I'm really amazed.

While I was sick, I lost 7 pounds (!!) but I was quite sure I put it all back on when I started on the Prednisone, which is known to increase one's appetite. I distinctly remember one period where I ate pasta four meals in a row! That's how hungry I was.

So after putting off a weigh-in, I stepped on the scale this morning, and was amazed to see I'm holding steady at 140 pounds, just 5 lbs. shy of my Dating Dr. Bob weight 5 years ago.

While I was sick, I read William Davis's best-seller, Wheat Belly. And while I'd like to give a wheat-free diet a shot, I don't anticipate giving up wheat products entirely, at least not to the degree he advocates. But anyways, I haven't really purged wheat from my diet.

So what accounts for the weight loss, even despite the Prednisone?

It wasn't hard to figure out. Sugar.

Since I'd been on antibiotics for weeks, and since I've had problems with intractable yeast infections in the past, I was rather obsessively preoccupied with ensuring I wouldn't come down with another yeast infection. So I eliminated the many foods and ingredients that feed a yeast imbalance: cheese, bread and yes, SUGAR.

I drastically cut back on sugar in my diet these last 3 weeks. Although I always felt I ate a healthy diet, sugar is hidden in everything, and you won't know it unless you look for it.

I always read ingredient labels when food shopping, but truth be told, I would usually be looking at saturated fats, sodium and unhealthy preservatives. Sugar was not something I really paid attention to.

Years back I got hooked on Kozy Shack rice pudding. I figured it was a healthier alternative to cookies or ice cream. That may be true, but it's still loaded with sugar.

The kefir yogurt drink that tastes so good. LOADED with sugar! As is most commercially made yogurt, even my favorite, the "healthy" alternative, Stonyfield Farms. I can no longer justify eating their yogurt, organic or not, because of the high sugar content. 25 grams of sugar in a 6 oz. container!

Even the vanilla version of coconut/almond/soy milk is also quite high in sugar. You have to read EVERYTHING.

Of course, those coconut macaroons I recently found, are also filled with sugar. Oh, they tasted good.

About the only sugar I'm allowing myself now is that found in fresh fruit. The fruits higher in natural sugars include bananas, pineapple and mango. I happen to love those fruits, so jury's still out whether I'll ban those from the diet. In fact, I know I won't.

I also still like Trader Joe's reduced sugar jams: apricot, blueberry and raspberry all come in at a reasonable 6 grams of sugar per tablespoon.

So anyway, it had to be the sugar. It's funny, with all the diets out there, I never hear anyone talking about sugar. Sugar converts into glucose, which in turn converts into stored fat, so it makes sense to monitor sugar intake as well as be conscious of the glucose levels of different foods.

For that reason, I don't think it would be too hard to switch over from whole wheat bread (which shockingly has a glucose level nearly equal to white bread), to pumpernickel, which has a significantly lower glucose level.

I don't know how long I can sustain the radically low-sugar diet, but I'm going to try, monitoring my weight as I go. I'm not going to go crazy and try to eliminate condiments like ketchup from my diet, and I don't have the time to make my own, so there will have to be some compromises. But excess sugar brings with it a lot of problems like accelerated aging
and inflammation in the body, not to mention diabetes/obesity.

So this shall be my first resolution for 2013. Closely watch sugar intake!

A couple of hefty expenses coming due in December/January:

1. Property taxes (twice annually): $3300
2. Quarterly estimated federal taxes: $600
3. Oil for heat: Estimated $600+

I got my amazon delivery two days early, so I dug in last night and started reading Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Adventure.

It's pretty interesting, and an awful lot of time is spent describing the nature of the ice and how it heaves and pounds against the stranded ship. I was a little dismayed early on my reading to learn they had about 60 sled dogs on the ship. I say dismayed because I really try to avoid exposing myself to any descriptions of animal cruelty or hardship. I'm just a huge animal lover. And I suppose the men on the ship will end up eating the dogs to survive, or else the dogs will die. Oh well.

I also watched a Netflix movie last night, Of Gods and Men. It was about 7 French Trappist monks who care for the poor in Algeria. These are extremely pious men who spend their days praying, chopping firewood and selling their honey to the villagers. They are not young men.

The highlight of the movie for me was when one of them, as a special Christmas eve treat, plays a tape of The Nutcracker during their simple dinner. They are rapturously uplifted by the music. The camera lingers on each face lifted in joy and wonder at such beauty. It was really well done.

Then Islamic extremists kill some Croatians in the village. The monks are urged...begged... to leave by the French embassy and others. A young girl has her throat slashed becus she didn't wear a veil. The extremists even break into the monastery one night demanding medicine for wounded comrades.

Still, the monks decide not to go. They discuss it over and over again. Some say they didn't come there to become martyrs. In the end, they all agree to stay, and shortly after, they're kidnapped and held captive by Islamic extremists. Two of the 7 hid and were not found. Later, the kidnapped monks are killed. The 2 that remained lived on, one for another 10 years and the other died maybe 5 years ago. It was a true story.

I saw the ENT (ear nose & throat) specialist today about my plugged up ears.

There will be no magic bullets. The preferred course of action is to simply wait for my ears to drain. It could take two to three months.

The other alternatives include perforating the eardrum to allow the fluid to drain, but there's no guarantee the ear won't close up again in a few days. Or, they could make an incision and put a tube in there, but that is not without possible complications and requires monitoring. His preference...and mine...is to take the wait and see approach.

He had me make an appointment in two months time. That's mid-February. If my ears clear up before then, I can feel free to cancel the appointment. If they don't, then intervention will be needed.

Some people, he said, can't stand not being able to hear and want to do the procedure right away. I'd prefer a less invasive (and less costly) approach.

He didn't think the antibiotics I'm still on are doing that much, and that after 3 weeks, I've probably been on them long enough. He did think I should continue with the nasal spray my APRN gave me; luckily, she gave me two free samples, so I didn't require a new prescription.

On the way home from the doctor's, I stopped at the library and picked up 5 DVDs to watch. Not having cable TV, and only getting Netflix about 4 times a month, things have gotten very boring around here. So I'm glad I got the DVDs.

I was also able to return some overpriced groceries my mother bought me 3 weeks ago when I first got sick. $4 for a can of Amy's organic soup is just too much, and $4 for a quart of soy milk.

The Author stopped by and paid me with a $100 bill, the latest installment on her book editing. She now owes me a balance of just $275.

Ah, let's see. This must be day 23 of being sick, if you count from the first day i started feeling I was coming down with something. Ridiculous, right?

Tomorrow I see the ear, nose and throat specialist. Just getting a "timely" appointment was a feat in itself. At first they said "no openings this week" with any of the 4 doctors. Then they found me a space. It's not the doctor my APRN wanted me to see and whom I've heard many good things about, but the one I am seeing did train at the Mayo Clinic.

Last night I watched This Is It, Michael Jackson's DVD. Aside from my feeling rather sad throughout the whole thing, knowing he never got to perform at the 50 sold-out London concerts he was preparing for, I was most fascinated by one of the "extra features" on the video, which featured an interview with the designer of Michael's over-the-top outfits. They all featured those built-up shoulders and tons of Svarovski crystals. The lengths they went to, not just with his attire but with every aspect of his performances, was really interesting.

I am hopeful to achieve one goal today: to bring a growing pile of trash to the landfill. I have been putting it off, day after day.

Tomorrow, since I have the doctor's appointment, I was also hopeful of doing grocery shopping afterwards, as my stockpile of food is getting rather low.

I am SO eager to get back to my normal routine, and I've been keeping a growing list of Things to Do for when I get better. If I could knock some of those off here and there, so much the better, but I don't want to start running around and then see a return of my cold symptoms, as that happened last weekend.

I have an Amazon delivery set for this Monday and have been wishing I had it sooner so I'd have something to read. Using free Amazon gift cards I earned through my assorted forum participation, I ordered a stainless steel brownie pan and two books, one of which will interest frugalites. It's called How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life. The other was a best-seller, I believe, on Shackleton's Incredible Voyage; it's about the Antarctica explorer who got stranded on the ice, and survived. I always like reading survival-type stories. I read both of Jon Krakauer's books, On Thin Ice and Into the Wild.

So last weekend, after I had a kind of relapse, I emailed the woman I report to at the p/t proofing job and explained my situation in great detail. I told her I didn't want to jeopardize my job there due to excessive absences, but that my first priority has to be to get better. I asked for one more week off. She acknowledged the note, but i really don't know if my job will be waiting for me when/if I return to work on my next scheduled days, Wed/Thurs/Fri of next week.

If I don't, I'm rather up the creek as to income. I already gave up the driving job, and I don't regret that decision. But the loss of the proofing job leaves me with just my highly sporadic freelance income. I had a very good November, income-wise, but December could prove to be much worse. The weeks before Christmas are typically slow for many things, including getting new freelance assignments, job interviews and the like.

All the worry is counter-productive, since it all means nothing if I'm still not better. Doing what I can to get better! Still on the antibiotics. This a.m. was the last prednisone pill. Seeing ENT doc tomorrow. I'm dosing myself heavily with acidophiles, to make sure I don't get a secondary yeast infection from all the antibiotics. Also taking calcium and Vit. D. due to the prednisone. And also consuming 3 to 5 cloves of raw garlic daily, since it's an anti-bacterial agent. Along the same lines, I'm using cinnamon whenever possible and shying away from foods that contribute to yeast, like milk, cheese, bread and sugar. And just trying not to over-exert myself or tire myself out. At least until I'm sure the underlying infection has been vanquished.

I had been positively thrilled to have lost a good 6 lbs from being sick, but then i started taking the steroids, which really increase your appetite, and I knew I was eating rather heartily. So I've been afraid to step on the scale becus my fear is i gained back all the weight. Aargh.

The only other thing I feel up to doing here and there is continuing to edit The Author's second book. I have over 100 pages to go, and it's very slow going because her writing requires a LOT of edits. I also take my time with it because she still owes me $375 on it and she's always scraping for money. She mentioned dropping another partial payment in my mailbox the other day, but half the time when she says something like that, she doesn't. I could use the extra cash right now.

One would think that after three years of underemployment, my retirement savings plan has gone deep underground, hibernating until an unknown time when my savings can "spring" forth.

Although my retirement savings goal, refined by repeatedly plugging in the numbers in retirement calculators and other detailed analysis (Vanguard, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price), had been $1,250,000 for quite some time, and despite the market meltdown that was 2007, and despite continued underemployment with no end in sight, I don't feel that all is lost.

I could not sleep tonight with my infection, so I got up and was playing around with Kiplinger's nifty calculator (http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/recoup_your_savings_calculator/index.html)

This one was designed to help investors determine how many years it would take to recoup money lost in the market meltdown of 2007. You just plug in the total investments you had just prior to the meltdown. If all you want to do is see how long it will take to reach a certain balance, based on a given interest rate and level of annual contributions, it can do that for you.

So instead of using it to see how long it would take me to recoup money lost in the market meltdown (my balances show I already did that, by about $50K), I plugged in $750,000 as my new goal and the $515K I have now. I also indicated I wanted to reach $750K in 7 years, by the time I'm 60, and I assumed a very modest 5% interest rate. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I would only need to save $2,964 a year (or $247 a month) to reach that goal.

(If I plug in 6%, 7% or 8% interest rates to reach $750K in 6.5 years, I keep getting negative numbers for the monthly savings rate required, which tells me I would have to save a really minimal amount of money yearly.) This is all along the lines of what Dido told me a while back, that I could almost reach my savings goal simply by staying the course and earning a reasonable rate of return.

I could make retirement work with $750K in savings.

Just for fun, I plugged in my target number as $1,000,000, again giving myself 6.5 years, to age 60, to save it. (I don't want to work full-time for long.) Earning just 5% on investments, it would be an uphill climb. I'd have to sock away $32,207 a year, or $2683 a month.

However, if I assume a more reasonable long-term interest rate of 8% (stocks did about 15% this year), then I'd only have to save $12,180 a year, or $1,015 a month.

IF I get a job,that is doable.

Since we are approaching year's end, I decided (for fun) to do a preliminary look at my 2012 expenses. While it's not all nailed down yet, it looks like my total expenses were in the neighborhood of $32,600. At first, that number looked much higher than I expected, since I have repeatedly crunched my "bare minimum monthly expenses" at $1800. So $1800 x 12 months = $21,600 about $11,000 less.

But then I forgot my bare minimum does not include paying the mortgage since I paid that off this past August/September. So my 2012 expenses included about $4200 in mortgage principal payments; without them, my 2012 spending would be about $28,400, although that's still a good $6800 more than what I've calculated my minimum expenses to be. I should be able to dig into why my expenses were that high once I have final December numbers. At this point, nothing else besides the mortgage payments jumps out.

At any rate, my total 2012 expenses at $32,000 were lower than in any previous year since I've owned this house. More typically,when I was working full-time, my total annual expenses ranged from about $40,000 to $43,000.

So my last day on the antibiotics was last Saturday. I am still on the steroids,meant to reduc ethe swelling in my eustachian tubes that is keeping my ears plugged up.

Yesterday (Sunday), I felt I had a little more energy, enough to finally start picking up the mess around here after 2 weeks of being sick. I even did 2 loads of laundry. My ears had improved, though the left was still more clogged. However, I noticed I sneezed 3 times during the day, and I still had the sense that the infection was still in my system, though all but one of the symptoms (my muffled hearing) had receded.

Last night everything reversed. I was up most of the night coughing. Stuffy nose, blowing nose. Today that's continued, and no more energy leaps.

I read on the long warning list for the steroids, in big bold letters, that steroid use reduces your body's ability to fight infection. Great.

I understand why she put me on the steroids, to reduce the swelling in my ears. I TOLD her that while my other symptoms had gone away, my sense was that the infection was not completely cleared up. She put me on the steroids anyway.

Now the steroids are dampening my immune system and the cold/infection is coming back. My ears are as clogged as ever and the ringing in them is back too.

Waiting for a callback from doctor.

Will I ever get better? Will I lose my p/t proofreading job due to being out so much, possibly/likely again this week, if I ever want to get rid of this thing? Will I lose my remaining few weeks of unemployment benefits due to losing the job due to being out sick too much? Will I be sick for Christmas, after missing out for thanksgiving?

Stay tuned to As the World Sinks.

In other news, I managed to make a quite delicious, ad hoc soup using what was on hand. I usually don't like to make a soup without a recipe becus it usually comes out too watery, or flat tasting or something else. But this one was a winner.

I was trying to avoid having to go out to buy groceries, so I threw together the following:

1/2 carton Swanson's organic chicken broth
About 2 cups of my own homegrown tomatoes, thawed from frozen
1/2 cup of wheat berries, cooked
1/2 cup Trader Joe's chopped organic spinach
1 can TJ's organic chickpeas, drained/rinsed
1 can TJ's organic kidney beans, drained/rinsed
1 small can tomato paste
4 leftover TJ's veggie wontons, cooked
garlic powder, parsley

It was very tasty. The wheat berries added a nice chewy texture to it all and the paste thickened it up nicely.

I've been in touch with my neighbor who lives behind me; she offered to drop off some homemade chicken soup with motzah balls tonight after work. Much appreciated, Laura.

When I get better, I have decided to spend $70 to get MagicJack Plus; it comes with free local/long distance calls for a full year, and if you don't like it, you can return for a refund within 30 days. It plugs right into your computer USB port.

Anyone use it? From what I could tell, it works with the slowest AT&T DSL of 3 mbps.

I am still not feeling great, but I have more energy, anyway. Today is the last day for the Zpack (antibiotics) and I'm continuing on the Prednisone thru Thursday. I have to remember to keep dosing myself with acidopholus to stave off the dreaded yeast infection that often comes with antibiotics.

I can hear pretty well out of my right ear, but it's the left that's still clogged pretty bad. I hope it continues to improve.

So I'm TRYING to catch up on so many things I let slide in the last 3 weeks.

Yesterday I managed to put in about 5 hours of work at the proofing job, then stopped to deposit some cash and checks at the bank. I also changed my flannel bedsheets and did my November expense and investment statement.

Year to date, I'm doing well. Even with my paltry income, after paying all bills and expenses, I've managed to save roughly $3,000, with a month left to go. And I was thrilled to get an early payment of a big freelance job I did, that came to about $1,034.

I did get a nice surprise at the proofreading job yesterday. Because of my extended illness, the holidays and their not having any work for me on one scheduled work day, this week was technically only the 2nd week I've worked there. (And I really, really hate the job, although the people are very nice.)

I saw from emails when I returned that they had given out a free turkey to each employee the week I was out. I figured I missed out, but I was surprised when I was leaving when the receptionist stopped me and brought me to the freezer, where a 12-pound turkey was with my name on it.

It actually will come in handy because I had just suggested to my mother that we recreate Thanksgiving in late January or February, and because I was sick, I hadn't been able to spend the $300 needed to get a free one at Shop Right last month. So this will make up for that nicely and save us all a few bucks.

Last night I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the most lucrative credit card reward to go after with my upcoming property tax payment. I was disconcerted to find there's nothing better out there for me than a $100 Capital One card.

Some of the better offers I've already taken advantage of. Some have an annual fee, which I won't do. Others are travel rewards cards, and I don't see any travel in my near future, and even when you read all the details on the card, they don't always say whether or not you can choose to redeem your points for gift cards. (Didn't feel like talking to a rep on the phone.)

Then I tried going after a PenFed credit union card ($150 reward). I realize you have to be eligible to join, and that's not too much of a hoop to jump through, even if you have to pony up the $15 to do so. But then they want you to open up a share account with at least $5. OK, did that. But THEN they require you to fax or email your last 2 years tax returns (!), and that I refuse to do. (Course doing so would also trigger rejection of my application since I'm not working full-time.) But even so, I don't think I would do it..it's just too personally invasive.

I mean, they can see from my credit report that I have an excellent history, paid off my mortgage and never had a late payment on anything. Oh well. There will be many more big property tax payments to come, so I can just keep looking for some new offer. There was a time $100 cash back seemed like such a big deal, and now compared to a few $250 rewards I got, it seems puny!

J., the guy I've been driving to work since July, told me he MIGHT have someone else who can drive him starting next week, after I told him I didn't want to do it anymore. He said it seems a bit "sketchy" as this guy doesn't live especially close, and even though the guy needs to drop off his kids close to where J.'s kids get dropped off in the morning, the rest of the drive taking J. to work is a royal pain, especially now that they're doing major road work on the main road. And the guy drives a non fuel-efficient truck, so even though he's out of work, I can't see how he'd think it'd be worth it for $20 a drive.

J. is going to let me know this weekend if the guy takes the job. I dearly hope he will so I don't have to continue driving J. this coming week. I'm really sick of it and it interferes with other things I want to do and certain other money-making opportunities.

Today I'm still not up for running errands, but I hope to do so, maybe as late as Monday/Tuesday since those are free days for me (aside from driving J.). Today I'll be content to do my laundry and try to clean up around here. The place is dying for a vaccum cleaning although that's a bit strenuous. I also need to make some soup as I'm dethawing some of my garden tomatoes.

On my errands list:
1. Return overpriced items my mother bought me when I was sick to 2 different grocery stores.
2. Grocery shopping
3. Bring trash to landfill, pick up mulch for my garlic (better late than never) and maybe drop off a few more chainsawed tree trunks from the storm.
4. Haircut badly needed
5. Bring trimmer and lawnmower into basement from garage.
6. Refill birdfeeder
7. Tell computer guy who charged me $100 to add more memory that my computer's still freezing up.

I've been laying low for a few months on the credit card rewards games. The last card I got was Citi Forward, a few months ago; it's paying for a year's worth of Netflix, and I occasionally charge something on it to make sure it remains active.

However, I just realized something very important! It's something I never knew before when I still was paying my mortgage all these years because the bank also handled my property tax payments for me through an escrow account.

Since having paid off the mortgage this past summer, I now, for the first time, get the property tax bill directly from the town. It no longer goes to my morgage bank. I took a look at the 2nd half of my property tax payment that is due January 1, and I see in tiny print that I can indeed pay my property tax with a credit card!

There is a convenience fee, and I haven't checked to see what that is yet, but I certainly think it would be worth it to cash in on a juicy rewards card. My upcoming payment, which represents half my annual property taxes, is $3300, more than enough to earn some nice rewards, or a good leg up to reach for some of the bigger spending requirements on some of the cards.

I don't have any airline travel in my near future, so free airline miles don't appeal. I am leaning toward the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from Amex.

You get 25,000 points ($250 in gift cards) after spending $5,000 in 6 months. After charging my property taxes, I'd only have to charge $1700 more, and I'd have 6 months to do it. Since I managed (with difficulty) to charge $2,000 in 3 months with the Amex Premier Rewards card, this shouldn't be too difficult.

There is an annual fee ($65) after the first year, so I'd need to watch it like a hawk and cancel before that first year is up.

If you know of a sweeter deal, I want to hear about it!

On the health front, I started taking Prednisone today after seeing the doctor AGAIN. She believes my initial infection is gone but the ears remain clogged, and the Prednisone SHOULD bring them back to normal as quickly as a day and a half. LET'S HOPE SO. I made an appointment with an ear nose and throat specialist but cancelled it to give the Prednisone a try. It may restore my faith in my APRN.

There's a couple who live in the house behind me up on the hill that I really like. I'm very sad because after living here about 10 years, they plan to move and put their house on the market in March. They are the nicest people. They had me over for a hot meal during our extended power outage/Hurricane Sandy. They have to move becus her husband lost his job and their house, which is huge and was in the middle of renovations, is too much to keep up, especially with the inflated property taxes.

She also is out of work but recently picked up a low paying, but f/t here in town. She hopes to use the income from it to complete their home renovations and ready the house for market. Their plan is to move to Tennessee and buy a smaller home with cash. I will be very sad to see them go. Good neighbors are not always easy to find.

Well, I didn't want to be a complete downer, so I refrained from posting yesterday when I was having a little pity party.

No Thanksgiving for PatientSaver; she was too sick to do anything and so my family 'cancelled' the holiday until further notice.

It was last Friday (a week ago) when I dragged myself to my doctor's office and my APRN prescribed an antibiotic. I called her 3 days later, on Monday night, complaining that I really didn't feel much better. She said I hadn't given it enough time, to give the meds another day or two.

Well, another "day or two" was Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and by the time I thought to call her back when I STILL wasn't feeling better, their office had already closed for the long weekend.

So I basically was crossing my fingers all week and hoping and waiting for the drugs to really kick in. They never really did. Well, most of my worst symptoms (the earache, fever, chills and nighttime cough that wouldn't quit) are gone, but my ears are still completely muffled, and have been, since last Wednesday.

I spoke this morning to a friend of a friend who is a retired emergency room nurse. She suggested going to a walk-in clinic rather than simply waiting another 3 days til my doctor's office reopens. I have to agree.

I found a clinic in a nearby town and went there this morning. The waiting room was packed with very sick people, all of whom, I presume, were in the same fix I was in: their normal doctor's offices were closed for the holiday.

I saw the guy and he prescribed a different antibiotic (amoxicilin, 875 mg) and Sudafed for the muffled ears. Another 10 days worth.

It wasn't til i was walking to my car that i realized by reading the paperwork that the guy i saw wasn't even a doctor: he's a Physician's Assistant! I sure hope he knows what he's prescribing, becus at this point, I don't feel I can mess around with my health any longer.

At the least, they should tell you in advance if you're not going to see a real doctor.

I've already lost 2 full weeks of work from 2 p/t jobs, work that I won't be able to make up. I haven't calculated it becus it's too depressing, but it's probably at least $600 I've lost in income this month, not to mention another $100 in doctors' bills and meds.

T-giving was a non-event. All around pretty depressing.

I am still feeling pretty sick and only slightly improved since I started taking antibiotics Friday night. I started getting concerned about possibly having a drug-resistant bug, so I called the doc's office today and just got a call-back from her.

She said it was still too soon for me to really be feeling a positive effect from the meds and it would be a few more days. Keep hydrated and stay the course, she said.

So oh well. I'll have been sick a full week as of tomorrow. What a waste in so many ways.

The 2 most bothersome things are 1. The infection is squarely located in my middle ear and my hearing is totally clogged in both ears, to the point where I can barely hear the phone ring. And 2. When I lay down to sleep at night, I start coughing within minutes and cannot stop coughing. The only thing that helps is sitting up in bed and waiting for it to pass, but then as soon as I lay down again, it starts again. This continues all night long. The funny thing is, I've been laying in bed all day without coughing. It's only at night.

I did get 2 deliveries of groceries from dear mom in the past few days, but she got each of the "orders" partly wrong, and I will be returning a good portion of each bag of groceries. I asked for soup and she got me soup at an expensive grocery store called Caraluzzi's where the 4 cans of soup came to $16. Kind of a crazy price.

I also asked her specifically for cough medicine, but she wound up getting me a multi-symptom pill (non-drowsy formula) which is not really what I wanted. Oh well. There's a ton of product on the shelf and a lot to read, I guess.

I did also get 2 very nice emails from the guy whose book on business ethics I edited. It's possible he may be "interested" in me, or at least curious. He has, in fact, proposed we meet after the holiday. He's too old for me, I would say, although he's a few years younger than my friend Ron, who was one of my signficiant relationships when I was in my 20s. The age difference seemed to matter less then but now 12 years would be a kind of a yawning chasm. With this person, I think the age difference would be 9 years.

Anyway, he's managed to get a customized pitch out with the manuscript to 8 or so targeted textbook publishers. Now he's onto setting a closing date....this month...to move into a very old home in a very good town nearby. And he's cooking T-giving dinner for his ex and 2 of 3 kids.

My accompishments today consisted of informing the billing company responsible for my mammogram that they billed the wrong insurance company. It took 3 phone calls to get to the right place, but I will be relieved not to be responsible for a $443 radiology charge! I also paid my phone/Internet bill online. I read the Sunday paper and I got my Amazon delivery that included 2 books, so I certainly have reading material now.

I have a feeling we're going to have to postpone our Thanksgiving dinner due to my illness.

In the never-ending merry-go-round of random part-time jobs I've held in the past 3 years, I decided this morning to tell Jason next time I see him that I don't want to drive him anymore.

It will mean the loss of $510 monthly income, which is not insignificant in my budget, but I will have to somehow make up for that in other ways.

It's just gotten too tiring and the payoff is really borderline, once you subtract gas cost and wear and tear on my car. The latter is a biggie for me since I need my 13-year-old car to last me for a long, long time as replacement is out of the question at the present time.

Just to pick J. up and get him to work one time (and dropping the kids off at daycare) requires 75 minutes of driving by me, door to door. For that I earn $20. Multiply that by twice a day and you've got 2.5 hours of daily driving, albeit all local, on the same darn road. Even with a fuel-efficient Honda, I sure aren't getting rich.

Plus, now that the days are shorter, I am doing the entire afternoon drive home in the dark, always in heavy commuter traffic on a busy two-lane highway, with the headlights of SUVs and trucks in my eyes. Once I pick up the kids with him and drop them all off at home, it's back into the traffic once again to drive myself home. I'm really getting sick of this one road! Having to do all this during a snowstorm is really something I dread, especially the windy, hilly road that goes to his kids' daycare place.

He's not going to be happy about it, but I need to do this for my owny sanity. I'll give him 2 weeks to find someone else. I know so much about this guy just becus we often talk in the car, so I do wonder how he'll manage, and i feel bad for him, becus he is a super sweet guy who's really dealing with a lot of hardship right now (of his own doing, with the DUI) with everything he has to do, but bottom line is, i have to worry about me first. I did it for 4 months and now it's time for something better. I think it's the right decision.

Three pills into the antibiotics and still waiting for them to really kick in. The fever and earache's gone and I am feeling more energetic today, but my hearing is still completely muffled, I'm still hacking away with a cough and my nose is clogged. I've already wasted a week of my life on this and now I'm impatient to be better.

I am also feeling a little hungrier and for dinner I roasted my own sweet potato wedge fries in olive oil, salt and pepper. My "dessert" is a jarred container of Polar pear slices. Sort of reminescent of the fruit cocktail my grandmother would feed me as a child except that this is a much better quality fruit that is actually firm the way a pear should be. In a light syrup, but not overly sweet. They periodically go on sale at Shopt Rite for $1 each and I like them as a portable snack to go or just when I'm in the mood.

Despite feeling miserable, I am sort of thrilled to see that I lost 5 pounds from being sick and am down to 140. Just 5 pounds away from what i weighed when I dated Dr. Bob.

It's not surprising since i've had no appetite and have skipped several meals in exchange for something simple and light...a lot of apples, for instance.

I caved today and was able to get the one remainining opening with my longtime APRN, who feels like a personal friend. She's the one who's seen me through the Lyme disease, the poison ivy, my physicals and of course, an untold number of nasty viruses and colds.

I was trying to tough it out without seeing her to save the $30+, but after a full week of being sick, I'm exhausted by sickness.

My ears have been pounding since Wednesday and everything is muffled. 100.5 fever, chills, cough, bellyache, congestion.

She was very certain that what I have is a bacterial infection (and thus, responsive to antibiotics) simply by dint of the length of time I've had it, but also, she said, "becus that's what it looks like."

When i told her the worst thing was the white noise in my ears and the earache I've had, and then she confirmed my complaint by looking in my ears, she got all excited and said, that's what makes my day! When the patient's complaint is borne out by clinical exam! (Or something to that effect.) She's funny.

She couldn't believe i had waited so long before seeing her, to save on the co-pay, and she even told me a back door way to get in to see her where she wouldn't have charged me a co-pay, she said, becus i'd just been to see her about a month ago for my Lyme disease.

Anyway, I popped a pill and am so anxious to start feeling better. she also gave me 2 nasal sprays (free samples) to help with the congestion.

I have to say I sort of blew up at the guy at Walgreen's. I'd been hacking away, beads of sweat on my face and all around feeling miserable hunched over in a corner chair at Walgreen's pharmacy waiting 20 minutes for the prescription even though other customers came and went. He informed they they were out of the drug and could only fill half of it and could i come back on monday to get the rest. I angrily suggested they deliver it and he quickly agreed when he saw how upset i was. I mean, they should do that as a matter of policy if they are out of medication. I did apologize for yelling at him, but i still feel bad becus he looked so startled. I may have to buy him a box of candy or something and apologize again when i'm better. I have very little patience sometimes; it's not something I'm proud of.

The people at the proofreading job, plus the other proofreader who I "share" the job with have been trying to help me out becus I didn't work at all this week due to being sick and I would miss most of my workdays next week due to the holiday plus Friday. The other gal offered to let me work her half of Wednesday so i could at least get one full day of work in that week. She didn't have to do that.

Bummer. I'm coming down with something. Symptoms aren't really bad yet, but I'm very tired and slept poorly the last few nights.

I had to drag myself out of bed to drive J. this morning. When I got back home around 9 am, there was a message waiting for me from proofreading job saying I didn't have to come in today cus they were (temporarily) all caught up. so that was a relief. I do have to make it in Thursday and Friday though.

I ordered a box of super cheap checks from Walmart for $10, only to discover last night box #2 and 3 hidden elsewhere in my desk! I guess I won't be changing banks anytime soon cus I now have a gazillion checks.

Before I got sick, I was able to drag some more white pine branches down to the curb and I called to let them know they could pick them up. I have so many more branches, but they are in pockets all over the yard, and I don't want to do it now that I'm sick. I feel exhausted just thinking about it. The town's deadline for doing so is this Friday, so I guess that's that.

I also managed to throw about 10 or so smaller limbs in the trunk of my car and I hauled them to the dump myself. Some of the logs are just too big for me to handle by myself....20 inches in diameter!

I earned another $40 worth of Amazon gift cards for month of November, but for time being I'm just sitting on them. I was toying with the idea of getting a second, smaller slow cooker in the 3 quart range. The one I have now is 6 quart, and sometimes the slow cooker recipes call for a smaller or bigger sized slow cooker. If the slow cooker is not filled up to at least the three-quarter mark, the food really doesn't cook well. So things like desserts or breakfasts would do well in the smaler size.

I am hoping to get paid by my main client for the $1100 job I submitted a week or so ago before Christmas. She said she was just waiting to hear from J. what code to give it. They let so many invoices fall thru the cracks I have to be constantly on top of them. The money is targeted for my emergency account and is especially important since unemployment benefits will end for good 12/31/12. It's going to be a freaky time as, barring a job offer right away, I will be dipping into savings to the tune of maybe $500 a month, even with driving J. and the proofreading job unless I can consistently drum up at least that amount in monthly freelance income. I think it's doable.

My paltry Christmas spending is pretty much set. By using a combination of gift cards I've earned from credit card rewards, things I have made (hypertufa troughs) and (is this tacky?) one pre-owned item (it's for my sister, who buys used stuff on eBay all the time), my out of pocket should be about $15!

I don't have many people to buy for to begin with. This year I decided to buy a set of 4 movie tickets for J. and his 2 kids and girlfriend to use. The movie theater is right here in town and it costs just $2 per ticket. I thought it would be perfect for them since they often have kid-friendly/family type movies there (which is why I only go infrequently...wanted to see Hope Springs, but missed the matinee on Tuesday).

I had to give up my computer for a day and a half due to a desperate need for more memory. I think he said I now have 8 gig? My computer was locking up, literally every 5 or 10 minutes, and then I'd have to wait several minutes for that spinning circle to do its thing. It was driving me nuts, but I had so much freelance work I couldn't give the computer up. finally I did so Tuesday into Wednesday.

I usually hit Ikea just once or twice a year; it's about a 50-minute drive from my home, and although I like much about the store, I often forget about it when looking for certain basics.

I'm still transitioning from plastic food storage containers to glass. No excuse for not completing that changeover; while I have been using all glass food storage for handling leftovers or lunches, I was still using plastic for larger purposes, like storing flour, sugar and oatmeal.

So I decided to go there today and spent about $60 on 6 glass containers with lids as well as a very nice flatware set (4 five-piece place settings of stainless steel with wood handles for $30).

I've been using my grandmother's silver-plated flatware for years, but on a few pieces, it appears the silver plating is flaking off, and it would seem prudent to not use it if it means possibly ingesting any of that.

I took some photos of the flatware and have sent them off to a place online that will help you identify what pattern you have and possibly purchase your silver-plated or sterling silver pieces.

Though it seemed like a pretty good deal when, earlier this year, I purchased a nice glass pitcher with lid on amazon for $9, I found a comparable pitcher at Ikea for $5. Hmph.

I was also tickled to find small desk lamps ($20) that require no electricity, as they are solar-powered! Given my recent 6 days with no power after Storm Sandy, this seemed like a fantastic idea. Ultimately, I decided not to buy one as the description said it would only produce light, fully charged, for 3 hours. And then you'd have to remember to put it in a place where it received strong sunlight, if you wanted it to charge.

The other item I almost bought, but didn't, was a rustic looking large box covered in banana leaves. I admired its functionality, as it folded flat and was made very cleverly, I thought.

Did I mention I watched Forks Over Knives the other day (Netflix)? If there weren't a more compelling case made for not eating meat, I don't know of it. I decided to purchase a copy of the DVD for my friend with prostate cancer. I suspect, sadly, that he would rather prepare to die of prostate cancer than change his diet.

I do really like Ikea's kitchen and lighting sections, and their storage stuff, but am not so keen on their textiles; Scandanavian patterns on bedding or linens just don't resonate with me.

I had another $40 worth of Amazon gift cards, and i couldn't resist ordering 2 books and a DVD: Wheat Belly, a book on punctuation and the Forks Over Knives DVD, for my friend. Wheat Belly is that book written by a cardiologist about why eating wheat is making us fat. His claim is that the "whole wheat" we eat today is very different than the bread our grandparents ate, and it's really not a natural food. I'm always interested in anything diet/nutrition related, and I got interested in this particular book after the guy I've been driving to work read it and was talking about it. As for the punctuation, I am getting more interested in the nuances and subtleties of punctuation and grammar now that I'm editing my third manuscript/book for a client.

I also won a $25 BP gas card through my participation on a BP forum. Yeah!

My sister is mostly estranged from me and my mother. When it's the two of us talking, we get along fairly well, but my sister quickly becomes short-tempered, grouchy, nasty and incommunicative with my mother. (Even with me, i mostly feel I have to walk on eggshells around her.) It's been like this for many, many years, and I've pretty much given up on my sister after so much anger and resentment that she treats us, her family, so poorly. I never had the kind of sisterly relationship many sisters seem to enjoy.

In the past year or so, my mother's experienced a number of health scares having to do with irregular heartbeat, severe, full-body arthritis pain and vaginal bleeding for unknown reasons.

When many of these events happened, my mother panicked, called 911 and was transported to the emergency room, sometimes for several days of tests. A few times she called me.

She's fine right now, but all of this stuff was kind of like the writing on the wall, meaning that at some point, my mother's going to have more serious health crises that my sister and I, as her only family, are going to have to deal with.

And for a very long time I've felt pretty much on my own when trying to help my mother out. Aside from the obligatory family dinners at major holidays and birthdays, my sister has nothing to do with us, even though she lives nearby.

Some of my mother's health issues have been extremely stressful for me to handle. When my mother was in extreme pain from the arthritis, there wasn't much I could do except urge her to see her doctors, etc.

And I've been getting increasingly resentful toward my sister that she does nothing to help out. Since my mother's third divorce many years ago, I've often felt my mother's trying to make me her "husband," coming to me to for help and reciting all the hassles or stressors of everyday life. She will relay every aspect of her experiences in excruciating detail (he said this, then I said that, then he said this....).

So basically, her stress becomes my stress. I'm not sure that's really fair, but for as much as I am a strong and independent woman, my mother is just the opposite. She acts very helpless and very needy, which drives me insane.

So last summer I wrote my sister a letter, basically asking her to step up to the plate and help me take care of our aging parents. My dad certainly has his share of health problems, but he never complains or asks for help, and he is 3 hours away anyway. (My 2 brothers are closer to him.)

I told me sister that while I knew that mom could be extremely difficult to deal with, it's still our obligation and responsibility as her daughters to help her in her advanced age,and that i needed to know she was willing to do that with me. A lot of it for me, I admit, is psychological. I'm not sure there was ever a lot I had to do for my mother physically, except drive her to or from the hospital, but I really could have used some emotional support from my sister.

I never got a reply to the letter. Which fueled my anger toward her.

Then my sister called me tonight to announce she was treating me and my mother to Thanksgiving dinner at a local inn. My mother always cooks, but it's a lot of work and may be just easier to eat out, though none of us is rolling in money. I told my sister I'd pitch in to pay for the meal; she said it didn't matter.

Then I asked if we could talk about the letter. And we did. I'm not sure we resolved anything, but I feel much better becus we were able to have a civil and candid conversation, about my mother. She said she has tried to be more patient with her, but acknowledged not much success. I told her I understood how she feels about my mother, becus i feel the same way, although not as extremely as my sister, and I do feel a strong sense of responsibility for my mom. I said, well, if you can't talk to mom, if would really be helpful if I could know that I could talk to her (my sister) about issues with my mother if her health issues recur. She had no problem with that.

She said she had a problem with my mother calling 911 multiple times for "frivolous" health issues when maybe she could have waited til morning and made an appointment with her doctor. I told her I didn't think they were frivolous, and that it really wasn't for either one of us to judge the validity or seriousness of my mother's health complaints anyway. We obviously weren't in her shoes.

The big difference between me and my sister, when it comes to my mother, I think, is that my sister seems to have no compassion or empathy for my mother at all. She's very hostile to her.

My mother's also gotten hard of hearing of late and practically everything you say to her has to be repeated. This is also annoying when you are together for any period of time. My mother doesn't want to wear a hearing aid, or be seen wearing one, so she hasn't had her hearing checked out, even though I think the hearing problem is also contributing to worsening relationships with her daughters.

My sister did have one good idea, to try to get my mother to move from her condo to one that's ranch style, becus the arthritis could really be a problem with her double flight of stairs to her current living space/townhouse.

At first, I didn't like the idea becus I know my mother has a lot of friends where she lives now and at her age i wouldn't want to see her go to a brand new place and not know anyone. But then I wondered out loud with my sister on the phone whether there might be ranch style units at the complex where my mother is now.

After we hung up, i went online, and indeed there are ranch style units there. They are slightly smaller, by about 130 square feet, but I think it could really make life easier for her down the road. Yeah, it's not easy for a 79-year-old woman to move, but to wait until there's another health issue and then it's really a crisis, would make it worse.

So I guess we were able to put some stuff on the table. Thinking about it more, I would really like to get my sister's email. Years ago she said she had stopped using the computer, but i really knew it was just that she was tired of getting constant emails from my mother and didn't want to give out her new one to us. Maybe if I promise not to share it with anyone.

This week has been a bit much. I'm now juggling 3 p/t jobs.

Here's what my work schedule will be moving forward:

Mondays: Pick up J. at 7:45 am, drop his kids at dayschool and drive him to work. Get home @ 9 am.

Do any freelance work during the day.

Pick up J. and his kids at 5 pm, bring them home. Get home around 6 pm.

Tuesday: Repeat Monday schedule.

Wednesday: Drive J. to work in a.m. only.

Go to my proofreading job at 12:30 pm thru 5 pm

Thursday: Go to my proofreading job 8:30 am to 4:15 pm, then leave to pick up J. at work and bring him to rehab place. Get home @ 5:30 pm.

Friday: go to proofreading job 8:30 am to 5 pm.

It's a lot of driving and running around. I'm really pretty tired of it especially as it requires me to get up and out of the house very early, and then i've got to head out again at day's end. But I don't want to give it up unless I find something better, and so far, that hasn't happened.

Today was day 3 at the proofreading job. It's still boring and tedious. Oh well. On the freelance side, I had to edit two court reports and write a press release.

We had a few inches of snow today, enough that I pulled my snow thrower out.

I'm really looking forward to doing nothing remotely resembling "work" this weekend. I watched Forks over Knives last night. I want to buy a copy for my friend R., who's preparing to die of prostate cancer sometime within the next 2 to 10 years. He's always had a terrible diet; i don't recall him ever eating anything except a hamburger, pizza or plain chicken.

He took pity on me on what I think was my last night without power and treated me to a steak dinner, plus he bought me a set of 3 LED flashlights with a battery pack. Very thoughtful. He wants to declutter and is leaving most of his money to his younger niece, who is now facing a divorce with 2 small kids.

Good Lord. I finally got my power back last night after 6 pm. I saw two utility trucks from North Carolina (go, North Carolina!!) in front of my house at about 2:30 pm, and they worked there for several hours. They also had to repair downed lines at all of my surrounding neighbors' homes. Then, inexplicably, the trucks left the scene, and still no power!

I was crushed. Talk about dashed hopes. I suspect there were more needed repairs further down the street before they could turn the switch.

I must say, after freezing my butt off at indoor temps of 52 degrees, my frugal daytime temp settings at 59 and 63 degrees (night and day) seemed positively balmy.

As sooon as I got power back, I threw a load of laundry in, got a simple (but hot) supper going, washed dirty dishes and later took a hot shower. Small creature comforts really make a difference.

My life had been reduced this past week to daily ice runs to try to keep my frozen produce going, a few stops at mom's for a shower and also the local library to check on emails. Nighttime entertainment consisted on huddling under the covers with a flashlight and my shortwave radio, mostly listening to either news coverage of the devastation in New Jersey or the Dave Ramsey Show.

I estimate so far my losses are in the neighborhood of $200. I had to spend $100 for someone to cut up the fallen trees, which is a bargain rate, however, he didn't have the capacity to haul the wood away or chip it, so I am still left with all that wood! I lost probably $50 to $75 worth of food and I spent about $15 on bags of ice. I also am upset to have a small hole in my vinyl siding; something like a windblown tree branch much have punctured it, and I'm sure that will cost me several hundred to replace.

I also had a frightening experience with my car brakes. As I was leaving mom's after a nice hot dinner and a shower, I discovered I had NO brakes. I mean, pedal was to the floor and no pressure at all. Luckily, I was able to coast to a stop in a parking space, but I had to have the car towed to my mechanic and the bill for replacing the 2 brake lines and fuel line, which had rusted to the point of falling apart and crumbling, was $666. Ouch. Still, it could have been much worse; I could have had an accident or been stranded somewhere on the road.

Here are pics of just my house and my neighbors across the street and on either side of me, to give you an idea of how much damage there was in a very small area....


This is a limb from a white pine that fell across the road directly in front of my house. The tree was actually on my neighbor's across the road from me. The storm hit full force Monday night, yet it wasn't cleared til several days later becus there were so many other blocked roads.


This is a fully grown white pine that came up at its roots and fell across my neighbors' lawn to the south of me. They are senior citizens, and I felt sorry for them that they had to pay to have this taken care of, as well as part of another white pine on a shared property line.


This is a humongus white pine on my property that was sheared off at about 10 feet high by the sheer force of the wind! I'd been wanting to get rid of this tree for years becus of its proximity to my house and roof. It could have so easily hit my house but by the grace of God, it fell into my side and back yard.


Here's another shot of same tree, shot from my upstairs bathroom window. the white rope you see was my unsuccessful attempt to pull down a branch of a small dogwood tree that kept rubbing against the side of the house in the storm.


This is another shot of the same white pine tree; you can see the massive limbs blocking my Stairway to Heaven (to backyard).


This is part of another white pine that came down in my front yard. You can see the Guatemalan guys I hired to cut it up.

My dad returned to his home on the Jersey shore. He said he had only minor flooding in his basement and garage, even though the water mark on his garage was 18 inches high. he's a full 2 blocks from the Toms River, which feeds into Barnegat Bay, but despite all the water, his garage was protected becaus the waves carried so much debris and sand with them that it formed a kind of barrier against the garage and kept more water from infiltrating.

He still doesn't have heat, and expects not to have it for another week, but he has a small wood stove that keeps one room pretty warm. He lost all his food and I know they've started rationing gasoline down there so I hope he has enough to make it to his favorite diner for breakfast!

Anyway, today is a return to normal. I drive J. to work right about now and then i begin my new proofreading job. More later!

Hi, guys.

The storm is past, thank God. I lost power at 6:10 pm Monday (and still without, but I am here at my mom's). A few minutes after I lost power, the phone rang. I wondered who in the world would be calling me at the height of the storm. Of all people, it was the guy whose business ethics book I'd been editing. (I finished and sent it to him Sunday night.)

I'm not sure why exactly he called; I don't really know the guy and haven't actually met him. But we wound up talking for an hour and a half, at the peak of the storm. It was kind of surreal, actually. I was so totally distracted by what was happening outside that I barely remember what he was talking about. Every so often I would let out a small scream as I heard things crashing around outside. I was jumping out of my skin!

After I hung up from him, I was in my bedroom window looking out a southward-facing window. In the moonlight, all i could see was the sky. This was very strange, because the sky should have been completely obstructed by a 75-foot tall white pine. There was no sign of it. In the front yard (east), i could also make out something on the ground, but it was hard to see exactly what it was.

Yesterday morning, in the light of day, the full damage became apparent. I had two large white pines down in my yard; not branches or limbs, the whole tree. The one on the south side was one I'd been wanting to have taken down for years, as it was too close to the house. It was sheared off at the trunk about 8 feet high. By the grace of God, it did not strike the house; it fell into the back yard. The other white pine, along the road, fell in front, and there were large branches down elsewhere. There was also another white pine that fell on the road and they only cleared it yesterday afternoon.

Amazingly, I got a hold of an Ecuadorian guy who did tree work for me last year after Hurricane Irene. There were 3 of us working together. Best $100 I ever spent! I was lucky to get him out there becus he normally works a regular job 5 days a week, and also lucky he was able to get thru on the roads, cus lots of roads are still blocked by downed trees or wires. Took him a while to find gas for the chainsaw.

So the trees are mostly cleaned up already (!) but now I have a pile of debris in my driveway. He doesn't have the capacity to haul it away. Last year, the town allowed homeowners to pile tree debris along the curb and they picked it up at no charge; they have not yet decided whether they will do that again now. I sure hope so, becus my other option would be if my dad could eventually come up with his truck and we would load it and bring it to the landfill. Otherwise, I'll have to pay someone to take it away.

My phone is still working somehow, even though the wires ripped away from the house and are lying draped on my roof; conveniently, the 3 screws that had attached the wires to my house are also there on the roof nearby. Still no power though.

I heard that the 9/11 memorial in NYC was submerged under seawater and that the NY subways have taken on water. I have no idea what condition my dad's house is; i'm guessing there was major flooding. I don't know if he's still at my brother's or went back home yet. I suspect my brothers also lost power and are probably dealing with their own issues.

Yesterday I had a lovely hot stew dinner at my neighbors. They don't have power either but she used a camp stove and we ate by candlelight. Plus they had a fire going in the fireplace, which was really nice. I got there at 4 pm and went home at 8 pm and went straight to bed, cus my house is chilly.

Today I drove J. to work. He had told me before the storm hit that his office was closed Monday and he was taking Tuesday as a vacation day, but I figured he would call me when he was ready to go back to work and needed a ride. Apparently he HAD been trying to reach me, but since my answering machine needs power to work, the phone just rang and rang; must've been when i was doing the tree cleanup work.

Anyway, I drove him in to work this a.m. He was anxious to work cus he can't afford no pay. Driving him helped me feel some semblance of normalcy. I went out this a.m. earlier looking for ice but couldn't find any. But they have returned power to the main commercial area so you can get gas and groceries.

Am really hoping will have power by the weekend, as they're forecasting temps in the 20s.

I heard a terrible news report about two young boys in North Salem NY (hometown of an old boyfriend of mine) who were having a sleepover at home. A 200-year-old oak tree fell on the house and killed them, also injuring some other children. They were only 10 years old.

This was not a storm to mess around with. I would like to have a heart to heart talk with my father that he can't just be the Lone Ranger anymore.

I still have a season's worth of blanched tomatoes in the freezer that i lovingly nurtured all summer. Tonight will mark the 2 day mark at which point freezer food may not be good. What do you think about tomatoes? There's a lot of acidity in them. How long do you think they could last?

3:27 pm. After viewing alarming photos of flooding in Atlantic City, I called my dad again to see how he's doing and got his answering machine. So then I called my half-brother, who lives in Rutherford, NJ. I wanted to see if my dad had chosen to go there. My half-brother told me my dad, who I knew had planned on staying at home, was ordered to do a mandatory evacuation by the police, and he left about 2:30 pman hour ago to head to my brother's, which I believe is an hour and a half drive.

I'm feeling pretty angry at my dad right now for foolishly choosing to stay, and then having to leave at the height of the storm...with his macular degeneration! He can't see at night, I know that, and now he's got to drive in these conditions? Now I'm sick with worry something will happen on the road somewhere.

I am going to call the police down there. My dad probably neglected to mention his vision problems to them.

3:43 pm The police said all they can really do is send an officer by my dad's house to see if he actually left. I described the car, etc. I'm pretty sure he did since that's what my brother told me. The officer described the weather situation down there as being "out of control," and said the drive to my brother's would probably take 3 hours in this weather. I'm hoping my dad might have the good sense to find a restaurant (if there's one open?) and hunker down.

4:05 pm The Ocean Gate NJ police called me back and said he definitely left the house. They asked me if I wanted to put out a Silver Alert for my dad. I guess it's similar to an Amber Alert except its for seniors. I told them let me wait a while and see if he shows up at my brother's place. I say that because my dad would be absolutely furious with me if he found out I'd done that, or if he was pulled over by state police because of me! I guess it would be embarrassing for him, but given the circumstances....

What would you do?

4:10 pm OK UPDATE My brother called and said my dad reached my other brother's place. I asked for him to call me when he can. Thank God.

4:15 pm My dad called me back right away. I sensed a note of testiness in his voice when he asked what I wanted, and i explained I'd gotten worried after not being able to reach him at home. He didn't say anything about the mandatory evacuation, but said "I decided to leave" after he lost power. Hmph.

I feel a littel stupid now, maybe, for calling the police, but wouldn't you do the same thing? He thinks he can always handle everything, but the fact is, he's a 79-year-old man with poor vision and he's not so steady on his feet. I just hope he never learns what I did, or that the police mention macular degeneration to him, but at the same time, maybe they should know. They routinely check on seniors at times like this.

So far, so good. But of course the storm hasn't reached us yet here in inland Connecticut.

I am worried, but I think it will be much worse along the Connecticut shoreline where they say there will be winds to 85 mph. Up where I am, just up to 55; still, that's enough to bring trees down around here. It's very wooded.

I'm more concerned for my father, who lives on the Jersey shore, just 2 short blocks of the Tom's River, which feeds into Barnegat Bay. I spoke with him last night. They are doing mandatory evacuations in Cape May, which is south of him, but he said he wanted to stay put and "keep an eye on things." Dad, dear dad, what could you do if things blew around or got flooded? Not much! At least the police know he's there. They called him already to check on him.. I actually wrote them a letter a few years ago to thank them becus that's what they do.

I've battened down the hatches here as best I can. I turned the heat up a few notches to a balmy 65 so there's a bit more heat inside if I lose power. The fridge/freezer are now at their coldest settings. Not much food left in the fridge, and last night I had a big bowl of ice cream since I rarely eat it and I would like to enjoy it!

The winds are picking up now but nothing serious. Sort of ominous portent of things to come. They say the rain will arrive around mid-day and the worst parts of the storm will be today, tonight and all day Tuesday. Worst flooding in 70 years, the governor warned. Be prepared to go at least 36 hours without power.

Although I have a sump pump and French drains in the basement, I decided it would be a good idea to protect the 10 44 lb boxes of cat litter I bought at Costco a year ago right before i cancelled my membership. So I found some pieces of wood, got some bricks and put all of the boxes on makeshift platforms about 2 or 3 inches up.

I didn't bother going out to get more groceries and perhaps wrongly figured I can go to Subway or somewhere if I need food, although the roads might not be passable. I just got caught up in all kinds of other storm prep stuff yesterday, and even managed to finish editing the Second Author's manuscript, since I'm under contract to finish that by a certain time and I didn't want lost power to be an issue.

I also heard from the proofreader job that their offices will be closed Monday for sure, maybe Tuesday and we'll regroup for my start day post-storm. I also told J. I didn't feel comfortable driving him and anyway, I'm sure they will close the schools in his town, if not his job. He was fine with that and made other arrangements to get to work (!) Monday and is taking Tuesday off.

Good. I don't have to go anywhere til Wednesday earliest.

I think there's at least a 50/50 chance I'll lose power, but I will post again later today; if you don't hear from me, you'll know what happened!

9:45 am update
Winds picking up but still not much rain. I decided to have an early lunch (yeah, I just had breakfast around 7:30) to try to use up food. So I had a full package of frozen Trader Joe's shrimp wontons, delicisous. Also a half an acorn squash that was already cooked, plus the rest of a jar of opened pickled beets. I'm stuffed.

10 am:
Cracked open 9 eggs in fridge and froze them. They'll last longer there and I could at least use them in baking/cooking.

1:12 pm
Light rain falling. Wind gusts picking up in intensity. My town's emergency sirens have been wailing throughout the day. Some bad s*** must be going on; I'm guessing tree limbs down.

I'm feeling tired and would like to nap; I think it's my anxiety. Every time I hear the wind gust, I feel myself physically bracing for it. They already ordered evacuations of certain low-lying portions of New York City, like the Wall Street area.

Trying not to look outside too much. There's something about seeing 75-foot tall white pines waving around like grass that gets me a little freaked out.

2:55 pm. They just closed all highways in the state. I'm surprised I still have power, but again expect to lose it at any time. I have actually lost power five times already, for just a second, then regained it and was able to reboot computer. Very strong wind gusts. Wind-driven rain pelting windows.

3:27 pm. After viewing alarming photos of flooding in Atlantic City, I called my dad to see how he's doing and got his answering machine. So then I called my half-brother, who lives in Rutherford, NJ. I wanted to see if my dad had chosen to go there. My half-brother told me my dad, who had planned on staying at home, was ordered to do a mandatory evacuation by the police, and he left about an hour ago to head to my brother's, which I believe is an hour and a half drive.

I'm feeling pretty angry at my dad right now for foolishly choosing to stay, and then having to leave at the height of the storm...with his macular degeneration! He can't see at night, I know that, and now he's got to drive in these conditions? Now I'm sick with worry something will happen on the road somewhere.

I am going to call the police down there. My dad probably neglected to mention his vision problems to them.

3:43 pm The police said all they can really do is send an officer by my dad's house to see if he actually left. I described the car, etc. I'm pretty sure he did since that's what my brother told me. The officer described the weather situation down there as being "out of control," and said the drive to my brother's would probably take 3 hours in this weather. I'm hoping my dad might have the good sense to find a restaurant (if there's one open?) and hunker down.

We're staring down the barrel of Hurricane Sandy here in the Northeast. They're predicting damaging high winds and power outages.

It was a year ago this month that most of Connecticut was in the dark for as long as a week, myself included.

Having learned a few lessons from that unpleasant ordeal, I'm preparing this weekend for the storm which is set to arrive Sunday into Monday.

1. Recharge batteries. This is a no-brainer. I have plenty of alkaline batteries on hand, but I also plan to recharge all my rechargeable batteries as a backup. I use these in a flashlight and a shortwave radio.

2. Make sure all dishes are washed leading right up to the storm. Maybe not the first think you might think of, but if there's an extended outage, I know I will gradually lose my hot water. Plus, while I can still run water, I don't think it's a good idea to use it indiscriminately, because without electricity to recharge/refill the hot water heater, the water will be drawn down further and further. As I remember, there's a heating element at the bottom of the tank which must always be submerged in water, or it will be damaged. (I learned this one year when I was investigating whether it made sense in a winter power outage, in order to keep pipes from freezing, to simply drain all the water from the my hot water tank. The answer is no, due to the damage I'd cause to the hot water heater.

3. Collect all emergency phone numbers, like CL&P, phone company, etc. It's a heck of a lot easier to reference these numbers on a single paper you've set aside rather than fumble around in the dark for the phone book.

4. Turn down the temperatures in both the fridge and freezer. Making the temps even colder in there than usual will make the food last longer.

5. Eat down the food in the fridge, which will spoil more quickly. Luckily, I don't have much in there; I should be able to finish up my cauliflower/cheddar soup, a small hunk of cheddar cheese and a few other things. Most of the rest is just condiments.

6. Put away loose stuff outside. I think I'll have to take down the bird feeder and its pole; the ground is still quite soft and it would probably come down in the storm.

7. Park the car in the garage.

8. Take a shower before the storm starts. You start feeling a little grungy after no shower for an extended period of time, plus I'm supposed to start my p/t proofreading job Monday.

9. Inventory/collect food and snacks that can be eaten without cooking. Based on what I already have on hand, this includes: cold cereal with the almond milk I'll be looking to use up, granola bars, fresh fruit and canned chicken.

10. If I lose power, or perhaps before I do, i will bring in some of the dozen or so outdoor solar lights, as i did last year. I think this is a brilliant idea; can't say it was mine. I have the kind of lights you just stick in the ground and are recharged by sunlight. They aren't bright enough to read by, but they are certainly bright enough to find your way around, when the house is otherwise pitch black.

A friend of mine said they're getting ice, but I don't think that makes sense, unless you have an extra freezer you can store the ice in. It's just going to start melting.

So I feel I have a bunch of stuff to do today. If you can think of anything else, let me know! (I can't afford a generator!)

The Second Author whose manuscript I'm editing has asked me to edit a proposal letter he wants to start sending out to publishers. I think he's hoping I wouldn't charge for it, but do you know how many people are always looking to get me to edit/write stuff for free? (And I often do.) In my circumstances, I can't afford to just give it away, so I quoted him a very nominal fee for doing the letter: $20. Hey, every little bit helps.

But anyway, since I am technically under contract to finish editing the book by November 7, I want to try to finish it THIS WEEKEND, before the storm starts. Also, so I can have it out of the way before I start the proofreading job. It may be a challenge with everything else I have to do with storm prep, plus The First Author wants me to stop by so she can make another installment payment on her book. (She is always scrounging for money, so I'm learning never to pass up an opportunity to accept money from her!)

Also, I want to return two half-used jars of peanut butter to Costco for a full refund due to their salmonella concerns.

I took a good, long (1.75 hrs.) walk at a local state park today. Something I'd been wanting to do for a while now before the autumn foliage was completely gone. If you'd like to see the photos, you can join me here: http://owlhollownews.blogspot.com. There was hardly anyone there, though I did run into a young woman on the trail with three dogs; one of them was a pit bull puppy that I must say scored a "10" on the adorable scale.

Today's special highlight, aside from the foliage, was the $1400 check I finally got today from the PR agency. I am so thankful I don't have to hound them any further.

October is going down as the most successful month I've ever had with freelance work, earning $2600. If only every month could go that way!

While I plan to save nearly all of the check in my meager emergency fund, I would like to treat myself by buying a very attractive set of flatware (beech handles and stainless steel) from Ikea for just $30. I think it's time to retire the silver-plated flatware I inherited from my grandmother because the utensils are getting pitted and perhaps even flaking off, I'm not sure. So I want to call around and see if any of these places buying gold and silver would also buy silver-plated. Which would be really nice in defraying the cost of the new set. I won't go right away because there's only one Ikea in all of Connecticut, and it's an hour's drive. While gas prices have somewhat moderated in recent days (down as low as $3.95/gallon), I'd rather wait til I have reason to at least head in that direction.

In addition to starting the p/t proofreading job Monday, I did also successfully negotiate a fee with the Massachusetts social worker/psychotherapist. So now, instead of simply editing her court reports, I will conduct the interviews and write the reports myself. $190 for each report. I nearly lost out on this job, an ongoing one, due to a misunderstanding when we were trading emails negotiating the price. If I hadn't bothered to clarify what I meant and then correct myself when I realized I'd confirmed something different with her, I wouldn't have gotten the job.

I picked up some eggs at the farm on my way to my hike. I don't think I'll ever go back to store-bought eggs.

I got a postcard from Costco saying they decided to expand the peanut butter recall to include Kirkland organic peanut butters purchased between 2010 and 2012. Well, guess what? I have two mostly used up jars of it in the fridge! I will be bringing them back for a full refund.

We could be in for some nasty weather starting on Sunday, due to Hurricane Sandy, although the last thing I heard was that south Jersey, where my dad is, will be more a direct hit while CT and Cape Cod should escape the brunt of it.

I made some really good cauliflower/cheddar soup the other day and am still enjoying the leftovers.

After I had already written it off, the company where I interviewed for that little itty bitty p/t proofreading job paying an embarrassingly low hourly rate called today and offered me the job. I accepted.

It was not an easy thing to do. My pride keeps getting in the way. I routinely earn $50/hr with my freelance writing, but the thing is, I don't do freelance writing 40 hours a week; in fact, how much and when I get freelance writing is mostly beyond my control.

Hence my need for some sort of regular income to pay for my regular bills as the saga of PatientSaver's long bout of underemployment continues.

Normally, I wouldn't even be able to consider such a low-paying job, but since I have paid off my mortgage, I don't have to earn enormous sums of money to make ends meet.

Based on what I learned at the interview, I fear this job, which is 20 or 25 hours a week, may prove very tedious, and I hope I can do it!

My main concern, however, is if I'll be able to handle the driving. While the job is just 10 minutes down the road from where I live, I don't intend to stop driving J. to and from work. Since that driving job is under the table, I figure he's paying me the equivalent of $17 or $18 an hour. And it will end next May anyway when he gets his driver's license back.

But, back to the driving challenge. Once I start the new job next week, I'll have to drive in the a.m. from my house to Anytown, which is the same town where this employer is located. To fetch J. at his home is 20 minutes, then another 10 to drop his kids off at daycare where they catch the bus to school. Then I drive J. to his work, 30 minutes. Then from there I'll have to drive myself 30 minutes back to Anytown for the new job. In the afternoon, I'll have to repeat the whole process.

Thank goodness I don't drive J. every single day any more for a total of 10 trips (morning and end of day). It was costing him too much so he found someone to do a couple days, so I only drive him a total of 6 trips now a week, not 10. (That's 2 times Monday, 2 times Tuesday, Wed a.m. only and Thurs. evening only.)

I'm afraid to think how dicey it could get in bad weather, but I'm determined to try to power through it all til May. Cus tho the new proofreading job pays little, it would be mostly year-round except I would have summers off.

So my newly revised monthly income chart looks like this:
Driving J.: $520
Proofreading job: $1300/net $1093
Freelance writing: Let's say conservatively, $500/month gross
Unemployment benefits: Not sure how it'll be reduced by the proofreading job, but let's say it's reduced to: $400. (Benefits end for good 12/31/12)
Total monthly income: $2513
Total monthly income after unemployment goes away: $2113
Total monthly income after both unemployment and the driving job go away: $1593

My total minimum monthly expenses now are just $1800. So the piddling proofreading job, while easy to scoff at, actually would make survival possible, even without the unemployment benefits that act as a cushion when the freelance work doesn't materialize. Come next May, though, I'll have to find yet another supplemental source of income to make up for the loss of the driving job.

Are you dizzy yet? I am.

Still, I have found more breathing room in the proofreading job.

I don't know why, but I keep thinking of the story in the Bible where Jesus is telling his disciples not to worry so much about making ends meet because, he says, even the sparrows in the field survive without worrying about where their next meal is coming from. I'm not at all religious, so don't know where this is coming from, except my upbringing, but it does perfectly reflect how I feel about my 3-year odyssey as I attempt to outlive this recession.

It's like, I'm getting only EXACTLY what I need to survive, and no more. If I got just a normal, everyday job like the kind I used to hold, I'd be on Easy Street now, without the mortgage. But no, I'm still just eking out my existence with the puniest of jobs and other work I find.

Upward and onward.

There's a lot of color now in the foliage. My dogwoods are a rich red-and-orange and here and there are brilliants shots of yellow in the summersweet shrub while the burning bush, Japanese maples and autumn joy sedums are varying shades of magenta and burgundy.

To make sure that I follow through and do it, I have put a hike at Huntington State Park on my lists of Things to Do. Of course I'll bring the camera. We'll have a high of 65 tomorrow and it will be sunny, so it should be nice.

I've gotten a lot done this weekend.

For one, I am well ahead of schedule in editing the business ethics book and have already finished the first half (50 pages). Before I send him the edited version, I want to read through a version with my edits incorporated, just to catch the occasional thing I may have missed.

I already let him know I'd be sending it to him earlier than planned, and he said the magic words: "Great, let me know when to send the next check!" Ka ching.

I'm also simultaneously editing The Author's second novel. She, too, has promised me another $100 this week, so we'll see if that happens. I'm about halfway through the 300-odd page paranormal romance.

I'm finding that I am constantly checking various rules of hyphenation or punctuation. It's difficult to remember everything. So the editing process is a great learning experience for me; I never actually took a college course on English that I can remember, aside from literature courses where you're reading, not writing. I would love to take a primer somewhere.

I finished mowing the front today and then mowed the back lawn as well, mulching the many fallen leaves as I went.

I also installed a pole-mounted bird feeder in a new location in the front yard. I was spurred to do so by the fact that between me and the cats, roughly 20 mice have been caught in the house, and it's only October! I have long had a triple tube feeder hanging from a dogwood in the backyard, and it is quite close to the house, and it has occurred to me that perhaps the availability of all that food (the sunflower seeds) was making it all seem a little too inviting to rodents that might want to take up residence.

I have not caught a mouse since stuffing steel wool underneath the vinyl siding, but I have not finished doing so all around the house, so I won't be surprised if I get more. Still, I am very hopeful that this could substantially reduce my indoor mouse population. I check the trap every day.

The new feeder is perfectly positioned to be viewed, with or without binoculars, from my upstairs office window, and instead of being about six feet from the house, it's maybe about 35 feet away.

I must say, the birds have been going nuts since they discovered it there. A large assortment of tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, (female) rose-breasted grosbeaks, goldfinches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, pine siskins and cardinals have been making steady progress on the seed and suet. I had gone to the trouble of purchasing a $20 squirrel baffle for the pole, but evidently, the squirrels are finding ample dropped seed on the ground so they haven't tried to shinny up the pole...yet.

For breakfast this morning I enjoyed a large bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with blue agave syrup, wineberries I picked last summer, walnuts and almond milk.

Lunch was more homemade chili, which turned out quite good this time.

I vaccuumed the downstairs yesterday; it really needed it.

I am thrilled to be saving substantial money on heat. I turned on the heat for the season around October 6, but while it kicked on for a few nights in a row (and we did have a few frosts), I've been able to turn the system off again as the past week or so has been warmer than usual for this time of year.

We're having an all-day rain event here in Connecticut. We're at peak color now, and i hope to get over to Huntington State Park sometime this weekend with the camera. They have nice, wide trails there so ticks shouldn't be a concern.

It's a good day for reading, writing and editing, all of which I've been doing! The cats enjoyed a catnip treat today and have finally settled down for a mid-afternoon snooze. I joined them, briefly.

My income for the month of October has already exceeded expected expenses, so I am grateful.

I was at Kohl's this past week with $125 worth of gift cards from a credit card reward redemption. They only had so many choices as to stores, and this probably wouldn't be my first choice again anytime soon. I finally decided I could use some new bras, so I spent the longest time...about an hour...browsing for them and trying them on. Oprah Winfrey once famously said that most women aren't wearing the right sized bra, and I figure I was one of those, so I'm trying to be careful to get the right size. I had finally winnowed down the choices to three finalists. Then, I figured, i would choose to buy 1 or 2 based on which cost the least. Turns out that all 3 cost in the neighborhood of $21 to $23, so I just chose 2 randomly. It's quite a lot of money for a single bra.

Then, as I was leaving the bra and panty section, I saw a rack of both marked "70% off!" I soon found that if I wasn't too choosy as to color or pattern, I could find any number of bras in my size for just $12 each! Happily, I wound up with three pairs. A very good buy.

I made some chili today for lunch with ground turkey. There are enough leftovers for at least five more servings. I'm also nibbling on some organic red grapes now.

Not much else going on today. I'm on page 24 of the business ethics manuscript I'm editing. I'm well ahead of schedule and should be able to turn in the first 50 pages sometime next week. I hope he will be pleased with my work!

I don't think the social worker will go for the price I quoted her $125 ea) for conducting the interviews and writing the reports for her child custody cases. At least, that is my take on it since she hasn't responded to my proposal of this past Wednesday.

A friend of mine brough up something I hadn't considered. He said it would be unethical and fraudulent of the social worker to have me do these interviews and reports since they will most likely contain her signature, not mine. If there was ever a question about what someone said in the report or something that was claimed, she'd be unable to verify or vouch for the report since she hadn't actually conducted the interview. So I don't know. I would think she would have thought this through, as it would affect her credibility, not mine.

You'd think this would have occurred to me after 17 years of living here, but I recently had a lightbulb moment when i was researching mouseproofing one's house online and someone was writing about how mice frequently gain access by crawling behind the vinyl siding, where it meets the foundation. Bingo. It kind of made sense to me, based on how Luther waits near a certain basement window and the crevices I had in fact noticed recently under the entire front foundation.

The author's solution online was to cut strips of wire lath, bend them in half and then squeeze it in place under the bottom of the vinyl siding. Bending it in half allows it to expand somewhat to fit the gap. Sounded easy. I happened to have a sheet of lath. So I spent considerable time cutting it with some household shears and them bending it in two by banging against the sharp lath with a hammer against a workbench in my garage. It's very difficult to work with, especially with no gloves. I got a small area maybe 5 or 6 feet long done, but I was thinking, there's got to be a better way. And then I remembered that Home Depot carries steel wool, and that this would be a good use of the product and probably a heck of a lot easier to cut. So I used some gift cards to buy 2 smallish wads of the stuff there. I'll be stuffing it under the vinyl this weekend. I haven't examined underneath the vinyl all the way around the house, but this would be somewhat costly to buy if I had to do all of it. We'll see....

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

The social worker for whom I edit court reports asked me today if I wanted to expand my involvement in her work. Meaning, instead of simply editing her reports, would I be interested in also handling the interviews of parties in child custody cases and then actually writing the reports myself.

She finds this part of her work boring, she said, and this part of the report needn't be written by a licensed GAL (guardian ad litem). We talked a bit about it and then she asked me to think about an hourly rate I thought was reasonable.

Unfortunately, when I first responded to her ad on Craig's list last spring, I gave her a very low price (which probably amounts to around $20/hr), mainly becus I wanted the job, and didn't realize the work would continue.

But it still would be more money.

I looked at recent jobs I'd done for her and see that my average charge for copy editing brief reports was only $70, so I used that as a starting point, since writing something from scratch would take a bit more time, plus I'd need to allow up to an hour for the phone interview.

So I suggested a flat fee (so I don't have to be bothered with always tracking my time) of $125. Her response was, is that for interviewing one party or two (meaning, the husband and wife).

Gosh, it sure wouldn't mean for two since if it did, I'd actually be making less money writing the reports and conducting the interviews than I am now simply copy editing her reports.

So after clarifying that it was just for one interview/report, I'll see what she says. It would be great to get more work out of this.

Tomorrow I start editing the business ethics manuscript for another local author.

I am very pleased that after several years of extremely sporadic freelance work, I have been fairly consistently busy these last few weeks. It's sort of like a giant snowball effect, except that it takes a very long time for that snowball to start rolling.

I have banana-walnut bread in the oven.

I got around to seeing The Kite Runner via Netflix, a very touching movie about two childhood friends which will really pull on your heartstrings. It's Iranian, with subtitles. I'd recommend it highly.

I also caught a matinee at the $2 movie theater called Moonrise Kingdom. A truly delightful movie perfect for kids in the 7-10 year age bracket, but the kind of movie that I greatly enjoyed as an adult, too. Maybe becus it makes you nostalgic. As an added treat, there were a few stars whose names you will recognize: Bruce Willis, Harvey Kietel, Bill Murray and the woman cop from Fargo! It was really a lot of fun.

After the movie yesterday, I met The Author at a coffee shop. NOT Starbucks.

Today I got a really nice plaid flannel duvet cover from Amazon, along with some other things, all for free through my online forums. I got the flannel partly becus I knew the cats would love it, although last night they caught a live mouse, which conveniently ran inside my sneaker to hide, and then I quickly grabbed the sneaker and dumped it outside.

Alas, now my one sneaker has "koodies" and I won't be able to wear it until it's sat in below freezing temperatures for at least two weeks. And I don't want to touch the cats much either, except to pat their heads, which puzzles them.

There's a guy from my distant past who periodically calls me on birthdays and holidays. We dated for a few years when I was in my 20s (30+ years ago) and living on Cape Cod. I haven't seen him since but somehow he got my phone number maybe 6 years ago and has kept calling ever since, despite my telling him I was engaged, married, had no interest, etc.

Each time he's called, I've told him I don't wish to maintain contact with him. Some here have called him a stalker.

He called today, randomly, and told me again that he has terminal emphysema, that the doctor said he has a year or so to live. I don't think he's making it up. His voice sounds different, and he was a smoker way back then, which we were both in our 20s. He said he's using inhalers.

If you've told someone you don't want them to call you and he continues to do so anyway, does it make a difference that he has a terminal illness? I feel sad for him, that there is apparently no one in his life right now that he can turn to, that he has to call an old girlfriend who repeatedly rebuffs him. But does that make him my responsibility?

I told him again anyway that I'd asked him not to call me, and kept the conversaton brief. Of course now I have a huge guilt trip for doing that to a lonely guy who might have emphysema and just wants someone to talk to.

I said Mike, I'm really sorry to hear about your illness, but I've asked you not to call here. He's like, I know, but I was just remembering all the good times we had... and I cut him off. He said, I thought it would be nice to keep in touch. I said but Mike, that's only if the other person wants to keep in touch too. He's like oh, that's too bad. I told him I'd moved on. Anyway, that's pretty much how the whole conversation went.

Am I heartless? I'd rather think not, but I don't like people trying to push a relationship on you when you'd really rather not. We had a violent breakup and it's all ancient history.

My worklife is proceeding with a more or less balanced equilibrium.



When one income source seems near dried up, another pops up to takes its place.

For instance, I just got a new copy editing job, for someone local who wrote a hundred page manuscript on business ethics.

I am feeling very nervous about it. This one feels like a "real" job, despite the fact that I'm now editing the 2nd of another local author's books. But whereas I suspect she will never earn much money from her endeavors in the paranormal romance department, his seems much more intelligent. His writing is very, very good, so when I did the sample edit for him, I had to work much harder to justify my fee!

I should receive his deposit, and the manuscript, by today or tomorrow, and then I'll be on a deadline to complete it (3 weeks). He even asked me to draw up a contract, which I did.

I guess the reason behind my nervousness is that, while I'm a strong writer, I never actually majored in English, so I can't say I know every rule of grammar and punctuation. I learned all this on the fly, and by widely reading as a young person.

When we talked after he'd received my sample edits of a few of his pages, I could hear how the tone of his voice had changed. It sounded much more deferential, and he was asking some specific questions, like, should I do this, or, what is your opinion on.....?

That made me extremely uncomfortable as I don't purport to be an expert, especially when it comes to the world of publishing, so I tried to communicate that to him.

I am meeting The Author this afternoon so she can pay me another $100 installment. (It should actually be $150.) She has trouble scraping up the money and just pays me when she can. I know she will always come through with it and just pace my editing accordingly. Our arrangement has always been very informal, but it works.

I am anxious about getting paid for 2 really big jobs. I had to send an email to the NY PR agency asking when I could expect to get paid for the brochure I did. I invoiced them $1400 Oct. 1. She said she would look into it.

The 2nd big job is the real estate certification case study which I haven't invoiced yet becus it's still not done. I have to be patient and wait for John to do his part.

So there's a lot of money tied up that I have earned but not received yet. When I do get paid, I am anxious to put a small amount in my SEP IRA and other savings.

We've had some beautiful fall weather days here. Yesterday it reached 70 degrees.



The leaves are approaching peak color. I would like to get out to a local state park for another fall walk with the camera.

It's a sign of the times, to be sure. But it sure gets you thinking a lot about it when it happens to your own neighbors/friends.

The couple who live behind me bought their house 9 years ago. He makes roughly $150K; she made I'm guessing about $50K before she quit her job.

When they bought the house, it was 2,000 square feet. Although it was just the two of them, plus his teen daughter who moved in with them, they decided to put on an addition quite some time ago. A big one, measuring 3,000 square feet. That's DOUBLE the size of my entire house!!!

She didn't want it, but he talked her into it apparently, saying it was "an investment in their future." Umm, yeah, or a noose around your neck.

Although he makes good money, he's not very good at managing it. I don't know that they have much in retirement savings.

So anyway, a few months ago, when they wanted to cut her hours at work, and there was some politics involved, she balked. Her husband said, why don't you just quit? I guess he figured they could still live quite nicely on his salary. Mistake #1. I'm sensing there was a disconnect in making the decision to quit over such a relatively small thing, with a general disregard for the state of the economy and their own personal circumstances.

Now they've learned that he'll be losing his job in March. While he got 6 months notice, he's getting NO severance. According to the wife, they didn't even actually say why, but she did say he was overpaid and I assume the toy company, likely experiencing a business slowdown, did it as a cost-saving measure.

The addition is still not finished; although it's meant to have a kitchen, it doesn't have a complete one now, they decided it would be too much money to make it rent-ready, and she doesn't want to give up her privacy, either. Plus their driveway is extremely long (about 1,000 feet?) and steep and would likely cause problems for a tenant. (They sunk somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 to pave the driveway because in the winters the gravel driveway used to ice up so bad their 4-wheel drive couldn't make it up the hill, so they'd have to park halfway down and walk up. The walk itself was treacherous as well.) The driveway actually belongs to me; an easement exists on their deed granting them rights to use it.

He's not even looking for a new job. He's in a somewhat specialized field: toy designer.

Their plan is she is looking for full-time work now at Starbucks where she can get health insurance for the two of them, and also the job would help them pay to do the minimal needed to finish their renovation enough to be able to sell it.

Then they'll put the house on the market in March, hope for a quick sale (she wants to get $800K) and then they plan to move to Tennessee and pay cash for a smaller house.

They plan to move there knowing no one there and even with no jobs lined up. They simply won't be able to afford the house they're in now once the renovation is done because it will boost their $9,000 property taxes to about $14,000.

She is most unhappy. She doesn't want to move, but that's what they're going to do.

It astounds me that this has happened. They're very intelligent people. I've socialized with them from time to time. I think they'll have trouble selling the house due to the driveway, which as I said, is very steep.

It's interesting that if people are working full-time, they may very well believe they are somehow immune to the economic diasters that have befallen so many others. In this economy, I don't think I would have given up that job, even if my husband was earning that much. And I certainly would never have added that kind of addition to the house. If he had that much money burning a hole in his pocket, I would have socked more away for retirement and then taken several extravagant trips abroad.

OK, so what did he do this time? Well, I had just gotten in the door and was playing with Luther by hanging a strip of cardboard (what you pull off a FedEx cardboard envelope to open it) in his face and since he wanted to chew on the cardboard, he put his paw on my hand so as to hold it steady so he could chew it. Sadly, he chomped right down on my index finger instead. On the top part.

I have an appt. with the doc tomorrow. Luther last bit me (another accident) when I first adopted him 3 years ago and i was bringing him home in the cat carrier. He was freaking out and had chewed through the nylon mesh netting and had his head sticking out of the carrier and as I was driving the car, I didn't want him to get out so without thinking (duh, stupid move, in retospect) I put my hand across the torn mesh and he chomped on the fleshy part of my thumb.

As I recall, I delayed going to the doctor's then, not realizing how quickly a cat bite to the hand can get infected. Although it didn't "look" infected to me at all, I decided to have it checked out anyway and my doctor said I was a day away from being referred to a hand surgeon. Instead, I got antibiotics and all was fine.

So with that scary thought in mind, I decided not to mess around and will see doc tomorrow to get the meds, just to be sure. Also, I just finished up with 3 weeks of antibiotics for the lyme disease. That was this past Tuesday, and I must say i was feeling headachey today. So I don't know if I'm over it. I really hate to be on antibiotics becus I have to follow a strict regimen with acidopholous to ensure I don't get a yeast infection, which has happened before, and that proves as tough to get rid of as anything else.

I finalized the paperwork with the insurance agent today and he went ahead and charged me for my car and homeowners insurance. I'll get a partial refund from my current carrier since I'm switching over now instead of waiting til the renewal period is up.

So I'm paying $1005 for both auto and home, which I think is pretty darn good.

The Allstate guy I was going to go with before I got the Safeco quote was I guess not too happy. He asked me if i would send him a copy of the Safeco quote. i figured he wanted to see what the competition was doing. I figured, what the heck, so i emailed it to him. So then i saw that he was still trying to get my business, and he said he was contacting another underwriter to see if he could do better. Then he left a phone message saying he wanted to discuss some things. At this point, it's too late, so I haven't called him back, but I hadn't wanted to tell him no definitively until it was all finalized with the other guy, and now it is. Sorry, Allstate.

I'm feeling kind of wiped out. It was such a beautiful day today, bright and sunny, though brisk and in the 50s, that I just got in the car without really being sure where I was going, but i ended up doing an abbreviated walk in the woods. Which wasn't really brilliant since i still have lyme, and am out of Off and hadn't sprayed my boots. So when i got home i threw the boots, my socks and my pants in the dryer. Dry heat (not putting them thru a wash cycle) is what really will kill a tick.