I spent a few hours yesterday playing with one of those retirement calculators which tells you how long your savings will last. If you tinker with any one of the variables, like years in retirement, age upon retirement and your income needs for each year, of course, all the numbers will change.

I'm determined to retire early, in 6 or 7 years time, and I need my savings to last until age 95, by which time, I'll promptly keel over. (Just kidding, but we should all find some humor in retirement planning, right?)

Oh, when I say "retire," I mean I want to retire from full-time work, but I'm quite sure I'll want to work part-time, and/or continue my freelance work, for some time. I'm not even bothering to factor that in.

I also figure that about $48,000 in annual retirement income sounds about right. It should leave room for some travel and various comforts without being so much that I can never reach my goal, yet it's not so low that I'd have to skimp or pay much attention to budgeting in retirement (although it's sort of a hobby of mine anyway).

That figure of $48,000 also includes Social Security benefits and assumes I'd start collecting at 62, which IS NOT something I plan to do, but there are a few things like this you can't adjust in the calculator. (I actually plan to hold off collecting SS benefits for as long as possible, up to my full retirement age of 66, since each year you defer your benefit amount increases by 8%.)

So I determined that in order to have $48,000 a year in retirement starting in 6 or 7 years time, and assuming a rather conservative investment growth rate of 6.5% pre-retirement and 5% in retirement, I calculate I need to save a total of $908,278. (As you can see from my sidebar, I'm already up to about $585,000.)

By tinkering with the calculator, I determined that I can do this in the 6 or 7 years before my planned retirement by saving $800 a month, every month from now til then. (I'm not even factoring in the growth of my existing investments, just to play it safe...course, I'm not factoring in any lossss, either.)

It's actually pretty easy to do this working the bank job I have now. Remember, I don't have a mortgage anymore. The job pays about $72K, which is not the most I've ever made, but it's not bad money, either.

So for at least the first 7 months in 2014, I feel confident I can contribute $800, or actually more, to stick to this plan. If the contract job ends in July as it is now scheduled to do, then I will have to revise my savings plan, but I am really sort of hoping I will either get a perm offer or figure something else out.

So for now, instead of just settling for $800 a month contributions, I have already figured I can actually contribute as much as $2,000 toward savings a month. That is 2.5 times more, so I figure it is the equivalent of paying $800 for 17.5 months, not 7, so that is like making contributions into June 2015. Hopefully by that time I will have found other work if need be.

I always make mistakes when it comes to math (!) but I THINK all those calculations are correct. Maybe a good reason not to consider doing other people's tax returns, Dido, but I love the idea!

This is the time of year I love, when I get to fiddle around with my income and expenditures for the past year and see how I did.

While I haven't gotten to my micro spending analysis yet, I did create a new chart tracking the growth in my net worth for the 5-year period from January 2009 through January 2014 (I'm actually using my Dec. 1 2013 figure for now to represent January 2014.)

Sorry I can't show you the chart, which I made using Word. It's very interesting to read but can't seem to transfer it here intact.

But here are my net worth figures for each year:

Jan 2009: $315,226
Jan 2010: $434,872
Jan 2011: $486,302
Jan 2012: $461,436
Jan 2013: $519,228
Jan 2014: $582,124

Assuming the December figure I used doesn't change much between now and Dec. 31, I will have increased my net worth by 84% in 5 years. This amazes me.

I started this analysis in 2009 because September 2009 was when I lost my job, and I wanted to see how badly I was hurt by both a substantial loss of income as well as the nosediving stock market. Remember, during this entire period, I was not contributing to long-term savings at all.

In fact, I withdrew from savings at a few key junctures in the past 5 years. All for good reasons, I think, but these all worked to reduce my nest egg and presumably slow its growth:

2009: Sunroom/garage windows: $6,176
2011: Vinyl siding: $14,000, Mortgage prepayment: $17,000.
2013: Sewer loan payoff: $2900, New car, $20,000, new roof: $5800

So in addition to all my normal bills, I also withdrew from savings a whopping $65,876 in big, non-recurring expenses for either home improvements or loan prepayments.

This excites me. It's spurred me to put in writing a new savings plan, fueled largely by optimism while working a full-time 10-month contract job. More to come on that in a bit....

Hey, guess what? I won a contest!

Maybe a month ago I came across a personal finance site I hadn't seen before....wethesavers.com. It's a website created by Capital One credit cards. They feature a monthly essay contest with a different finance-related question each month.

The question for the month of November was, when do you plan to retire (at what age) and how will you get there?

So I wrote something up....nothing really new to you guys since I post about my post-2009 circumstances all the time.... but I won the November contest! I get $100 and my post will be published on their site. I just had to fill out a bunch of paperwork giving them permission to do so. It'll be first name only and I prefer no picture, which I think is ok since I've seen earlier winners do it the same way.

It's funny, because I was just thinking about that contest yesterday, and in fact I went to the site to see if they had announced a winner yet, and I saw they hadn't.

I love earning money!

I'm working from home today. Bliss.

Did I tell you I'm all done with my Christmas shopping? Ahh, relief.

Spoke to my good friend R. His dad is now receiving hospice care. Ninety-six-years-old and dropping weight, now down to 107 lbs i believe. He's also dealing with his own prostate cancer and new lower left jaw pain they picked up on the scan. Not good. It could be either cancer, an imminent heart attack or maybe just plain old TMJ, although that's not confined to one side.

My mother's all messed up with her computer and email again. This happens on a weekly basis and then she calls me to fix it magically, to troubleshoot over the phone with her.

My sister's announced she's doing Christmas dinner for the first time in at least 10 years, and not only that, she's inviting both my mother and my father. I have no living memory of ever sharing a meal with both parents at the same time, as they divorced when I was six. This should be interesting. She said she was tired of always having to decide how (and with whom) she was going to spend Christmas. The last time my parents met was at my mother's mother's wake, I believe. They'll get along, I'm sure, but it will still be weird.

Got my new Discover card ($150 bonus waiting in the wings) and am ready to start charging everything exclusively to the card to hit the spend goal ($750) asap.

My total credit card rewards for 2013 was $1400. Not bad, huh? Hard to believe, but I recorded only $371 in credit card rewards income in 2012. I thought I'd done much more.

For those of you who love to pursue rewards for new credit cards, you should love this site: www.rewardboost.com.

I've posted about it before.... It's a neat little site where you can open an account and then enter the names of all the credit cards you currently own. Then you can enter in the approximate amount of money you spend monthly on different categories of expenses, and the site will tell you which of your many credit cards offer the highest % points for any given expense category.

Yeah, you could figure this out by looking it up on the card website, but if you collect cards like I do, a site like this is really helpful in fine-tuning your credit charges so as to maximize your points.

They also have a nice little blog that summarizes the pros and cons of various rewards credit cards. I've opened (and closed) so many in the last few years, it's tough to find one I don't know about. One blog post contained some helpful advice about how to meet the upfront spending target if you're having trouble doing so, and the advice will probably be familiar to some of you, like buying gift cards for things you know you'll spend on eventually, or charging your car insurance and what not. I added another idea I had used: getting close friends to let me charge and pay for everything when we got together, and then having them reimburse me in cash....this evolved into letting me charge for larger purchases they planned to make, just to wrack up the charges on the card. With a very close friend you trust, or family, this is not too difficult.

I got my $108 bonus from Bank of America World Wildlife Fund card as well as my new Discover card, which offers a $150 bonus. It also provides your credit score....789 at Equifax. Here we spend again!

The season's first real weather event (a combination of overnight and early morning ice and freezing rain), has caused me to miss out on the holiday party I'd planned on going to today.

We were to head up to Boston today and then come back tonight. The other three women who I was driving with are all still going, as far as I know. I spoke to the one who's driving and told her I didn't feel comfortable going. I could clearly see a layer of ice on my lower roof, walkway and drive. Of course they treat the roads but temps were still 29 in my area at 6:30 am, which is when I was supposed to leave to meet them at 8 am. The rest of them live on the shoreline, where temps are higher.

It would have been an hour driving to meet the others at a designated spot, then another 2 hours drive together. An already long day I'm sure would have been really long.

I colored my hair last night and laid out the clothes I thought I'd be wearing, got up at 5:30 am, had wrapped my Secret Santa gift, etc.

I called my manager this a.m. to let her know I wouldn't be there and she said she was sure I wouldn't be the only one bowing out. She had arrived sometime over the weekend, and she said what is normally a half hour drive from where she's staying just outside of Boston turned into 2 hours. So I think I made the right choice, although with slowly rising temps, the ice should melt by noon today.

I had been looking forward to meeting many of the people I work with (on the phone) in person for the first time since I started in October, but guess that's not going to happen now. Perhaps at some later date. I'm a little disappointed, as we were having a holiday brunch, gift exchange and volunteer gig, but at the same time I'm relieved not to have to deal with the long drive back and forth, especially with possible black ice.

Unfortunately, although i have my work laptop with me at home, I have nothing to do, so I'm going to have to call this a non-workday, just at a time when I'm trying to start building up savings (now that I've gotten the new roof on).

I've also had to ask manager if i can work from home Thursday since i have an important doc appt middle of the day and sure don't want to lose any more work time.

Oh well.

I saw another really good documentary yesterday on free Hulu called Milk? I think it's a play on the famous milk ad, Got Milk? If you want to know what goes into a purportedly healthy beverage that many people drink every day, you might want to watch it. Filmed in 2012, so it's pretty new.

Trying to shift gears here to make my unexpected Monday at home productive. I'm thinking I may venture out around noon. Today's the perfect opportunity to hand deliver a small food gift I got for the insurance agent who was so helpful in getting me signed up for an obamacare health plan.

There will be no other time to deliver it since his office closes before i get home from work, and i didn't want to waste money mailing it via the post office when it's just a mile down the road from me. So I can do that today, and also pick up a few food items, including bread so I can make some sandwiches for this week's lunches.

I'm pretty much done with my Christmas shopping, and everything else is also wrapped. I started decorating the house, but since I now know I won't be hosting the holiday dinner (sis is) it seems a little less necessary. Sometimes I don't really get into the spirit of it all until right before the day, and at that point, it's like, why bother when you'll have to out all the stuff away again.

OK, before I forget (and since I tried at least 3 times to mention this but the SA system here kept deleting my posts).....most of you probably have heard of No Impact Man, right? The New York City guy who, with his family, lived for a year without contributing to environmental damage, which meant no electricity, buying only locally grown food, not using the elevator in his high rise, etc.

I came across the No Impact Man documentary on free Hulu last week and I must say it was pretty interesting, though I already knew the story. Your first reaction may be, well, i already know I can't do without toilet paper, so I won't try..... Yet it's interesting to see someone push the boundaries of what's possible, and I think it's an important thing, whether your priority is frugality for its own sake or protecting the environment.

Next up...
My roof is done. Looks pretty good. Roofer coming here in a half hour to do a walk-around with me and collect his check. He finished on Tuesday, but seeing as how I have no time in the a.m. to really check it out thoroughly and it's pitch black when I get home, the final inspection had to wait til today.

I did go up in the attic with some flashlights after some rain we had to make sure there are no leaks. I didn't see any. I did do a quick walk-around earlier, and told the roofer I wasn't happy to see a number of black smudges on my 2-year-old vinyl siding, caused by roofers carelessly dropping the old asphalt shingles straight off the roof. He told me they'd be using tarps to protect landscaping, but I know they didn't do that....the crew had already arrived on the a.m. of the 2nd day when I was still here. As I walked out the front door, a roofer let drop a big loose roll of tar paper, and it fell straight down just a few feet from where I stood. He saw me looking up at him as I was getting into my car, and i think that was the only reason he made an effort to throw something else he had in his hand away from the house. But judging from the smudges on the vinyl siding and all the grit on the window sills, they weren't doing that regularly, if at all.

When i brought this to his attention, he said oh, but we haven't finished the clean-up process yet. We always go around and do the "fine clean-up" Uh huh. Maybe, but maybe he was just saying that to cover himself. One of my two front entry columns also got scratched up, though truth be told it was peeling paint anyway and will need to be repainted regardless.

I asked him to remove those smudges because I shouldn't have to hire a power washer to get it off, and I sure don't feel like climbing on ladders. That's already been done, although I haven't looked at it since.

So no real damage I don't think. The roof looks very good with sort of a three-dimensional shingle. He did take some pix of the progress also so I could see how the underlying sheathing looked, etc. So I guess I'm glad I got it done. It will be good when I sell the house.

He said while I will still get ice dams, the water should not get inside the wall like it did last winter. I sure hope he's right. He replaced the snow and ice shield that extended 3 feet up from the eaves with a barrier that extends 6 feet up from the eaves, plus he added that same barrier all along the gable sides of the roof and i think also around the chimney. He'll walk me through what they did when he gets here.

Contrary to what another roofer told me in 2011, a guy i thought seemed very trustworthy, honest and straight-talking, the sheathing underneath was in very good condition except for 2 small spots of rot which they replaced. The other roofer in 2011 had said oh yeah, that sheathing underneath is so old and soft, I'm not sure it would hold a nail. So your new roof will cost $8,000. (I got it done for $5800.)

You can't trust ANYONE! How they present themselves, their mannerisms, friendliness, etc means nothing as far as judging their honesty!!!!

And, that first roofer was recommended to me by a friend. So a referral from someone you know means absolutely nothing. They are all one and the same...out to make as much money as they can.

On Monday I'm headed to Boston with three co-workers for a Christmas party with the rest of our team up there. One woman has rented an SUV and we're all supposed to meet at a certain commuter parking lot. It's going to be a very long day, with a three hour drive to get there and 3 hours back. The day will consist of the secret Santa gift exchange, a brunch and then a mandatory volunteer gig at a homeless shelter where we're more or less required to wear my employer's logoed t-shirt.

I don't mind doing volunteer work, and have done so on my own in the past, but I dislike it being something I "have" to do as part of my job. I also feel we could have much more easily met our co-workers at a location mid-way between Boston and CT, ie, Rhode Island. It would have cut our drive in half, from 6 hours to probably 3.

We may have freezing rain Monday morning, so it's possible the trip will be cancelled. I brought my laptop home with me just in case.

Today I'm getting a haircut and then going over to my mother's to help her place some Amazon Xmas orders. I think my mother may have dementia because little things like this that she used to be able to do, get her all messed up.

I have a ton of stuff to do this weekend, mostly holiday related. Last night I was able to squeeze in 2 hours of freelance work developing some value propositions for a company. $100 earned for some Friday night work, not bad.

Just when I thought I was through with all the good credit card deals (I just redeemed a $100 bonus from a Capital One World Wildlife Fund card), I saw an offer on My Money Blog for a $150 bonus from the Discover card. I used to have a Discover card but canceled it maybe a year ago. Even though I had just cancelled my Chase Sapphire card (just too many cards, i don't need that one) and knew my credit score would temporarily dip slightly as a result, I immediately applied for the Discover card and was approved, so should see that in the mail next week. This is the card that provides you with your credit score for free on your statements, so that will be nice.

Accomplished the following:

1. Vacuumed the upstairs (badly needed, with all that cat hair)
2. Went for a walk
3. Made a lentil/tomato soup for lunch and put the rest into containers so I have 2 days worth of lunch, at any rate
4. Made a double batch of granola, which I plan to bring in to feed a group of 12 on Thursday. (I'll also be bringing OJ, bagels with cream cheese, muffins, plain yogurt to go with the granola and fresh fruit.) In return, I'll get a free breakfast once a week for another 3 months before it's my turn to do it again.
5. It was a pretty mild, albeit cloudy day, so I swept up some leaves to get them off the driveway, raked some pine needles off the lawn and erected some winter fencing around two viburnums so the deer don't destroy them. I already saw damage to one, around the trunk, but oh well. I have one that's unprotected but I've run out of fencing and don't plan to buy more. I also swept the garage of leaves that had blown in there and planted a cedar seedling that had already lived one winter in a pot, so figured it was time to plant. Also watered it, now it's on its own.
6. Two loads of laundry.
7. Made 4 blueberry cheese rolls, using those refrigerated crescent rolls, but there's a brand called Immaculate that doesn't contain hydrogenated oils. Very easy, filled with cream cheese and frozen wild blueberries. Will serve as my breakfast the next few days, just for a switch.

Now that lawn mowing season is over, i was sort of thinking how nice it would be to get the Sunday New York Times in the a.m. and just luxuriate with it all day indoors. I pretty much ran out of time to do that but perhaps in the near future. It's been years since I've read the Sunday Times and I used to enjoy it.

The only thing I didn't get done was the priming and painting of the back upstairs closet wall. I hope I can muster up the enthusiasm next weekend or all my folded up sheets and such are going to start getting dusty.

I went to Trader Joe's where, along with a few of my usual purchases, I picked up a few holiday food items for my mother. One of the gifts I'm giving her is a gourmet style tray filled with some of my favorite foods, which are sure to become her favorites! (We are both big dark chocolate and nut people.) Unfortunately, I left the tray of food on my dining room table when she stopped by before Thanksgiving, and I think she was studying it. Chances are, she'll forget about it by Christmas.

Also stopped at BJs, where I was relieved to see the 3 lb bags of frozen berries for $9.99 in the cooler again. They seem to run out from time to time. This is another regular purchase for me as berries (like avocados, beets, nuts, cabbage and kale), is another power food. I also picked up some coleslaw (another favorite).

Then I stopped at Caraluzzi's to spend $10 for Small Business Saturday on free groceries by charging on my Amex card, but when I got home, I suddenly realized I'd used a different credit card! I am SO easily distracted. Luckily, I live just a mile from the store, so back out I went as this is too good an offer and it only comes by once a year.

While at BJs, I picked up 3 tins of chocolate covered crackers, a gift for the insurance agent who was so helpful in finding me an Obamacare health plan. I wrapped it up and was going to hand deliver it to his office, but they are closed and only open 8:30 to 4:30 pm. Seems wasteful to mail this from the post office when I can just drop it off sometime, except that I leave for work at 8:15 and get home around 6 pm.

I do have one doc appt in mid-December when I hope to work from home (just less running around) so that would be the day to do it.

For lunch, I decided to try copying a salad I saw behind the case in the deli which was selling for a very pricey $8.99 a pound! It was chopped up raw kale with dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, scallions, red onion and minced carrot. There was probably some sort of dressing on it as well. Mine came out okay, but kale is a somewhat tough green to eat raw. I probably should have cut it into even smaller pieces than I did. No matter. It won't go to waste.

I've been enjoying leftover turkey since Thursday and have one more serving before it's gone. I went to the trouble of brining it overnight outside in a cooler, and it really made a big difference, so this will be the way to go for future turkeys.

So this has been a stretch of 5 days off (Wednesday was a work at home day, but felt like a day off since I was home and work was slow) and it's been very nice.

While at TJ's, I also stopped in at that shoe store, DSW or whatever, after seeing a very cute pair of brown suede moccasins my mother had worn on Thanksgiving. I did in fact locate said moccasins, but they didn't quite fit right. I really need to find a wide size more and more I find. They were so cute, though, right out of the 60s, as far as I'm concerned.

I should really prime the back wall of closet, but don't really feel like it. The sooner I prime and paint it, the sooner I can get all this stuff lying around back in it, but feeling rather lazy.

Roofers are now coming Monday to start as weather will be a bit warmer, with a high of 44 on Monday rather than a high of 35. The temperature makes a different, he says, when laying down the rubber membrane.

Last night I saw a GREAT movie called Father Frost. It would be just perfect to occupy the little ones if you have any children to entertain around the holidays. This movie, based on Russian fairy tales, was remade in 1996, but I would strongly recommend the original 1966 version made in Russia and featuring some fascinating authentic-looking costuming, along with some interesting fantasy elements involving elves, witches and other bad folk out to mess things up for the neglected and unloved little girl who finds her Prince Charming. I really loved the simple story and the decidedly un-Hollywood feel to this movie.

If I were one to collect DVDs, this would be one of a select few I'd add to my collection.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We had just a small group but I must say we had plenty to eat. No one guessed that I ordered two of my sides from a local butcher shop! They thought I'd made everything myself. I sent everyone home with leftovers, and I had a second Thanksgiving meal later that night.

Today was the day my roofer was going to start on my new roof, but he called early this morning and asked if it'd be ok to start on Monday instead, because it will be about 5 degrees warmer (40ish) and the rubber membrane they put down under the shingles should not be put down in such cold weather.

I said sure, although that means I won't be around to "supervise" and keep an eye on things. Come to think about it, I didn't do that when my 1st roof was put on, so I guess it will be okay. I just felt better knowing I could walk out at various stages of the work to make sure they were doing it right, like, if I was here, I'd know if they had to replace any of the plywood underneath, but if I'm not, I'll have to take their word for it if he tells me they had to replace x number of 4 x 8 plywood sheets (at $40 a pop). So he could easily add on to the cost of the job and I'd have no way to verify if that was true. (Unless maybe if I look in the dumpster on the morning of the second day, before I go to work and before they return.... I think I'll do that.)

But at the same time, I knew that staying here while the work was being done would be nerve-wracking with all that banging going on.

So anyway, I no longer am tied to staying home while the roof is being done and I am free to consider venturing out to shop and join the maddening crowd. I may just go to BJs and Trader Joe's.

For the last two months, I'd been TRYING to sign up for health insurance via my state's healthcare exchange. I managed to register and view my insurance choices online, but I did have some questions I wanted answered before I signed up.

The exchange's hours are 8 am to 6 pm, which is a problem when you work and have no privacy to have this kind of conversation.

Once I tried calling right at 8 a.m....15 minutes before I have to leave for work, but after she insisted she had to ask ME questions, she then put me on hold for a licensed agent and I had to hang up after waiting too long.

I tried calling from work by going into the stairwell at my 10-story office building and climbing to the top (vacant) floor so I could sit on the stairs and call, but again, I used up my entire half hour lunch on hold.

Whenever I tried logging onto the website I encountered frequent problems.

The ONE day I had to call them was this past Monday, which was the first time I was able to work at home due to having a doc appointment. But the handyman also came to do his thing and AT&T came to check out a line that's causing dropped UVerse connections (they ended up rewiring the whole thing) and then I had an appointment with my mother to see a lawyer to get power of attorney, so I simply RAN OUT OF TIME to call the state health exchange.

So I was at the end of my rope when I decided to make an appointment with a local insurance agent here in town who advertised that he was health exchange-certified and could help walk people through the process.

I've had 6 jobs in 2013 (p/t, contract or freelance) so calculating this year's income was a bit tricky, but I estimate I will only make about $41K. What they really look at, though, is 2014 income, and I calculate (carefully) that my 2014 income will be about $51,000, just $5,000 over the threshold of $46,000 income under which I'd qualify for a healthcare subsidy.

I met with this agent for an hour-and-a-half last night after work. Without his help, I would have settled for a Bronze plan with Anthem paying $500 a month in premiums with a $6300 maximum out of pocket cap and a $6300 deductible that includes pharmacy as well as medical. This is not good, since the very expensive medication I take for my MS is nearly $3,000 a month. So this means that I'd essentially have to shell out $6,000 in the first 2 months of 2014 before getting any kind of medical or pharmacy coverage.

But the insurance agent came up with something I would never have thought to do. If in 2014 I make the maximum IRA contribution (with the catch-up for being over age 50) to a TRADITIONAL IRA, I will have lowered my adjusted gross income to $44,500. Bingo. We revised my 2014 income to that rate on the state website and now I qualify for a substantial subsidy.

Not only that, but I'm now signed up for a GOLD plan where I pay just $404 a month with a $1,000 deductible and $3,000 maximum out of pocket cap.

The only hitch is that at least right now, my neurologist does not appear to be on that plan although my primary care doc and gyno are. The other thing that is a little unsettling is that the plan I signed up for is a NEW (non-profit) health insurer. While a lot of people might shy away from signing up with an unproven insurer, I decided to go with them because more of my regular doctors are in their network compared to another plan with a better known company.

So I'm paying $589 a month now on the exceedingly lousy Charter Oak (state Medicaid) plan. In 2014, I will save $189 a month in premiums with the other benefits I just mentioned.

There IS just one potentially problematic issue. As you may know from reading my blog, my current contract job at the bank is at least right now only intended to extend to July 2014. So when I calculated my 2014 income before deducting for the planned IRA contribution, I had just calculated bank income through July and then added unemployment benefit income for the rest of the year, assuming I had no other job lined up. This is the worst case scenario that assumes the bank doesn't extend my contract, as they do for many contractors, by 3 months or 6 months, or even possibly offer me a perm job, as they have also done for some others.

So based on this worst case scenario of losing the bank job in July, my health insurance at least would remain somewhat more affordable, at $404 a month.

And of course, if in July the bank offers me a perm position, then I will leap into their arms and sign up for THEIR health plan as quickly as I can and wave goodbye to everything related to the healthcare exchanges and probably get away with paying $200 or so a month.

HOWEVER, there are many shades of grey here. If in July the bank says, Patient Saver, we'd like to extend your contract for 3 months, then I will have to report the change of income on the state healthcare exchange website. That will cause me to exceed the $46,000 income threshold to receive the subsidy.

At that point, I would then have to pay the full price of the Gold plan, which is $700-something a month, for the remaining 5 months of the year. So for the latter 5 months of the year, I would have to pay at least $3500 just for the premiums.

(Quick calculation: An extra 3 months of bank income would roughly gross $17,000, pushing my annual 2014 gross up to about $68,000. 7.5% of of that is $5,100, so i guess to the extent that my healthcare expenses exceed that, I can deduct in on next year's tax return.)

But anyway, back to the scenario of getting a 3-month extension on the job but losing the subsidy. Working full-time, I guess I could afford to pay $700-something a month for health insurance, although when or if I lost the job after the extension, I'd have to report change of income AGAIN and probably wind up on the Medicaid option which I decidedly DO NOT want to be on as I've already experienced how difficult it is to obtain coverage on it, despite what they claim.

To actually have to be talking about paying $700-something a month for health insurance sounds like insanity to me, but that's the way it goes. And unfortunately now with the subsidy, what's good for me job-wise will not be good for me healthcare expense-wise, unless I get a perm job and I can go on the employer's plan.

So it's hard to know what the heck to wish for!

Anyway, I am still extremely grateful to this insurance agent who found a creative solution to help me lower my healthcare costs, at least for the first 7 months of 2014. On my list of things to do is to get him some sort of gourmet gift/food basket and have it delivered to his office.

So, I had been thinking how great it would be if i could put my house on the market this spring. It would seem I'd have plenty of time (this winter and early spring) to get done all the many things that I feel should be done.

I hate looking forward to another tough winter and another season of lawn mowing after that.

However, this bank contract job I have lasts until July 2014. The bank hires a LOT of contractors like me, and it's not uncommon for a contractor's initial term of 10 months to be renewed for another 3 months, and sometimes, another 3 months after that. There have also been any number of people who were offered a permanent position there.

So any of those scenarios, especially the last one, would be wonderful, OF COURSE. Being a contractor worker at a company with lots of perm employees makes me feel like the poor little match girl (if you remember that children's story) outside in the cold and wintry night, looking in the window at all the other children laughing and playing and having a grand old time.

I don't think I can consider putting the house on the market before I find out what's going to happen with this job in July.

After years of going to condo open houses in my area (I'm committed to staying in this general area because my mother is here, and I will need to look after her), I feel no closer to knowing where I might end up than I did 4 years ago.

I have yet to find a condo complex that meets all my key requirements (gas heat, c/a, newer construction (1985 would be about the oldest I'd want to go), updated kitchen and baths and a woodsy, "uncondo-like" setting, plus reasonable price and property taxes.

I don't really plan on moving again after this, so I want this condo to be my retirement home, the home I've worked hard all my life to finally enjoy.

One complex I've been interested in, with its brand new construction and large square footage in a nice country town near my mother is in the opposite direction of where my commute to the bank is. It would add another half hour to my current 35-minute commute, and if you've been reading my blog from time to time, you KNOW how i hate a lengthy commute.

There's another condo, built around 1985 with electric heat. Some units have been very nicely updated, while others, not. But it is in a lovely country woodsy setting and very private outdoor patio or deck. The kind of outdoor privacy and peaceful setting is unlike any other condo I've seen in the area. The outdoor space and privacy is SO important to me as I'm not used to condo living. However, this condo, too, would add about 15 minutes to my drive for a total 50-minute drive.

So for as long as I keep this job, whether it's for another few months or possibly longer, I don't think I want to move further away. So it could put my whole move on hold.

I guess it's not the end of the world. In the event I got a perm job offer from them, I think I'd be in a position to hire someone to cut the grass. I still clear my own 100-foot driveway of snow as there's an upward slope involved and lots of broken up areas/cracks. Plows in the past tore of asphalt. I use a small snowblower, which works quite well. Still a lot of work though, at a time in my life when I want the physical labor to wind down a little.

So I may still be here for a while. But if the job eventually ends, perhaps by winter of next year, I would then have time to clean the place up, do final repairs and put it on market in the spring of 2015.

Although even then, if I wound up at either of the 2 condos I mentioned above, it might make the doability of a future job a little difficult becus both of those towns are further out from job centers, not closer. If I were ready to retire totally, it wouldn't matter, but truth be told, I am still just in my early 50s and financially, I'm not quite there yet. I'd like to retire at age 60, so a possible 35 years in retirement is a whole lot of years to cover. I need to work a little longer. I'm not sure I can hold out til 60 becus working f/t really doesn't appeal to me, but I suppose a lot of people share that sentiment. At 60, I would still do my freelance writing from home, and perhaps even a simple p/t job in the local community, just to keep busy.

I'm a planner, and it's frustrating to have things up in the air like they are, but that's the way it goes, I guess.

At least I'll have a brand new roof.

Once again my grand plans for saving are stymied as I learned yesterday I am in need of a new roof.

At 18 years, I knew the roof was approaching the end of its natural life, but hadn't really planned on putting this on my list of things to fix before selling the house. However, something happened yesterday that changed all that.

Handyman was over yesterday to apply the 2nd coat of compound on the back wall of an upstairs linen closet which received ice dam damage from last winter. (I'd discovered similar damage in an adjacent closet and dealt with that previously, but I didn't discover the damage in the 2nd closet til I emptied it out in search of stuff to sell in my garage sale last summer.)

So anyway, when he returned yesterday, he pointed out an ugly brown stain on top of the compound he'd applied! There must be a damn water leak. I went into the attic to have a look, but of course it's bone dry now and everything looks fine. But we did have some rain last week.

Not the kind of thing I want to let go. Put down my info on HomeAdvisor website and within, like, one minute, the first of 4 roofers called me. He came over an hour later, got on the roof and informed my I need a new roof. I climbed out a bathroom window and walked on the more shallow pitched family room roof and he pointed out shingles that had been damaged by guys I'd hired last winter to shovel snow off the roof after an exceedingly heavy snowstorm. Not something I usually do, but there were reports of old barn roof cave-ins at the time, along with cave-ins of roofs with a shallow pitch. So I forked over a couple hundred at the time thinking I was doing the smart thing.

He also said the shingles all along the eaves were all chewed up...could I have done that myself with the long roof rake I have? I didn't scrape down to bare shingle, but who knows? He said if you use a snow rake, leave a half inch or so of snow there....I thought I had. I may have also damaged the shingles myself the umpteen times I got on an extension ladder in dead of winter to chip ice dams off the gutters with a hammer. I thought I was being careful, but he said shingles are very brittle in cold temps so maybe that was the problem. Stupid me.

On top of that, I knew there was much older damage to the family room roof from at least 10 years ago when an old boyfriend was trying to help me by setting up a ladder on the shallow pitched family room roof to paint the side (2nd story) of the main house. He'd done a lot of damage to the shingles because the feet of the ladder dug right into them as he moved the ladder as he painted, and by the time I saw what he'd done, it was too late. I was pretty mad at the time. He couldn't have put a throw rug or something or something under them??

So anyway. The roofer who came over also pointed out some holes in the roof; don't know what happened to the nails that were once there, but maybe they were pulled up by the guys shoveling. He said I could still be getting water inside the walls even if I don't see any leaks/stains.

So anyway....his price wasn't too too bad, at $5800. That's because he said the plywood panels underneath the shingles seemed fine, and most wouldn't need to be replaced. This is contrary to what a roofer told me a few years ago who said all the plywood was soft and probably couldn't hold a nail and would need to be replaced, and his price was $8,000. So who's right?? The first guy seemed pretty nice, but maybe he was just trying to make more money, betting on the fact I probably wouldn't get up there to look at the plywood myself.

A 2nd roofer came over this a.m. He had bad attitude, plus I really didn't like the way we started off on the phone. He wanted to have my "husband" present when he gave his pitch, which he said would take 45 minutes. I told him just I would be meeting him and I'd be the one making the decisions. He insisted that my hubby should be there and pretty much said it was becus I wouldn't understand everything he said about their process and that he didn't want to waste my time...meaning their time, of course.

I don't feel it's his business to know my marital status, so didn't say anything about that, but I did tell him I didn't think roofing was rocket science and that I could process the information.

He was borderline rude when he got to my place, 20 minutes late. Needless to say, I won't be hiring him. I think I'll go with the first guy. He seemed to know his stuff, his references were sterling and I see he's licensed, insured, bonded. Couldn't dig up any dirt on him online.

Tomorrow is my first work at home day on the new job. AT&T is coming over sometime in the a.m. because there's a problem with my UVerse Internet line...I'd told them I keep losing internet every so often, and then it corrects itself in 5 minutes or so.

Also, the handyman is coming back tomorrow to do the 3rd and final coat in the closet. I'm not too thrilled with how it looks so far... in hindsight, I don't think taping is his strength, but it's the back of a closet, so hoping once he does one more coat and then I paint it, it'll look presentable.

Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the 5 gallon bucket of joint compound and tools that he left here to try my hand at taping some of the many stress cracks above doors and such in my house, something I'd always been afraid to do becus I'd probably botch the job. I used that sticky netting tape and for a 1st coat I guess the 6 places I did aren't terrible. I have to do the 2nd coat TODAY since he's returning tomorrow.

There were a few other issues with his work and he really charged me a lot for what he did, so though he's very friendly, I won't be using him again.

Also tomorrow afternoon, I'm taking my mother to meet with an attorney in town so he can set up a durable power of attorney for me and her. This was something I tried talking to my mother about 6 months ago but got nowhere once my mother learned it would cost a few hundred dollars to do. It is so important, but she never wants to spend any money.

Also tomorrow is my ONLY day to call Access Health, the Connecticut health care exchange, to finish up my health insurance application. I have questions to ask and since their hours are 8 to 6 pm, I have no time to call them since I'm at work. It's been extremely frustrating. I may also have to call Anthem to ask my questions and endure their own needless/annoying questions about me.

This is why I don't like working 5 days a week. Thee is no time to attend to personal matters without asking for a day off, something I don't want to do when I'm working a contract job with no benefits. So I'm forced to try to sneak some in on a work at home day.

Other things I accomplished this weekend: grocery trips to BJs and Big Y for Thanksgiving dinner and a few special food items for my mother, for a Xmas food basket; filled up the gas tank; donated some old 60s records to the library, for their annual sale; vacuumed the downstairs, tried to remove old dried latex paint from an exterior garage doorknob (it works but not very well); organized myself cooking-wise for Thanksgiving (I will be brining the turkey overnight in a cooler, in the garage, the night before...never did that before, but supposed to make the turkey breast tender)

Once again, I'm at the tail end of a weekend and still haven't found time to just...relax.One good thing: yesterday was the LAST time I mowed and now the mower is in storage in back of garage. I wasn't really mowing the grass, but i learned a while back that it's much easier to run over fallen leaves with the mower, to mulch them, than it is to rake up the leaves, so that's what I was doing. But now we're done with lawn mowing season, and that should free up substantial free time on my weekends.

I've been having a problem with anxiety and excessive worrying about things, mostly financial and job-related. It's hard for me to let go of worrisome thoughts.

It's an unfortunate side effect of underemployment since my 2009 layoff.

I should be feeling better now, since I started a 10-month full-time job 5 weeks ago. It got me thinking about how differently I feel now compared to how I felt this time 3 years ago.

Three years ago was when I had landed a 3-month contract job with a large financial services firm. They were paying me $50/hour,and although it was a contract job to end 12/31/10, there was also a chance it would go perm. (I think most agencies just say that as further incentive.) Because I'd gotten good feedback from my managers there, and because they let go the other two contract writers hired the same day I was, I figured I was going to get a perm offer. That didn't happen, but before knowing that I did go a little crazy in the spending department. I spent quite a bit on clothes and shoes and I do recall making take-out a regular thing on Friday nights, and a few other purchases I didn't really need. But I felt good about my work situation!

Fast forward to today. What can I say, I'm still feeling anxious about my long-term future, and wonder if I'll be resigned to short-term contract jobs and an extremely unstable financial lifestyle for the rest of my working years which, if I have my way, will be just 6 more years.

My issue with the near daily headaches is now something I think was also stress-related. It started way back in July. I was in the middle of one of my contract jobs that I found fairly stressful due to a work environment where I got no feedback on how I was doing and people left me to my own devices. I felt isolated and lonely there. I also didn't have enough work to do to keep me busy and I worried that I'd be let go early, and that, in fact, is what happened.

That job ended in August and then in September I started another contract job, this one for 2 weeks. Although it was a much friendlier environment (i knew the woman who hired me from a prior job) the headaches continued there, I think because it was yet another new job, new people and I felt I had to "prove my worth" all over again.

The headaches began easing up in October, but I was still having headaches probably half the time. November has been much better; in fact, i haven't had a headache since Monday, which is a big improvement. I may even cancel my neurologist appt next week.

Interestingly, I ran the numbers and realized with surprise that although I was making $50/hr in 2010, my total gross from that job, where I felt much more confident, was $26,000, whereas today I'm making $35/hr but for 10 months, so the gross this time around will come out to $60,660. Quite a bit more than in 2010 so I wish I could breathe more easily.

In 2010 I didn't realize how long and slow this economic recovery (and my own) would be; now, after long stretches of nothing but unemployment and my freelance work, with the occasional contract job, I'm much more cautious about my immediate outlook.

So I am being extremely careful about spending, or at least, HOW I'm spending. Unlike my 2010 spending spree, I've done very little spending this time around and can actually recite from memory the few "splurges" I've made. This includes 2 Friday afternoon lunches with others from the job at $7.50 each time for a yummy portabello/pesto panini. I consider this necessary, not just for my own sanity but also to cultivate/maintain friendships at work, something I used to think was optional but which I've now concluded is vital. In my usual independent way, I used to think that as long as I did my job that I could take care of myself. But I've learned that as a newcomer, I really rely on others for information related to how things work in the new company, etc.

I did also "splurge" for a $1 diet coke from the vending machine at work one day.

The only other non-essential spending I've done is $75 for 3 pieces of clothing at Kohl's and much more money on needed upgrades/maintenance/repairs on my home, which again, I consider essential so I can sell this place.

At least I've started the ball rolling in that regard. Carpenter still has to come back to do 2nd coat on compounding a closet wall, and fixing a shelf he installed in another closet where the screws came THROUGH the wall out into my hallway! I was furious about this since I TOLD him about a prior carpenter who did the same damn thing when he put paneling in the same closet. Now the hallway wall will have to be repainted. (Well, it probably would have to be repainted anyway, but still....)

The carpenter did replace a side garage door that was wood and had rotted out in the bottom. The new door is metal sheathing on both sides but pressed wood or something inside. The door came primed, but not painted, so I am taking advantage of a high oif 60 degrees today to paint the door, and I made the carpenter apply silicone to both the top and bottom ends of the door, something he initially told me I could do by removing the door from its hinges, etc. Umm, I can't do that! For crying out loud! That's why I hired you! He also replaced all the trim around the door, and did a good job at that. Some of the trim was rotted at bottom and just looked old and worn out. He also redid the concrete threshold, not by rebuilding it with footers as I wanted, but anyway i guess it looks okay. You really have to be ultra-specific with a contractor or they'll take shortcuts. Like, I want a metal door that's SOLID metal through and through, not this pressed wood crap.

I also bought a new floor register to replace an old wrought iron one that had been painted over numerous times and looked bad. It looks great so I decided to order 4 more for other rooms in the house, although I found by measuring that not all the cut-outs in my wood floors are a standard 8 x 12 or 9 x 12 so there is one, I think, where I can't replace the register. But just a small thing like that really helps to update the appearance here.

I'm happy to have a 3-day weekend (yet another bank holiday) but not so happy I won't get paid for the day off. Nothing I can do about it, so might as well enjoy it.

Tomorrow a chimney cleaner is coming over in the morning. My dad doesn't think I need to have the furnace flue cleaned (I have no fireplace) but I've read that it's still important as buildup can occur.

On Monday my new, expensive but supposedly meticulous handyman guy is coming over to do a few jobs around here for $985. I am really curious to see how long it takes me, because instead of telling me he'd charge $x an hour, he just quoted me a flat rate for all 3 jobs I wanted him to do. I already know he charges others (like my friend's husband) $45/hr, and I suspect I'll be paying him much more if I calculate it on an hourly basis.

If so, I will just tell him that if he wants more work from me it's got to be in the $45/hr range or I won't be able to afford to hire him again. I should have told him that from the get go, but I didn't.

I was prepared to suggest to my sister that we take my mother out for Tgiving dinner as mom's getting too old to be having to deal with the big dinner, even if just for the 3 of us. But, even though I'm working the day before, I decided I'd rather save money and have it at my place if everyone can just chip in and bring 1 or 2 dishes. I'll do the bird, dessert and a side. I'd rather have the leftovers, to be honest, and since my sister and i would be paying for mom, the bill would probably be at least $50 each.

Well, another Friday commute home has come and gone and I'm proud to say I have yet to cave in to a desire to get takeout to treat myself. The only reason I didn't do it today was, I was all set to pick up a pizza on the drive home, but as it turned out, there was leftover pizza at work and I snagged a piece and gobbled it down without even reheating it. So I had no appetite for more of the same a few hours later.

After 5 weeks of f/t work, the ONLY splurge so far has been $1.50 on a bottle of soda at work. There will be another outlay of money next month when it's my turn to bring in breakfast for a group of 10. If you join the group, you get to enjoy breakfasts once a week that others bring in. There are a few people who have not "joined" the group but still manage to help themselves to free food, which I think is incredibly bad form.

I got my new World Wildlife Fund Visa bonus card ($100 after $500 spend) from BankAmerica. It's a bank I've hated becus of their role in the credit crisis, but I love their bonus cards.

I upgraded my landline to AT&T UVerse; in order to get the plan I wanted, I had to upgrade my UVerse DSL with them to the next higher speed. Still, the 2 together only cost me $44 a month. The phone part of the plan allows just 4 hours of free talk time a month, whether local or long distance, and after that, calls will cost .05 a minute. Before this, I had an even cheaper AT&T plan that charged me for toll-free calls but had a very low monthly base rate, but it was really too restrictive. I had hoped I could rely on the 60 free minutes I get on my cell phone monthly, but it was never enough and I'd have to buy more minutes on the cell. And I call a LOT of toll-free numbers and was always stressed out when I had to wait on hold, since it was costing me.

If 4 hours is still not enough, for $10 more a month ($55) i can get unlimited talk time on the land line.

Only problem is, the internet portion of this deal is good for just 1 year, and I'm probably nearly halfway through on that one year term. Then the price will jump to $36 a month just for Internet, I think. Not sure what I'll do then. I may be stuck with it. I'm sure some will say that's still a good deal?

Remember, I've been on a bare bones budget for a very long time. The bank job may not last forever, and that's always in the back of my mind, meaning, I don't want to start having little bills creep back up again here or there.

I'm excited it's the weekend. Me time.

I remember the Novembers of my youth as being gray, chilly days. Not so the fall of 2013!

When many other plants are spent, the scraggly beauty berry is at its best...


Too bad the berries don't dry well; they basically shrivel up. But they're still pretty to look at.


I can't get enough of the Japanese maple. This small one is a volunteer that just started growing, and I let it be.



Not to be confused with the much larger red maple here:


I am pooped, but I am done with this weekend's writing assignment about a small luxury custom home development in lower Westchester County priced at $1.4 mm each. It took me about 4 hours to write and I'll gross $300 for it. Right after that I mowed the back lawn; tomorrow I'll do the front.

I've had freelance real estate writing assignments every weekend since I started my new f/t job, and I feel like I could use a break. There doesn't seem to be much time left over for...well, me.

But I can't complain. Don't want to say "no" and risk shutting off the spigot since this f/t job will (probably) eventually end and then I'll really value the two freelance clients giving me all this work.

The new job is going ok. The commute isn't too bad (35 minutes) and the money is decent (especially since I don't have a mortgage to pay). I think my boss is pretty happy with me, but there are big changes coming down the pike which could lead to layoffs. I suspect the perm employees have more to worry about since contractors like me are already saving them money. Still, I'm a little uneasy about it all and it just further incenticizes me to save as much money as possible, while I can.

I had been told by other contractors that this company routinely furloughs contractors for a week or more around Tgiving and Xmas, to further save money. I asked my boss about it and she said that since I'm the only writer she'd like me to make myself available for at least part of those holiday weeks, which was exactly what I was hoping for, since if I don't work, I don't get paid, and I'd rather not lose two weeks of pay if I don't really have to. So I proposed I take off the 2 holidays plus 2 days, but will come in for 3-day work weeks those 2 weeks. Oh, and I guess the office will be closed New Year's as well.

I am beginning to learn the lay of the land there. Meaning, there are way too many people who have input into writing various letters that go out to customers, and it seems nigh impossible to get agreement on the language. I understand that decision-making by consensus can be desirable at times, but I think there needs to be someone in charge who can make a final call to expedite the process.

I have someone I walk with daily at lunch, but her assignment will likely be ending by year's end. I am also friendly with the 2 women who sit near me but otherwise haven't really had occasion to get to know others too much. It's been over 3 weeks, I guess, and I did finally get my first full-time paycheck for a 40-hour week, which netted out to $999 for 1 week.

So I was able to make my first $1,000 deposit to replenish my emergency savings account, an online money market earning .90%. It's where I put money that I want to remain more or less liquid (ie, not invested in the stock market) and I often transfer funds into it from my checking account, which earns no interest. I funnel $500 into this account every month so I'm sure I'll have enough to pay my twice a year property tax bill. Right now I think I've got about $6,000 in there and I'd love to see it get to $20,000, but I won't get there in 10 months (the term of my contract job) unless I step up my monthly contributions.

I am feeling hopeful that the company will see fit to renew my contract when my term is up next July since my walking buddy said they often renew contract job terms for 3, 6 or 9 months, sometimes more than once. She herself has been there nearly 2 years. Even better, of course, would be a perm offer. Trying not to think about it too much since there's still plenty of time and also, I was greatly disappointed when I was in the same scenario working for Prudential and it didn't pan out.

This weekend I want to take advantage of some great gift card offers including Staples where you can buy $75 worth of gift cards to Home Depot or other stores and then get a $25 credit when you purchase with your Amex card. Similar deal with Amex when you go to Lowes.

On the credit card front, I thought I had pretty much exhausted all the lucrative credit card bonus deals of at least $100 (the business cards that require $3,000 spend are too much for me), but by going directly to the credit card websites instead of just googling credit cards or going to some place like creditcards.com, I found more deals that weren't listed elsewhere.

For instance, Bank of America has at least three more deals where you can get $100 cash back by charging just $500 on the card within the 1st 3 months of having it. They have one card that benefits the World Wildlife Fund, another for Susan Komen breast cancer fundraising and another for major league baseball teams, all three with the same spend/reward deal. So I got the WWF one.

When it comes to saving money or making money on the side, I like to go for the lowest hanging fruit first, so for me, earning this kind of credit card reward is some of the easiest money I've ever earned. It beats running around town to save a couple of dollars here or there at different sales, and it isn't the mind-numbing tedium of many online survey sites. It also requires very little of my time.

Despite 4 years of under-employment and a big fat 0 in retirement contributions, my net worth (see profile) is at an all-time high, thanks to the stock market. I am a little nervous about what will happen to my bond funds when the Fed raises rates, as I really don't know where else to put my bond money. I also have a big chunk of money sitting in a Vanguard money market earning a pathetic .03% and while I did move $8,000 of it to a 5-year CD earning 2%, I also don't want to tie up that money for so long as I don't believe rates will remain this low for 5 years, and then I won't be able to touch that money without penalty. If anyone has any suggestions, love to hear them....

OK, so I never grew parsnips before, and while the little packet of seeds said to thin them out once they were a few inches high, I did not. (It's near impossible for me to pull healthy vegetable plants...i will have to simply sow more thinly next time...)

So my parsnips were mostly small, and the roots were growing and entwined in and around each other. Still, I dug over 2 pounds of parsnip roots today, which are about to go into a yellow split pea soup.

There are a few more parsnips still in the ground, though they will likely be small as well.

Well, it's been 3 years since I worked full-time and I am quickly becoming reacquainted with the mad dash on the weekends to try to do everything I need to do.

Today, I finished up yesterday's laundry, did the grocery shopping at Shop Rite, picked up some cat food at both Walmart and another pet food store where they sell rabbit (at $3 a can, it's just an occasional treat that they really like), filled up the gas tank at BJs (it's come down a lot...$3.53/gallon, lovin' it) and mowed the back yard.

Now I've got the split pea soup on the stove, which will be my weekday lunches. I'm a little pooped.

Yesterday I mowed the front lawn and did a luxury home write-up for a $4 million home in Greenwich...it took about 2 hours, will charge $137 for it, although the listing agent never called me back so it's not quite done.

Otherwise, things are ok. Job is okay, although it's hardly challenging. I've made a few friends there, and have a walking buddy for my lunchtime walks, which I really like, since she's also a contractor and is a good source of information on a lot of things.

Come Nov. 1 I will be making my first large deposit into my emergency fund to replenish it as much as possible in coming months. I don't feel "rich" yet, but I've been able to pay off all of my bigger bills of recent weeks, which included lots of doctor's visit not covered by my lousy insurance, the hot water heater, the furnace humidifier and all that. I will feel much better when I can add to the emergency fund.

Otherwise, I've spent nothing out of my usual frugal routine and hope to keep it that way as much as possible.

After spending about an hour online looking for a lotion dispenser, I wound up going to my local Dollar store and getting a perfectly nice ceramic one that matches my bathroom wallpaper for $1. The ones online were in the $20 range, so I'm happy I didn't buy anything online.

Today was the last day of the farmer's market and as is my habit, I tool a stroll around lunchtime and discovered five fine pachyderms in the small plaza in the heart of downtown:




Mm, this is tasty.


They set up long tables laden with fresh produce, probably to ensure the elephants didn't wander off!


I wanted to catch up to the departing beasts, heading east down Main Avenue, but traffic lights thwarted me from doing so. The policeman you see in the foreground here was approaching a driver leaning on the horn, seemingly oblivious to the line of elephants blocking traffic. The cop chewed him out pretty well.

I always do check my bank statements, and this month, I'm especially glad I did since I discovered I paid the heating oil company TWICE for my oil tank fill-up last month.

One would think they would call and tell me so, but no, I discovered I'd paid $424 twice, once when i left the delivery driver a blank check and again two days later, without thinking ,when they mailed me the receipt that should have been left in the door.

When I called she said they just applied it as a credit. Umm, you mean you don't bother to inform the customer, or ask the customer what their wishes are? It makes me distrustful of them; how do I know they wouldn't have just pocketed the extra cash?

I told her I wanted a refund; I don't always buy oil from them so I'd rather have my cash back.

OK, so I'll be first to admit this wasn't my idea, but I think it's pretty nifty anyway.

I bought a bag of scallions at the supermarket for a recipe. Instead of throwing away the root ends, I kept them and planted them in a pot of dirt.

You can see the little white nubs in the photo below, where I originally cut them. If you look carefully, you can also see slender green shoots emerging from a few of the scallions.



Pretty cool. I put them in the sunniest room I have, an upstairs bathroom with southwest exposure, and hope to grow them all year long.

I've done the same thing with celery, although in this case, I happened to be growing celery in my home vegetable garden, so after I cut down the entire stalk about 3 weeks ago, I kept what was left, and all the attached roots, and stuck that in a pot too. This is still sitting in my driveway since we haven't really had a hard frost yet, but I will bring it indoors soon, too.



You can see the green leaves coming up. I like to use these in pea soup.

I might add that the scallions sprouted even though what I bought in the store was not organic.

In other news...

I discovered how delicious chai tea is. It's black tea plus lots of aromatic spices like Cinnamon and ginger, which just happen to be loaded with antioxidants.

Got my first paycheck from the new job Friday. Hooray! It's pretty small (net about $600-something) but that's because I started mid-week and only got in 23 hours. This week was better, at 30 hours, but there was the holiday on Monday. Hopefully this coming week I'll be able to put in 40 hours.

I'm feeling broke right about now as all my credit card bills had to be paid, and between car and homeowners insurance for the year, plus the hot water heater and the furnace humidifier, plus the deposit for the carpenter coming to do some work next month, the checking account is REAL low.

I have learned from another employee at the job that they hire a ton of contractors (like me) and that it's not uncommon for them to extend the original contract. They also have hired any number of contractors on a permanent basis. So one can hope for the same treatment.

I couldn't resist checking out the benefits handbook for regular employees, and I must say their benefits look very good, even above average. They offer benefits, including health insurance, even to p/t employees who work at least 20 hours a week. They offer 4 CIGNA plans, they seem to contribute a generous portion to the 401k..they match $1 to every dollar contributed up to 5% of pay, I think. Isn't that more than the usual .50 of every dollar?

When I was walking at lunchtime the other day I came upon a farmer's market in the park. They even had an organic vendor from my hometown there. Too bad that next week is their last week for the season. I will definitely go next week as I want to get some apples, and when I was there before, I didn't have any money on me.

My friend R. came over last night and we had some popcorn and a good talk. His PSA levels are rising again, despite the meds (chemo in a pill) he's on. His prostate was already removed, but the cancer is circulating in his blood. Things don't look good. The only alternative is a $93,000 drug that only extends your life 4 months. He was invited to do a clinical trial in Maryland area for a year, but there would be no guarantee he wouldn't get the placebo, so it would be risky to do that even though he'd get the drug for free after the 1-year trial was over.

He's also trying to help his niece who is going through a contentious divorce. He's going through his own divorce too and getting near the trial stage. He's trying to care for his 96-hear-old father who he recently had to move into a nursing home. He visits his dad twice a day, every day.

He's thinking of just giving up on all his prostate cancer meds and just letting the disease take his course. He figures he may have another 3 years. I tried to discourage him from doing that. It breaks my heart to hear him talk like that; he is very fatalistic. He says he's had a full life with no regrets.

He has been very generous to his niece, and is prepared to help her buy a house where she and her 2 kids can live after the divorce. He made some money transfers previously and then she decided she was going to work things out with her husband, so he wound up losing several thousand dollars.

He previously loaned her and hubby $40K so hubby could build a grand garage to store all his truck equipment.

Now R. is worried that he may run out of money (he'd assumed he would die before that happened). Since his retirement, he's worked a variety of p/t jobs; right now he works at a gas station and teaching kids how to drive at a driving school.

Unfortunately, a kid he was recently teaching froze up in the middle of an intersection and people were beeping horns, etc, and R. had him pull over to the side of the road and parked the car there temporarily, and a cop came along and gave them a ticket for parking there. So R. will probably lose his job there as a result.

I told him not to try to appeal it, let it happen, it will free up more time in his hectic schedule to see his dad and see his friends and just have a saner life. There are any number of other jobs he can do when he's ready to do them.

This story about an Oregon man who built himself an underground dwelling after his divorce will appear to SAers, I'm sure.

He told NBC News, "I don't believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?"

Here's the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/tiny-homes--man-lives-in-self-built-hobbit-hole-in-rural-oregon-164837144.html?vp=1

While the weather here in the northeast is still great, it certainly is chilling down as soon as the sun sets, and so my mind is on the upcoming winter. I can't believe it's here again (groan).

Here are a few of the things I've done to prepare for winter:

1. Started bringing all my potted annuals and perennials in the garage where they overwinter, saving me money on new plants in the spring.

2. Brought in the bird bath.

3. Scheduled a furnace cleaning.

4. Scheduled a chimney cleaning.

5. Got my furnace humidifier installed (hooray)

6. Froze piles of tomatoes from the garden, for winter soups and stews.

7. Drained the garden hose and shut off water to faucet in garage.

8. Moved a bunch of summer clothes in my main closet back to spare bedroom, and brought more winter attire into the main closet for handier access.

9. Soon, I will remove some of the screens from my windows so I can enjoy a much clearer winter-time view outdoors.

10. Replaced my storm door screen inserts with the glass inserts.

11. Reprogrammed my furnace timer to my current schedule with the new job.

12. Set a timer up on a lamp in living room so it's no longer dark when I get home.

13. Plugged in my two carbon monoxide detectors (to coincide with furnace heating season).

14. Cleaned up the garage so my car will fit in there when it snows.

15. The vegetable garden really could use some cleaning up.

16. I pulled out some of my draft dodgers to put against exterior doors, and put in the foam stuff around attic door to block the warm air from rushing up.

How about you? Did I forget anything?

Happy Columbus Day...

A beautiful fall day here...


I took a morning walk in town.


This is near the new town hall complex.

Though town offices are closed today, I stopped inside town hall to use the rest room and then browsed a photography exhibit there.




Here is an origami mobile someone made, with 26 doves representing the 26 children and teachers killed on December 14th.

It was one of those rare, unstructured days.

Around mid-day, I finally got dressed and drove over to check out an open house at one of my favorite condo communities about 15 minutes east. There were actually two units for sale, next to each other, in the $240K range.

After that, I hit Shop Rite and spent about $30 on stuff, with an eye toward making pumpkin black bean soup, a wheat berry salad and something else I can't remember now for workweek lunches.

Otherwise, worked at the computer, lolled around and then once I had my afternoon black tea, I was inspired to sweep the top end of the driveway, sweep the garage and generally tidy up the garage with an eye toward making room in there for my car to fit this winter. I also brought some potted annuals in there to overwinter and drained the garden hose.

Got a rare phone call from my sister tonight, returning my call from a week ago about having her come up and cut down some small trees she could use for firewood, and I just want to get rid of as they're slowly dying.

She wants to wait til after a hard frost as she's still crazy busy canning produce and harvesting from the garden. (I still have parsnips and celery in the ground, but that's about it.)

Yesterday I was actually able to change both back wheels on my lawnmower. I made four trips to the hardware store for the parts, and had quite a bit of trouble getting the one wheel off, and then had even more trouble getting the wheels to stay on because the only thing holding them on the axles are these little washers with teeth on them. I got a smaller, non-Black & Decker wheel and so I only had one-quarter inch of axle available after putting the wheel on with which to put on those little washers. Too much jiggling or shifting of weight on a slope in my yard, I worry, could cause those washers, and then the wheels, to fall off. Which is what happened a few times before I really secured them. Still, I mowed VERY GENTLY yesterday, but tomorrow, when I do the hillier front yard, will be the real test.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday so I'll be mowing the front lawn, taking a walk and cooking for the work week. And playing with the kitties. Luther got a new catnip mousie today so he is happy. I also trimmed his front claws.

My bank account is looking very puny, in the $2800 range. But I have now paid off all the big bills that appeared on credit cards, with $1,000 car and homeowners insurance and the new hot water heater.

I still expect more bigger than I'd like medical bills since I'm essentially paying out of pocket to see doctor who doesn't like my health plan. Got my final paycheck Friday from the 2-week real estate job and am looking forward to my first paycheck from the bank job, which will be small as I just worked 3 days. This week it will be probably 3.5 days with the holiday and my coming in late Tuesday due to Lyme doc appointment.

I'm working in a city with a long history of having crime, drug and related problems, but i was pleasantly surprised at how nice the immediate downtown area is. Maybe I said this in my last post? But a friend who knows this city said there daytime purse snatchings and muggings still take place downtown, so to be careful. I'm rethinking whether I want to continue my lunchtime walks, something I've done wherever I've worked for the past 20 years.

I wrapped up my first abbreviated (3-day) week at the bank job.I think it's gone pretty well.

Today was day 3, and I was definitely busy today. The people are fairly nice, though I haven't met that many yet.

The security measures and ID badges and parking badges are all kind of a pain. I'm supposed to take my laptop home with me every night so no one steals it, and with my purse and my lunch bag, it's just one more thing to lug.

Otherwise, today I was glad to get my final paycheck from the real estate contract job, but just as quickly I had to pay a big credit card bill and pay off the new hot water heater I just bought. My checking account is looking very sparse right now with just about $3k in it.

I was hemming and hawing about whether I would keep the appointment I made for this Tuesday with a Lyme disease specialist, as my headaches have improved but I am still getting them, though not as much.

I was reluctant to go thru with it since I'll have to pay him $300 out of pocket because he doesn't accept my state health insurance, and there will likely be more charges associated that if he repeats the blood test or does something else to try to determine if it's Lyme or something else causing my headaches. I am fairly sure it is Lyme because the ELISA blood test my PCP used only has a sensitivity (accuracy) rate of 65%, which means that 35% of patients will have a false negative test. (I tested negative on the Lyme.) However, I was still treated with antibiotics and I'm still having headaches. From what I've read, if you have a co-infection, which isn't uncommon, meaning not just Lyme but another tick-borne illness, then it's harder to treat and you'll likely need more than the standard 4 weeks of meds.

But anyway...I am going to the doc appt as I had to decide so I could tell my new manager about it. Monday is a bank holiday so I had to tell her today about that appt as well as another one the following week, for my eyes. She was fine with it, though I am anxious to try to make up the lost time as I really need the money. I also have a furnace cleaning but I think i will (reluctantly) leave access to the garage open and then lock the door at top of basement stairs. It's just one of those locks where you pull the metal bar across into the slot, but it would prevent them from perhaps secretly wandering around up here.

With a 10:45 am appt, I'll probably not get to the office til 12:30 pm, which means 3.5 hours to make up during the rest of the 4-day week. If I could get in at 8 am each day that week, that would do it, but realistically, I have trouble making it in at 9. I am not good at getting up in the dark.

Speaking of the dark, has anyone else felt it's been relatively easy thus far to have no heat days? I haven't mentioned the annual contest, but I've only turned the heat on 2 nights, I think, when it got a bit too chilly. Otherwise, it's been fairly comfortable, especially given that we're already into mid-October.

#1 on my priority list this weekend: try to fix my lawnmower so I can continue mowing the lawn the rest of the season. I like to mulch the fallen leaves with it too. (Easier than raking.) The wheel was wobbly for a very long time and I tried to remove it, even called Black & Decker, but I couldn't. So i just kept mowing with it getting wobblier and wobblier. I was hoping i could at least finish out the season and then get it fixed at my leisure. But no, it finally broke off last weekend. I also lost a bolt and plastic handle to one of the long screws that keeps the long handle in place.

It's been a real pain having this mower, not becus i don't like it, but becus there is only ONE black and decker dealer in the state, an hour away. He said he'd have to order the wheel, doesn't have it in stock and that when i brought it, i'd have to leave and then come back. I told him i live an hour away; i don't know they'll make an exception for me and meanwhile, i need to cut the grass. They didn't sound like they especially cared.

So although i ordered the wheel through him (without paying), i plan to hit home depot first thing tomorrow and bring the broken off wheel and see if i can find the same size match, then ask my neighbor to help me put it on. I just left a message for them now. I'll also bring the long screw in that needs a bolt at least, just to hold the thing together.

Last spring I also ordered a new blade for it but a friend of mine was unable to install it correctly, so that's something else. Dealer said they'd charge me $30 just to install the blade. I may skip that even though I already bought it. Frustrating.

The B&D website has a bunch of repair places listed, but so far none I called repair the lawnmowers. So this alone is a good reason not to buy another B&D cordless mower, although I like the way they work.

I'm looking forward to not having to get up in the dark tomorrow.

I'm still waiting for word from the recruiter about when exactly I start. It was supposed to be today but then on Friday she said probably "closer to Wednesday." I didn't hear from the recruiter today so I guess I'll email her tomorrow unless I hear from her.

I hit Xpect Discounts today (a grocery store) to take advantage of their $4.95 a pound sale on walnuts. I got 4 pounds, plus some almonds. I eat them often and freeze them in the meantime.

Also made a big batch of my very delicious vegetable soup with tomatoes from my garden, lots of beans, wheat berries and spinach.

I signed up for a health insurance plan online for 1/1/14. Because I had to factor in the new job for the last 3 months of this year, my income was bumped up a little, resulting in little if any subsidies. (It was a little unclear to me when stating income if I should go by what I made last year, for example, or what I expect to make this year, and I figured it would be the latter.) Still, a Bronze plan with Anthem will cost me about $95 less than what I'm paying now, although the deductible will be $6,000 (!!!) but with $0 co-pays on many things.

Yesterday late afternoon was rainy and overcast. There were not one, but two deer family groups here in the yard....3 does in the back and 2 does and 2 older fawns in the front.

A few days ago I happened to glance out my upstairs bathroom window and I caught sight of some animal moving into the undergrowth of a large rhododendron in the back, the same rhododendron where last summer I saw some sort of large cat-like creature go. The cat I saw last summer had a long tail and seemed to be tan, while what I saw a few days ago was smaller than a big dog but much larger than a house cat and it had no tail. To me, that says "bobcat." But I just saw it for a fraction of a second before it disappeared from view and by the time I ran down to the sun room I knew it would be gone.

There have been both bobcat and mountain lion sightings here in town, and I've seen the photos in the paper, so there's no mistaking it. The bobcats have been verified by photos, whereas the official state DEP position is that there are "no mountain lions" in Connecticut. Yet people continue to report seeing them.

This morning I made a delicious banana walnut bread. I wanted to use up the rest of a container of sour cream and it came out really well.

I also cooked up the rest of some fingerling potatoes and made a dill potato salad, now cooling in the fridge, with the same sour cream.

Breakfast was 3 hearty pancakes with real maple syrup and blueberries.

I wrote up a property description for a home this am and finally settled on a price of $180 for it. I haven't done this kind of writing for this company yet. In the past I charged another brokerage more $, but that was when I was traveling down county to view the house, and I long ago decided that just wasn't a cost-effective use of my time. I'd love to know what the other freelancer charges; I'm guessing my price will be on the high end, but I am confident I am also the better writer, and I turn most jobs around very quickly. Broken down, I allow an hour to interview the realtor on the phone, 2 hours to write it at $50/hr and a half hour for possible revisions and subsequent drafts.

Yesterday we saw Enough Said, with Julia Luise Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, who passed away shortly after making that movie. It was pretty good. I liked that it was about two middle-aged people living very ordinary, middle-class lives.

This is the time of year of the fall warbler migration. Most people would never even notice the birds, a drab olive green on top with pale yellow breast, but I've enjoyed watching one just now gorging on the bright red berries of the dogwood tree outside my office window.

While we certainly could use the rain, we've had an incredible run of I don't know how many weeks (at least three) of back to back sunny days in the 70s.

I was supposed to start the new job Monday, but recruiter called today and said it will probably be closer to Wednesday. Apparently there are delays because their IT guys are setting up my computer. I suppose in a bank they might not want me to have access to customer records if I don't need to...who knows.

I do have 2 doctor's appointments coming up and had hoped I could get a solid week or so under my belt before having to say I'd have to come in late. It just doesn't look as good, but these are important doc appointments, especially the one about my headaches.

Given the extra time, I may be able to travel to see my dad after all...I'm thinking this weekend, for an overnight. I had felt before I was running out of time, and didn't want to be doing any long distance travel right before I started, but at this point it would be no problem.

I mowed the back lawn today and completely obliterated the plastic cap on the clean out pipe of a drainage ditch I have. I'll have to find something else to put over it so leaves and stuff don't get in there.

I got a dozen farm fresh eggs at the local farmer's. They certainly aren't cheap at $5.75 a dozen, but they are the best I've ever had, save for my sister's. The secret is, I think, the farmer has lots of discarded produce which hens like to peck at, so they get lots of good nutrition you don't find in feed grain in a bag. the yolks are really orange.

I dropped off a box of books as donations for the library sale and returned some DVDs. Tomorrow I'm seeing a movie with a girlfriend.

I planted the celery plant I dug up from the veggie garden yesterday after using the whole stalk. I put it in a terra cotta pot which I'll bring indoors when it gets cold, but it's in the low 70s, so no need to do so right now. It had good roots, and I hope it will start sending up greens all winter long. I have a sunny bathroom; we'll see if I can grow it like a houseplant. It would be cool not to have to buy celery again. I plan to try the same next time I buy organic scallions. I will cut off and use the scallions, but plant the base of it in a pot, as I saw done on another website.

Later today I hope to plant my garlic seed for next year, but I'm kind of pooped from mowing and can't seem to get motivated. I also have those eggs, so now I can use two of them with some leftover sour cream to make some banana walnut bread. I'm thawing out some bananas I'd frozen months ago.

I really feel I have run out of credit card bonus offers to take advantage of. The kind where you earn $100 or $200 or more if you charge a certain amount in the first 3 months. I've applied for, charged up and then cancelled probably a dozen or more cards in the past year or two, just to make extra money that way. There are a lot of travel-related cards, but I don't get involved with those since many only let you redeem earned points on travel or hotel stays, and I have no plans for travel in my future, I'm afraid. I do it for the cash or for gift cards.

Another uber-productive day here at Patient Saver's homestead.

I did 3 loads of laundry.

I tried out a chocolate/apple bread pudding recipe in my new mini slow cooker. It was not bad. Might be better to try another time with better quality bread, maybe a challah bread.

I also knew I had 3 or 4 full size celery plants growing in the veggie garden, and I want to make use of them before the frost kills them.

I dug up one by the roots today. I plan to try growing it in a pot indoors this fall and winter. It's the coolest thing: here's a blog post about it: http://www.17apart.com/2012/02/growing-celery-indoors-never-buy-celery.html

While my celery stalks were pretty skinny, I did have a ton of bushy leaves, which of course are also edible. Most people don't bother with these, but they're organic so I figured, what the heck?

I tried another recipe for cream of celery soup. Had to go the supermarket for a few missing ingredients, and it wasn't too hard to spend $30 there. (I got the freshest organic red grapes there; I've never had such crispy grapes. Really good.)

Instead of a cream of- type soup, the recipe called for about 4 oz. of brie cheese. I used my immersion blender to puree everything. It's not bad, but a little on the watery side.

Tomorrow, I want to try to use up a container of sour cream before it goes. I just hate wasting food around here. I have some frozen peeled bananas so may try some sour cream banana bread. However, I'll need to run to the organic farm for a dozen eggs.

I tried going on my state's healthcare exchange. I was able to create an account, but when I began applying for 1 of the 3 silver plans available to me with some credits, the system stopped working. It was also difficult to tell by going to the insurer's sites whether my doctors were in their networks.

I'll try again later this week.

The garden is all pulled up save for the celery plants, a yellow squash plant with one small squash I will pick soon, and several parsnip plants. The parsnips sweeten in the ground with a few frosts, so they can stay a while. I'm not sure how big the roots will be since i never really thinned them the way I should have. Bad me.

I had an average sized vegetable garden this year, with one exception. My dad had given me a surplus of cherry tomato plants he'd grown from seed, so I had probably 7 or 8 in the ground. Because I am obsessive about these things, I counted every cherry tomato I picked this season (as well as all my other produce). I weighed and calculated the organic price equivalent of my harvest, too.

So, are you read for the grand total of cherry tomatoes harvested? 1,198 cherry tomatoes. Yup. Amazing, isn't it?

Blight has become a big problem, though, so next year, I may have to only grow tomatoes in pots. I also want to try the celery again, along with garlic, shallots, scallions and potatoes. Each year I like to try different things.

Sorry, it gives me some personal satisfaction to call them "idiots."

I took great umbrage at her suggesting I might need to hand over my federal tax return; luckily, that didn't happen and she pronounced my background check "complete."

As it turned out, my one reference they never bothered to even bring up the subject of, what was PS making when she worked there, even though she said they'd be checking. And my other reference, after agreeing that the person would call her back, never did but wound up sending her an email with questions that assumed she was my manager, even though I said she was a colleague.

Recruiter was later put out when she needed to do an I9 certification with my driver's license and Social Security card when i informed her i don't have Skype, i don't have a laptop with a built-in camera and i don't have a smartphone. For someone who claimed to be so by the book when digging into my personal information, she conveniently let the protocol lapse as she was unable to confirm my ID in person from her Atlanta office.

On the headache front I finally made progress in securing an appointment with a Lyme specialist and also should have one set up for month's end with a neurologist.

I discovered that the state health plan, for which I'm paying nearly $600 a month for, is not accepted by most specialists. I looked high and low and came up with a hospital clinic for poor people, where the earliest appointment would be end of November/early December. Then I found one neurologist who did accept it, but he ONLY treats MS, and even though I have MS, my issue here is headaches, so his secretary informed me I couldn't see him. Of course, this wasn't done over the phone; they don't take phone calls; I had to send an email and wait hours for a response. Crazy.

So the Lyme specialist I'm seeing doesn't accept my state health plan either, so I'll have to pay $300 out of pocket to see him. (Neither does my primary care provider, though her office visit charge is a lot less, at just $87.) I decided my health is worth it and if I have to spend a few thousand on tracking down the cause of my headaches, then that's what I have to do. The thought of having to "power through" the first weeks of a brand new job with day long headaches is not something I want to repeat. It was like that when I started the real estate temp job, before the Prednisone kicked in.

So I've learned this health plan really sucks and is not worth much at all. I will definitely have to sign up for an Obamacare alternative plan that actually has doctors in its network. Another thing on my list for this week.

I went to the landfill this a.m. and dropped by PCP's to see if I could get a copy of all my medical records, but they couldn't get it together so will have to return later this week.

When I got home, had to have another 1/2 hour conversation with recruiter so she could go through her spiel about not using the internet at work for personal business and how to fill out a time sheet. I was very chilly toward her.

Then I vacuumed my car out and washed it. I vacuumed both floors of the house, too. There's a batch of homemade granola cooling on the kitchen island, so I'll be set for my first few work weeks with breakfast.

This afternoon, I'm heading over to the dealer for a discounted first oil change as well as a few more shopping errands and then a free dinner meeting at a local inn at 6 pm. These dinners are always a treat, as long as you can stomach sitting through another slide show lecture about your incurable disease.

I may also be meeting Bachelor #3 for dinner later this week. Need to finish mowing the front lawn tonight, and put the tomato hoops away in the toolshed for the season. Need to do laundry. Also need to plant garlic for next year and if I can find organic shallots, I will plant them too.

I may not have time to visit my Dad in Jersey, unfortunately. All the stuff with the doctors and health insurance kind of messed me up.

Recruiter said it's not positive I'll start the job Monday; it could be Tuesday or Wednesday. For the month of October, I do have 2 doc appointments (1 for the aforementioned Lyme specialist) as well as a furnace tuneup, which means I'll either have to work at home those days, if they allow it, or lose valuable work hours and try to make it up by staying late on other days. There's no way around the two doc appointments, but I may leave the side garage door open for the furnace guy to come in and do his thing. I can lock the door at the top of the basement stairs leading to the main house, although I would still have to move the cats' litter box upstairs so they can access it, maybe in the downstairs bathroom.

I may have other diagnostic procedures needed related to the Lyme, so eliminating the furnace tuneup thing as a reason to go in late would be good.