A note to legitimate bloggers here: please post an entry...on any little thing...to push out the spam entries.

I'm happy to report the following vital stats for the month of May:

My total expenses: $1451
My total income: $5529

It was a five-week work month, so my net from my bank job was $4,900. I also made $174 in mileage reimbursement for a meeting in Massachusetts that cost me roughly $35 in gas, $32 in credit card rewards, $202 from freelance writing and $206 from selling plants from my garden.

Net monthly savings: $4,078
I've saved $13,500 for the year!

(I had to adjust this figure downward from $15,000 because the accounts i use to hold my taxable retirement savings are also a parking place for my property tax payments and so i forgot to deduct the $550 I put aside each month for my twice-a-year property tax payments.)

My net worth is now $630,667 and I've already exceeded my net worth goal of $623K for year end. (See sidebar for details.)

Not a bad month all the way around.

I am making tiny progress in my attempt to take over managing my mother's finances.

My mother is 80, and she is having a great deal of problems making sense of her bills and keeping on top of them. She has been basically driving me crazy with frequent phone calls asking me to troubleshoot individual issues, and of course without having the bill in front of me to look at, it's practically impossible to figure out what is wrong.

I have offered several times to manage ALL her bills if she would put my name on her checking account, making it a joint checking account. She was very reluctant to do that, but yet she kept calling me for help in figuring things out.

Finally, last week, she agreed to let me do it because it's just beyond her and it causes her a great deal of stress. She always complains about her "paperwork" and "catching up."

So we agreed I would go over there this weekend to set things up. I created a simple spreadsheet with all her individual bills and months left in this year, to show her how I'd fill in the amount of each expense. Once we went the bank to turn her account into a joint account, and got myself a set of checks with both our names, I would then contact each utility company, her car and homeowner's insurance providers, etc. etc. to ask them to start sending her bills to my address. I would also create online accounts to pay everything that way, and an online account to monitor her checking account as I would need to know when her Social Security deposits were made, and in what amount, so I can make sure to balance her checkbook, which has been another extremely trying thing for my mother.

I was over there yesterday and it was as if we never had the earlier conversation. (I suspect my mother has dementia.) There was another protracted conversation about it. The frustration nearly drove me to tears. She trusts me to manage her bills, but what was keeping her from agreeing is embarrassment that people that "know her" at the bank or elsewhere would think she has dementia (a word I have never used with her in conversation). She also did not want me to pay her common charges for the same reason and felt that people would look at her funny if they knew her daughter was paying her bills.

I finally got her to agree to my plan but by the time we got to that point, it was noon. I called the bank, which was about to close, and asked what was required to turn my mother's account into a joint checking account. She said you just need to come with your mother to sign the signature card, and bring your power of attorney paperwork with you. So, because I don't want to lose pay by taking time off from work, we'll have to wait til next Saturday morning to do that.

Once that is done (and I sure hope my mother will remember why we're there next week) then I can start the other part of the process, contacting billing companies to mail me the bills, and setting up the online accounts.

There are 2 bills I'm concerned about that I actually left for her to handle because they are current bills and I knew I wouldn't be able to start paying her bills for probably a few weeks.

One is her electric bill, where she owes as I recall around $1,000. The problem i think is that she's on a budget plan where they bill you a fixed (same) amount every month, but it obscures the true cost of the electricity you're using. We had a very cold winter here and my mother had her electric heat up to her usual 72 or so degrees, not realizing how much she was running up.

The other big bills include 3 bills from private ambulance companies from when she called 911 to go to the hospital. She's done this multiple times before because she has atrial fibrillation and she panics when her heart starts fluttering. For some reason, now she's getting these big bills, and I'm worrying that I should have taken down info on them so I could call to inquire about them on her behalf, but i honestly was feeling so overwhelmed and emotionally drained from just having to convince my mother I need to step in, etc., that I instructed her to just pay the current bills.

She said they had greatly reduced the amount owed of one of those ambulance bills and i think she is expected that to happen with the others, although she hasn't spoken to them and doesn't know why she's gotten these bills. I may have to intervene. I have such limited time.

And of course there's her checking account, where her balance differs from the bank's by about $2,000, she said, although the difference is in her favor. Still, it should be balanced, and I'm looking at her checkbook and seeing a zillion different notations and notes of her. It could be impossible to "balance" and maybe not worth the aggravation. But if I decide to just go with the balance the bank says it has, then she's going to want an explanation as to WHY or where did she make a mistake or whatever.

I did 2 other things while I was at my mother's: I started helping sort through her "paperwork," which includes several large piles on the floor around her desk. In the past when I've tried to throw things out,she protests and says she wants to read that but hasn't had the time. Well, half this "paperwork" was junk mail or articles on nutrition or other matters she has an interest in. I threw a lot of it away, knowing that she likely will never get around to reading it.

The other thing I did, and you may disapprove of my tactics, is I saw my mother's password written down on a sticky on her monitor, and I wrote it down.

When I got home, I was able to log in and delete over a hundred junky emails in her inbox. These emails tend to paralyze her. Many of them were spam emails that resulted after she went online and clicked on a political ad. She's an Obama supporter, and so she gets dozen's of these emails every week asking for money to support the campaign.

I had to laugh because when she got these personalized emails from the President or Michelle Obama, she really believed they were coming from them personally, and she wrote them rather lengthy letters as if they were really being read by someone, explaining that she was a self-employed artist and couldn't afford more than a $5 donation.

I unsubscribed her from as many of these as I could. I hope I did not overdo it, but I do feel that minimizing her junk mail and clearing through some of the piles at her desk will help lower her level of stress and anxiety.

My level of stress and anxiety is another matter. I had all sorts of errands planned for after I left my mother's, but I felt so drained, i really had to push myself to do a few of them. Eventually, I hope that managing my mother's bills will be more or less routine, but right now, it's been like pulling teeth even to get this far, and really, I have yet to set anything up.

I do have an older sister but she doesn't want to be "involved" with dealing with my mother so it basically falls into my lap. My sister's way of dealing with my mother is to avoid contact as much as possible.

I recently purchased a book on Amazon written by a longtime cartoonist for the New Yorker. The book is filled with cartoons that delve into the author's own experiences caring for her aging parents before they died. One of them had Alzheimer's. As a cartoonist, she was able to to inject some humor into all these trying situations, and I really got some chuckles out of some of them already, which I can relate to.

I think the title of the book is something her parents would always say (like my mother) whenever she brought up certain topics: "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?"

Thank god, my father does not have any mental issues. While my parents have been divorced since I was 6, I have talked to my father a few times about my concerns about my mother, because since my sister is not helpful, my dad is really the only person I can talk to who truly understands the situation and can offer advice. I think I will call him today to see if he has any suggestions.

This was NEVER something that was on my radar, but I think caring for my mother as she ages is going to be a huge part of my life moving forward. It's scary. It's practically a full-time job. Not having had kids, I haven't ever experienced really taking care of another human being; i was always just responsible for myself, and I've been fully independent of anyone else, financially and otherwise, since I was 21.

There are many things I still want to do with my life, namely, travel. I am determined to still be able to do things like this but my mother's slowly increasing dependence on me is definitely a complicating factor.

Another challenge to deal with down the nearby road is getting her to start paying for occasional housekeepers. I have done the vacuuming and dusting in the past, but working f/t, i can't do this anymore. Right in her complex is a woman who cleans houses, and I urged her to start with her first because she knows her, and to find out what she charges. But that hasn't happened. Getting my mother to do things is very difficult. I have my hands full right now.

Once I get her bills in order, I may just call someone, but I also worry about having a stranger in the place alone with my mother and I might feel the need to be there while she cleans.

I worry about theft, mainly. Yesterday I returned to my mother a nice bracelet she'd been wearing Mother's day and which slipped off her wrist onto my car seat. She hadn't realized it was missing. That's the kind of thing i worry about should strangers come in the house and wander through the rooms without her constant supervision. It would be too easy to take something.

In other news...
The Las Vegas author paid me the final balance ($145) she owed me for editing her manuscript.

And the other author finally got a job! She's very excited becus it pays $20/hr and she said she'll finally be able to give me 2 more books to start editing by end of June. Of course, she's changed the start date more times than I can count, but it would be nice to have a new project to work on.

In addition to that, looks like I'll have something else "big" to edit for another client who is an IT director at a private Jewish school in New York City. He's written a new software program that he wants to launch. I've been editing his work emails for several years now and he really likes my editing, but often times i have difficulty understanding what he's trying to say and the subject matter is not something I know much about. Guess we'll see how it goes. He has trouble organizing his thoughts; that's why I edit his work emails...he said he's mailing me a document his lawyer drew up and wants me to sign so I'll have to review it carefully as i don't plan to hire a lawyer myself. I expect it's mainly aimed at keeping me from talking about his new software program.

Okay, probably a lot of you cannot relate to the fact that I've had to give myself a daily self-injection for every day since Jan. 1,2000. That's 14 YEARS, for my MS.

I just got off the phone from ordering my first delivery of the same medication, but they recently came out with a new form of the med with a higher dose but you only have to inject three times a week.

I am so excited. I am really looking forward to giving my body a break from all the injections. They often leave a lump that takes a very long time to go away. You're not supposed to inject in the same spot twice.

Anyway, this is one of those little things that is going to make my life much better. What's more, the co-pay for this with Aetna, my new insurer, will be ZERO. Nada. Nothing.

I was concerned that switching from my regular med to the new 3-day-a-week regimen might cost something, but with the pharmaceutical company's patient assistance program, the $450 I'd normally pay in the co-pay for a 3-month supply is $0. Phew.

I'm now into my nearly 8th month at this contract bank job. I am so grateful for everything this job has done for me. It's not just relieved my money pressures, but since becoming eligible (after 6 months) to enroll in the recruiter agency's health plan, it's saving me several hundred dollars a month on premium costs and now even my MS med copay is nothing.

I am so appreciative and feel like I've been down to the bottom of the well in recent years and now I'm back up and doing well. If I can just hold onto this bank job beyond the original term (September 2, 2014). All the other contractors I know are having their terms renewed repeatedly, but for just 3 months at a time.

One more woman came by after work tonight to buy some plants, pushing the total I made from selling the extras that seem to proliferate here to over $200.

Not sure if I'll keep posting my ad on our Patch site here or Craig's list as having to hang around the house can get in the way of other things I like to do.

We'll see. It's hard to resist making a few extra dollars on the side.

Yesterday I wrapped up editing a 200-page manuscript, and the woman's initial impression was very positive. She said she'd be mailing off the $145 balance tomorrow. And she's already into her 2nd book, 2o pages into it and wants me to edit that. She seems similar in that regard to The Author, except that this person seems to have the funds needed to pay me, whereas The Author is still broke.

I got so much done.

1. Planted onions, spinach, peas, marigolds and sunflowers.

2. Mowed the front and back lawns.

3. My friend Dave came over. He helped me install a brand new Andersen door handle on my front storm door. The old one was over 20 years old and totally crappy looking...this one looks great!

4. Although he tried to pay anyway, i treated him to lunch at the local Chinese place, as a thank you.

5. I FINISHED editing the life coach's manuscript....finally. It seemed like it was taking forever. 200 pages edited, now she owes me a balance of $140.

I had 3 more people come over to buy perennials I dug up from an old garden and made another $61. Total made from selling plants in my yard this weekend and last is $181. Not bad!

6. I picked up a few groceries and went to the landfill.

7. I also vacuumed the whole house. It really needed it.

I feel so happy to have gotten the garden planted (although there's more I still have to dig up) AND also to have that door handle installed. I bought the new one a YEAR ago and it's been sitting on my kitchen counter all that time.

It was wet all day and now the heaviest rains are here. It's raining so hard that even though I went to bed a little after 10 am, I now can't sleep as the rain pelts the windows. It's about 11:30 p.m.

So glad the end of the work week is here again.It was another long week. I had to drive up to Dedham, Mass. on Wednesday for a meeting, then drive back home again same day, about 5 hours of driving in all. So that was very tiring.

This weekend I'm getting together with a former biking friend. We'll probably go to lunch and maybe do something else. I seriously need some me time. Also on Sunday I have more people (3) coming over to buy perennials from me. As mentioned earlier, I made $120 from selling perennials I dug up from my garden. The 3 that are coming Sunday are very conveniently all expressing an interest in different things, so maybe I can sell the bulk of what I have to them all. One wants gooseberry and lamb's ears, the other wants astilbe and solomon's seal and the other wants hosta and spreading groundcovers.

One of my two old real estate clients contacted me tonight, wanting to know if I still wasn't able to freelance for them becus I'm busy with the bank job. I hadn't told him that a big part of the reason why i don't want to work for them anymore is because by the time all the taxes are deducted, i really don't wind up with much. But I can't tell him that since there's nothing he can do about it unless he's willing to accept higher fees from me, but i don't think they'd want to pay as much as I want to make!

Certainly now, working f/t at the bank, and doing other freelance on the side, I don't need to work any more. I really have to consciously carve out time on my weekends to do fun stuff, otherwise, i allow myself to get all bogged down in the usual chores and before you know it, weekend's done.

Yesterday I received a letter in the mail informing me that my personal information was "recovered" during an investigation by law enforcement and Amex.

What does this mean, in bank-speak? That my card information was hacked and stolen by ID thieves.

I had to laugh, because these are exactly the kinds of customer communications letters I write in my new(ish) bank job.

But I was surprised that Amex not only didn't offer to issue me a new card with a new account number, but they didn't even offer credit monitoring services, which is pretty routine these days.

They did supply with the letter a laundry list of things I could do myself, like check my credit report, "be vigilant," yadda yadda yadda.

I called them up to request a new card and account number, and they agreed. They also said they'd transfer over all my points and credit card history so that my credit wouldn't suffer by closing out one of my oldest credit cards. But I had to ask for all this specifically; it wasn't proactively offered.

Since I had them on the phone, I did ask about the new propel card and would I be eligible to earn those rewards if i already had another amex card, since they denied me rewards once before based on that fact. I don't think the rep understood my question and i didn't want to get into it at the office, so i let it go as I'm not quite ready to go for that card. I'd like to wait til later in the year when my car and homeowner's insurance are due, as that's an easy $1,000 of spending right there.

But I would urge anyone who already has an AMEX card to double-check with them first before going for their new card to avoid being severely disappointed when they don't give you the up front bonus!

In other news, yesterday's payday was the first of 2 monthly deductions for health insurance. At $87 per deduction, or $175 a month, I will realize a monthly savings of $229 (compared to what i was paying with my Obamacare plan) without doing a thing. Love it. I've arrived at Reasonable Cost Land and don't ever want to return to Downward Unemployed Spiral of Escalating Costs.

In my last post, I happily reported having made an easy $100 from selling perennials growing in my yard as I work to return a very large but unkempt/overgrown bed to lawn. I decided to repost the Craig's List ad for these plants because I still have quite a few things left that I could either make some decent money on or throw in the compost heap. So there are 2 more people who have expressed interest (and 2 still who expressed interest earlier) but it's doubtful it will happen this weekend since today it's raining and tomorrow is Mother's Day. I would squeeze someone in if they wanted to come, but don't think it will happen.

Next week I have another trip to Boston area for another daylong meeting. I can look forward to 5 hours of drive time round trip. They're all meeting for drinks afterwards, and i feel some subtle pressure to at least pop my head in there, but considering i don't like to drink and certainly don't want to drink before facing a 2.5 hour ride home, I don't plan to go to that at all. I'd just as soon get on the road as soon as the meeting ends.

However, a while back i asked my boss if there was any way they could move back the start time of the meeting to better accommodate those of us who were driving in from out of state. My friend said they'd never do it and didn't really care whether it was a hardship to get up at 5 to get up there in time and then drive back home, making it a very long day. Lo and behold, they did move back the start time to 11 a.m., so i can leave around 8 am, which seems almost civil. I'm allowing an extra half hour for traffic, which may not be enough, but that's all i'm allowing.

Otherwise, work is fine though there is plenty of drama with one of the women, B., who sits next to me. She seems to be a Teflon contract worker who has ingratiated herself with our boss and thus seems to be impervious to anything bad happening even though she goofs off for the majority of her day, has gotten away with not showing up at the office numerous times, even missing a conference call because she was busy making vacation plans for Labor Day weekend. She has ZERO work ethic. Everyone seems to be aware of what's going on except our boss.

Then, finally, another woman, M, who sits in my area, complained that this woman's frequent emotional breakdowns were too distracting to deal with and asked to be moved to another location. Although B. was spoken to by our boss, she now simply spends more time texting rather than talking on the phone because she knows someone complained. But now she's hell bent on finding out who complained to the boss about her.

She IM'd me and asked me point blank and I told her no, it wasn't me, although I've known all along it was M. who complained, and I was fully prepared to support what M. said should our manager ask me, but she never did. You would think the boss would want to get to the bottom of it. M. and I are the only two who sit near B., so you would think our manager would want to talk to me to see if i corroborated what M. said, but that never happened.

B. doesn't suspect M. AT ALL, because M. is very pleasant to her. So B. was taking to M. yesterday saying how upsetting it was to know that someone ratted her out, and M. proceeded to try to give her advice and told her to forget about it and move on. M. must have been feeling very nervous because I had already told M. the day before that I'm not going to lie to B., and that while I won't volunteer information, I will tell her if she asks me any specifics.

After talking to her husband about it, M. was feeling very nervous about letting B. know it was her who complained because she she thinks B. is unstable and doesn't want a confrontation, but it was extremely awkward hearing her talk to B. about it. It's possible B. may still suspect me since I'm the one who can be cool with her because she's such an emotional yo-yo and can be annoying so I vacillate between trying to help her (she's beyond help) and trying to steer clear of her as much as that's possible when i sit next to her and do work with her.

Ahh, the pleasures of being back in an office environment.

I feel like I accomplished a lot today, but I am extremely wiped out.

My Guatemalan guy who was here 2 weeks ago and who STARTED dismantling my picket fence never called me back to confirm he was coming, and in fact he did not show up. I don't think it was a language thing; I mentioned "lots of digging" and I have a feeling he'd prefer to cut trees down to digging in the dirt.

So I was left to soldier on by myself. I worked on and off in the fenced garden all day, in between taking rest breaks and greeting 4 or 5 different people who showed up to buy plants from me.

I made $100 cash(!) by selling some gooseberry bushes and assorted perennials. One very nice woman works at a certain company I'm familiar with and said she could pass my resume on to her boss, who is looking for writers. I also sold gooseberry plants to no less than 3 people. One guy said he had fond memories of growing gooseberries when he was growing up in Romania. The other guy was a transplant from Ukraine and said gooseberries are hard to find here, so he was excited to see my ad. He was perfectly happy to dig up my big bushes, but as he drove off, he stopped short because the bush had fallen out of his pick-up!

I may give my resume to the woman, just to see if I get an interview, although I would much rather stay at the bank if i get a perm offer since I already know that job pretty well.

So, back to the fenced garden plot, it is so large, about 10 x 25 feet long, that I chose to mentally divide it into thirds, just to make it more imaginable. I was digging out clumps of wild oats, which were hard to dig out, as well as invasive pachysandra and other stuff. At the same time, I was digging up valuable perennials to either move them elsewhere in the yard (more digging to plant them) or putting them in pots in the hopes I could sell some. At the same time, I was also pulling up bricks with my shovel. Years ago I had a brick walkway in there; I started carting the bricks in my wheelbarrow to the driveway; perhaps I can sell them too, cheaply; if not, they'll go the dump.

It just was a ton of work. I can't say I completely cleared the area, but I think if I throw grass seed down and get grass to grow, I can just mow the grass, as well as anything else that manages to still grow there. The idea is not to have a perfect lawn, but to "tame" this land and keep it under control so it doesn't look so unkempt and wild-looking. (Speaking of which, I surprised a garter snake in that area and he slithered on.)

Tomorrow I will mow the back lawn as well as the other 2/3 of this fenced area that I have yet to dig up. I just want to mow it to tame the growth.

I also completely removed the foliage that was shrouding one entry hole of the woodchuck, so I'm hoping this will be enough to finally encourage the animal to find somewhere else to live. Although I don't know where the 2nd entry hole is, exactly. It's usually within 20 feet of the other hole.

So tomorrow I will plant grass seed where I dug. I also want to get the veggie garden going and possibly get a haircut. I have onions to plant too.

Today after digging all day and playing plant lady i ran to Lowes to get the grass seed (and some cilantro and parsley for the garden), filled up the gas tank, bought a tarp to cover my firewood with and got groceries at Trader Joe's.

Blue milkweed, ready to bloom.


Lungwort

Last night was the first mowing of the season. So that's why I was in the vicinity of one of my bluebird boxes. Sadly, as I walked by with the mower, I saw three small blue eggs at the base of the box. Each one of them had been intentionally pierced and then thrown out of the box by a house wren.

Breaks my heart. Bluebirds rarely get a chance to nest in the boxes, because the much more aggressive wrens will destroy their eggs, as described above. Then they will build their own nest in the box.

I cleaned out the box of the completely built nest of pine needles, picked it up out of the ground and have moved it to a location closer to where I can monitor it. Not that I can do much to prevent wrens from doing the same thing again. It just takes a few minutes for them to pierce bluebird eggs. It's really upsetting.

Last week I welcomed the return of hummingbirds. They were at the sugar water feeder I put up every spring. It is said hummingbirds faithfully return from Central America to the very same location up north, so I always want to put out the welcome mat when they get here. The males arrive first, ahead of the females. It is truly a miracle they make that journey of thousands of miles at all.

As I may have mentioned, I have begun the process of dismantling a large (roughly 10 x 20 feet) fenced in perennial garden on the north side of my house. I just don't have time to maintain it and when it gets overgrown, it becomes an eyesore.

I want to clear it out of valuable plants and then plant it in grass, which I can at least mow to keep tidy looking.

So last night I posted about a half dozen plants on Craig's List for sale. I've got about six different people coming today to buy them!

Everyone knows that not everything is dug up, and hopefully most know that the plants don't look like the pictures (taken in summer) I posted with the ad. I explained in great detail to a few, in case they are novice gardeners, that most plants are just now beginning to emerge from the ground, but when they are dormant is a good time to transplant.

I did dig up a number of plants and they don't look like much now in the pots. People may not want to buy them as i think so many are conditioned to expect gorgeous annuals in bloom, for instance. They may not be willing to take a bet on something just poking out of the soil, even with my assurances.

I'm selling everything cheaply to make it worth their while to come, so $5 for most plants and $10 for a tray of certain groundcovers. The pachysandra is free!

I have two different men interested in my gooseberry plants. One is taking 4 smaller plants and the other is willing to dig up 2 full size plants. Gooseberries are delicious in a pie but truth be told, I rarely picked mine. Mostly, the birds got them, just as they got the tiny cherries on my dwarf cherry trees and the blueberries and the strawberries. Unless you have large areas on which to grow these things,the casual home gardener shouldn't plan on getting a whole lot of fruit for the effort.

I spoke to Sergio Thursday about coming back today to continue dismantling the fence,and to dig up the sol in advance of sowing grass seed. His English is so bad, but he said he would call me back, I think, although I did not hear from him. In a way i feel i'll have my hands full with people coming throughout the day, and I'd have to be careful that Sergio didn't trample the plants still in the ground while doing his work. So in a way, it'd be better to dig up and sell the most valuable plants first, although things grow quickly around here and if I don't wrestle control of this plot quickly, it'll become totally overgrown and I won't want to go in there from fear of ticks. So time is of the essence.

It's going to be a very busy day.

I spent a good part of Sunday working to clean up a large, fenced-in area to the north of my house. The old pine picket fence has begun to fall apart, so I made the decision to dismantle the whole fence instead of repairing it.

I became fascinated when I saw this:



Can you tell what this is? These are tiny lichens in bloom! They are no more than one-quarter inch in height. I never realized lichens "bloom," nor that those blooms are a bright red against the pale grayish green on the lichens themselves.

Here's another shot, looking down:



Fascinating!!!


This is a pot of hens and chicks I put in the basement on a lower shelf, not really expecting it to survive. I'd totally forgotten about it until its pale foliage, starved of sunlight, caught my eye in the dark basement and I realized it was coming alive.

And, of course, I can always count on my daffs to brighten a day in April.

Well, it seems I just don't post here anymore unless it's the weekend.

But I'm happy to report my f/t job is still going very well. I do rather enjoy it and I am growing more hopeful that there will indeed be an offer of a perm position come September.

If they only extend the contract assignment (likely, 3 months at a time) that would not be terrible, because as of May 1 I will already be on the agency's health plan and paying MUCH more affordable rates, so the only thing I'm losing out on is the ability to contribute to a 401k and the paid vacation/holiday time. Which is not a small thing.

My preference is still the perm job, of course, though i do worry and wonder how much lower the offer would be than what I'm making now. Because I do feel what I'm getting now $35/hr, or $72k on an annual basis, is lower than what I should be getting, by at least $10K.

I guess we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. For now, I am still so exceedingly grateful to have been getting a regular paycheck for the past 6.5 months. It feels great! And it is super wonderful to be earning it after having paid my mortgage off. The money goes so much farther! Most is being funneled into retirement savings.

This weekend I am feeling blissful because I have no real obligations to anyone, for a change. I have the weekend all to myself.

So I started things off with Chinese takeout tonight and I've been considering how best to spend my time, just doing fun stuff. I hope to fit in the following "fun" activities:

1. Checking out a condo open house I've had my eye on for a while.
2. Renting some DVDs movies at the library.
3. Trying out a new craft, turning regular clear glass vases and such into mercury glass with a special spray and following directions I found online. (I love mercury glass.)
4. A little yard work.

I have a pile of cut hardwoods (dogwood, crabapple and birch) stacked in my driveway. It's got to be at least a third of a cord. I've love to sell it on Craig's List to recoup part of the $100 I paid the guy to cut it down for me, but I have a feeling not many people are thinking of buying firewood now, even if it is a bargain price. So I may have to live with it til fall. But firewood on the East Coast is always in demand as there are many wood-burning stoves around here, so I'll periodically post ads until I get a taker. I'm only asking $50. A full cord goes for $200, sometimes $225, although that may be delivered, so $50 for a third does represent some savings.

I called my dad and his ex, Kathy, to make sure they were ok as I've been seeing reports in the news of a large brushfire very close to where they live. They are fine. Had a good talk with Kathy about coming down for a visit first week of July (a mandatory week-long furlough for contract workers). Due to my cats, I would not go down for more than 2 days, but it would still be fun, and it would be the first long distance road trip with my nearly one-year-old Civic.
I want to see if it really gets 41 mpg.

For some reason, today after work, something compelled me to do a Google search of that old boyfriend from years ago that I've blogged about, the one who kept calling me at Christmas or my birthday, for years, even when I asked him to stop.

We dated when I was in my 20s, and he was 30-something, when we both lived on Cape Cod. He was a carpenter. We had a lot of fun doing things like camping and canoeing. He let me drive his MG convertible around town a lot. I still have his recipe for chicken soup, as well as a simple jewelry box he made me with his own hands. But we had a bad break-up; he hurt me in a parking lot when I tried to break up with him, someone at the restaurant called the police, a chase ensued and they filed charges against him for assault (against a cop) with a deadly weapon (his vehicle). I'm not sure whatever happened with those charges, but they may have been dropped.

Fast forward to his phone calls some 20 years later. Somehow he got a hold of my phone number. Maybe not too difficult since I'm not unlisted. I thought the calls were intrusive and I told him I didn't have an interest in renewing anything. He seemed to have forgotten about our bad break-up and kept calling, even after I told him I was engaged and/or married.

The last time he called me was probably a year ago. He told me he had emphysema and that the doctor had told him he had a year to live. I wasn't sure whether or not to believe him and wondered if this was just a ploy to get me to talk to him. But he had been a lifetime smoker.

So I googled his name tonight; i have no idea why. The very first thing that popped up in the search results was his obituary.

http://www.eagletribune.com/obituaries/x1767996312/Michael-Joseph-Nartiff

He died this past January. For some reason, the family chose to use a photo of him from when he served in the Army in the Vietnam War. I honestly would never have recognized him if it didn't accompany his obituary. When I met him, he had longish curly hair, a mustache and very long sideburns, which were the style back in the 80s. In the Army, of course, he had a crewcut, but I did recognize that smile and his teeth.

I have to say I feel very sad, as well as guilty that I didn't have a few more kind words for him. I had hardened my heart against him and now I feel very sad for him.

Today was another picture-perfect weather day. We had a lovely ride on the rail trail, which started in the commuter parking lot in Wassaic, the very last stop on the Harlem River line, which ends at Grand Central Station in NY. But this was about an hour and a half north of the city, in a very small town, to put it in perspective for those unfamiliar with NY State.

Here's a few shots:


This photo doesn't really do it justice, but all along the way (10 miles up and 10 miles back) we had great views of the surrounding farmland.


I loved seeing these stone walls with moss.



There were a lot of people out on the trail. We ended the 10 miles up there in the small country town of Millerton, NY. It's the home of Hanley & Sons Teas, so we stopped in and sampled some exotic teas at the "tea bar" and briefly browsed their store. We had a nice lunch outside, and then returned to the bikes for the ride home.

Once back at my place, I invited Mike in for a beer. He brought up the subject of "us," again, saying he'd sensed for a while that I am somewhat ambivalent about us, or holding back. Which is true, for all the reasons I told you about in my last post, but I hadn't realized it was somewhat transparent. He basically said he's fine with whatever I decide, if I want to be just friends or whatever, but he was also telling me he wants me to make up my mind fairly soon because he's been down this road before and he's not getting any younger. He had told me previously about the woman he dated for 4 months who was also ambivalent for that entire time.

He basically doesn't want to waste time on something that's not going to go anywhere, and I can't say I blame him. We agreed to talk again after Easter, since we both know we're both going to be busy with family stuff next weekend. But I've pretty much decided I have to let him go. It's not really fair to string him along, and while my initial impression of him was very positive, I just don't feel a strong attraction to him. He said two people should feel like they can't wait to see each other, when they're first starting to date, and he could tell that I didn't really feel that level of enthusiasm.

I'm depressed about having to end it becus this has been my problem in the past: it's hard for me to find a guy that really excites me. I really wonder if there's something wrong with me. I could be commitment-phobic, since my own parents divorced early on and my mother was married 3 times, so I didn't exactly have good role models.

I am somewhat reserved when I first meet someone but I also often feel that men want things to progress to sleeping together long before I'm really comfortable with that. And if I sense there's a real possibility things might not last, I certainly don't want to sleep with them, although it seems that for the guy, it's very different.

One thing I liked about Mike's profile is that he'd said he wanted to "take things slow," but then he brought up the subject and said so, you like to take things slow? and i said, well yeah, and i thought you did too since it was in your profile and he said well i usually go by what the other person wants to do. So i felt like he was basically trying to get at how long it might be before we slept together. I just don't feel at all ready to sleep with someone when I'm not completely sure I'm into the guy. I mean, today was only date #6.

Oh well. Meeting him was really great for my ego becus it had been a while since I'd dated anyone and it was very nice having someone who was interested and attracted to me. So, even though it didn't really work out, he has sort of spurred me on to want to find that elusive great relationship somewhere else.

Today I picked up my new eyeglasses at BJs. Honestly, I didn't see any cost savings. They're progressives, and they cost about $350.

But, I do like them. The frames are a maroonish color and the part that goes on the sides to your ear have an interesting art deco style design to them. I'm glad to get rid of the frames I'd worn for over 2 years. Truth be told, I NEVER liked them and they seemed too big for my face. But I'm pretty near-sighted, and couldn't really seem them well when i picked them out.

So now I'm thinking I want to update my sunglasses, too, as i have a very old prescription in them and they hurt my eyes when i put them on. The frames are fine, but the lady at BJs said I wouldn't really save much by not replacing them. However, they just didn't have that shape at BJs becus they're not on trend. Which I really don't care about. Trends, that is.

Today I also got some pyrethrin spray at Agway (used for horses) that I've read is much more effective in actually killing ticks than any DEET or Off spray. I never spray on my skin anyway, so I'm happy to have the pyrethrin.

I also spent a very nice afternoon working in the yard. The weather was perfect, and will be again tomorrow, when I will be doing a 20-mile bike ride with Mike on an off-road rail trail in the area of Millerton, NY.

While I'm looking forward to the bike ride (sort of) I'm having some doubts about Mike. Initially, I noticed some common interests, but now I've also noticing some major lifestyle differences. He's retired, I'm not. (Hence he has a lot more time than me to do things he needs to do during the week.) I have a house, he has a condo. (My house requires a lot more upkeep and especially outdoor maintenance.)

He's not the kind of guy who likes to hang around the house. He likes to keep doing things like long hikes (5 hours last week), bike rides, etc. I like to do those things, too, but I simply don't have the time to do them every weekend.

He was telling me last weekend of one woman he briefly dated. It didn't work out, he said, becus they'd often discuss doing something like a hike, but he'd go over her house and they'd wind up doing other things and she treated the hike as if it was optional, if they had time after everything else she had to do. He became resentful that they never seemed to get around to doing things he wanted to do.

Well, that woman sort of sounded like me. While I was hugely into hiking most of my life, especially in my 20s and 30s, I have gotten away from it in recent years in light of my 2 cases of Lyme. And, well, life also gets in the way.

I would love to date someone who had an interest in spending time at my house, helping me with various things, and I've also come to enjoy rather leisurely Sundays when I stay close to home and cook, among other things. I just don't feel a driving need to go out on long hikes and bike rides every weekend. Occasionally, yes, but I sense that Mike wants to do it regularly.

I also feel bad leaving my 2 cats alone on the weekends after they're alone all day long during the week when I'm at work. Mike doesn't have pets, and he had a pretty noticeable allergic reaction when he spent some time at my place last weekend. He seemed to be speaking in a rather disapproving manner when he was talking about how some people let their cats have full run of the house, including on the bed. Well, that would be me again, and if I tried to shut my cats out of the bedroom, there would be scratching and wailing.

Mike is extremely outdoor-oriented. I'm not sure I can keep up with him, physically, nor do I have a lot of free time to do all these things. I had forgotten that new relationships require a fair investment of time, and gosh, get together every single weekend? Once lawn mowing season starts, that just won't happen, especially if he's not willing to just "hang out."

I did talk to him about it a few nights ago. He sounded a little disappointed and maybe a little on the defensive, but better to bring it up now rather than later. We left things sort of unresolved.

I don't know if I'm "creating" an issue or making a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about the future, and about all the "what ifs" and just enjoy the present more, like my Chinese fortune cookie from last night said.

I guess that's why i decided to proceed with the planned bike ride: It will be a gorgeous day and I have the time to do it now. I have never been on this particular rail trail; it's about an hour north of us.

The other thing is, I HATE to say this, is that I'm not sure I'm physically attracted to him. It is SO hard for me to find ANYONE I'm attracted to, so when I met this genuinely nice, intelligent, not bad-looking, not overweight and upbeat guy, I noticed he wasn't my physical type but figured, I'm an adult now, surely I can overcome physical issues becus there are more important things. Well, I'm not sure that's going to work since we did get a little romantic last weekend and it wasn't really doing a whole lot for me.

So i don't know. I guess it doesn't sound too good. Even at this early stage, it will be awkward to break things off with him. Although i guess the best opportunity to do that would be after Easter as I know both of us will be busy with family stuff next weekend. It would be easier to do over the phone.

My friend Ron told me something I don't agree with at all. He said I'd be better off on my own because the kind of guy who would be attracted to me would be very hard to find, plus, he said, if I'm moderately happy now, say at 6o or 70% (I'm not sure I agree with the exact percentage), then meeting a guy will never make me 100% happy, it will only boost my happiness up to, say 80%, becus no relationship is ever perfect. So in his rather warped way of thinking of relationships like a numbers game, he feels it's not worth the effort for me, even though he has started dating someone himself.

The life coach from Las Vegas whose manuscript I began editing (I did the first half) is back from her vacation and is very happy with my work. She already recommended me to more than other person, she said, so that's great. Word of mouth is better than any advertising,and since I don't advertise, it's a great way to expand my client base.

I got 2 very good bits of $-related news yesterday.

1. I learned my contract job is up Sept. 2, not in July, as I'd thought. What was the cause for the mix-up? Well, I was told it was a 10-month assignment, but the agency tracks your time according to hours worked, not weeks. So all those holidays I fretted about because I couldn't work them, and all those smaller paychecks also due to the the half days BEFORE the holiday I didn't work, and a times I took a few hours off for a doc appointment, well....I will earn all that money after all.

It's really just 1 extra month, so I don't know why I'm so happy about it, but I am.

Also, I had a meeting with my boss today and she asked me, IF there was an offer of a permanent position, would I be interested. I said yes, absolutely, you don't have to ask!! Everyone at the bank has wanted an in-house writer for a long time, she said, confirming what others have told me.

I'm just afraid that, what if they do what another contract employer did, decide they should advertise the position outside the bank to make sure they were getting the very best? I HOPE that wouldn't happen. There have been a number of other contractors who got perm offers at the bank, so fingers crossed.

I've also heard that usually when they hire a contractor, your salary DROPS compared to what you were making at an hourly rate, because they argue that you're now getting full benefits, paid time off, etc. I'm not thrilled about that, because I feel I'm quite a bit underpaid for the industry, my years of experience and this part of the country....I'm making $35/hr, which is about $72K a year. I feel I should be making around $85K.

I hope they wouldn't drop it below $65K, but who really knows?

2. The other good news I got was that, after working 6 months at the bank, I'm now eligible to get on the health plan offered by the recruiter agency that found me. I got the PPO paperwork this week, and after the agency chips in roughly half the monthly premium, I will have to pay just $175 a month!!! It's an Aetna plan with a $5K deductible (mostly all I ever use a plan for is the usual stuff that's 100% covered now anyway, like a physical, mammogram, gyno) and co-pays of $25 for PCP and $50 for a specialist. It covers meds. For other stuff, it covers 80/20%. I will be fine as long as, say, I didn't need surgery or some expensive procedure, because 20% can be quite a lot of money.

Anyway, I can't wait to get on the plan. Compared to the $404 a month I'm paying now, $175 will feel like nothing! I'll be effective May 1.

Now that I know I'm working til Sept 2 at the least, I anticipate having to repay about $1400 to the IRS when I file my taxes next year, to pay back the subsidy I got for Jan - April. Sometime in the fall, my earnings will exceed the income limit for the subsidy, which is about $46K.

I am doing well on my retirement savings plan (see sidebar, bottom). I aimed to save at least $800 a month toward my retirement, and I've already saved $6,100, not $3200, for the first 4 months of this year.

So I am finally loosening up the purse strings, just a little, paying for lunch when I was out with Mike last weekend, an occasional lunch at the office cafe, and some clothing and vitamins.

Now I can daydream about how wonderful it would be to get a perm job this fall. Even with a pay cut, I can easily live while making $60K-something, without a mortgage. Heck, not too many years ago, I lived on a $50K salary while I still had my mortgage!

So, knowing that, I would immediately max out my 401k, including the catch-up contributions for age 50 and above. And then I would really look forward to some paid vacation time, an excellent health plan and still a very reasonable work day. A lot of people leave there right at 5pm and at most, some stay til 5:30 pm. No workaholics there!

Today after work I had an optometrist appointment. I only went there because I want to get a new pair of eyeglasses. I've had my current frames for just 2 years, but I NEVER liked them. The problem is that I'm very near-sighted and really couldn't see them that well when I was trying them on. So my eyes didn't change much. I will take the prescription to Costco at the next opportunity (maybe Saturday).

I also hit Trader Joe's tonight.

Tomorrow is errands day, including major house cleaning cus on Sunday, Mike is coming over, we're doing a big hike somewhere and then we'll be at my place for a light dinner. I won't feel like cooking after a hike, but I plan to make a wheat berry salad tomorrow with celery, apple chunks currants, and orange zest. It's quite good. I'll pair that with some yummy tomato soup from TJs and some great croutons. For starters we can nibble crackers and guacamole. And I bought some Hawaiian beer to try as he enjoys drinking beer.

Tonight I'm really pooped and am glad I can turn the alarm off for tomorrow.

Today I was on the road for 7 hours (round trip) to attend a 1-hour meeting at another of my employer's offices out of state. Frankly, I'm exhausted.

I drove up with 2 other contract workers and i wasn't doing the driving, but it was still so tiring, as I had to get up at 5:30 am and due to hot flashes since 2010, I never sleep well to begin with, so having to get up early with the hot flashes just meant i got even less sleep than usual. So i am dragging now.

This was a meeting they pushed for us all to attend because we were to hear the new head of our dept. expound on her goals for the company, blah blah blah.

As a contractor who doesn't get the benefit of the full range of employee benefits, I guess I have less than the desirable rah rah attitude.

What's more, they want to start doing "team building" meetings at same location once every quarter now. An all-day event, 9 to 5 p.m.

I've just decided I can't do this again. Now my boss goes up to this location very frequently, like nearly every other week, but the difference is, she'll go up for several days, sometimes the whole week, and she'll either stay in a hotel or at her daughter's. But we are told to get up there and then drive home same day.

Even worse, you'd think they'd schedule the meetings with some consideration for those of us coming up from CT, but no, they often schedule the meetings for 9 a.m., forcing me, for instance, to get up at 4:30, to leave by 5:30, to be there by 9 am.

Ridiculous.

Of all the people who go there from CT, I probably have the longest drive becus i happen to live furthest west. But even so, the others still have a total of about 6 hours on the road, so just a little more for me.

I'm wondering if I should just tell my boss or what. I really want to before the next meeting in May. Otherwise, they really like me there becus I'm doing a good job. They keep a tight lid on expenses so they probably wouldn't permit to stay overnight in a hotel, especially when others don't do that.

A recent Businessweek story suggested that you should split your take home pay into 3 major categories:

50% towards Essentials, like housing, transportation, utilities and groceries.
20% towards Savings, like retirement accounts, emergency funds, or debt payments.
30% towards Lifestyle Choices, which are basically whatever discretionary purchases you wish to make, like eating out, shopping, entertainment, etc.

So the goal should be 50/20/30

Since I already track all my spending each month, I thought it would be fun to see how my numbers stack up.

My numbers For the month of February look like this:

Essential spending: 33%
Savings: 64%
Discretionary: 3%

One big reason why I can do this is because I paid off my mortgage, so my total expenses for February, for example, were just $1559. I also don't have children.

My teeny bit of discretionary spending in February included a few things for the house, some clothing and eating lunch out a few times.

I'm saving a lot now, which is great, but I know I will be needing to spend a fair amount to make the various upgrades I feel are needed before I put my house on the market.

I'm finding myself really reluctant to spend the money as I prefer to boost my retirement savings, but I'm taking my "to do" list one slow step at a time, and trying to save some bucks by cajoling friends to help me with certain things. Like, last fall I bought a new shiny brass door handle for my storm door at front entry; the old one was an eyesore. But there are a LOT of little parts to it and I feel it's beyond my capabilities. Haven't done anything with it because it got too chilly outdoors. So I plan to ask my friend Dave for help and bribe him with another home-cooked meal. I think he'd do it even without the home-cooked meal, but at least this way I feel he's getting something in exchange.

I want to wait til it's a little warmer outside before asking him. If I had to pay a handyman to do it, they'd probably charge at least $50 to do it.

Friday nights for me are a welcome event, but in truth I do absolutely nothing, as the wear and tear of the previous week seems to cumulatively build up so that by the time the end of the work week is upon me, I'm just looking forward to chillin' before the busyness of my weekends begins!

But as for this weekend, I was busy Sunday and M. was busy today, so earlier in the week, he was saying he really wanted us to see each other this weekend (I agree, it helps to keep the momentum going in our fledgling, dare I say, relationship?), so I agreed to head over to his house last night after work.

I was worried I'd be too tired. Which I was, but it was still worth it. He got us a pizza and he had a Netflix movie for us to watch. I got to see where he lived. I very much liked his condo complex in the woods, although inside, it was very much the bachelor pad, in that, well, he's no interior designer.

It was clear that M. doesn't care about possessions; what he does care about are people, relationships and outdoor experiences like skiing, hiking, biking and soon, kayaking.

Anyway, we watched The Tunnel (foreign, with sub-titles, based on a true story about Germans who dug a tunnel to the other side in the 1960s before the wall came down). He asked me more about my dysfunctional tiny family, something I don't really like to talk about, but he seemed to accept it.

This was date #4. I told him that it wasn't until date #3 that I realized he really was interested in me, romantically, becus he was too much the gentleman. And personally, I don't like it when a man "asks" you if it's ok to kiss you cus of course that just makes me nervous. He should just swoop in and do it. I got home after midnight.

I reconnected recently with another guy (Dave), someone who had organized and run a biking group I was very involved in 10 or 12 years ago. This was the guy who, as a teen, was involved in a terrible accident when his friend accidentally shot him in the head with a hunting rifle, in a boat. Becus of his limp, he always had a tough time keeping up with hikers in the larger hiking group we were both involved in, so he began to "recruit" people from the hiking group that he thought would be interested in his little biking group. Because on a bike, he was anyone's equal.

But I drifted away from that group, partly becus he hit on me several times (by planting a big kiss on me) even after I told him I wasn't interested, and when he persisted, it made me uncomfortable, so I just stopped going on the rides. (Everyone else in the biking group knew of his infatuation too, so it made the whole thing even more public and embarrassing.) Over the years, he still called from time to time, always sent Christmas cards, so this past Christmas I finally picked up the phone and we had a nice talk. Then, more recently, I invited him down and I made him a nice beef stew.

I sense that he's lonely. He never remarried after his divorce many years ago. He just retired a year or so ago, from Johnson & Johnson, with a nice pension; he lives in his mother's house. He lived with and cared for his mother until she passed away from dementia and cancer. He wants to get together again, and I think we will. I am coming round to place a greater value on relationships, and not so casually tossing away friendships with people that I've known for a while.

Bumped into a friend at the garden nursery as I was browsing for some birthday gifts. I've avoided calling her becus i was afraid she'd ask how my home improvements went, for which I hired a guy she and her husband had highly recommendedo. (I was extremely unhappy with the outcome in terms of both the workmanship and the price.) I didn't want to have that conversation with her, and really, it had nothing to do with her and her husband, but I knew she would feel bad about it if she knew. But I was happy to see her; she gave me a big hug. She was the person I "job-shared" with at the $12 an hour p/t job I took last year out of desperation. We shared the same desk/cube. She still works there, after I moved on, and she informed me cheerfully that she'd gotten a .40 an hour raise, so now she makes $12.40. She's a retired school teacher in an unhappy marriage.

Then I bumped into my neighbor walking her beagle. We both remarked on how happy we were that spring is here, at least for today.

It's small conversations and interactions like these that make me happy.

Today I'm doing more freelance editing (and tomorrow too). And tomorrow I'm cooking dinner for my sister and mother's birthdays, a delicious lamb stew/casserole that I've cooked a zillion times. Comes out great every time.

A fun calculator to try.

https://www.livingto100.com/

I've had a pretty productive and enjoyable weekend.

I told The Bachelor that I could not see him this weekend as I needed to start editing a manuscript for the Vegas motivational speaker. He was fine with that.

The weather on Saturday was the warmest we've had yet, in the 50s, and it was also bright and sunny, so I didn't get started on that editing right away. Instead, I checked out the annual pet and equine show at local college and picked up 7 different sample-sized bags of dry cat food for the boys. I also did some grocery shopping, filled up the gas tank, stopped at the landfill to unload some trash, and vacuumed and washed my car. Phew.

I started editing last night and continued today for most of the day. I'm up to page 35 of 99 pages, which is just the first half of the book. The client is away on a trip right now so I have a solid 2 weeks to finish the rest of this first half, which shouldn't be too hard. Happily, I already deposited her check of $500, which made me happy.

Had a nice long phone conversation with my friend Michael, who is dealing with a hellish commute right now in a contract job but making very nice money. I also made a batch of granola and a three-grain dish (barley, brown rice and quinoa) with sauteed mushrooms and onions, along with spinach. This will serve as the core of my workday lunches this week.

I learned that next year my employer's lease is up on the building and they don't plan to renew! This means they will either lay people off, relocate some to other offices or possibly let some people entirely telecommute. We occupy 3 floors of this building and it will be a blow to the downtrodden city we're in as they can use all they help they can get. So there's a lot of uncertainty, and there have been a few more layoffs.

I got my IRS refund of close to $1,000, but this is just going into savings. I anticipate having to pay about that much back to the IRS when I do my taxes next year if I get an extension on my contract job. I think I have a decent shot for at least another 3 months as I've seen as 3 women I know there whose terms were about to expire got extended another 3 months. However, this is no way to live and it's impossible to plan anything if you don't know if you'll have a job beyond 3 months. And I'll hate like the dickens to have to pay back at least $1100. It would be a lot more if I worked the rest of the year and continued getting the healthcare subsidy, but I am HOPING that when I become eligible for the recruiter agency's health plan April 1 that it will be cheaper and that I can switch to it.

So I think with a little bit of encouragement, Mike will wind up purchasing a kayak. He needs to do more research, but this is something he had thought of before, and then when he met me, well, it would make it even more appealing with a built-in kayaking partner. As soon as weather permits, perhaps in April, he wants to take a drive up to a kayak shop I told him about and then also bring the bikes so we can ride on the rail trail in that area. Like I've said before, I just hope I can keep up with this guy! Not an ounce of fat on this one!

It's been a relaxing weekend; while it's not usually that painful to go back to work, I do wish I could just lounge around a bit more.

Oh, I'm so tired. That will happen when you're tromping through the woods in the snow.

Today was my 3rd date with Mike. When I got up this a.m. I wasn't really feeling like walking in the snow, and I was feeling kind of tired from the usual work week. But we had already planned the date. We walked for well over 2 hours in a good 6 inches of snow, which made it really difficult and slower going.

Keith Richards is known to have a house that you can see from one of the trails in the preserve. It looks pretty nice from the outside, but it's not enormously-sized or anything.

What was cool is that Mike said he'd read Keith Richards' autobiography ("Life") and that he talks a little about the house and the fact that it's next to a nature preserve, although he doesn't name it. There are also pictures of it inside.

The walk was very tiring (I am so out of shape), but it was quiet and peaceful at the same time. It also was fairly warm today with blue skies with temps in the low 40s. The small parking lot was full with about 10 cars. I was so surprised.

After the walk we came back to my house. It was his first time there. We changed out of our wet boots, hung around and talked in the kitchen over tall glasses of V8 and then decided to head to the local Chinese place for dinner.

So I guess we broke the ice as he tried to kiss me twice as he was saying goodbye. It was a little lopsided, I told him i was a little rusty and he said that's ok, he's a little rusty too. It was oh so awkward! If you think it gets easier when you're older, no it doesn't, not at all! Egads.

But I guess it tells me he's interested. He was actually such a gentleman on our previous 2 dates that I was wondering whether he wasn't sure if he wanted any romantic thing with me and maybe just wanted a hiking partner.

The whole idea of romance just gives me the heebeejeebees, if you know what I mean. It's NERVE-WRACKING to even think about it.

Tomorrow I have a lot of freelance work to do. Just in tonight is the first part of a legal report to edit, and I also have the manuscript of the motivational speaker to start, although I haven't gotten the first payment for that yet. She SAID she mailed it a week ago, a check for $500, but I told her I never got it so she said she would mail another one. I guess I would be more concerned about a check that didn't arrive. She also offered to draft it into my checking account; i have no idea what that entails but I'm guessing it would mean giving her my bank account number, and there's no way I'm doing that with someone I don't know.

I think our next date will be a movie.

One of the many things I wanted to do to fix this place up for eventual sale was to replace the two faucets in my upstairs bath. On one faucet, the hot water valve is totally locked up, frozen in place. I haven't been able to use it in over a year. The other faucet works but the stopper is getting rusty, as I made the mistake years ago with my late cat of keeping the bowl filled up with water, which she liked to drink.

Both these faucets were Kohler brand but lasted less than 15 years.

I found some Pfister faucets on Home Depot's website that were very attractive and just $42 each, but they were on back order for a very long time, even after a rep told me they'd become available.

So yesterday I stopped in at my local Home Depot and wound up buying two Pfisters from the store. They were, umm, about double the price, but I liked them.

When I got one out of the box, I saw how simple it would be to install them. It was literally just 2 pieces: the faucet and the stopper. The only tool you needed was a wrench. So I had the brilliant idea of trying to do it myself. Honestly, I don't know what got into me, but I think it looked so ridiculously simple, plus I had a strong incentive to save money. So tired of overpaying for everything....... The local Handyman Connection was going to charge me $120 to do this.

First, I had to disassemble the existing faucet. I cleaned out the cabinet underneath and turned the hot and cold water valves off. A lot of plumbing is hand-tightened, so I was able to disconnect the trap part of the pipe, and then I went on to disconnect where the water tube under the sink connects to the bottom of the faucet. I got the cold one done, and then the hot one, but both of them were still seeping water. I kept trying to tighten the shut off valves I had already shut off, but the water kept coming out and I didn't notice it at first because it was just seeping, not spraying. But soon I was mopping up all kinds of water with towels, etc. Water partially filled the top drawer adjacent to the cabinet directly below the sink, and I know some water got behind the wall where I couldn't get to it.

Who knows how much water. Maybe 1 or 2 quarts? That's a lot when it's water where it's not supposed to be! I was freaking. I had no choice but to shut off the water to the whole house down in the basement.

I didn't sleep at all last night as I was worried about what possible damage I could have done to my walls. I kept checking my downstairs bathroom, which is directly below the upstairs bath and is wallpapered. I don't see any evidence of water or water stains, thank God.

So now I've had to inform my boss at work that I need to work at home today so I can attend to my plumbing emergency.

I called Handyman Connection as soon as they opened at 8 this morning and someone's coming over around 9, 9:30 am. I hope he knows what he's doing. I just don't want any more water in my bathroom and I'm still worried about it because when I left it last night, I had reconnected the two water tubes to the bottom of the faucet, thinking that at least I could have use of water in the house until the plumber came to fix it. But the hot water valve was in a very awkward position and I wasn't really able to tighten it much and I was so afraid to "test" it by turning the water on in the basement again (being here alone, I've to run up from the basement to the upstairs bath to see if it was leaking, and I decided not to take that chance. This morning when I again started loosening the hot water tube, just to see, I heard water flowing again. Mind you, the water is now shut off to the whole house AND under the sink. I know there must be water still in the pipes, but without pressure, there shouldn't be much that would come out.

I have a bucket, but the water was seeping down the coiled tube in a spot where I couldn't fit the bucket.

To top it off, I really hate the bathroom cabinet. It was here when I bought the house. A basic white ceramic top with the double sinks and just particleboard white cabinet. It looks OK from the outside, but when you open the doors you see signs of previous water leak damage and the laminate is broke in spots; it just looks terrible.

I'd love to replace it but I have wallpaper in that bathroom in pretty good shape, and ripping out the cabinet would probably really mess things up. Not to mention it might be difficult to find a cabinet the exact same height and length so I wouldn't need to do any more wallpapering. Don't know if that pattern would still be available or not. So that's why I haven't replaced this cheap-as-s*** cabinet.

Laying contact paper down on the bottom would help a little bit, but would really just be a band-aid. So it kind of bothers me to be paying to install beautiful new faucets when I'd love to get rid of that ugly cabinet, too. But I really don't need any more "projects" right now.

Update: It's all fixed now (at a steep cost). Handyman Connection told me on the phone that the cost to replace two faucets would be $120. I thought that was fairly reasonable, so I agreed to that. When the guy showed up, he said, oh, you want the stopper installed too? That'll be an extra $75. That ticked me off; I mean, the stopper is part of the faucet assembly. It comes in the same box as the faucet. I never heard of anyone replacing just the faucet and not the stopper. So I felt like he was just trying to get more money out of me. I refused, knowing a regular plumber would cost me more, but I'd rather pay an honest plumber higher rates than a cheaper but dishonest plumber a lower rate.

So I scrambled to find another plumber who could come out today, since I don't want to work another day at home just for this.

One plumber had a special formula whereby it would cost me $177 for the first faucet, and then, since "the truck was already in the driveway," as he put it, another $130 for the 2nd faucet, for a total of $307, not including any parts, if needed.!!!!

I kept looking for a better priced plumber, and found one that charged $100 an hour. I wound up paying him $254, but he also fixed the shut-off valves which as I mentioned were still allowing water to seep/leak even when turned off.

The cost of the 2 faucets were $80 each for a total of $160, but I used a Home Depot gift card I'd bought a while ago to take advantage of some credit card offer, so the total price for the 2 was about $98. So roughly $400 to get 2 new faucets installed. OUCH.

Though they are lovely.

It's the last day of the month, so I did my monthly expense and investment report. Thanks to saving and a rebounding stock market, my assets hit an all-time high:

$603,484

Eee-ha.....

I had been stuck in the $500s for what seemed like forever. (Since 2011, my records show).

Today I'm working from home. Nirvana. I have an eye doc appointment toward the end of the day and I lose less time at the office if I can simply work from home; luckily, I have an accommodating boss.

The eye doc appointment is a field vision test, which basically tests your peripheral vision where you push the button whenever you see flashing specks of light in all areas of a black field.

They're doing this because probably 2 years ago after a routine exam with an optometrist, she said my eye pressure is on the high side of normal. This had been flagged by another optometrist years earlier, but his tack was to watch and monitor. This one recommended I see an ophthalmologist, which I did. High eye pressure is a red flag for glaucoma. Doesn't mean I definitely have it; I could just have somewhat higher eye pressure than most. But the field test will establish a baseline for me I guess. Believe it or not, glaucoma can be treated with eye drops, although it's symptomless, so it's important to get your eyes checked regularly.

While I certainly want to make sure my eyes are ok, this does sort of remind me of other encounters I've had with the medical establishment which wind up costing a lot of time and money for no real benefit.

That was pretty much the case about 5 years ago when I wound up having an ovary removed. Although I had no symptoms, my gyno said the "mass" she felt around one of my ovaries had gotten a little bigger. She had mentioned a "cyst" in the past, and so I never became that alarmed until for some reason she got my attention when she said it had gotten bigger. Her approach was also to keep an eye on it, but I was concerned enough to seek a 2nd opinion, from an oncologist at Yale, which was basically my undoing, because OF COURSE he was going to recommend surgery, that's how he makes his money. He said there was no way to tell if this "growth" was malignant or not until they cut me open. So now the fear of a cancerous growth made me undergo a totally (in hindsight) unnecessary major surgery. Let me tell you, abdominal surgery is not an easy recovery, and not only that, the surgery messed up the smooth and rounded appearance of my lower belly. I have a scar that runs 6 inches down from my belly button.

I'm just bringing this up because it seems to me there's a lot doctors don't know, and their tools seem to be largely limited to 1. surgery and 2. powerful medications that often do more harm than good. If you mention something like good nutrition and antioxidants, they smile politely and move on.

I hadn't really planned on this being the focus of my post today, but I suspect the whole glaucoma scare may be along a similar vein. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry, and perhaps the doctor's desire to avoid malpractice suits spurs him to be more thorough than perhaps is really warranted. At least I have insurance. This is the sorry state of our health insurance system in America today.

I always look forward to the end of the month because I enjoy (!) doing my end of month expense and investment reports. I also get to make my first of the month transfer to savings, and since I'm not tracking these savings on a special 5-year spreadsheet, I can literally see my long-term progress, which is highly motivating to me.

That being said, I can tell you that as of now I have a ways to go to meet my end of 2014 savings balance. At the growth rate cited above and with my regular contributions, my balance should be $623,000; as of end of January (see profile at left), my balance was just $571,000. a shortfall of $52,000. So I have 10 months to make up that shortfall! I GUESS it could be done, even though my minimum contributions for the rest of the year may only be $8,000 ($800 a month).

I just don't know if 6.5% overall return is doable. Here's an interesting report about 2014 markets: http://www.russell.com/documents/corporate/2014-global-annual-outlook.pdf


I was thankful to have finally gotten my mail delivered again yesterday after a week of suspension because the mailman couldn't reach my mailbox due to all the snow along the roadside. I am expecting the first of 3 installment payments from a new client.

All told, there are 3 new freelance projects that could start any day now for me; two of them are big jobs while there's one involving editing a legal report, I could knock out in a weekend.

I'm also anxiously awaiting my IRS refund of about $1,000. I filed real paper forms that I mailed. I prefer to do the taxes myself, and all the free software programs they make available on their website seem to take charge and walk you through the whole return, but not in the way the return is laid out in the IRS forms and booklet, and having already filled out those forms, I would have liked to do the same online, but none of those other companies offering tax return services seem to do that. They want to do the calculations FOR you, and I'd rather do it myself, thank you. I did file my state tax form online and already got the small refund ($119) associated with it.

Today since I'm home I plan to call the woman who is part of the close-knit hiking group the man I'm dating belongs to. I haven't spoken to her in several years so I'm sure she'll be surprised to hear from me, but she does live right here in town and there was a time we were friendly. I'd like to hear more about what she thinks of...oh heck, it's tiresome to keep referring to him in other ways, so let's just call him by his real name....MIKE.

We had another lunch for our second date. There's not always a ton of stuff you can do. We ate at a very good restaurant in his town that' s well-known for its healthy food and interesting rotating art on the walls. (My mother's exhibited there.) I had a yummy kale salad with chopped up beets, gorgonzola cheese and some other things that I'm going to analyze later (i brought home leftovers) so I can recreate it myself.

After lunch, we didn't really want the date to end, so we decided to take a walk. We ended up walking 3 or 4 miles; I wasn't wearing the best shoes for walking and now I feel the start of a blister, but oh, the things we do for love. I think we both just wanted to spend more time together.

And in the course of talking, I was describing a friend of mine and he said, do you know so and so? He had guessed the person I'd been describing and not only that, he knows her very well because they are part of the small, close-knit group of people who for years have been doing frequent hikes and overnight hiking trips together.

Talk about "small world." Maybe 7 years ago I used to cat sit for her when she went on these trips and I even remember seeing photos of the hiking group posing together. I guess the man I've been dating was in those very photos. Little did I know I'd be meeting him myself.

I guess I've lost some confidence at some point because after each date I find myself asking what he sees in me. Not that I don't think I have anything to offer, but he seems much more outdoorsy/active (the way I was in my 30s, but he's 57) and also much more outgoing. I'm more introverted and am perfectly content to spend long periods of time alone, or with one other person, at most.

So for that reason I'm not sure what long-term potential we may have, but we have already been talking about another get-together, and definitely another walk/hike, when the weather's better and I have better shoes on.

On the way home, I stopped at Shop Rite to pick up 3 cans Amy's Tuscan White Bean soup, which will have to do for my workday lunches this week. That and the leftover kale salad and to round things off, some nuts, fresh apples and a square of dark chocolate.

After coming THIS close to letting my BJs membership lapse without renewing, I wound up renewing it for another year after my mother said she would again split the fee ($50) with me. All because she loves their macadamian nuts and Costco doesn't have anything like it.

So for $25, I guess it's worth it.

It's currently 3:41 am in Connecticut. For some reason, there was a passing snow plow that woke me up, even though it's not snowing and the roads are clear. At least, it sure sounded like a snow plow but I didn't actually get up to look out the window.

After fruitlessly tossing and turning and trying to get back to sleep, I'm "up" and at the computer until I get tired again.

Wrapped up another busy week (and another paycheck) at work. The "honeymoon" period there is over, in that I don't have nearly as much time on my hands as I did the first three months. That's mostly a good thing, as it that can make for a very long day.

Tomorrow ....er...today, first thing I have to go to the post office to collect my mail and a small Amazon package. They stopped delivering my mail about a week ago without bothering to tell me, but I know it's because the snowpack on the plowed road, which still extends out from the curb a good 2 or 3 feet, prevents the mail man from leaning across the snow to put mail in my mailbox. I guess they don't want to waste time driving up my drive, which is also mostly clear (though still narrow).

Most of my bills I now get an email notice for, although I am expecting a first installment check from a new freelance client, but that will come in today's mail or Monday's mail,neither of which I will be able to get today, and I suspect the mailman still won't deliver mail to my box after today. The warmer temps in low 40s have melted a lot, but still not enough, and then we're in for another cold spell after the weekend. I'm "done" with snow shoveling and will not shovel the street! They want you to shovel an "approach" to the box of 15 or 20 feet so the mail truck can just pull alongside the curb up to the box.

After that it's lunch at my mother's and main reason for going over there is to try to help her with her mounting piles of "paperwork," which she constantly complains about. I suspect my mother has dementia because she is increasingly unable to deal with things like this and her memory is terrible. She will be 80 next weekend.

Then I'm doing my last shop at BJs, before my membership expires end of February. I decided I didn't want to pay the $50 renewal fee, partly because there are a limited number of things I buy there and partly because I bought into the organic farm CSA program this year.

So the stocking up part of it will be focused on things I know are good buys or are favorite foods I can't get elsewhere, like the 44 lb boxes of cat litter for $9. One box lasts about a month for 2 cats and I believe I have 5 boxes in the basement, so the goal is to get another 7 boxes so I'm good for a year, by which time I may wish to rejoin BJSs. I'll also get more nuts, raisins, Paul Newman's salad dressing (huge savings there), Truvia and bean burritos.

The only thing I'll miss saving on, on an ongoing basis, is the huge clamshell boxes of organic salad greens and their low-priced gas. I may occasionally ask my mother to go with me to Costco, where she has a membership.

I got my Discover $150 reward promptly deposited to my checking account shortly after I paid off the 2nd statement, after I'd met the spend target. Nice. I also billed another client for a small amount and see that he already paid me thru PayPal. Thanks Andy.

Sunday it's a 2nd lunch date with The Bachelor. We rescheduled from last weekend because I had too much freelance work to do and also had cold feet (even though he seems incredibly nice). Maybe we'll do a casual walk in the area if it's warmish, which it's supposed to be.

This has happened to me before with AT&T, but it bears repeating.

For some time, I've had AT&T UVerse Internet ($15 a month) and phone ($31). Apparently, the Internet price was "promotional" and would have expired next month, at which time my price for both would jump from $40 (before fees and taxes) to $66.

That's a bigger jump than I'd like. So I went on hold, waiting for AT&T's customer service for about 40 minutes til I got a rep on the line. I asked her nicely if there was anything I could do to avoid that fee increase and she said there was nothing she could offer me at this time but suggested I call back after the price increase went into effect. I didn't want to wait til then and I casually mentioned I'd probably be preparing to get either Magic Jack or Ooma.

Truth be told, I'm lazy and would rather not have to do that, but mentioning my plan to switch was like saying "Open Sesame." She transferred me to another department, where, after another 30-minute wait on hold, another rep quickly told me he could keep the same price intact for another full year AND he would upgrade my Internet speed from 3mb to 6mb, no charge.

The only catch to keeping the $15 Internet price is that if I chose to end UVerse Internet before the one year was up then I'd have to a pay an early termination penalty equal to $15 a month for each month I'd gotten the renewed $15/mth price. If I ended it becus i moved to a location where UVerse was not available, then they would not charge me the early termination fee.

So I'm very happy to have averted the price increase. I realize I could save even more more by going ahead and switching to something like Magic Jack, but I'm not a techie person and always worry I can't set it up right and I don't really have anyone nearby I can ask for help with that. Compared to what I've seen other people here pay for phone and/or Internet, I think this is a pretty good price.

The thing to remember is, if you just whine or complain about the price, that won't be enough. You have to specifically say you'll switch plans and go with someone else.

I am working at home again today...it was snowing ferociously this morning, right around commute time, though now it appears to have stopped, altho they say it will not finally end til around 4 or 5 p.m.

The snow, that is.

To recap: We had a 24-hour snowstorm Thursday, which ended Friday morning. I worked from home both days, finally shoveling out Saturday morning. It snowed another inch or two on Saturday. More shoveling, because if I don't clear it off the driveway, the sun will melt it and then it will refreeze at night. Yesterday afternoon I was out there chipping softened ice on the hilly section of my driveway with a metal hoe. This morning, there was a dusting of snow on my car. Tomorrow, it will snow another 3 to 6 inches.

Enough already!!!! I guess I'm working at home again tomorrow. Not trying to take advantage, but the snow will be widespread by 8 am and I don't like to take chances.