to take some responsibility for why that happened. They kept sending me premium due notices and I assumed (wrongly) that when I didn't send payments in, they'd know I didn't want the insurance anymore. I would have called them except their hours of operation, 8:30 to 5 p.m., were the exact same hours of my bank job, and it was difficult, and I was very reluctant, to find ways to steal away in stairwells in order to make a private call. I scribbled a cancellation notice on one of the bills and mailed it back but apparently that didn't do anything. On their website at that time, they had no Contact Us form so I couldn't cancel that way.

So today I got routed to 4 incorrect phone numbers and sat on hold each time before sitting on hold for 45 minutes at the correct number. The girl informed me I should have the corrected 1095-A in about a week. I'm not at all counting on that being true given how they manage their phones but it would be great if I got it in a timely manner.

I had been somewhat anxious to file my return quickly (as I usually do) because I've been hearing lots of stuff about an uptick in tax return fraud, and a friend of mine had it happen to him; he filed his return and it was rejected because someone else already filed a fraudulent return in his name.

I recently changed my mother's electricity provider for the "Generation Charge" portion of the bill. Electricty has been deregulated in CT for years in an effort to bring down costs. It's a pain in the ass because while you can easily compare plans and costs on the state website, some plans have a fixed price, others have a variable price, all at different terms, some have an early termination fee, yadda yadda yadda. So you have to be careful what you sign up for and it always takes a month to go into effect.

I had put my mother on a fixed rate plan with Public Power which was good til November 2015, and while theirs was the lowest cost plan at the time I signed up, I have since found much cheaper plans around, so I switched my mother to Town Square Energy, even though she will have to pay a $50 early termination fee. I did the calculation and figured she'll save about $22 a month moving to the new plan, based on her current usage, and since the plan i believe is also good at that rate til November, she will make up the $50 fee in a few months.

But already Public Power called her, trying to get her to switch back. She didn't even realize it was Public Power and thought she was talking to CL&P, but I called the number they had given her and when I called it they answered "Public Power sales team." She was all upset because they told her that her power could be shut off and apparently were doing the hard sell I know they do because I've dealt with them before.

So I called and verbally told them as my mother's POA to take her name off their call list. I also filed an online complaint with utility regulators because I don't need salespeople harassing my 80-year-old mother, who is easily confused. (She has Alzheimer.)

Between straightening out the incorrect 1095-A and then this, I was in a pretty foul mood today at work.

Then when I got home I get a bill for $751, what I presumably owe for the lab/bloodwork from my physical. My stupid doctor's office filed the claim with Aetna, who I used to have, instead of Cigna, who I now have. This doctor's office has messed up bills at least 3 times before. They are so careless and clueless. So annoying.

I decided to return both the cute boots and the handheld steam cleaner I bought from HSN. I'll have to pay a $6 return fee or something like that, but I will get most of my money back. The steam cleaner was mostly useless. The boots hurt my foot.

I've been doing my taxes by myself for years, after getting tired of paying my accountant $300 or so for what I felt was a fairly simple return. He had me collect all my paperwork in an orderly little folder anyway, so I figured I could model successive tax returns on ones he'd done before, consulting with the IRS 1040 instruction booklet as needed.

Being self-employed created the need for several more schedules/forms; it was always such a hassle and of course I worried something in there might trigger an audit. So I happily decided not to do any more freelance work in 2014 now that I'm working f/t at the bank.

I relished the thought of simplifying my tax return, which I did. So Sunday I was making steady progress getting through the return, filling out all the little worksheets and schedules for itemized deductions and luckily i didn't sell any shares of my sole remaining taxable mutual fund so I didn't have to deal with capital gains or losses.

But then I got to a new line item, and a new form, for people who got a subsidy via the healthcare exchange. What I didn't realize initially is that I needed a new form, the 1095-A, to complete the new Form 8962. The IRS instructions weren't exactly crystal clear, considering this is all brand new, but it appeared that my healthcare exchange is supposed to mail me the 8962. I called them up and they confirmed I should get it and that they were a little behind schedule due to the recent snow storms.

So that will delay completion of my return, but I already knew that I'd have to pay back the $1200 in subsidies I got for the 3 months I was getting healthcare through the exchange. But I also could tell that I overpaid my federal taxes via both the agency that hired me for the contract job and the bank I work for as a perm employee to the extent that I should not owe ANYTHING to the IRS and in fact may still get a refund of about $500!

So that's good news, although I will want to adjust/increase my withholdings somewhat so not so much tax is withheld. I wish I knew of a more precise way to do that; it always seems like something of a guessing game, but right now, I have just 2 withholdings, I believe. I guess I should just increase that to 3 and see what happens?

Spoiler alert: This is a very mundane post.

I usually do all my running around errands on Saturdays so i can chill on Sunday, but I just couldn't motivate myself yesterday to leave the house.

I did decide to sign up for Hulu Plus, so I'll be paying about $17 for both the Hulu and the Netflix I already have; that's close to what I paid for cable TV 5 years ago but can no longer get at that price. I really like that I can cancel either subscription at any time, and pick it up again later.

So yesterday I watched about 5 episodes of American Idol in a row. I do like watching the amazing talent and all these young kids so full of dreams and energy, and I do also get a kick out of seeing the talentless sing too.

Best Buy could not make the Samsung TV I ordered from them available via my pick-up, so I cancelled the order and bought it via Amazon. I had only ordered through Best Buy because I worried the TV could be damaged in transit but I'll take my chances now. I don't like Best Buy in general. I did go today and pick up the Roku stick I ordered with the TV, so I'll just have to wait a few days to get the TV delivered.

In the meantime, I decided to move my bedroom TV to my office. I noticed that ever since I started watching TV again, in the bedroom, that I was having more trouble going to sleep because I was lounging in bed for hours beforehand and my back was actually bothering me a little.

So the TV is now set up in my office and I brought up a very sturdy vinyl lounge chair meant for outdoor use. I cleaned it up and put a throw and pillows on it so it will be quite comfortable watching TV from it. I don't like watching TV downstairs in winter because it's noticeably cooler down there.

So it's a little crowded in here between the TV, computer desk and computer, and another desk I work from too, but it works for me.

When the new TV is delivered, I'll have to move my current one again to the kitchen and the new one will go in the office. It will be a half inch too big to go in the kitchen space.

Aside from picking up the Roku stick today at Best Buy I also stopped in at Trader Joe's, Shop Rite and BJs, both to renew my membership and also get some cheap gas at $2.05 a gallon. Lovin' those prices but there's ALWAYS long lines. I intentionally got up and out the door EARLY today to see if I could avoid lines at the pumps, but they don't open til 10 a.m. anyway and at 10:15 a.m. I still had to wait in line. No way around it unless I go on a weekday, which isn't possible.

Trader Joe's is another store that's always unpleasantly crowded on weekends, but it wasn't too bad when I got there today around 9:20 a.m.

We're expecting yet another snow storm tonight into tomorrow, so I'm pretty sure I'll be working at home Monday. On Tuesday I will work at home again because I have a doctor's appointment, but that's not til 3:30 or so, so I will have to have the driveway cleared Monday night and Tuesday morning before I settle into work on the laptop.

The only other thing I wanted to do this weekend was start my taxes, and I guess I still can although I'm not sure I'm motivated enough. I also haven't done anything about this week's lunches, but seeing as how I'll most likely be working from home 2 days this week, I'll only have to worry about 3 days and can probably pull something together quickly, like quinoa and beans, a bean burrito or even a big bowl of mixed veggies.

The handheld steam cleaner I bought from HSN is a bit of a disappointment. I really thought it could improve my attempts at housekeeping, but it seems mostly good at cleaning cracks or crevices, like the seam between the kitchen counter and the backsplash, for example. It also was okay at cleaning the vinyl lawn chair webbing, but scrubbing was still required. The webbing is not a flat surface but has a pebbly raised texture to it so dirt/mold gets stuck in those little spaces. To be honest, I got just as much dirt off it by simply scrubbing with the super-absorbent chamois cloths I have; I'm not sure the addition of steam did a whole lot.

I tried it on smudges on my kitchen cabinets and my stainless steel trash can, and it didn't very well on those at all; I'd have better luck with a Mr. Clean bleach sponge on the cabinets and a brillo pad on the stainless steel. It also did little to clean my glass cooktop on the stove; the special bottle of cleaner I use for that does a better job. I haven't tried the steam cleaner on my bathroom shower grout and tiles; apparently, very hot steam alone will not eliminate buildup or greasy stuff without scrubbing.

I will keep it. I'd also like to try it on inside of car and see how it does.

Weight loss YTD = a bust. Starting weight: 146. Pounds lost year-to-date: 0.

I've been making a concerted effort to exercise more, and recorded nearly 11 hours of walking and snow shoveling this month. Most of my walking is done during my lunch break, which is just a half hour. Obviously not enough.

I finally had my first performance review at the new job. She had nothing bad to say. Afterwards, I just wanted to confirm that I wouldn't be eligible for a pay raise since I've only been perm 6.5 months. So I sent her a quick email, expecting her to confirm that and to my surprise she said no, I would be eligible for a merit pay increase but then she quickly said don't expect too much, they are usually pretty small.

I am used to negotiating pay with my direct manager, but apparently the way it works here is that managers are notified in February of the total pool of money they have, and then I'm guessing they have discretion as to how they want to divvy it up. I won't actually see the pay raise until March (which I don't think is very fair to employees). Because I wasn't expecting anything, I'd be thrilled to get 2%, which i think is about what I can expect.

I'm pretty happy with my new Roku, although there is a lot more TV that you have to pay for than free TV. I'm already paying $8 for Netflix and don't really want to shell out more, but it can be confusing looking at different channels that treat customers so differently. Some, for instance, offer maybe 4 or 5 episodes of a program free, but then once you're "hooked," you have to pay to watch further episodes. CBS News appears to be totally free, both to watch the news and also the various news programs like 48 hours, 60 minutes and so on. So that's a big plus for me. PBS also offers a fair amount of free stuff that I can see, although right now they're offering the current episode of Downton Abbey free, but since I never saw this series, I want to start at Season 1 but can't find it on that channel.

I have yet to find American Idol available anywhere, for pay or for free. And I don't seem able to watch truly local news coming from any of the big CT stations, just NY and Boston.

Despite all that, I've already decided to get a 2nd LED TV with a Roku stick which you can just plug in the back of the TV. I ordered a highly rated 28" Samsung which will become my new bedroom TV. My current bedroom TV has just a 20" diameter, so it will be a step up for me with a bigger screen. The TV that's in the bedroom now I will move down into my kitchen, so I can watch CBS News as I make my dinner, like I used to do a long time ago. There's a little nook in between the upper and lower cabinets where it just fits with a half inch to spare, but I will have to find another place for the microwave and my cookbooks.

In addition to Netflix, CBS News and a few other things you probably never heard of (Breaking Boston and Dickering Down Under), I've been watching a lot of the home shopping channels. I see HSN, my preferred channel, now has a 2nd channel.

Today I'm expecting a delivery from them of some cute little booties (hopefully should fit with a wide size) and a nifty handheld steam cleaner you can use to clean all around the house. I hope it will help me keep a cleaner house as housekeeping has never been something I've really kept up on, though I would love a cleaner home.

I updated my net worth in my profile on the side; although my investments didn't grow much, my home value did, according to Zillow, so I am inching along on the way to a cool $1 million.

Much to my relief, we are not getting the walloping other parts of the Northeast are getting (like Boston and the Cape).

I shoveled about 5 inches of snow this morning, and when it all ends tonight, I'll probably have another 5 or 6 to shovel.There's another pile growing down at driveway bottom where snow plow packs it in. Not fun, but not nearly as calamitous as predicted.

I am working from home today though.

Amazon had a cool offer on their site; buy a $50 gift card for whoever you want (including yourself) and you get a $10 gift card credit. I did it yesterday.

11:15 a.m.


Not sure if you can tell from this picture, taken from inside, but the snow has begun falling. (The snow already on the lawn is from Saturday.) Note the blacktop of my driveway is still visible; it's just beginning to stick. The road is also largely clear.

The governor has ordered all state roads closed at 9 p.m. tonight and mass transit to end at 8 p.m. They are using words like "historic" to describe this snowfall.

I'll keep you posted with more photos!

I always feel better when I feel a sense of control over events, like the coming nor'easter. Now they're saying 2 to 3 feet!

After Storm Sandy, I actually made a list of steps to do if a power outage looks like a possibility. There are a lot of small things that I could easily forget. So here's what I've done ahead of the storm that's supposed to start around 11 a.m. today:

1. I made the decision to work from home today (and possibly for most of the week). I have my laptop up and running and can do just as much from home as I can at office. I also don't relish driving in snow, which I would be doing if I went in. So, at possible risk of annoying my boss, I've decided to stay home.

2. I have 2 small dinky LED flashlights but am recharging batteries for another flashlight plus my short wave radio.

3. I've filled up a few pitchers with water that would be used for drinking, brushing my teeth or even washing dishes if I lost power for a few days. They say you should have a gallon per person per day, so I will have to scrounge around for more containers to fill.

4. I've turned down the temperature in my freezer more, to make it colder. I haven't adjusted the temp in the fridge becus when I've done that in the past I ruined some salad greens. Honestly, since I've gone vegan, there is not too much in the fridge that would be sacrificed. I'm eating the rest of my salad greens today for lunch and the rest of my perishables, namely almond milk and my workweek lunches for the rest of the week, could be stashed in my cooler, topped off with snow and put on the front stoop.

The freezer has no meats or fish, just frozen veggies and some bean burritos.

5. I've got the phone number for the power company handy should I need to call them to report an outage. Actually, I've got the number memorized.

6. I have my 2 snow shovels outside, 1 at the front porch and 1 down by the garage. If I lose power, rather than let lots of cold air in the house when I go thru the front door, I'll exit out thru the basement into the garage, and that's where the 2nd snow shovel is stationed.

7. Car is safely tucked inside the garage.

8. I didn't really go food shopping this weekend, but i have plenty of canned beans, peanut butter, bread, granola bars and fruit to get by.

9. I am wearing my watch, something I rarely do but it really helps not to have to search for things, possibly in the dark.

10. I'm also prepared to fetch some of my wireless solar garden lights outside to bring inside to the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and my office where I spend most of my time. It's not bright enough to read by but I won't have to grope around with just the flashlights.

11. Gas tank is filled and I have some cash (as well as checks) should credit card things be not working in event of power outage.

12. I've checked weather.com's hourly forecast and can see that the peak winds will begin late tonight, into the overnight and through Tuesday. So tonight before I go to bed, I will crank up the heat to the never-before-experienced 70 degrees in the house. (As I may have mentioned before, I don't have a fireplace.) The theory being, if I lost power, the somewhat higher temps would keep the house warm that much longer. The cats should love it.

13. My cell phone is fully charged.

14. If I do lose power, once I have the driveway shoveled, and if the roads are sort of passable, I could drive the 2 miles to the town center where they have let people camp out in the large corridor in the past to recharge their electronics and use their portable devices. I could conceivably get some work done there, to help avoid having to use a personal or vacation day if I can't otherwise do work. The local Starbucks is a bit closer, maybe a 25-minute walk without snow, but with the amount they're forecasting, I don't think it's doable. I can't think of any other locales nearby that would have power when I didn't. Maybe the library, but they'd probably be closed.

I suppose a generator would make most of these things unnecessary. I worried a bit about the welfare of one of my next door neighbors, a recently widowed elderly woman, but I know that before her husband died, they installed a generator, so she should be fine.

One other thing I'm a little concerned about is the roof over my family room and attached garage. It's a fairly shallow grade and during other storms with wet, heavy snow, we've had problems with roof cave-ins, mostly of old barns. I have no idea how sturdy this roof is; it was built I believe in the 1990s. After one past heavy storm, I hired some guys to shovel snow off the roof but they damaged the roof shingles, probably becus they weren't roofers. I won't do that again, now that I have a roof I just put on 2 years ago. I do have a roof rake; I can't remember if it's long enough to get to that part of the roof without climbing a step ladder, which is a tough proposition if there are several feet of snow on the ground.

If you can think of anything I've missed, please let me know, no matter how little it may seem. I've weathered two storms where I lost power for I believe 3 days one time, and 5 the other, and it was no picnic.