Thanks, everyone, for the kind words about my (non) job offer.

It IS very discouraging. I DO know what it feels like to just want to give up; I have to battle those feelings constantly these days. I try not to whine about it too much, but there it is.

When it comes to finances, I "did everything right" for most of my life. Thanks to frugal living and a prodigious savings rate, I was able to purchase my last two cars new, in cash. I put 45% cash down when I bought my house in 1995 (about $95,000). By my early 30s, I nearly always maxed out (to 15%) my 401k and IRA contributions, never incurred massive debt (not having kids helped) and then paid off a 30-year mortgage in 17 years, all on a single income that ranged, in the past 20 years, between $50,000 and $80,000. (OK, there was one incredible year when I grossed $130K.) But now I feel I'm being slowly, inexorably, undone by a stupid job loss just at a time when I was hoping to cap off my hard-earned retirement savings.

For years, I dreamed about a comfortable early retirement, at about age 60. I knew I would continue freelance writing on a part-time basis, but I wanted to live a lifestyle on MY terms, terms that would include lots of travel and unstructured free time to pursue my interests. A lifestyle not dictated by anyone else. I’ve always hated long commutes, fixed work hours and, most of all, office politics. The egos, the personal fiefdoms people build around themselves in reaction to the impersonal, ruthless environment that is corporate America.

Late last year, I was hired as a proofreader; I am sharing the job with another part-timer so the employer can avoid paying for our health insurance and other benefits.

They recently asked us to start making sales calls to customers who basically dropped off the face of the earth in recent years. I’m sure if they were truly valuable customers they wouldn’t have us making calls to them, but I guess they figured, what have we got to lose?

Umm, first of all, they haven’t offered us any commission if we make a sale. You see, they’ve discovered that you can get an awful lot done with a $12-an-hour, college-educated, white collar professional. (Maybe next week they’ll have us cleaning the bathrooms, helping out in Accounting or who knows what.) But hey! I don’t have a sales background, nor do I have an interest in becoming a sales assistant or sales anything. I was hired as a proofreader, dammit, not to fill in wherever you happen to have a labor shortage.

So about a half dozen of us were assigned a bunch of calls to make. All but the two of us proofreaders are salaried employees, and all of us normally do work that doesn’t involve sales. Making the calls involves a fair amount of upfront research using the company’s databases to see when the customer last placed an order, what they ordered the most of and how far away they are from reaching a certain purchase threshold that entitles them to certain discounts. We also have to inform them of various promotions we’re offering this month. There’s a whole sales script involved. No one’s really sat down with the two of us proofreaders to familiarize us with the software. (They had a meeting about the calls on a day I don’t normally work.) So the training consisted of about 15 minutes of looking over someone’s shoulder to see how she did it.

The other part-timer didn’t want to do it either and was procrastinating about doing so. She was hoping she could just say hey, I was just too busy with my normal work and I ran out of time. I took the opposite tack and just got through my (half-assed) research and calls as quickly as possible. I made one sale out of about 25 calls. When I approached my manager about needing something else to do, she then wanted me to do HER sales calls for her becus she was so busy and hadn’t had time to start hers yet. I told her politely no, I wasn’t comfortable with doing the calls, that sales wasn’t really my “schtick.” Then she’s like, well, then you can do all my research for me and I’ll make the calls. I said I’d really rather not do that, if that’s okay.(If more was at stake, I might have relented, but for this piddly job? No.) She got pissed when I said that and replied, “Well, it may NOT be ok.”

She gave me something else to do and then immediately walked into her manager’s office (that woman is a true sweetheart) and closed the door . Of course, she was discussing my insubordination, and I contemplated whether I would be asked to leave in short order.

That didn’t happen, and the rest of the day proved uneventful, though there was tension between me and my manager, someone who ordinarily is quite cheerful and nice, though she is a control freak who doesn’t allow you to think for yourself. Everything must be done precisely as she says and that, for an intelligent person, is really grating.

There’s a strong correlation between the degree of autonomy one enjoys in their work environment and the amount of personal job satisfaction experienced. While I completely defer to this manager on all things related to proofreading (tons of procedural stuff leave little room for interpreting anything), I also notice that she rarely takes any of my suggested edits when I’m asked to proofread a letter or something else. So why bother asking me to proofread it? Even when I back up my edits with credible/reputable online sources that explain why such-and-such shouldn’t be capitalized, why you don’t need a comma or why you should hyphenate, she often responds with, "But that’s the way we’ve always done it." But that doesn’t make it right! She actually showed me a letter that one of our clients sent back to her, all marked up and edited. She was embarrassed, but instead of taking it to heart, she found ways to rationalize and justify not making any changes to it.

So maybe you can see how defeated it makes me feel to work there; when I’m asked to do what I was hired to do, my suggestions are consistently overruled, and then they get pissed when I’m less than willing to do work that’s clearly beyond the scope of my experience or current job description!

The guy who interviewed me sent me an email today about it. I was very disappointed, but wrote back to say, "I understand" (even though I don't) and to express an interest in doing some writing for the website, as he'd mentioned in the interview they were looking for more writers.

The publisher/owner, with whom I'd also met, wrote back to say they were happy I was interested in writing for them, that they were "very impressed" with me and hoped that as the website grew, she could find a way to put all of my skills to work...or something to that effect.

Maybe something good will come of it, even if it's just a bit more freelance work, which I could always use.

The other job I interviewed for about 2 weeks ago was with an agency. After meeting with me, she submitted my resume to the employer but after all this time the company hasn't even had the courtesy to get back to the agency. I assume that job's a dead deal.

The woman at the agency told me yesterday there was another opening and did i want her to send on my resume. I said sure, yes, even though she could tell me nothing about it and the job is located further away than I'd like but at this point.....

I spent about 2 hours on the phone with AT&T about a replacement DSL modem I bought from them for $70 which keeps dropping the Internet connection. They explained that DSL is considered obsolete technology (then why do they keep selling DSL modems?) and suggested AT&T UVerse. Initially I said no becus i'm not interested in bundling anything, but I did change my mind since the price for the first year is actually $10 cheaper than what I'm paying now ($15 a month vs $28 a month) and it's supposedly much more reliable and faster than what I have, which is slow DSL at 768k vs. 1.5 MB.

(Interestingly, AT&T just increased the cost of my basic DSL service from $25 to $28; i have no idea why. I wonder if they do that to prod people like me to upgrade to a more expensive service.)

But after the first year of paying $15 a month for the UVerse, the price shoots up to $36, which I know I won't want to pay. But there is no contract, it's just month to month, so maybe by that time I'll either have a job which enables me to pay that kind of monthly fee or, if not, I'll figure something else out and get another provider at a better cost.

The technician is supposed to come out here Monday to set it up. It's still a modem, so I don't know why they're willing to send out a technician to set it up for free (and the modem's free too) while they don't do that for the DSL modem. I'm so distrustful of big businesses like AT&T that it makes me wonder if they do something to your connection so you're stuck with it or can't uninstall it yourself or something.

I also have a postage paid shipping label so i can ship out the DSL modem once I'm hooked up to UVerse and get a refund for it.

I'm feeling very discouraged and fatalistic right now. I was really wanting that job. I'm really afraid that at my age (54 this summer) I'll never get another full-time job again.

As usual, my To Do List is a bit of a stretch to accomplish. This morning I had a 10 am oil/filter change scheduled. It was cool to schedule it online at the dealer’s website. I was able to push it back an hour on account of our nasty weather here today. (I haven’t been using the dealer much lately becus I found a trustworthy mechanic who will do things more cheaply, but I had a coupon at the dealer for a $21 oil change and it’s more comfortable to wait for the car in their nice seating area. The other mechanic will only say he’ll call me when it’s ready, which can be a big pain as, without a car, it forces me to coordinate with my mother so she can give me a ride and hang out at her place until the car’s done, something I can’t always take the time to do.

The dealer informed me the transmission oil was really dark and did I want it changed ($79). Also, my rear brake light was out. So I had them do both since I was already there. Somehow, the $100 bill I envisioned was actually $131, even with my $18 coupon, after accounting for “labor” to change the back brake light and taxes. Sigh. They also told me I’d need to do the front brake pads next time I did the oil change; I remember the other mechanic telling me that 6 months ago, but I think my gentle driving habits prolong my brake life. (Just for reference, I asked how much to replace the front brake pads. $299, he said. RIDICULOUS. I'm sure my other mechanic will do it for less. At least I hope so.)

My plan after getting the oil change was to hopefully hit Trader Joe’s, BJs and Shop Rite for various sale items or other reasons (5% in rewards points from Capital One if you charge at least $60 at Trader Joe’s), and then catch the 1 pm matinee of “Lincoln” at the $2 movie theater. However, it took longer to do the extra stuff to the car, so by the time I got out I had to make a decision to either go straight to the movie or do the food shopping.

The sleet and icy rain was still continuing, so I decided to bag the furthest trip out to Trader Joe’s (I can try to do it again next week) and just head home, but then I wound up at Shop Rite, and then since BJs is just down the road, I did that, too. I’d really like BJs to account for at least half of my overall grocery shopping this year since all my calculations show significant savings. It will be interesting to see if I squeak out any reduction in total grocery spending.

I was a little sad to miss the movie, as it seems I rarely do things for fun anymore! Maybe next week. They only have one weekday matinee, and that’s on Tuesdays, one of my days off from the proofreading job.

Today I was also able to mail out two return packages for about $50 worth of vitamins/supplements I’d purchased for the acid reflux, and a book I got from amazon on acid reflux diets. Since I’ve been liberated from that particular fate, I figured I might as well get some sort of money back, even though it cost me $16 to mail the 2 boxes at USPS.
I got back home around 2ish and wanted to make lunch but then saw I had some memo editing requests from one of my clients, so I did it and sent it out, then went to get a late lunch going. Then he called and asked me to quickly edit a 2nd memo, so my lunch got cold but that’s ok….he got what he needed in a more or less timely fashion.

I have to call a builder tomorrow morning for the next sales brochure I’m writing and for that reason am bagging going into the proofreading job earlier than my usual 1 pm on Wednesdays. It’s a matter of $12/hr vs. $50/hr. I try to do both whenever possible, but sometimes I seem to run out of time. Have to get the agent on the phone too, but I just want to relax a bit this afternoon so will leave that til tomorrow as well.

Wondering about that web editor job I interviewed for and if I’ll hear from them after turning in my 2nd writing assignment…….It would be HUGE to get that job, even without benefits, and EVEN if, as a one-year-old start-up, they go belly-up in a year. It would all still be worth it!!!!

OK, so today was my follow-up visit to the ENT doc to learn the results of my wholly unpleasant pH test. He told me that my acid levels were COMPLETELY normal and not a trace of acid reflux.

He seemed as surprised as I was. So he's referred me on to a pulmonologist. He said maybe I have something called "reactive lung disease," which is basically a condition where your airway is irritated by air pollution or sometimes by ongoing exposure to toxic chemicals, like on the job. The latter certainly wouldn't be me. The treatment is an inhaler.

Of course in a case like this, your first worry is, do i have cancer or a tumor somewhere that's causing my chronic cough? He said he didn't think i had that becus if so, i'd be dead already. (And besides, I've already had 2 normal chest x-rays.)

So I'm going to celebrate with a big steaming cup of strong black and yes, acid tea with a square of acid dark chocolate!! Yeah, baby.

I made the appointment with the pulmonologist, but earliest appointment I could get is a month away. I'm going to see if I can return the acid reflux book I just got from Amazon, and possibly even return some of the supplements I bought from Puritans Pride.

I guess this is good news, and am certainly relieved I don't have to give up on garlic, tomatoes, onions, strawberries or citrus fruits, but my chronic dry cough, which I've had for several years (at least 3) is somewhat troubling. I don't want to go on a wild goose chase to figure out what it is as i can't afford that in my current underemployed state. (Although I just checked to see what that pH test cost and of the total $1,000 bill, I only have to pay $23, not including the $45 for the office visit. I was afraid it was going to be a lot more becus I have a $1500 deductible and for some reason, going to an ENT (a specialty doctor) didn't require me to pay toward that deductible. I just don't get that..... but not complaining.

From what I've read online, reactive lung disease doesn't quite fit me. My cough is not triggered by exercise, and the doctor already had me do an asthma test, which was negative. So at this point, not really sure what this is.

I can say the air in my house is very dry in the winter. Years ago, when I had a new furnace put in, they guys persuaded me to disconnect the built-in air humidifier becus they said mold and stuff can grow in there and cause lots of problems. As a result of doing that, I have a VVERY dry house every winter, to the point of, if i don't run a humidifier in my bedroom, I wake up in the a.m. with a sore throat.

I'll go back to using that humidifier, but the fact is, my cough is year-round, so i don't think that's what it is.

So, I was sort of looking forward to a leisurely Sunday. That was not to be.

I worked a few hours on some take-home work from proofreading job. But then when I was just wrapping up, I got a surprise email from the guy I interviewed with for the web editor job last Friday.

He said you're one of the finalists, and by the way, here's a SECOND test editing/writing assignment (It was actually two.) I mean, an interview, a look at their portfolio and the first writing assignment wasn't enough to tell you about what they can do?

Sheesh. I've been through so many of these. I do hope I get an offer.

Tomorrow I go back to the ENT doctor to discuss the results of my pH test. I am very anxious to hear whether I have minor, moderate or serious problems. I don't feel it's that bad, but that's why they call it "silent" reflux. And I have had a cough for years.

My snowdrops are in bloom. They are so reliable and always the very first flower up around here, even when there's snow still on the ground.

I've been able to reduce my tea drinking to just one cup of caffeine daily, which is "allowed." The other cup is decaf but I recently got the Dropping Acid book from Amazon and she said that it's the tea which is acidic, as well as the caffeine. So tomorrow when doing the grocery shopping, I'll pick up some chamomile tea for one of those 2 cups.

I've also stayed away from tomato sauce and ketchup, as well as citrus fruit and juice. No onions and mostly no chocolate. I want to get rid of my cough and then very slowly reintroduce certain foods to see if they're trigger foods.

I've also started taking various supplements, and more are coming in the mail. Vit. C, B12, fish oil, slippery elm bark and DGL. I may still end up taking a proton pump inhibitor like Prilosec, but my plan is not to stay on it for more than eight weeks.

I plan to fill the prescription at CVS and then switch it at the first refill to Walgreen's so I can get the $25 back for a transferred prescription.

I've been able to keep my weight down to 140, which feels pretty good after flirting with 150.However, I'd like to get down to 135, or even 130. I was at 135 about 5 years ago.

I had my interview this a.m. for a web editor position at a start-up news website. It's been around since last summer.

I think it went super. I impressed him with a writing assignment and also offered up a host of ideas for improving their website and promoting it better. Which was pretty darn good considering I didn't know this website even existed a week ago and he only asked me to do this the day before the interview. I do hope they don't just steal my ideas, though.

Would love to work there. No idea what the pay would be, but they are a very small group. It would be mostly work at home, writing my stories and editing freelancers' stories, then loading all onto the site. Would need to travel to the town I went to today, about a 50-minute drive. Maybe twice a month. I can do that.

I'm pretty psyched. This seems similar to my last salaried job, writing and editing for a news type website.

If I got it, with even a very low payscale, I'd end up with maybe $1,000 more a month than my bare minimum expenses. (Remember, I paid off my mortgage.) If I could save $1,000 a month for 15 months, I could buy a new car, which I really need. (I'm driving a 1999, which still runs great, but i do feel a little nervous going on the highway for long distances.)

This is a job that would put all my marketing and PR experience to good use. At the little p/t job i have now, i feel it's largely going to waste and I am doing mindless grunt work. Well, it's not really mindless, but it is tedious as all get out and quite boring to me.

The only thing that worries me a bit is how stable this job would be. With a bit less than a year under their belt, i consider them a start-up, and that can be dicey. I worked at a start-up before that went out of business. I would have no real job security, but then, I certainly have none now, either. What if the website didn't ever really take off, or what if their advertisers dried up? (That's how i'd be paid, according to the guy who interviewed me.) What if the 3 partners ran out of money or lost interest in the venture?

I'd still go for it and just try to squirrel away as much as I could in case the unforeseeable happened. What else can you do?

After a sleepless night, I got the tube thing out of my nose this morning, thank GOD.

I told the nurse I sure hoped this procedure was not for NOTHING, because the meter never read lower than 6.8 or higher than 7.4 pH. (A normal pH is about 7.) But she said most reflux issues happen overnight, so we'll see. I hadn't checked it overnight. I have another appointment to discuss results with doc on Monday.

So far, I paid $90 for the 1st office visit and the throat exam at that time. I'm wondering what this procedure will cost me as I haven't paid a deductible this year.... If it is acid reflux, I'll likely go on meds (more $$) but I really hope that with dietary changes i don't need the meds for more than 3 months.

Today's my last free day before returning to the proofreading job. I have to go in early tomorrow because I will be arriving late, around mid-day, there on Friday. That's because I have another job interview, the 2nd in 2 weeks. (Amazing.)

This one is for a Latino news website. They need a web editor and i did that at my last job, am familiar with content management systems used to post stories to a site, edited the work of a team of freelancers, etc. I'm putting my portfolio together today/tonight. I must say it always looks impressive, and since they're also a start-up, I can talk about different things we did to build traffic to the site.

It sounds like a really good fit but I have no idea what they might pay; I've researched the company and they just started last July and have a staff of just five people. It would be full-time, work from home (great!) but no benefits. I would have to occasionally drive to the Hartford area (a little under an hour) for editorial meetings. I'm hoping no more than once a week.

I'm also hoping the job would pay in the 30s (as in $30 something an hour), but again, they're new and very small so i have a feeling it will be less, like $20 or $25/hr. I'd try to get more but i would of course quit the part-time job and take it. Even at $20/hr, it would be $700 gross for a 35-hour week vs. the proofing job, which is $240 to $300 and dwindling as we approach spring until it dries up completely during the summer months. so if I got the job, it would more than double my income. My monthly gross would be $3033, about 1.5 times my bare minimum monthly expenses, now that i paid off the mortgage.

Also i would mostly not have to leave the house, which is an awfully nice thought when you think about snowstorms, or simply having to think about what will I wear today to look presentable.

Equally important, the new job is in my field and would actually use my skills and experience, whereas the proofing job is like sooooo boring and tedious. I can't wait to quit there. The people are very nice, perhaps even more so becus they know the pay is s*** and they want to encourage me and the gal I share the job with to stay. I know that if I did quit, I'm guessing they might offer the other woman more hours, but she's already told me she could never do the job full-time. So they'd have to re-advertise the job. That's what you get when you underpay.

It was a very trying time this morning as I drove in to get the tube thing stuck up my nose to measure the pH level in my esophagus.

It was a nurse, not the doctor, who inserted it. I was feeling very anxious, and told her so, and she explained how it all would go. However, it was extremely uncomfortable when she inserted it. It's supposed to be carefully positioned so the end of it hangs just slightly above your throat, so that you can talk, swallow and eat normally. Well, she announced it was in place and that she was now going to tape the tube to my face (the other end is attached to a small computer on a belt) and i told her NO cus it was like RIGHT in my throat and every time I swallowed, I felt it big time. No way could i deal with that for 24 hours, let alone eat.

She jiggled it around so more, which was the worst, made some adjustments, and then looked inside my mouth to see its location. It was bad enough I started to cry a little.

However, once it was in place, it wasn't so bad, and I drove myself home, trying not to turn my head too much becus it would tug a little on the tube.

I'm feeling better about it now, but will sure be glad to get this thing out tomorrow morning. I have to keep a diary and record "events" such as what and when I eat, when I cough and when I sleep. At the same time, I have to push certain buttons on the computer to record those events.

It's constantly monitoring my pH levels. Normal ph is about 7, and my ph has varied only from about 6.9 to 7.3, so I see nothing wrong with it thus far.

I sure hope this test is not for nothing! As it's going to cost me and I sure don't enjoy it. I really hope it's not inconclusive and they try to get me to do various other tests. I'm really worried about much this is going to cost. I'd like the doctor to work with me in modifying my diet and habits (like not eating 3 hours before bedtime) before the knee-jerk reaction to go to meds, which as I understand, don't really fix any damage done to your throat by stomach acids anyway.

Yesterday R. and I took a drive (with his dog) up to Madison, the town where I wanted to check out some detached condos. There were 2 open houses at this one complex. All the way up there (about an hour's drive) Ron is telling me all the reasons I shouldn't move there, which was frankly annoying. Well, he's always been that way; not one to withhold his personal opinion.

So I was quite pleased when we arrived and he had to admit it was a very nice and unusual community where the condos were really very nicely spaced away from each other with a fair amount of privacy and space and everything was very nicely landscaped.

The first one we looked at felt more like a home with a small, private yard (with an open meadow out back), 2 stories, about 1590 square feet. Very private little patio. However, the kitchen and baths were somewhat dated and I knew if I bought it I'd have to update the appliances and counters at least. $279,900 and common charges $330. Town water and shared septic. Built in 1977. It also had 3 baths, which i certainly don't need. One downstairs, and then one for each of the 2 bedrooms.

The second open house was at a smaller ranch unit, about 1290 sf and a smaller kitchen, more galley-like, but more updated and attractive. Its sales price was quite a bit less, i guess mainly becus of the smaller overall square footage, at about $249,500. This one had a nice 3-season sun room, very private. The only thing I didn't like about it (aside from the slab, not full basement which means it won't hold the heat as well) is that the entrance to another unit was nearby and perpendicular to it, making it fell vaguely like an apartment complex, while the first unit felt more like a row house.

Both units have electric heat and central air. the taxes at both units would be about $1,000 less than what I'm paying now with my house. I won't be buying either unit as my house is not ready to put on market, but i wanted to look and just see if seeing them in person would allow me to rule them out as real possibilities, or not. I have not ruled them out.

The complex is just about a mile from Hammonnasset State Park, which is right on Long Island Sound, so while we were there we checked out this rather large park. It was a nice day, so there were quite a lot of people there with dogs or jogging or just driving around like we were. They have trails, boardwalks, fishing piers, a huge nature center, sandy beaches. Lots to do. You can buy a season's pass. I could see myself taking walks there, or bicycling, 2 or 3 times a week if it was so close.

The town itself is also quite nice, old New England homes and nice shops, small downtown. Even the neighborhood where the condo complex is is also very nice, lots of old homes.

One other drawback is that if i ever needed to travel west, say to Fairfield County where I live now, you really only have way to go, and that's Interstate 95. Not a fun road to travel if you can avoid it. There's also Rt. 1, but that's just a 2 lane road with lots of stops and lights and traffic along the way.

I don't really feel that if i moved, I'd have a lot of reasons to drive back toward this way. Right now, both my parents are still alive, and that's a big reason why I might delay any move further away, for now. But aside from my parents, i have a few friends in town, and they are all moving out of state this year or next. Ron is to the east and maybe a move would put me a little further out from him, about 45 minutes, but I'm about 40 minutes away from him right now, so not much difference.

Part of me would like to move now. I wonder, too, though, whether moving when I don't have steady work would worsen things for me in that location as opposed to here. The way I see it, I've been looking for f/t work for 3.5 years. I can't see it being that much worse there if I haven't gotten a steady job here in all that time.

Moving out there would feel like starting over from scratch in a way, since I'd be leaving everything that's familiar to me here in western Connecticut. I've done that kind of thing before, but I was much younger, in my 20s, when I moved by myself to Cape cod, and then to Vermont.

It would be very important to reach out and join different groups in town to get to know people, or i could be very lonely. It's not the kind of thing that comes naturally to me but I'd need to make the effort.

I zipped over to BJs this morning and was able to return about $21 worth of foods I can no longer eat: cheddar cheese and pasta sauce. I had 5 large jars of the stuff (!) and only had a receipt for the cheese. I wasn't sure if they'd take it becus if you look at their website, they say they don't take food items back. Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

So, my monetary loss from getting rid of all these foods is now down to just 3/4 of a bag of navel oranges, which I'll give my mother, as well as 14 cans of tomato paste, which I've offered to my neighbor. Also, 2 onions. So maybe $12 worth of food. Guess I can live with that.

While I was at BJs I got more soymilk, salad greens and organic apples, all on my "safe" list.

I'm not ready to part yet with my 2 bags of small dark chocolate squares, or my sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (1.5 jars). Maybe I can have these things occasionally after I get this thing under control. (No one's told me yet not to eat all these things, but I've just taken it upon myself to be informed.)

I also recently returned a sun lamp (aka happy lamp), the kind that's supposed to help with seasonal affective disorder. I gave it a short run (one week), and would have given it longer, but since it said on the box you could see results in just 2-4 days, I gave it up and became more concerned about getting a refund. I really didn't notice any change at all, so I decided to return it (value about $35) so I wouldn't have yet another useless thing around here taking up space, and so I can spend the money on something else more useful to me, which these days is either gas for the car, food or products to help me do home maintenance/repairs.

Of course, since Amazon overcharges on most everything except books, I'm constantly analyzing whether I'm better off buying something on amazon using free gift cards or if i should buy cheaper elsewhere and save the gift cards for something where I can get a relatively decent deal.

Along with my ongoing concerns over diet and what i put in my mouth, I'm also becoming more resolved to make healthier choices about toiletries. Most fragrances, shampoos, lotions and make-up are filled with unsafe chemicals. But since I'm not made of money, I decided I would focus on things that stay on my skin and are thus readily absorbed into my system, as opposed to things you apply to your body but wash off fairly quickly, like body washes, shampoos and conditioners.

So I did select one or two Burt's Bees hand lotions for my amazon cart; a quick comparison to the same items' prices at Walmart showed me they were just a little more money. My hands get very dry in the winter but I no longer want to use things with ingredients I can't pronounce that disrupt my hormones or may cause cancer.

I really need to address chapstick-type products. It's another case of me having a ton of supplies that I'm reluctant to part with since it saves me money to use them up first, but lip products especially trouble me. If they wear off your lips, you can be pretty sure you're swallowing the stuff.

The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems. Like, a year or so ago I bought an air purifier for the bedroom. I don't have allergies, but with 2 cats in the house and a forced hot air heating system, there's usually a lot of dust around. I love my Airstream purifier, but it seemed so counter-productive and a little disappointing that a company in the business of "purifying" air would include 3 packets of "air freshener" with the air purifier. The air freshener packet fragrances were lavendar, lemon and citrus, I think, and while the latter 2 smelled great, you know obviously that what you are smelling is not real lemon or orange but pure chemicals.

I emailed the company a note asking for the ingredients and a rep replied that they were "nature-inspired" or something like that, which basically answered my question. When I pressed her again for the actual ingredients list, she never responded, I think becus she know this consumer wouldn't be pleased.

Also over the weekend I took advantage of a Staples offer for a free after rebate ream of paper and photo 4 x 6 paper. It's so easy to process the rebates on their website; everything you need to know is on the receipt.

Have to be at work at 1 pm today. I've been asking if she wants me to come in earlier in the a.m. for the past or so, and each time she says yes, cus there's work, but hey, if she doesn't reach out to me i don't think I'll bother, becus when I go in early, it's a real pain to work because my counterpart with whom i share the job is at our work station and I have to sit in other locations where i have to use remote web email (doesn't have my folders and saved templates that i use all the time) and sometimes i sit somewhere where there's not even a phone and i have to walk over to an empty office to make a phone call. (Wow, that was one really long sentence.) Don't really like to do my job that way so I think i'll try to stay an hour later each of the next 3 days but pass on the wandering employee routine.

For lunch today I think I'll make a fritatta with feta cheese, mushrooms and spinach. guess I'd better get started on that now.

In my last post, I wrote about my ENT visit and the likely diagnosis of "silent" acid reflux. While I still have to go back on Monday for an unpleasant pH test, I already spent a few hours last night researching foods I should and shouldn't be eating now, as dietary management is apparently very helpful and could even get rid of this condition entirely.

So that's why I say it could be a scary new world, cus many of the foods I thought were "healthy" were apparently exacerbating the silent reflux. I need to cut back if not eliminate at least some of these foods.

One thing I eat quite a bit of, for instance, is jarred pasta sauce (Classico/Prego) over pasta, sauteed onions and garlic and a fair amount of tomato paste which I use to thicken up my homemade soups.

After reading a few very interesting diet/nutrition books over preceding months and being especially interested in Robert Lustig's Wheat Belly, I had already embarked a few months ago on a quest to lower the overall amount of whole wheat and sugar in my diet.

As part of that effort, I cut back (but did not eliminate) pasta. I also began eating more fresh fruit, and lately I'd been on a pink grapefruit kick. I was really enjoying them and eating a whole one every other day after getting a big bag at BJs. Then I moved on to the navel oranges....

And of course I'm a big tea drinker, though I rarely have more than 2 cups a day. Caffeine is not good for silent reflux; although there's always decaf, I don't know if I could entirely give up that great caffeine kick I get in the morning and then again in early afternoon when I'm feeling ready for a nap.

Other foods that aren't good are fatty meats (don't eat these much), full fat dairy like milk and cheese), chocolate (is 1 small square of dark chocolate really all that detrimental?), cranberries and soda (gave that up for the most part a few years ago).

So the whole idea of acid reflux kind of flummoxed me because I'm not a soda drinker, I don't eat too many sweets and I do make a lot of my own meals.

Now truth be told, until I get the results back from the pH test (doc said he wants me to do a barium x-ray as well to check for damage to various tissue), I don't really know how bad my reflux is. So I may be jumping the gun somewhat on all the dietary stuff and I don't know if the stricter regimen advocated by Dr. Jamie Koufman in her book would be required or if following her less stringent "maintenance diet" would be sufficient.

Anyway, I'm going to get her book called "Dropping Acid...." It's all about the acid/alkaline balance in our bodies and from what I've read, there's an epidemic of acid reflux in this country because many of the foods we eat are high in acid. Manufacturers are required by law to line the insides of bottles and jars with acid, yes acid, to better preserve foods. (Another reason to eat fresh, not processed.)

I do already do a lot of my own cooking but there are certain processed foods I admit i rely on. And one of my favorite meals for many years was a big, and I mean big, bowl of pasta with Prego sauce.

The only time I experienced ANY acid reflux symptoms aside from this cough was when i had a big bowl of pasta a little late at night, in hindsight, too close to bedtime. Then I would wake up and feel that sour taste in my throat which I knew was reflux. This happened maybe a total of 5 times over the course of the past year or two.

It's supposed to be worse than the usual heartburn many experience because the throat is much more sensitive than the stomach. Oh well. Left untreated, acid reflux is more than just an inconvenient nuisance since it can make you susceptible to esophagus cancer, which has a high mortality rate. Oh well, Didn't know these things.

However, I am a mortal human being. At this point, I think I can realistically make the following changes in my diet:

1. Reduce caffeine intake from 2 cups daily to 1 cup daily; the other cup can be decaf.

2. Just knowing my own diet and what I tend to eat the most of, i think it pretty important to pretty much eliminate pasta sauce. It's concentrated tomato. I plan to give my sauce and most of the paste away to family and neighbor. HOWEVER, I think it would be relatively safe to eat fresh tomatoes on occasion, and I'm thinking in this spring's vegetable garden I would grow just cherry tomatoes for my salads. Freezing surplus tomatoes was always such a big deal to me,for use over the winter in soups. I don't know if I should still do that.

3. I can also cut back on sauteed onions quite a bit as i seem to put them in everything, from pizza to soups to you name it.

4. After cutting back sugar elsewhere in my diet (orange juice, Kozy Shack rice pudding and sometimes chocolate pudding) and occasional cookies, I had allowed myself sugar in the form of beneficial dark (60% cocoa) chocolate, 1 or 2 squares on most days. I'm reluctant to give this up as i don't really think the quantity was enough to cause much harm, but i will read the book once i get it and see what they have to say.

The problem is, there are tons of articles and food lists online, but many of them say don't eat such and such without really explaining why, and often certain foods are on different lists depending what website you're visiting. So for instance, a lot of sites said don't eat eggs with no reason given. Then I found one site that said it's really all the butter or other fats you fry the egg in that are detrimental. So now i'm thinking that a hard-boiled egg, maybe sliced in a salad, would probably be ok but eggs for breakfast, easy over, maybe not. (I use coconut oil.)

So as you can see i still have a lot of questions about the dietary things. Apparently goat cheese and feta cheese are ok, but "high fat" cheeses aren't. Lean meat and fish ok, fatty meat no. Nearly all fruit and veggies are ok, but i saw something about strawberries and possibly cucumbers (and of course those onions/garlic).

To think that while I was sick with that middle ear infection I was eating multiple cloves of raw garlic daily, for their infection-fighting capabilities.

The more time I have to think about it, the less I'm looking forward to my return office visit Monday. They will rig me up with a tube up my nose, about the length of a piece of spaghetti. It will be attached to a small computer at my waist and I'll have to somehow live with this think for a full 24 hours, including overnight. don't know how I'll sleep. Before the doc jammed that tube up my nose in his office, they sprayed my nose with something that numbed me. But how will it work when i have it in for 24 hours? Won't it become sore? When the doctor inserted it, it was uncomfortable, and borderline painful, although that could have been for just while he was inserting it; maybe it won't really hurt once it's in place.

Thank you to FreeMe Journey for your kind words. I welcome your feedback!

OK, so I’ve had an “unexplained cough” for a long time now. Several years, in fact. Each year at my annual physical I would tell my PCP (an APRN) that I still had “that cough.” They had done a chest x-ray (normal), a breathing test to rule out asthma and then I was in Prilosec for just a week, to see if I had acid reflux. I was really supposed to stay on it for at least 2 weeks, but I stopped after 1 week with no difference.

I had some extremely infrequent instances of acid reflux, nearly every time after I had a big bowl of pasta…with lots of acidic tomato sauce…. for dinner.
So, as I said, I would dutifully report the cough each year, and each year she’d do one test and then never follow up with me, and truth be told I wanted to forget about it so I didn’t call her. For some reason I had it in my head that diagnosing the source of my problem would be a long, drawn out affair with lots of diagnostic tests which, even with health insurance, I feel I can ill afford (haven’t met the deductible this year).

I finally went to the ear, nose and throat guy today, who she’d finally referred me to last year before I got that middle ear infection.

I told the doc my issues and lickety split, before I could say I don’t want that long tube thingy up my nose, well, he inserted a long thin tube thingy up my nose. He said it was definitely inflamed and suspected “silent” acid reflux but wants me to do another unpleasant procedure next week to determine for sure.

The unpleasant procedure is to have them insert another tube, about the size of a piece of spaghetti (not sure if that’s width or length) up my nose while it’s connected to a mini computer attached to my waist. I have to go home with this thing and sleep with it overnight so it can record the acidity in my stomach! Then I return the next day to have them remove the tube. Ick. Ugh. Gag.

If that’s in fact my problem, I have to go on medication. Not clear how long. Could be a few months or forever. Also, becus I’ve had this cough for a long time, he wants me to go to a GI guy for a barium x-ray to make sure there’s no damage to my esophagus tissue or whatever. Happy, joy, joy.

I do feel somewhat relieved to know this is probably what it is. My other fear about this thing was that it was a cancerous tumor in my throat, and I was taking a rather fatalistic approach to it all. (I tend to self-diagnose the worst case scenarios all the time.) Silent acid reflux can be somewhat helped by changes in habit and diet, meaning, don’t eat 3 hours before bedtime and avoid things like tomatoes (love ‘em), chocolate (oh no), alcohol, caffeine (no!), cheese and eggs (uh oh).

I’d just like this cough to go away. It’s gotten to the point where people notice it and ask what’s wrong, and it’s also frequent enough that I worry I’m gonna start hacking away during at an inopportune time, like a job interview. Which I had scheduled for this a.m. until they called and said it was cancelled cus the woman was sick.

So I go back on Monday to have the tube inserted. I have Mondays and Tuesdays off from work, so that works fine and I won’t lose any work time. But I’m already feeling nervous about it.

I see that Chase is offering the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Card, which awards you 50,000 bonus points after you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months, good for 2 roundtrip flights. And you get 6,000 bonus points after your one-year anniversary. While I haven’t traveled much lately and highly doubt I will anytime soon, I’m interested in the card because you can also redeem the points for $500 in gift cards from Wal-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot or Amazon. However, the card does have a $99 annual fee. Bummer.

However, Chase has a very similar card, the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Card, which offers the exact same benefits except you get 3,000 bonus points on your anniversary instead of 6,000. And this one has a $69 annual fee. Since I’m mainly interested in the rewards and wouldn’t plan on keeping the card for a year, I don’t much care about the anniversary points anyway.

So….while spending $2,000 in 3 months was a stretch for me last time I did it (there’s always more grocery store gift cards), it would be nice to get $430 in gift cards, which I could surely use at Home Depot for all my home maintenance/repair needs. (Amazon would never be my first choice for gift cards as their prices for anything besides books is much higher than you can find elsewhere. And now they charge sales tax in Connecticut, so that little cost savings is gone.)

I may wait until I think it’s October when both my homeowners and car insurance are due. That would be a quick $1,000 spend right there. (I’d been meaning to ask my agent if I could separate these two bills so they don’t both come due at the same time cus it’s one big bill, but for purposes of earning credit card rewards, it works well.)

In the meantime, I’m $50 shy of having earned a $100 reward from Bank Americard.

As always, I'm so glad when the weekend is here. The next 4 days are mine. It's not that I'm not still working...far from it...but my time is my own and I can decide when and how with my freelance work.

I've got a slew of things to do in the next 4 days. They're expecting possible snow flurries Sunday, and my mother's arthritis is acting up, so she's said maybe her birthday lunch on that day wouldn't be best. So we've rescheduled for next weekend, which is actually better for me anyway.

Today is my running around day. I have a lot of store returns to make, at Christmas Tree Shop and Home Depot, then I want to hit BJs and the, though it's out of the way, my sister has fresh eggs for me.
I want to finish grouting in the bathroom.

Sunday I think I can now devote to ghost-writing an article about the Connecticut housing market; it'll be in Connecticut Builder Magazine. I've written 5 or 6 of these already.

After a doctor's appointment Monday, I have an interview in the afternoon with an agency for a temp content writer job. I don't even know how long the job would last, nor whether it would make sense to quit my proofreading job to take it.

I'd probably quit to take a f/t job that paid at least $30/hr if it lasted for at least 3 months. That'd be roughly 2.5 times as much pay as I'm making now, plus I think I could switch over to the employment agency's health plan. While I wouldn't expect to save any money doing that and it's still very pricey, I believe it would reset the clock as far as COBRA goes, and after 30 days of employment I believe I could start a new 18-month period (or whatever it is), which would carry me through until January 2014 when I would probably switch to the new state health co-op.

As it stands now, my COBRA expires June 30 and without something else, I'll have to go in the state plan.

So anyway, I spent over an hour last night printing out selected writing samples for my portfolio, which I always customize to the prospective employer. This one is a consumer packaged goods company that needs someone to do internal communications and work with HR. Haven't done a ton of that, but if you work long enough as a writer, you're bound to delve into various things that aren't your primary responsibility. So I did for a time serve on my last employer's corporate newsletter committee and I was the person who wrote it after we determined the direction/theme of each issue. I've also written a lot of internal bulletins, or news updates to keep employees in far-flung locations (mainly salespeople) abreast of what was happening in the company.

The agency mentioned experience with charitable events. Not sure what exactly they'd be looking for, but again, I've written a ton of press releases for all sorts of fundraisers and special events, so I printed those out too.

Let's hope it all pays off.

Lots to do! This is good. I have yet to see the money trickle in, but there's always a 6 week delay between the time I cut the invoice and when I get paid. I have tallied up all work done year to date, whether or not I've been paid for it yet, and I've already exceeded my modest monthly income goal with still a full month to go.

At the proofreading job, the work is feeling a little easier as I'm getting the hang of it more. It's not at all an easy job despite the very low pay. Everyone in marketing, the area in which I work, seems to get along pretty well, although recently one of the women was in charge of training a new p/t hire. The job would seem simple enough: running huge print jobs off on their humongous color printer. However, the person doing it would need to be somewhat computer savvy as the way these jobs are controlled.

So the person arrived for her first day; she seemed nice enough, and I overheard her saying how happy she was to have a job, even a p/t one, cus she’d been out of work a while. A., who was training her, seemed to be getting very impatient with her becus she wasn’t catching on instantaneously. You could hear it in her tone of voice. She was getting testy and really put out. While the new hire was still there, she went in to her manager’s office, which is right next to my cubicle. A. didn’t even close the door, but she was talking in hushed tones to her manager, complaining mightily about how slowly the new hire was catching on.

I thought it was not a very kind thing to do, nor very professional, when she could have just waited for the part-timer to leave for the day. Then, the part-timer actually walked up to her while she was talking about her (!!) because she was in fact getting ready to leave, and she said something to the effect of, I hope I catch on quickly. So maybe she did overhear her.

The next day was pretty much a repeat of the first. After the part-timer left, A. continued to badmouth and complain about the new hire to at least 3 other people. Anyone who would listen. All. Day. Long. I mean, she’d only been there two days; give her a break! With all of her complaining, she managed to get a closed door session with her manager and the HR manager.

I only work there 3 days a week, but by the time I returned the following week, the new hire was already history. I felt bad for her; imagine yourself in that position, feeling hopeful and excited about a new job, and possibly never realizing you could so quickly be done in by the very woman who’s supposed to train you.

So the woman, A., who got her fired, I sort of got along with, but I was always a little wary of her, I guess because I've run into her type before. She’s got a big mouth and always speaks her mind. She’s the type of person who can dominate others and sway a group’s opinion to her line of thinking. I’m quiet and soft-spoken. Some people feel intimidated by a quiet person because they don’t’ know what they’re thinking. She’s been somewhat nice to me, but I’ve also noticed she makes sarcastic comments a lot when it’s really unnecessary. So to me she’s a mixed bag. But she’s seemed nicer to me since after the firing of the other woman and also since I spontaneously shared some of my homemade soup with her when I ran into her in the kitchen.

You may do your best to avoid office politics, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid unless you work remotely.

I took out The Author out for lunch today, for her birthday. Geez, we both had just soup and salad plus tea/coffee, and it came to $41. Oh well. A splurge for me….

I’ve been applying for a lot of jobs lately, most of ‘em contract jobs. Many of them have writing assignments they want you to do, and you could spend a few hours on it, possibly for nothing. But that’s the way the ball rolls these days. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve done that.

An agency called me tonight about another job, a temp, one doing internal communications copywriting for a consumer packaged goods company right down the road from me. I’d jump at it since it’s so nearby, and if it was for at least a few months at decent pay, I’d probably have to quit my proofreading/blogging job. Things could then become dicey again once the temp job was over with suddenly no income at all, but I’m inclined to take on that challenge. $12/hr just isn’t working, and the company will be furloughing me anyway, all summer.

I’ve lined up an interview with the agency on Monday, forgetting that I have a doc appointment that morning. I should be able to do both, but I will be really running around that day unless I can push it back by an hour.

The day before is my mother’s birthday, so that means I need to plan a lunch for 3 of us before then.

I have a ceramic tile floor in the bathroom where the grout is very dirty/stained/old looking. I found a product at Home Depot made for whitening the grout. It looks very much like a magic marker and you more or less just paint the grout lines between tiles. My tiles are only about an inch square, so this has turned out to be quite a job! Once I did a few grout lines, it made such a stark difference: bright white vs. brownish, so I have to continue til I finish them, but I’m not sure I like the way it looks. The stuff you paint on, well sometimes you have to go over the same area several times cus the stuff doesn’t flow out evenly. I just hope it doesn’t look strange when it’s done. It’s hard for me to judge becus I keep comparing it to what it used to look like. Anyway, I’m only about half done and I worked twice on it for several hours.

I also used the tile adhesive to affix 2 loose tiles on the floor; after another day, I can grout around the tiles; that to me will require a bit more skill to get the grout in some very fine cracks. Hopefully with the putty knife I can just press it down in there.

I went for a walk around the block but REALLY had to push myself to get out there. I walked a few days ago also.

I feel like I got a decent amount of stuff done overall these last 4 days: scheduled a dentist apt with a new place that charges “just” $95 for new patients. Dentists are the last healthcare provider I want to jump around with, but this is a cost-saving measure for me. I just can’t afford to pay my favorite, longtime dentist $152 for a teeth cleaning, sans x-rays. This will be my THIRD new dentist in the past 2 years.

I did a small bit of decluttering of files and paperwork. I have 4 2-drawer file cabinets and I think that’s too much. 2 of them I have to keep (they’re in the attic) as they contain 30 years of writing samples that I use on interviews. The other 2 cabinets keep the usual other kinds of paperwork and I’d like to edit one 2-drawer cabinet into a single drawer in my computer work station, but not sure that’s gonna happen.

I bought a “happy light” with some Amazon gift cards a few weeks ago and have been disappointed not to notice any improvement in my mood/energy after using it up to an hour each morning. I always thought I had seasonal affective disorder.

We’re expecting some messy weather tonight into tomorrow (sleet/snow/freezing rain) so I may not go into work early as I like to do on Wednesdays. I forgot to ask her if she wants me there early anyway; maybe I’ll email her after I see how bad it is.

I want to move…

A lot of you already know that. I’m looking to downsize a bit from the 1650 square feet I have now into a somewhat smaller space, and I also want to eliminate my exterior maintenance duties.

Being a real estate copywriter, looking at real estate is sort of a hobby of mine. I like to keep abreast of what’s available and in which direction prices are headed. I’ve been looking at condos for literally years now, but have yet to find more than one complex, really, that seems suited to what I’m looking for: a 2-bedroom, preferably ranch unit of about 1400 sf with central air, gas heat and some sort of private outdoor space where I can still garden and hang out. Newer construction not more than 30 years old with updated kitchen and baths. In the neighborhood of $250K.

I’ve also considered a small, updated ranch with a small yard but they seem hard to find around these parts. I think for builders, a big house = big profits, so most ranches around here seem dark and outdated.

Today I was researching and writing about the town of Madison, Connecticut for a real estate sales brochure I’m doing. Madison is a small, leafy suburban town, fairly affluent, and in those ways is pretty similar to where I live now. But it’s also on the shoreline and is where Hammonasset State Park is, the state’s largest, with 2 miles of coastline as well as great biking trails (all flat, unlike much of the state), boardwalks, a nature museum and lots of saltwater inlets to put in a kayak or canoe. I’ve always been a big outdoorsy person and so this would really agree with me.

Madison has also been on my mind of late becus The Author mentioned that she and her husband might rent a house there for a year or so while they try to sell their house here. She loves Hammonasset, and in fact we were supposed to go bike-riding there last summer but never did.

Anyway, I went on a realtor website and did some quick research. To my surprise, I found several condo complexes in Madison that may be just what I was looking for: DETACHED CONDOS. They seemed to have a lot of outdoor privacy and open space. Not only that, they were within walking distance to town and beaches PERFECT. I love the idea of being able to walk to town without having to jump into my car all the time. And they were in my price range or a bit higher, around $279K.

My area here only has one complex I’m aware of that has detached condos but it has a reputation for not being well-built. I know there are tons of them on the Jersey shore because my dad’s ex-significant other bought one of them. It basically looks like a small single family house with a small yard.

So, here’s the plan. As soon as the spring weather breaks, I may contact a realtor and spend a half day with them showing me some of the different complexes, to see if they look as good in person as they do online. I would also plan a few excursions on my own, or maybe with The Author, to scope things out in town generally.

If I moved, I could take my freelance work with me, of course, for it goes where I go. But I’d still need some kind of regular work. I figure I’d be no worse off than where I am now, which in my opinion is NOT a reasonable (under an hour) commute to any of the state’s urban jobs centers like Hartford, New Haven or Stamford. Madison is much closer to New Haven. I’d have to give up my $12/hr proofreading job, but that job is very unimportant to me anyway. Surely I could find something to take its place.

My mother, of course, would be very upset with me. My relationship with her has often been difficult. She is kind of a needy person and I often feel I’m still attached to the umbilical cord with her. You might call me a terrible daughter, but the thought of moving over an hour away where she could no longer call me daily is sort of exhilarating. I am concerned about caregiving issues; my sister is nearby but never gets involved with my mother, but dang nab it, for once I would like to make a life decision based on what’s best for ME.

If I did end up moving, I probably would not inform my mother until things were fairly well finalized, for I know she would give me a lot of grief about it and make me feel guilty for leaving her all alone.
I am aware that Madison is also further away from my dad, who will drive 3 hours and back in a single day just to visit with me and my sister where we are now; but in reality, he will be 80 this spring and I don’t think he has many years of driving left, given his vision problems.

I don’t feel I’d be leaving a lot of friends behind. My favorite neighbors behind me are putting their house on the market next month and moving to Tennessee; The Author and her family are moving to Delaware; and while I have a lot of acquaintances, I don’t feel I have many other close friends right here in town anyway.

Moving there would sort of feel like starting over for me, for I don’t know a soul in Madison. Hopefully, I will have learned some lessons from when I moved all by myself to Springfield, Vermont to accept a job as a news reporter. Springfield was a small, family-oriented farm community and the only friends I ever made there were other reporters who, like myself, were hired from out-of-state. Despite strong introvert inclinations, I would need to push outside my comfort zone to get involved in local groups and get to know people.

Anyway, for the firsts time in my new home search, I actually feel excited about the possibilities. A move still might not happen for a few more years (it might be better if my older cat passes on before a move) but it will give me more time to make repairs here and wait for further appreciation.

In other news…
Been doing a ton of writing lately. My boss at the proofreading job asked me to write 2 blog posts related to college graduation (my employer makes/sells high falutin’ diploma frames, some priced at as much as $250!). So I spent 5 hours and wrote 2 very good ones, one a roundup of 2013 commencement speakers at different schools/universities and the other a look at interesting college commencement traditions. I think she’ll like them.

Then today I did the Madison write-up, which is for a sales brochure for a new condo complex in that town. I also need to do the same kind of write-up for the town of Cheshire. Tomorrow, I have 2 phone interviews to do, one with a developer who blew me off Friday after I’d left my proofreading job early just to talk to him, and the other with a realtor who can tell me more about the complex.

I also have a test writing assignment for a job I applied for though I don’t even know if I should bother since the job didn’t specify if it was remote or on-site, and it’s located too far away for me to commute.

So my idea was, TRY to get started on my lengthy punch list of repairs around here and also try to rule out condo complexes in the area simply by driving through them and eyeballing them from the outside. I'm very particular about what I want and I need some kind of place with private outdoor space. A place you could go do a bit of gardening or feed the birds without a dozen different pairs of eyes watching you as soon as you step outside.

I figure, why waste a realtor's time at this point.

However, I've kind of been drawn into a conversation with a realtor after I randomly asked one online if she could identify newer complexes that offered a decent amount of outdoor privacy. I know they exist.

There are 2 I like very much, both in Southbury, about 15 minutes east of me. One of them I may still end up buying there; built in the 80s, award winning design, woodsy, feels like a single family home, very large and private decks out back (maybe about 12 x 12), a small front yard. They do have electric heat which I'm not crazy about.

While it's not age-restricted, it's just down the road and part of a larger community that is age-restricted, and for some reason, the complex I'm interested in still tends to have mostly older residents and I'm thinking I may not want to surround myself with that. Still a little too young!

The idea appealed to me earlier on, probably as a result of longstanding issues I've had with one neighbor here over noise. I figured noise should be a non-issue if I lived in a senior complex. But it could also be somewhat depressing and it would be nice to have people in my age range to be friendly with.

The other community I like in that town was built around 2006; gorgeous on the outside, upscale, very nice landscaping, lots of curb appeal. Also very nice on the inside, gas heat, lots of light, but the obstacle here is the price, which runs somewhat higher than I want to spend.

but back to the realtor, we've been trading emails and i've been perfectly frank with her that my thought is currently to wait til 2014 while i do repairs here and look at complexes. She's recommended a few complexes and sent listings but they are way off the mark.

There is still the town of Shelton, about 40 minutes east of me; actually, it's a small city but is very suburban. They have lots of jobs there and large corporate parks and also tons of condos. Very low taxes compared to most other towns around here.

A friend of mine lives there and has encouraged me to move there and we've done some drive-by tours of complexes but again, nothing positively sang to me. Probably due to the distance, what I'd need to do is commit a half day or so to spend with a realtor who would show me the insides of some of these places.

I need to feel excited about several different complexes so it will motivate me to get going and do what I need to get my house ready for market. Otherwise, finding an upgraded and well-kept small ranch with vinyl siding on a half acre or less would be an alternative. Preferably gas heat and more or less level lot. Perhaps you can tell that I want low maintenance.

Today I compared some key annual costs of home ownership versus condo ownership.

On the home ownership side, we've got:

$0 common charges (I mow and shovel my own driveway)
Property taxes: $6600
Oil heat for a season: $1200 (fluctuates often, depending on price of oil)
Homeowners insurance: $600 (saved myself several hundred by going with another carrier last year)

On the Condo side of the equation, we have:
Average common charges of complexes I'm considering: $2400, or about $200 a month; some are more.
Avg. Taxes: Around $4200
If I go with gas heat, I'm conservatively guessing about 25% less than fuel oil costs, so $900 a year.
Homeowners insurance: About $200

So my annual costs for these items is just $700 more when living in a single family home instead of a condo. Not a great deal more, IMO. Of course, I'm not factoring the many and miscellaneous other repair and maintenance cost of owning a home, whether it be replacing a hot water heater or whatever.

Also, I'd expect to pocket between $40,000 and $50,000 upon the sale of the home, which I'd have left over and add to savings after paying cash for the new condo.

I guess it still wouldn't be a bad idea to stick around a few more years. It would give housing market prices a little more time to recover.

I paid $209,900 for my house in December 1995; today it's worth about $299,000. And yes, it is paid off. At the peak of the market, in 2007, it was valued at $435,000. So right now, the house is valued at about midway between what I paid for it and its high in 2007. Still, there's a nice $100,000 gain, more or less.

As for lifestyle matters, I do enjoy having a largish vegetable garden, big enough to freeze homegrown tomatoes and other veggies for the winter as well.
I do enjoy picking wild berries in the backyard in July. If I buy a condo, I will have room (and hopefully, sun) to grow a few dwarf cherry tomato plants in pots, but not anywheres near the scale of what I do now in my fenced garden.

The headaches about living here include the ongoing grind of mowing all summer and shoveling myself out in winter. I may investigate a rider mower; would love a battery-powered one but they are rather pricey. The other big issue is storm outages and many fallen trees, which freak me out and cost a lot to clean up. There's also the issue of possible worsening MS relapses, which would be easier to deal with in a one-level condo, although I've done fantastically during the past 25 years with it.

Every time I think I've made up my mind that yes I want a condo or no I don't, then I start waffling about it again, sometimes after hearing other people warn me about dealing with noisy neighbors in a condo. Something I'm certainly not used to, but I'd be going to a fairly upscale complex where I hope loud parties and such would not be common.

...like today.

After breakfast and my usual leisurely cup of tea at the computer, I headed out relatively early to check out some condo complexes I hadn't seen before. To see if I might like to live there.

Lake Place was rather nice; some of the units sit right on a large lake, although many of the units are across the street. Nice complex, nice landscaping, and the roads looped around so it wasn't all cookie-cutter buildings, but I still can't get used to the real densely populated units in a relatively small area, which these are. I didn't rule it out though.

Checked out another complex which I did rule out because it was in a town that, while nice, just feels too out of the way for me and the complex itself (an adult community), well, it felt like an adult community, for some reason. And I may not be ready for that.

Then I did some grocery shopping, made a bank deposit and stopped at Home Depot to pick up a few things, including supplies to reaffix two loose tiles on my bathroom floor. I'll have to wait til the weekend to do this little job as the tile adhesive needs 2-3 days to dry, and I may want to shower for work; once the weekend rolls around, it doesn't matter.

I had a yummy chipotle black bean burger for lunch today with a raw red onion slice, pickles and ketchup on one of those thin rolls. Mmmm.

Try as I might, I couldn't get my client to call me to discuss a blog I'm writing for him, nor has he responded to the mostly finished draft I sent him. I also need to start on a sales brochure for a new community, but again, like pulling teeth sometimes to get basic contact info. Everyone's so busy.

I heard back from a Craig's List job poster about a freelance job writing content for a website. The pay was extremely good, which makes me a little suspicious, if only becus so many outfits pay so little. They suggested a test article on a certain subject (probably to me and a zillion others who likely responded to the ad), and I wound up spending a few hours writing a 1,000-word story that I think reads pretty well. Let's see if they respond further.

Never heard back from the local employer who said they wanted me to come in for an interview. I think it's really poor form to reach out to an applicant and then never respond again as the person tries to schedule an interview date. But of course, you can get away with bad behavior over email or the Internet.

The rest of my day was taken up by a slew of emails from The Author, who is getting ready for a writer's conference in eastern CT. Also a bunch of phone calls (at least 4!) from a friend who wasn't sure how to report p/t income to DOL. He lost his job years ago and after driving a limo for a few years (and hating it) he next took the exam to become a state marshall; they serve papers on people caught up in foreclosures, divorce and so on. Not my cup of tea, but anyway, that's what he's been doing.

Tomorrow I need to go with my mom to BJs so I can get a 2nd card on her membership. But first thing in the a.m.,before I head out, I hope to reach the realtor i need to interview about the new condo community; I sent her an email tonight to try to schedule the interview time, but naturally haven't heard from her.

It can be challenging trying to squeeze in all my freelance work into 2 days out of 5 (although I often work weekends, too).

I've been doing really well eating "healthy." Fresh fruit or nuts for snacks. No red meat, just fish, chicken, eggs, beans, nuts for protein. Maybe I could do better on the veggies. But no processed foods, soy milk in place of dairy milk, I haven't had Kozy Shack pudding in over a month and no soda at all. Watching the sugar and wheat, though not eliminating it.

I'm going to have my after-dinner grapefruit now.

Good 'ol SA did it again....I posted an entire entry and it simply disappeared....

As many of you know, I share a p/t proofreading job with another woman. She works on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings while I work Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays and Fridays. We share the same cubicle. We share the same phone as well, so that means we have the same password and can listen to each other’s voice messages.

OK, I lied. There are mostly cons to sharing a job with a co-worker, at least in my position. While we do the same work, we don’t share each other’s work. So if, say, I’m away for several days, it’s not like she’s going to pick up the slack for me, or vice versa.

It’s a pretty small workspace so neither of us can have too many personal doodads around as it’s just too much clutter. And we need to keep the workspace clean when we leave after our three-day stint. (In the first week, she did leave a few used tissues behind for me to find, but after I mentioned it to her, it wasn’t a problem anymore.)

As is my habit, I keep a small bag of toiletries in a drawer at our desk. It contains a toothbrush, toothpaste, aspirin and chapstick. At some point yesterday, I went into the bag and used the chapstick, and as I was putting the cap back on, I noticed a single strand of red, curly hair stuck onto it. My co-worker! Big ewww factor.

My co-worker is 65 years old, very personable, outgoing and friendly. She told me she’s got 4 degrees, including a Ph.D. in psychiatry, and once worked as a sex therapist. She recently retired from a long career as a public school teacher.

I initially decided I wasn’t going to say anything to her but would simply take my bag of toiletries home and not keep it there anymore. But then I changed my mind and sent her an email to her home address this morning, updating her on some things that were happening at the office.

I didn’t want to say anything to her at the office because not everyone who works there is very professional, and since my coworker has a loud voice, I didn’t want to provide new fodder for gossip. At the tail end of my note, I said by the way, I noticed a red, curly hair stuck to my chapstick, etc. and that while I don’t mind sharing a cubicle with you, the items in the bag are personal and I don’t want to share them, ok? I didn’t write it in an accusatory manner, just straightforward and to the point.

I was curious how she would react: would she deny it or quietly accept what I’d said? Well, she emailed me back this am and flatly denied ever having gone into the bag and said the red hair wasn’t hers. I thought some more about how that red hair could have gotten in there and I suddenly remembered that on Friday afternoon, I had a backache that was killing me (my own fault, comes from leaning forward away from the back of the chair when I’m feeling rushed). It was so bad that I disregarded how filthy the carpeted floor might be and I lay down in the cubicle on the floor for about 5 minutes, which helped quite a bit.

Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe I picked up my coworker’s hair when I was lying on the floor and then the hair dropped into the chapstick when I was using it. Sort of an unlikely scenario? Maybe it’s more likely her curiosity got the best of her one day and she snooped in the bag to see what was in it. Whether or not she actually used the chapstick, I don't know. But even a Ph.D. is not immune to certain human impulses like that one. I guess I’ll never know.

I wrote a long post a few days ago that went into the nether world as soon as I pushed the "Save and Publish" button.

Anyway, this last snowstorm really solidified my determination to sell this house, something I've been talking about for a while but haven't done much to prepare for.

I'm thinking next spring would be a good time to do it. I'm just getting too old for all the snow shoveling, climbing extension ladders and getting on a roof to shovel snow as well. And I'm too cheap to pay someone, I guess.

The thought of all that would need to be done around here to get the house in shape is truly overwhelming. It's all on me. Sigh.

To try to build some sort of momentum, I did, over the course of a few days, build a punch list of things that need fixing. I think I have close to 50 items. Some are very simple; some are more involved.

Then I recently learned that my friend M. is no longer working the contract job he had and is looking for work. He's helped his dad with a lot of handyman stuff on some rental units they have, and I suggested to him that he help me with my list. He could use some extra cash, I'm sure. However, I'm not sure that he's super reliable, so if he doesn't step up to the plate, my neighbors behind me who are putting their house on the market next month are using a really great handyman pretty much round the clock. I could also call him after March, I think. He charges $25/hr, which I guess is "reasonable" for handyman work and odd jobs.

Some of the things I can do myself but I've procrastinated on many for a long time becus I don't really enjoy doing them, mainly becus I'm not terribly skilled and often reach a point where I say Now what? or otherwise don't know what to do.

I'd like to try to do at least one item from the punch list each week; with roughly a year before I put the house on the market, that would give me about 52 weeks to get everything done, and as I said, I have just about 50 items on the list.

I'm still not really sure where I would go, but I would want to stay in the area. I'm leaning toward a small 2-bedroom condo rather than a ranch house.

One more day in the long slog of work at the p/t job. One thing I have really learned these last few years of scrounging for work is that just because a job is lower paying, doesn't mean it's proportionately easier to do. In fact, the last 2 p/t jobs I've had are probably more demanding than my usual line of work, which pays so much better.

What is so depressing is that I bust my butt at this p/t job and at the end of the day am quite wiped out, but i know I accomplished a great deal. Yet my miserly paycheck does not come close to reflecting the amount of energy put into the work. Bleh.

By the grace of God, I did not lose power during the storm. For that, I'm extremely grateful. I'm less enthusiastic, however, about the amount of snow dumped on the driveway. It's over a foot, less than two feet. Maybe about 18 inches or so.

I put on some long john's and headed out to start up my small electric snow blower. The bottom of it sits just a few inches off the ground, so it's really not meant for deep snow like this. I had to keep pushing and pulling it across the top of the snow, going back and forth until I got down to asphalt. It was very tiring to do, but probably not as tiring as shoveling.

The wind kept gusting periodically, and changing direction constantly, so every time it did, I got cold, wet snow blowing in my face.

Then I had to keep tromping through the snow to break it up, which made it easier to run the snow blower over it.

I spent about 2 hours out there and I did get about 3/4 of the driveway done. The part near the road is the worst, and I always have to do it by hand becus my 75-foot-long electric cord doesn't reach that far, plus the snow plows really pack it in.

I also shoveled my front steps and landing area.

So I've come in and am making lunch. Exhausted, mostly my arms. But I saved my back. I'm allowing myself 2 hours to rest inside before going back out again, this time with my roof rake and a small aluminum step ladder, to rake the snow off the lower 2 feet of the roofline, to avoid ice dam problems.

I'm going to get soaked all over again, but it needs to be done.

I have to do it today becus it's getting down to single digits tonight and that snow pack will harden, making it much harder to rake off.

I doubt I'll have much energy after that to finish shoveling the driveway down by the road, but it would be nice. Otherwise, will have to do in the morning so i can get out of here and do my thing.

I cut up a sweet potato and am baking sweet potato fries right now.

My knee-high rubber boots are wet, as are my jeans and long johns. I have other boots, but they're not at all high. May have to resort to putting plastic bags around my feet to keep them dry.

UPDATE:

Ugh. I went back out a second time this afternoon. I thought it was important to do the roof raking, and indeed, the sunshine had already started melting snow above the gutters, but by mid-afternoon, things had cooled down and baby ice dams and icicles had already formed over the gutters! I raked the lower foot or so of the roof, even got the darned extension ladder out, dragged it through the snow and set it up to chip off some of the ice. Finished shoveling in front of my garage also and did a little down by the road, but left the rest of that part for tomorrow.

I used the plastic bags but got soaked anyway from the knees down. Tonight I'm chilling with a movie and in lieu of the hot chocolate, it's decaf tea and some dark chocolate.

They're predicting up to 2 feet in my area, though Boston could be getting 3 feet!

It's coming down now at a steady clip with a few inches on the ground; the worst will be overnight.

I am mostly concerned about losing power. I turned my heat up a few degrees, and will turn it up still further this evening when the winds pick up. I figure if I do lose power, the house will start off that much warmer.

I was able to bring work home with me and worked from home today, but it only took me 3.5 hours to do. I'd been hoping to get in a full day's work.

No matter...i have to distribute a press release for a real estate client today, and I still have his blog to write, too.

I've got sunflower seed and suet in the bird feeders and they're going nuts over it. As a special treat from my sister, i have a small bowl of handpicked hazelnuts and hawthorn berries for them too. They seem to be ignoring the bright red hawthorn berries.

I have my batteries for the radio ready, and my 3 flashlights. I should have gotten a new snow shovel when i saw them at WalMart for $7, but I skipped it. All I have is a plastic cracked shovel; not sure how long it will hold out. Really, should've gotten a new one when I had the chance. Oh well.

I got a call from a recruiter this morning, first time in a very long time, about a job i'd just applied for. A technical writer job at GE, temporary. I had to pass on it becus it was for only 1 month. If i took it, i'd have to quit my $12/hr p/t proofreading job. The GE job would pay much better, but after 1 month, I'd be left with nothing.

I mailed off my tax returns yesterday and am expecting $940 back from federal, and $46 back from the state. I'm thrilled.

I need to recalculate my withholding, though, because I hadn't noticed that my little part-time job was deducting NOTHING from either state or federal. I mean, I know I make very little there to begin with, but I still don't want to be stuck with a big bill at year's end. I'll have to specify a fixed amount, not ideal for my variable hours at that job, but still closer to what my actual deductions should be.

I have a question for Monkey Mama or Dido or anyone else who really knows their way around a tax return.

On Schedule A (deductions), Line 10, you're supposed to report the interest you paid on your mortgage loan. Because I paid off my loan mid-year, I only paid $253 in interest in 2012. The bank issued me a combined 1098/1099 statement, but it did not report that I paid ANY interest on my mortgage. When I called the bank to find out why, she said they don't have to report anything under $600.

So my question is, do I still report I paid the $253 on Line 10, or should I report it on Line 11?

The instructions for Line 11 say that if you did not receive a Form 1098 from recipient, report your deductible mortgage interest on line 11. I DID receive the Form 1098, but as I explained, they didn't report the $253 in interest paid.

Instructions for Line 11 go on to say that if you bought your home from the recipient (does this mean if i paid off the mortgage?), be sure to show on line 11 the recipient's name and employer ID #; if i don't, i could be subject to a $50 penalty.

I guess I could try calling IRS tomorrow, but would rather avoid that particular pain if I can...

I did my barter with my neighbor. She got some booze which frankly I have no use for, and she gave me a bread machine she'd given her son, which he said he used only once.

I hope it works okay. I noticed the clear plastic window on the top is all scratched up, and I have no idea why that would be. I thought it rude to ask about that, since I am getting it free, and truth be told, she was going to give it to me anyway, regardless of whether I had something to trade her in return.

So maybe today I'll pick up all the special ingredients....the buttermilk, bread flour and dry yeast.

I bet "heads" for the Super Bowl toss and watched just that portion of the pre-game to see if I won a free pizza from Papa John's. I did! Hopefully will get the voucher emailed to me some time today. There's only one Papa john's in my vicinity, a 15-minute drive, but I guess it's worth it!

I enjoyed chit-chatting with my neighbor yesterday over tea when we did our barter. She's really great at scouring thrift stores and finding great deals (sometimes with their own repainting and refinishing), and yet her home always looks so upscale and luxurious. She's actually doing a lot of thrift store scouring these days because they're putting their 5,000 sf house on the market next month and she needs inexpensive, but good looking furniture to stage it.

She mentioned she has a ton of books and an 18-piece set of china she'll have ready for me if I want either/both next time I'm up there. She doesn't want to have to wrap and pack all the individual pieces of china (she has 2 other sets) and it wouldn't be practical to have to ship on Ebay. So I could be the lucky recipient. I haven't seen the china, but I really like her taste in general, so it could be very nice. As for the books, I have no idea what she likes to read, but I would be very interested to browse thru them.

So, I am going over to one of the places she mentioned today becus I can't resist. Just looking.

I have to run over to see if I can fix my mother's computer problem. I also need to get windshield wipers at WalMart.

I started my taxes but along the way discovered that the bank that held my mortgage never sent me the mortgage interest 1099-INT, and my chief freelance client never sent me a 1099 either. I'll have to call both. I mainly just need to know how much mortgage interest I paid this year as I already know what I earned from the freelance client.

I'm seeing The Author for tea on Tuesday.

Had a long talk Friday night with the woman who shares my job with me. She pretty much shares my feeling that they are getting the grand bargain of the year having us do their tedious and boring work for $12/hr. The same rate of pay for a bagger at Stop & Shop, I recently noticed.

Ahh, the weekend has arrived.

Although I only worked on three days this week (as usual), I took home work for the evening each night, and including this weekend, so I worked about 30 hours instead of the usual 20. I want to take advantage of it while the work is there; I will be furloughed, or work very few hours, come June, and that will last until fall. Hard to imagine I'll still be there at that time, but things have a funny way of working out.

I'm happy to see my investment portfolio is doing quite well in the bull market of the last two months. In the month of January alone, it gained $19,330. In December, it gained $4,200 from the month before. Nice.

I'll be starting my taxes this weekend. I went out of my way to the IRS field office in nearby town last week only to find even the IRS did not have any instruction manuals, just the forms. I had TRIED to call in advance to ensure they had them, but wouldn't you know you get a recording; no live person answers the phone. (The library didn't have anything either.)

I guess I'll just have to refer to the manual online. Not my preference, as the whole process seems so complex I often circle, underline and otherwise mark up my instruction manual to guide me. Hmpgh.

For 2013, I'm already in the red to the tune of $1,039; however, that's because I chose to pay off a $2,900 sewer loan that would otherwise have another 6 years to go. I would have come in well under expenses in January had it not been for that sewer loan thingy. I guess it will all even out in the long run, and of course I will save around $400 in interest. It was due to some of your comments here that I finally decided to pay it off. Comments specifically to the effect that the loan, small as it is, could make the difference between a perspective buyer going for my house or someone else's. So it's gone now.

A rather shocking discovery: the zeal with which I hit BJ's since a new one opened here led me to spend $500 on groceries, just for myself, in January. I usually try to keep it under $235.

Well, I am well stocked with all my favorite foods: a lot of frozen teriyaki chicken, salmon, chipotle bean burgers and bean burritos in the freezer, and quite a few canned goods, cat food, a case of toilet paper, you name, I bought it.

I'm making pretty good progress at greatly reducing sugar in my life. And just now I dumped all mu white flour; no more quick breads for me, I'm afraid, at least not until I can find some bread recipes using something other than white or wheat flour. Chalk it all up to the book I'm currently reading. See side panel.

My neighbor and I are going to barter. I cleaned out my liquor cabinet on a whim and decided I wouldn't ever drink it all, so she wants my vodkas and rum. In trade, she's giving me a gently used bread machine that her son used only once. So I really need to find some healthy grain flours to cook with. It was the book "Wheat Belly" that convinced me to lay off even whole wheat breads.

While waiting to hear from said neighbor about the liquor, I went and also offered it to The Author, who also took me up on the offer; luckily I had enough to give to both. So I'll be giving her the Jim Beam, the Irish cream liquor, the Frangelica and whatever else is left. Will see her for our usual coffee shop get-together on Tuesday, but she won't return to Demitasse, the coffee shop in Sandy Hook Center. Maybe one day she will. Those shops needs our business. She'll have another payment for me for the book editing. Yay.

In the month of January, I made $276 in "miscellaneous income," so I'm off to a good start. That includes:

Focus group, $100
Credit card bonus, $105
Online surveys, forums, $46 (Amazon gift cards)
Credit card gift card, $25 (Home Depot, saving it to buy vegetable seeds and seedlings for the garden)

I may go out this afternoon and try to prepare (aka saw) more logs (from Superstorm Sandy) in my driveway, small enough that I can pick them up and put them in my trunk to go to landfill. Each week I haul 4 or 5 of them. Little by little. I kind of sneak them off there becus if they're more than 4 inches in diameter, you're supposed to pay to dump them. Mine are probably 6 inches, and I don't want to pay. So there. (Other pieces are probably 20 inches in diameter. Really huge.) Otherwise, I have to pay big bucks to have someone come out and chip it all, which I'll likely have to do for the really huge cut wood anyway. And I don't want to ask my dad for help anymore; he's really too old to be doing that kind of work although he's got the pick-up truck. I have thought of barter, but don't really have something to trade. If I have to pay to chip some of it, at least I'll have mulch for the rest of the season.

I need to fine out if the superbowl will be on the radio. cus I want to watch the coin toss and see if i won a free pizza!

Snow started falling hours before it was predicted, but I managed to get out early and run a few errands before it really got going anyway.

I went to town hall to pay off the rest of my sewer loan. It came to about $2,900, and I just decided to take it out of checking. Now my checking account balance is down to about $1,400, which is uncomfortably low for me, but the money earns 0% interest so I figured this was better than cashing out part of a taxable mutual fund.

If I hadn't paid it off, I would still be paying that stupid bill until 2018. Six years. So I saved myself about $400 in interest.

Now I truly am debt-free. When I paid off the mortgage, I sort of forget about the sewer loan. Now it's gone.

They told me "Congratulations" and then I spent some time wandering up and down the long hallway looking at the piles and piles of what must be millions of cards sent from well-wishers from all over. For the shooting that took place a month ago. It was very touching. They must've had at least 30 tables set up so people could browse through them. I guess they didn't know what else to do with them when they were just addressed to the town in general.

I just got a new assignment from my #1 client, a corporate blog post on what happened at the International Builders Show in Vegas. I may start that tomorrow.

I made a deposit at the bank and returned some DVDs at the library and got more. (They take the place of regular TV for me these days, and keep me going til i get my Netflix in the mail.) I also got my emissions test out of the way. 13-year-old car, never had a problem with it not passing, luckily.

Today I haven't done much else except edit The Author's second book. I'm on the home stretch now. She still owes me $175; I don't really like to send it all to her finished becus then she'd lose an incentive to pay me, She's always been very good about payments, although we have no set schedule and no deadline for when the editing is to be done. She basically pays me when she has the money. Sometimes it's a long stretch in between payments.

I am eager to finish it so I can start book #3. I think she may recognize that she may never make a lot of money from these books, but I don't think that will quell her drive to keep writing. She has gotten some really good comments about the book on Amazon, so that has provided tremendous incentive to keep going. She is very lucky (I'm a little jealous) that her husband has a good enough job that she doesn't have to work, although she often complains that money's tight.

Tomorrow, after the snow has fallen, will be my running around day. BJs, Shop Rite, Pet Choice, the gas station, WalMart, the IRS field office. I know you can print tax forms out online, but I need the instruction manual too, and that's too much to print. I must be the only person left on the planet who does their own taxes without software or accountant.

In the very first year of homeownership, I was blessed to receive word from our friendly tax assessors of a mandatory $9,900 loan I would need to assume to help pay for our town's sewer treatment plant. Now I've been told often that I'm full of s***, but I'm not sure I generate $9,900 worth of s***, personally. But I didn't have much say in the matter.

It was a 20-year loan at 2% interest.

Each year, I'm faced with the unhappy annual tab. With interest, it comes to $605.48. There are no installment payments.

When you work p/t, for peanuts, a bill like this looms large. Now that I paid off the mortgage last summer, this ridiculous bill, plus the quarterly sewer usage fees, represented my fifth highest expense in 2012. (See, if I didn't religiously track all my expenses, all year long, I'd never know that.)

So now I'm toying with the idea of paying the darn thing off early. Doing so has its pros and cons.

Each year I pay $68 in interest. I called the assessor's office this morning and was told that under the current payment schedule, the loan wouldn't be paid off until 2018, 6 years from now. If I pay it all off now,early, the payoff amount would be $2,896. If I pay it off now, I save myself $68 a year x 6 years = $408.

However, if I wound up selling my house sometime within the next 6 years, I would have wasted some of that money since the loan goes with the house and under normal circumstances, whatever outstanding balance on the loan remained would be passed on to the new homeowner.

I think there's a pretty good chance I'll move within the next 6 years. I talk about wanting to downsize/reduce my expenses often. Yet talking about moving and doing so are two different things, and the thought of all the work required (not to mention, money) to get this house ready for market is, quite frankly, overwhelming when you consider it's all on me. And I have no spare change to make needed repairs right now when I know I'll be coming up short on just the usual monthly bills now that my unemployment benefits have gone the way of the dodo bird.

I'm still strongly leaning toward paying off the loan anyway. What do you think? Right now, as I look at my 2012 ranked expenses, it bothers me a great deal that "Sewers (usage/loan)" comes in the #5 spot, behind 1. COBRA, 2. property taxes/mortgage, 3. food and 4. heating oil.

It means I have to set aside $62 a month just to cover the sewer bill. If I pay off the loan, only the usage charge would remain, and that would come to about $11 a month.

I don't know, maybe this is all psychological. Pay it off now to improve my outlook now, as money's tighter than ever before, but face the possibility of losing a thousand dollars or so if I move sometime before 2018.

And while the $12,000 or so I've somehow managed to build up in my checking account and online emergency fund earn 0% and 1% interest, respectively, I think I shouldn't touch that since I'll likely be withdrawing slowly from that just to pay routine bills in coming months.

I would just cash out a portion of my taxable international mutual fund to pay for the sewer loan. This fund had a pretty good run in 2012....Hmmm.

Another weekly foray into the cavernous warehouse that we call BJs. I have spent way over budget on food there, but I was trying to wring out the maximum benefit before my 60-day "free pass" expires.

As I realize how nearly universal the cost savings are on many dozens of items there, I'm morphing from my former "I ain't gonna blow $40 on a membership fee" to something more like, "Gee, I could really lower my annual food costs if I buy from here consistently."

Of course there will be times when I'll want to fall back on my local Trader Joe's or Shop Rite. Cus, what the heck will I do with a gazillion pounds of sour cream, say, when all I really need is a cup for a quick bread I'm baking?

And there are certain things that BJs doesn't carry, I've discovered. Like farro, Quaker old-fashioned oats, steel cut oats and other stuff like pumpernickel bread.

Still, I'm tickled by the fact that unlike Costco, BJ's accepts coupons! If only I could remember to bring them.

I have painstakingly recorded so far the individual food prices of 23 food items I frequently buy. Of these, there have been only TWO cases where another supermarket had the same price as BJs (ground turkey at $2.49 a lb) or did slightly better, only because the supermarket cereal brand was a generic, compared to the BJs name-brand cereal (Cheerios).

But the prices on everything else have been quite impressive, from a low of 21% savings on Heintz ketchup to a savings of as much as 72% on pistachio nuts (BJs: 2.5 lbs at $4.99 vs. 6.99 a pound at Shop Rite). Paul Newman's salad dressing at BJs is also a great buy (55% savings).

A few other scores: 45% savings for 2 lbs of BJs organic quinoa at $4.99 vs. a pound of quinoa at Shop Rite for $4.56. Also, Amy's organic canned soups go for $1.66 each at BJs vs. $2.99 each at Shop Rite.

What's not to love?

I did see one anomaly, though. Inexplicably, 100 Bigelow organic green tea bags at BJs cost $8.49, while 100 Salada black tea bags at Shop Rite cost just $2.59. That's a 68% price difference in favor of Shop Rite. Is Bigelow an outrageously expensive brand to begin with? Is it just becus it's organic? I don't know, but I am a big tea drinker. Imay return these. I just can't justify buying everything organic. (I limit my organic buys mostly to the top 10 produce items on the Env. Defense Fund list of most heavily sprayed fruits and veggies.)

I may also return the six-pack of Glide dental floss I got for $12.99 at BJs. Cus it's the kinds of item I usually buy generic at Shop Rite. No need to pay extra for a brand name. I'll have to price it next time I'm at Shop Rite.

I was delighted with the frozen organic 3 lb bag of mixed berries at BJs at $9.99, compared to the stingier 12-ounce bag I get at Trader Joe's after shelling out $3.49. Savings: 31%, at BJs.

The icing on the cake is that shopping at BJs is a leisurely, unhurried experience without the crowds we all know and love at Costco. That's because it's a brand-new BJs store, and I suspect that more people will be arriving in coming months after their memberships at Costco expire. (This, after Costco raised their basic membership fee to $55. Hmph.) Most people would probably not find it sensible to have two concurrent warehouse store memberships running.

Seeing as how food represented my third greatest expense in 2012 after 1. the mortgage/property taxes and 2. COBRA, I would love to see my average monthly spend of about $230 come down.

My mother and I frequently exchange finds at BJS and I have shared my price book with a few girlfriends.

Oh...another good buy at BJs is dark chocolate squares, Ghiardelli's or Hershey's.

The one thing I worry about is seeing "price creep" after people join. You know, they lock you in as shoppers once you plunk your membership fee down and then they hike up costs all over the store. What's to stop them? Scary.

When I came home from work Thursday night to a dark house, I noticed a dim light coming from the kitchen. That's odd, I thought. I walked in there and found that the freezer door was wide open! Since i have been over-stuffing the freezer with all kinds of food items from BJs while I have the free 60-day pass (a brand-new BJs just opened in my area), I suspect that what happened is some food item fell off a shelf inside and knocked against the freezer door enough to open it. Perhaps it was only slightly ajar, but I have no doubt that once Luther investigated, he pried the door open even further, because he's a pro with kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

The funny thing was, the fridge was NOT running continuously, and even when I closed the door, it didn't start up again immediately. So perhaps I won't have a high electric bill due to the freezer running constantly.

And then there's the question of, is the food safe to eat? If the door was open when I left, it would have been open for as much as 10 hours before I got home. But I really have no idea.

Some of the small baggies of ground turkey did feel soft when I squeezed them, though still somewhat frozen in the center. Now I have eaten a lot of food that lingered unfrozen or partially thawed from Storm Sandy becus I hate to waste food. And so last night i had pasta with turkey meatballs (from the freezer). I feel fine. So I will continue to eat the food, but do so on days I'm not working, in case something doesn't agree with me.

So, I had some thoughts earlier about re-purposing the 200-odd stories I'd written for a website that folded. (The place that laid me off, sending me a wonderful journey called, Surviving Without a Job.) Getting a few published at other websites, even if for no pay, just to have some fresh hyperlinks around and available to embed in my resume.

I approached womanaroundtown.com this morning, and she liked my story idea, which seems very topical to me. The website's audience is urban women, mostly in the NYC area. I'll have to rejigger a story I'd written on my chosen subject because it was actually done in 2009, so a lot can happen in 4 years, plus I need to gear it to a different audience. Want to make sure it's all still accurate, etc. Now the question is, when will I get around to doing this?

Recycling these old stories will actually take just as much time as writing a new one but they can still serve as a kind of springboard. Still, I definitely can't afford to spend oodles of time on this when I should be focusing on earning income, period.

I still have about 70 pp to go on editing The Author's second book. Beyond that, I can look forward to editing her third book as well, since she asked me what it would cost and I gave her a price. That would make 2013 the third consecutive year I've edited a book for her....

I also have to finish up a condo sales brochure this weekend by interviewing a builder for their bio, and my real estate brokerage contact indicated there'd be another community that needs a brochure too when I finish this one. So... nice to have some money coming in, just as unemployment benefits wrap up.

I'm doing my second load of laundry now, and after that, I'd like to wash the comforter itself. Can't make the bed til FedEx delivers my Amazon shipment, which includes a new mattress cover.

I also hope to bake some banana walnut quick bread with some overripe bananas I've got. (You can freeze the bananas, right? Keep them in the peel?)

I vacuumed both floors already; they really needed it. I am also bleaching a bowl of pinecones I've collected; I did this before, around the holidays. It takes a fair amount of time for them to finally bleach out (better part of a day), but they look very attractive. If you don't like dark brown stuff, they bleach out to a light tan color which I like.

Plan to hit Trader Joe's and BJ's this weekend, though it's Shop Rite where I still have over $100 worth of unused gift cards.

The BJ's membership is actually pretty reasonable, just $40 as compared to Costco, which increased to $55. I am sort of tempted to go for it, but the game plan now is to just stock up like crazy on stuff til my temp free pass lasts, til end of February. I have very limited freezer space, so of course I can't bulk buy a lot of what I like to buy, like the teriyaki frozen chicken breasts, or the 3-packs of soy milk, etc. Or fresh produce. It really comes down to canned or packaged stuff, plus big boxes of cat litter, maybe some TP and facial tissues. I've tried pricing out the toilet paper to compare to prices elsewhere, or maybe at WalMart, but it's so hard to do that because they all contain different sized packages and jumbo rolls vs regular, etc. I swear they do that on purpose.

Oh, this week's big news on the health front is that my left ear is no longer clogged. It had been all plugged up from a cold/virus I got the week before Thanksgiving. So it took about 9 weeks (!!) to resolve. I am still getting lots of clicking in both ears when I swallow, but at least I can fully hear now and no longer live in a muffled world.