I logged online to see that I had now earned $200 cash back from Citi so I redeemed that with a simple phone call. Check in the mail in about 10 days. Yippee!

After some online research for my next card, I'm finding the cash back rewards are a bit more slim pickings. Because of my pared down spending and budget in general, I'm only comfortable getting a card that requires spending of $2,000 in the first 3 months. Most of my recurring bills are not with companies that accept credit card payments without charging you for the convenience, although I have paid my phone/Internet bill and my homeowners insurance this way. There are one or two cards that reward handsomely for spending $3,000 in the first 3 months, but I'm a little afraid I might not definitely hit that target.

So, with cash back rewards now mostly in the $100 range, I decided to go with a card that rewards $250 in gift cards, the Citi Thank You Preferred card. Depending on the choice of retailers, I can make at least some of those gift cards non-frivolous in nature if I buy groceries at Target or vegetable seedlings for my garden at Home Depot, for instance.

I had to call them to complete the application because I didn't remember the secret word I'd apparently made up at some point. But anyway, since I had them on the line, I decided to close my Citi Master Card at the same time, and that was no problem. The application was approved and I should get the card in about 10 days.

I intend to keep applying for new cards for as long as they keep offering cash back or gift card credit cards and as long as they keep approving my application. I imagine at some point my application will be rejected becus I simply have applied for too many cards or something, but that hasn't happened yet, surprisingly. (Hence my eagerness to close at least one card.)

The 2 cards I will never use again, or extremely sparingly, are an Amex card and an USAA card. the Amex doesn't have very good rewards at all, and the USAA card has no rewards. However, these are my 2 oldest cards, so for that reason, I must hold on to them.

I am finding myself somewhat "attached" to 2 of my newer cards...the Discover card with its bright and colorful daisy on it and the Chase Freedom card, i guess becus of the word "Freedom." The remaining 2 Citi cards I have are completely disposable and I will give them the ax when the time comes.

Usually my anxiety dreams take a familiar form and follow a familiar plot, but last night's dream really showed my brain's creativity when it comes to expressing my general anxiety.

I dreamed I was getting married in two days. And I wasn't ready at all. And my fiance was the President of the United States. Yes, my beloved was none other than William Jefferson Clinton.

I was meeting with about 20 of his inner circle and I had to tell them that I wasn't ready for the wedding to take place. I hadn't mailed out the invitations. I hadn't picked out my dress. I wasn't even sure I should go through with it, I confided to the woman sitting closest to me.

In fact, I'd been looking for Bill all day and he was nowhere to be found.

I had a great feeling of angst, unease and impending doom. I was only about 60% sure the marriage was going to work. As for the wedding dress, due to my older age, I wasn't going to go with a traditional white wedding dress but was going to go with something in the "casually elegant" category. I wondered privately if I could find a dress at Macy's or elsewhere in time. And I wondered at the possible embarrassment to the nation I would cause if I bowed out of the marriage.

Waking up, I felt somewhat relieved to return to the more ordinary challenges of my life but the dream was pretty funny nonetheless.

It got into the upper 60s today and all this week it will 60s and 70s.

Spring seems to be here about a month ahead of schedule. I opened up my sun room and spent some time out there enjoying a warm breeze through the windows with the boys.

I also swept the driveway and started deadheading a whole lot of perennials and sedums, using my wheelbarrow to cart them down to the brush perimeter of the property where i dump them.

I am very conscious of being out of shape, because it wasn't that much work but it felt very tiring. This seems to be somewhat typical after a long winter of largely inactive indoor living, but it seems to be getting harder to get done things I want to get done with my various aches and pains.

I still vacillate between deciding to stay here in my home for the long term or selling the house and buying a more manageable condo. I just worry that I wouldn't be happy in a condo since puttering around gardening, my veggie garden, feeding the birds, are all things I enjoy. Not to mention the privacy I have here.

If I stayed, I would want to invest in a rider mower, after 16 summers of pushing a walk-behind mower around here. It's exhausting, and really not looking forward to another summer of that. But those things cost about $2,000 and I'd hate to spend it and then decide to move. So I vacillate.

I found a woman's purse, or large wallet, hidden under the plastic flap of a grocery cart at Shop Rite. I could see how someone would forget it was there. It was in the parking lot, very close to my car. I looked inside and there was a small amount of money plus gift cards, her license, bank card, health insurance ID, you name it. I looked at her license, just a high school kid. I drove over to the address shown on her license and left it on the door. I thought about just dropping it in a mailbox, but I couldn't feel assured it would get to her if I did that. Let's call it my good deed for the day. Hopefully I'll get some good karma from it.

I finished up a realtor's bio last night and sent it to her. Today I called the place where I interviewed a week ago, as they had told me to, but had to leave a message on someone's machine and no one's gotten back to me. Hate that.

If I get an offer, I'll accept it, but you know what? Despite being out of work for so long, I am loathe to return to work, largely because my time will no longer be my own. I've always hated the structured work day. It makes me feel trapped in the office.

I am hoping to get that small editing job from the mental health advocate soon, maybe tomorrow. I figure by then she'll have gotten the non-disclosure form I had to sign and mail her.

Tomorrow I hope to do some more yardwork. Gradually getting back into some form of regular exercise will be really helpful. There was some interesting news on public radio tonight that a new study shows that people who eat a lot of red meat have a significantly greater risk of cancer and premature death. Now this I knew already based on a book I read about a dietary study of Seventh Day Adventists. They also said that processed meats in particular are really bad. Like hot dogs and bacon. The researchers said while they felt that very moderate amounts of red meat were ok, like 2-3 1/2 servings a week, and that they themselves would still eat red meat, the researcher being interviewed said he had eliminated processed meats from his diet. Like I've done. It's been hard, becus I LOVE kielbasa and also hot dogs.

Yes, I'm a bit tired. I spent a few hours this afternoon steam cleaning the carpeting at my mom's while she went off to an art gallery exhibit with a friend of hers.

Actually, steam cleaning is a bit of a misnomer, as there's really no steam involved, just hot water.

I just did the bedroom and her hallways. I THINK it looks better. The water sure was dirty. But then toward the end the machine lost its suction and wasn't dispensing detergent either, when i pulled the trigger. All it said in the manual was that either the recovery tank or the detergent tank was not seated properly on the machine, but I checked it multiple times, so I don't know. I sure hope it's not broken. This is probably just the 2nd or 3rd time I've used the machine.

It's going to be in the 60s and even 70s ALL THIS WEEK. I'm so excited. I have Monday/Tuesday to myself, so will try to roll more cut up trees/firewood down from my backyard into the driveway (for eventual hauling away by my dad).

Heck, I could even start getting the vegetable garden ready. I want to slightly move the fencing over by about a foot or two because a serviceberry tree is growing faster than I thought and its branches are hanging over the fencing and shading some of my veggies. It will be a pain to do, especially as I have no one to help me, but I want to adjust it and also enlarge it a bit. I have another 10 feet or so of the fencing, the last of the roll, sitting in the garage, and I figure I may as well put it to use.

I have some freelance work to do. And 2 new clients, which is always GREAT. One is a referral, a realtor bio I want to write tonight, or otherwise, tomorrow a.m. The other is a mental health advocate who gets involved with legal proceedings and she needs me to edit a 16-page court document. She has two more shorter documents to follow.

I've been saving up my $15 Amazon gift certificates which I earn each month from an online forum I participate in with a major credit card company.

With the $10 GC i got today, I had $40 saved up. There was something I'd seen elsewhere, at Home Decorators and Ballard's Design, that I really liked. Just on a hunch, i typed it in the search bar at Amazon, and they had the same product, supplied by Home Decorators, which was the lower of the two prices I'd seen.

So I ordered a nickel hanging pendant light converter kit. It's meant for use in a recessed lighting fixture. I have one, located above the kitchen sink and window. I thought a hanging fixture there would look nice. The length is totally adjustable. You don't need any tools, you simply screw it into the existing fixture light like a light bulb and voila, you have a hanging pendant light with a base that goes over the recessed opening.



Nice, huh?

In other news, I'm pleased to see that what I'd estimated to be my net biweekly paycheck from the p/t job was off. I'm actually netting over $40 more every 2 weeks, and I figure this is due to the payroll tax break Congress decided to extend through the year. So hurray for me.

I also slightly goofed in estimating when my unemployment benefits would finally peter out. I originally figured it would be end of April, but I miscalculated and it should be more like end of May, due to the p/t job. Hurray for me again.

All winter long, my mom's been blowing her nose constantly inside her condo. The windows are shut tight. So you know it's an allergy issue.

Every spring, if I open the windows on nice warm days, I can actually see a fine green dust on everything, which has to be dusted and cleaned off. Well, you don't actually see the GREEN until you use a white cloth to dust, and then it's really obvious. So I imagine my mother's got the same pollen that wafts in through the screens.

I think she's got pollen and god know what else embedded in her wall to wall carpeting. She keeps vacillating between ripping up some of the carpeting and replacing it with linoleum to improve her allergy issues. She can't afford to do the whole unit, though. She'd do her bedroom and the hallways and kitchen, which is old vinyl.

She's not sure that will fix things, and I suggested she let me clean her carpets with my Hoover first and see if there's any improvement. It's the cheapest and easiest solution.

So I'm going over there Sunday.

I had only one condition: 1. She MUST vacate the premises while I do the work. My mother hovers over you whenever you try to do anything, like lifting something she thinks is heavy. To her, 5 pounds is "heavy."

At first, she didn't want to leave, but now she has agreed to go to a gallery opening.

I told her she needs to vacuum first and get up off the floor any small objects she can manage. I'll do the rest. There's wall to wall furniture that I won't be moving. But once she leaves, I would like to try to heave up the queen-sized mattress on its side and rest it against the closet. (Can't tell her that, or she'll protest.)

I'm just doing the bedroom and hallways and see how it goes. LR, DR and stairs could be another time. Then she's got her loom room and a studio, but both are packed with stuff. I anticipate going over the same areas in the bedroom multiple times because I know the carpets are filthy dirty.

This Hoover I have got rave reviews at Amazon. I've been re-reading the manual tonight becus it's been a year or two since I used it.

The good thing is, the unit below her is vacant. I say that because this carpet cleaner is VERY, VERY loud. So loud, that I'm bringing air plugs, and maybe even my big muffler thingies. I hope the neighbor adjacent to her doesn't find it too noisy. Does noise travel sideways?

So I stayed for lunch at my mom's while my windshield wipers were getting fixed. After she dropped me off to pick up my car, I stopped to deposit a paycheck and also 5 DVDs from the library to satisfy my TV addiction.

I also sent a thank-you note to the president of the company I interviewed at last Friday. And did a bunch of online surveys.

Just back from getting those windshield wipers with a life of their own fixed.

The dealer told me on the phone it sounded like the motor would need to be replaced at a tune of $350 to $400.

I brought it to my mother's mechanic, a Portuguese man who has worked solo on a busy corner of downtown for many years. I doubt the dealer would have tried tinkering with it, and would have just gone ahead and replaced it, but this mechanic was willing to do so and it's working fine now.

Cost: $60.

He couldn't tell me why it was running non-stop before and said he couldn't guarantee that the problem would not reoccur, and that if it did, the motor would then definitely need to be replaced. (Although his price for replacing the motor would be $230, still far cheaper than the dealer.)

But for now, it's fine, and I sure hope it lasts!

So, I managed to put in 5 hours of work at home today for the p/t publishing job. I usually work all day Friday, but yesterday was tied up with the job interview and The Author's birthday.

Tomorrow I'll need to work 4 more hours, and then that's it for this week. 25 hours a week.

I'm starting to get nervous about the bill for the windshield wipers. The dealer said it sounded like the motor, which would need to be replaced, and that it if were just a fuse, I'd have trouble turning it on, not turning it off. Seems he has a point.

I was out there today trying to pull fuses out, but was unable to do it. I have an appt. with a mechanic for Monday a.m. and am really hoping he can fix it cheaper than the dealer, who said $350 to $400! Thing is, wipers aren't something you can do without, but you also can't have them going constantly, either. Either way, it's one of those things you want to get fixed right away.

Somebody emailed me today who I had responded to back in January about some Craig's List editing job. She asked me about my rates, but I can't for the life of me remember what this job was about (something legal) and while i print out and save every CL ad I respond to, I didn't have this one. I'd love to do the job, though, but I will need to be careful and get complete contact info so I can try to avoid what happened with Century 21.

The prospect of getting that f/t job is doing wonders to keep my mood generally upbeat. I keep finding myself daydreaming here and there about how nice it would be to have some surplus cash to do so many different things with, like prepay the mortgage again, fund my Roth IRA and stuff. And how nice it would be to have a 10-minute commute.
home.

It's sort of nice to have all of next week to think about it and really study their publications.

So, once I realized I couldn't fix my wipers by pulling a fuse, I never made it to the landfill, library or bank. It can wait. I did refill the wiper fluid. It was completely empty, so if I'd driven anywhere else with those wipers going, i would have run dry. I can't even seem to pull the fuse. it's hard to access and i can't identify or pull out the fuse puller Honda supplies you.

Yeah, the stock market's really come back and so has my portfolio. It makes me feel less poor. Which I know I'm not, but my self-imposed standard of living does make me feel very poor. But I also keep hearing really positive things about the housing market, that the rental market is heating up with higher prices, and that always precedes a rise in home prices.

I had that interview yesterday.

The company is a small publisher with websites, monthly publications and catalogs serving the wholesale/retail merchandise industry.

I'd be in charge of writing content for 1 website and 1 monthly publication, including loading the stories and blog posts. Also would be recruiting contributing writers (they can't pay them) and editing their stuff. These are all things I did in my last job, except I'm a little weak in HTML stuff...i don't know HTML coding at all, really. And this industry would be entirely new to me.

The companies who advertise in their monthly publication are wholesalers, manufacturers, etc. The readers are retail store owners who buy their stuff to get inventory for their stores. I would be doing a lot of interviews of small business owners and manufacturers about their products, reporting on new shopping trends in online/brick and mortar retail business and the like.

It was casual dress there, though now that i think of it, it may only have been becus it was Friday. It's like 10 minutes from my home.

However, for the publ/website I'd be responsible for, it's a bit of a niche, geared toward the flea market and swap meet business.

Anyway, I met with the president, who i actually kind of liked, and he seemed to like me. He said he was very impressed with my resume. He knows someone I used to work for (a real etate CEO). He had me show him how to use Track Changes in MS Word, after mentioning he never knew how to use it but that his attorney always uses it. So I walked around to his side of the desk and showed him.

He kept a lot of my writing samples and said the next step, after I met with their technology person, would be to meet with the head of editorial.

The tech person asked me what I'd done in the past to drive traffic to my site (I answered that by talking about my guest blogging on other sites, doing some PR), talked about using keywords, but i had to tell her i don't know the HTML coding but of course would be willing to learn. Luckily, I can use both a PC and Mac and I see they use huge Macs. I feel a little weak generally on the tech end of things. She asked if i knew how to re-size a photo, which i don't. This is the thing. At a small company, they want you to do it all, even though one can certainly learn new things. My last employer was larger, and so we had designers who did things like photo re-sizing and coding wasn't considered part of the editorial function.

The Prez will be away all next week but tech person said if you don't hear from us by 3/12, call us on the status of the job. This was nice...you rarely, if ever, have a prospective employer tell you to call them. Usually they don't want you pestering them as to job status. The other thing i liked is that no one asked me how much money i wanted to make. I'd rather they just make me an offer. I also REALLY liked it when the president said that quality of the writing was very important. At so many places these days, it's all about quantity, cus so many websites are sprouting up and they're all racing to get tons of content up there. But pres even said it was a pet peeve of his, bad writing, so i was thrilled to hear that. Becus as a professional writer, sometimes you can be working at a job and always putting in a lot of effort and it doesn't always seem to be appreciated at the top.

This is a small business, maybe 25-30 people? The head of editorial is the president's brother. I learned that they hired someone else for the job and that person just up and quit. So of course I'm wondering why. It looked like there was a lot of sharing of office space there.

Prez said business is doing very well and they barely noticed the impact of the recession, becus of course the recession is causing more people to shop at flea markets and that sort of thing.

The funny thing is, I applied for this or similar jobs at this company at least 2or 3 times and never heard a peep from them. I'm guessing that's because my resume just got overlooked among the hundreds they most surely got. In fact, since I hadn't had luck in the past, I nearly skipped applying this time. But then I decided to write a very pointed cover letter addressing each of the qualifications they were seeking, one by one by one. It's possible that whatever program they use to winnow down the resumes and select those with the most matching words selected mine for that reason. (Even though I had all those same words in my resume.)

So yesterday I'm heading home from work and it was a bit drizzly, so I turned them on. Then it stopped raining and I put them on intermittent. I noticed they weren't doing 1 wipe, 1 rest, 1 wipe, 1 rest, as they usually do. They were doing 2 wipes, rest, 1 wipe, rest, 3 wipes, etc.

Then I turned them off entirely and guess what? They kept on going, this time with no intermittent!

The only way to get them to stop is to turn the car off!

So on top of everything else going on right now, I've got to make time to bring the car in to service station, and that won't be able to happen til Monday.

This a.m. is my job interview, and right after that, I have to run home, pick up a birthday cake for friend, and get ready for 2 friends to come over at 3 pm. So that will kill the rest of the day.

I've been fiendishly cleaning the house and prepping for the job interview at the time, assembling my portfolio, etc.

Tomorrow I will spend the day working my p/t job (at home) since I won't have time to do that today.

Hopefully, aside from the job interview and grocery store run, I won't need to drive anywhere else until Monday. I hope it's not expensive to fix, and I kind of wish it were raining today so i don't look like an idiot. I'll have to keep squirting the cleaner fluid so the wipers don't damage my windshield, or themselves.

Here are some surprising figures I just uncovered as I sat down to do my monthly investment statement.

On March 1, 2009, my total invested assets were just $321,065.

I was still working then. That was about 6 months before my layoff from my last job. Life was good, even though we were in the peak of the recession.

Then my layoff happened in September 2009.

Fast forward exactly 3 years later.

March 1, 2012 total invested assets: $493,398

So in just three years, my assets have increased 35%, even despite the fact I haven't added much of anything to them during this time and that for 2.5 of those 3 years, I haven't even worked full-time.

It's kind of amazing what compounding returns can do and how a stock market recovery can float all ships.

So I finally got my first bill that reflects a credit the power company is giving to those of us who endured a week or more with no power, TWICE (first in October after a freak snowstorm dumped a foot of snow on us) and then a 2nd time in December, I think it was. Both times, I went 7 days with no electricity.

That wasn't fun, but now that I see the credit on my bill, I'm happy. The exact amount of the credit was dependent on how many people signed up for it but was going to be somewhere between $100 and $200.

It turns out my credit is $140. Since I average about $55 in electricity charges each month, that's nearly 3 months of free electricity.

Yahoo!

I'm prepping now for a phone interview for contract writing in another hour.

I also am excited about another interview, an in person one, this Friday at a very local small publisher of trade magazines/websites in retail/wholesaler merchandise. It would be a great commute. Full-time, with benefits. Ahh, it sounds like a dream, at nearly any salary level. I'm guessing this one would be low 60s although I guess it could be lower.

Because of that interview, I've scheduled a haircut for today right after my phone interview. My hair is looking pretty shaggy. I'm trying to grow it out but it needs help.

This morning I received word from an asset management company i was in touch with that they do indeed want to talk to me about possible contract writing for them tomorrow afternoon.

Which is great, except that I'd just made plans with The Author to have her over for some cake, and then a walk, to celebrate her birthday.

Luckily, I found out later today that she wanted to reschedule our get-together anyway because she's engrossed in tax paperwork. So we'll do our thing on Friday, not tomorrow, which means I now have more time to prepare for my phone call with the asset mgmt company.

(This is a subsidiary company of the big financial services company where I did a 3.5 month contract gig in Q4 2010. I was recommended by the woman who hired me at that time.) the company manages money for endowment and pension funds, ie, institutional money management.

They want someone to write/edit white papers. So I've spent a fair amount of time reading the white papers already posted on their site. It's extremely high level, intelligent writing involving interpretations of economic conditions/events and asset management concepts which, though I'm familiar with, I can't say I understand in totality or even truly understand. That's what's giving me a little ogida, feeling insecure about a certain lack of knowledge and wondering what level of expertise they're looking for.

They're probably going to say well, gee, I see from your resume you've done a lot of marketing writing, but what about white papers? I suddenly remembered tonight that I wrote a white paper of sorts last summer as a "test" assignment for a market intelligence firm. While I didn't get that job, what I wrote was a pretty decent example of research and writing, a 6-page overview of the energy needs and development plans of the nation of Bangladesh. The people i talk to tomorrow don't need to know it was only a test assignment or that I didn't get paid for it. So I'll be sure to mention that one and ask if they'd like to see it.

I went for a 6-month ultrasound today which followed discovery of a mass of some sort in my breast 6 months ago after a routine mammogram. They say again that it looks like a cyst (and that it's now half the size), but again they recommend a follow-up ultrasound in 6 months. While I guess that's good news, I could see this cycle of ultrasounds every 6 months just continuing indefinitely, possibly, becus I have what's called dense breast tissue. She told me, in fact, that their protocol is ultrasounds every 6 months for 2 years following any kind of breast abnormality. One wonders if you ever get any resolution, becus cysts don't necessarily go away.

I invited my neighbor to come over on Friday when I see The Author. She takes a painting class that The Author teaches. I will buy a small but delectable birthday cake at Caraluzzi's and I bought a cute little primrose at Shop Rite for $1. Now I need a card, and since I bought a very pretty little gift bag, I may end up giving her a miniature copper weather vane with gardening motif as the present.

Countdown: My mortgage balance is down to $8,374.

It has been an otherwise lazy Sunday, but I did get sufficient get-up-and-go to install both the curio cabinet and the towel holder in the downstairs bath...





You can see the curio cabinet in the mirror. I usually have seashells, bird's nests and wasp nests sitting there....I also have some sand dollars and sea urchins but they had gotten a little yellowed over time, so they're currently soaking in a bleach/water solution to whiten them again.

Too much stuff on the counter maybe? I've been experimenting with different decor. It feels like a whole new room.

After examining the towel rack I have, I realized there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, no scratches, nothing. So I decided to just keep what I have. And the white towel will do for now.

I'm very happy with it.

I have a ton of stress cracks around various doors and windows. I'd love to tackle them next, although it would mean painting over the whole wall, too. I saw online there's some tape you can buy at Home Depot which makes the job real easy. You basically just put the tape over the crack, then paint over it, and the crack just disappears. It's a little expensive from what I hear, but for someone who's not "handy" like me, it's worth it.

The bathtub could use both re-caulking between the tub and tiles, and also re-grouting between tiles, in the corner, where some cracks have appeared.

And 2 or 3 other indoor projects right off the top of my head.

Finally! It's done.

What I'm referring to is the long overdue completion of my bathroom wallpapering job:



I actually started this job about 3 years ago (!!!) and suddenly lost my enthusiasm for the job about mid-way through. Let's face it...wallpapering is an awful job. You can't see it here, or even if you were really inside my bathroom, but there are many imperfections in this job. But at least it's done.

I WILL NEVER WALLPAPER ANYTHING AGAIN IN MY LIFE.

Since this was a 2nd, seldom-used bathroom, it was all too easy to just close the door and not think about it. The only way I was able to FORCE myself to tackle this project again was to:

1. Tell myself that all I had to do was hang ONE piece of paper on a given day...that way, no pressure to do the whole dang thing.

2. I also told myself that Spring is just around the corner, and as soon as it started getting a little warm, I'd be outside in the yard doing stuff, planting my veggie garden and once again would have little time or interest in finishing the wallpapering.

So I worked on it maybe 4 more days, each time for no more than 2 hours. I BARELY had enough wallpaper, and after using up 2 full rolls for this tiny room, I was not about to plunk down another $50 for a third roll.

All I have to do now is hang a small curio cabinet on the wall with wall anchors (a little nervous about doing that) and a towel bar. It goes above the toilet, a white, cottage-look thing I like which I put seashells on. Am wondering if it might be nice to get a new towel bar; maybe I'll browse Home Depot.

In other news...

The check I got from deadbeat client CLEARED. At least, I think that happened. When I check my account online, initially, it will tell you a check is "in process," but now it just shows it's deposited, so I'm guessing that's good.

So can forget about this lowlife and focus on more productive stuff.

Man, I'm soooo happy about that bathroom. I think I'll be using it a lot more often. I guess you could say that room got a mini makeover, not just the wallpaper. The light fixture over the top of the mirror is new (from a few years ago) and replaced 2 small fixtures on either side of the mirror, which looked really, really odd becus there was no room for the light fixtures on the sides and it cast a glare in the mirror....so much better to have the larger fixture above the mirror.

The other thing I did was replace the old window in the room with a vinyl replacement window. the window looks out onto my sun room and allows added natural light to come into the small bathroom. But i had the lower half of the window frosted for privacy purposes. I think it worked out well.



When I was putting the room back together, I realized that a pair of stone goblets I got from a museum in Washington, DC would mimic the pattern on the walls. They were surprisingly affordable at the time. Luther broke the base of one of them, but I glued it back together....

So since last Monday was a holiday, the post office didn't deliver the certified mail from deadbeat client until yesterday. I was at work, so there was a note in my door that I'd have to pick it up at PO.

I did that this morning, and found he'd sent me a check, not a money order. So he may try to stop payment on it once he found out/finds out i complained to his wife's sales manager about her nonpayment of debt. Or not. I really don't know this guy. I deposited it immediately this am after getting it but i guess will have to wait a few more days to see if the check clears. If it doesn't, then my bank will probably charge me $25 or so for the stop-payment order.

I had complained to the sales manager last Friday after getting a nasty note from them saying they were suing me for $1,000 for violating the fair debt collection act.

Not sure where that would get him if he stopped payment, since his bank would also charge him to do that, plus I'd still want my money. Surely it would be easier to just pay me the $50???

After all the drama, aggravation and threats of lawsuit over such a small debt, a part of me feels it would be very satisfying to haul this guy's ass into small claims court, just to teach him a lesson.

I just transferred $150 in rewards from Discover card to my checking account after charging $1,000 in 2 months. Gotta love these little deals. I've already started on my next reward with Citi; they actually sent me a little reminder that i could earn their "signing bonus" by charging just $500 in 3 months. Thanks, Citi!

In other news, I spent a little time each day during the past 2 days doing....drum roll....bathroom wallpapering!!

you know, the project that's been half-done for the last three years????

That bathroom's been mostly unusable all this time because I couldn't bring myself to finish that job. But I forced myself to do it with the reasoning that spring is just around the corner, and once it warms up, I'll be out and about in my garden and the bathroom will once again be forgotten for yet another season.

So....I made myself work on it, probably 2 hours each day. By not pressuring myself to finish it, I've been able to make progress so I'm now three-quarters of the way done. And since I work tomorrow through Friday, my work requirement today will be hanging just one long piece on the back wall. (More if I can, but 1 piece minimum.) I am in danger of running out of wallpaper, which could be a problem since they often seem to discontinue patterns and I bought this several years ago. This is the 2nd roll, but you go through so much paper becus you're supposed to match/line up the pattern on each new sheet you hang, even though it's a very abstract marbled look that you'd think wouldn't require matching. But I've done it both ways on the walls and you can tell the difference if you study it.

It's FAR from perfect....many imperfections, but at least I'm making progress. There are actually places where I had to cut little "patches" because I'd wallpapered on 2 sides, to meet in the middle, and of course it didn't meet in the middle. Live and learn.

I'll show you pix when it's finally done. Not sure what i'll do if I run out and they don't carry this pattern anymore. I'm doing the most important parts of the room and leaving the part below and to the side of the toilet for last. Not that it would be any less noticeable....

Went to Trader Joe's with my neighbor yesterday. We also hit Target for a Lean Cuisine sale. Today, after wallpapering, i want to get some DVDs at the library, get milk ($1.88 a gallon) at Caraluzzi's and some black cohosh at CVS.

I just posted a little while ago, mentioning that my friend and neighbor was due back here in CT from Florida, where she had been visiting her grand-daughter for a week.

I called her after posting that blog to see if she was home yet. She had just gotten in about an hour earlier and I asked her if she'd had a good time.

Not really.

She got there (I forget what town it was now, but on the west side) last Saturday, the same day they were expecting her son-in-law's parents to arrive. My neighbor was going to be sharing a rental house with them for the week she was visiting, something she'd done before a year or so ago.

The son-in-law's parents were from Queens, NY but were down in FL visiting a variety of friends and driving from Miami to see their son and daughter-in-law.

They never made it. The mother was driving and apparently had a heart attack and struck a tree head-on. This was in the Bradenton area, wherever that is. The mother died at the scene and the father is in critical condition. They don't think he'll make it. They were in their late 60s, early 70s. The car was filled with gifts for their grand kids.

So what my neighbor had been looking forward to as a nice vacation, warm weather and children's birthday parties ended up being a very somber, depressing time. Most of the time her granddaughter and son-in-law were at the hospital and she just hung around and looked after her great-grand kids.

The mother had been on heart medication and checked out fine just 10 days earlier. They think it might have been a massive, undetected blood clot.

Gosh. How awful.

As I think will become my custom, I wrapped up my "work week" this afternoon. Wednesdays and Thursdays are full days at the office and Friday is at home, but there seem to have been a variety of other things happening on my Fridays which prevents me from putting in a full day of work. So I wrap up with a few extra hours on Saturday. (But then I have Monday and Tuesday "off" if I have no freelance work.)

I'm happy to report a small Craig's List sale of $20, and I decided to meet my buyer where I do my grocery shopping, to make it easier for him. He bought my indoor bicycle stand. It basically converts a regular outdoor bike into an indoor stationery bike. It goes for about $80 online, but I'm happy with the sale because I myself bought it used, for about the same price, two summers ago at a church silent auction.

I was so hepped up about getting one of them that when i saw it in the silent auction, I signed up and then stalked the table to make sure I could counter-bid if someone signed up for it. No one did.

But I quickly grew tired of the thing for two reasons: the main problem is that there's no resistance when you pedal. So you'd probably have to pedal for half hour just to tire yourself out. I suppose this might work ok for someone who's totally out of shape and couldn't handle an incline anyway, but I found it virtually pointless to use it. The other thing was, it's fairly noisy, even with padding under the stand.

I feel a little bad about selling it to the buyer without pointing out its shortcomings. Of course, no one pointed them out to me.

So i brought home my groceries and when i was unpacking them, i forgot to put away (in the fridge) a pound of cottage cheese and a pound of Kozy Shack pudding. Umm, they sat on the kitchen table for about 4 hours. I shall eat them anyway.

So one thing i am learning from my new job is that there's an incredible array of high quality, charming children's magazines out there. That's what I'm doing, updating our listings for our 2013 edition of our publication, which summarizes everything a freelance writer of children's stories would need to know if they wanted to browse and see which magazines they might like to write for.

I don't know if all of these were around when I was growing up, but I really feel I missed out. There was one I remember that is still around, called Highlights. But there are so many more that are beautifully illustrated with charming stories for all age ranges.

I also never knew how many Christian/religious magazines for children there are out there. Halleluiah! There are quite a few in the heartland.

After all the brou-ha-ha with my non-paying client, I decided to take down that post temporarily, until I see payment. No need to possibly muddy up the waters further if he, for whatever reason, might google the exact verbiage of his nasty notes to me, he would find them here on my blog and then know a whole lot more about me than I prefer.

So I'm sort of sitting on pins and needles this weekend becus what happens next depends a lot on how soon i get that check and can cash it (yes, I will run to the bank with it), and how soon wifey decides to drop in the office.

I'm guessing that when her manager talks to her about our conversation, she'll be one pissed off lady and I anticipate their trying to stop payment on the check (assuming they mailed it today as promised). Becus once they know I already spoke to her sales manager, they may figure the damage is done and there's no longer any need to pay me, becus her boss already knows all about it. So I'll be wanting to deposit it ASAP.

I have spoken to 2 male friends about the whole thing and both said they'd have no grounds for a lawsuit and that they're sleazeballs trying to pervert the rule of law. All to avoid a $50 bill.

In other news...

It's a rather dreary, cloudy day here, on the chilly side. Not conducive to doing much outdoors.

I bought some tilapia at $3.99 a pound and will have it tonight with a mushroom risotto and steamed broccoli. Tomorrow's dinner is already dethawing in the fridge. Frozen tomatoes from my garden and frozen black beans for a pumpkin black bean soup.

My neighbor returns from Florida today. Maybe i'll give her a call and see if she's back yet. She told me that the cost of the limo (not a real limo) to pick her up at her house and bring her to the NY airport actually cost more than her airplane tickets, which i think were about $300. I know she hated spending the money, but it was her choice to go. She asked me again if I'd be interested in driving her and that she'd pay me, but driving to a NY airport is NOT my cup of tea. Frequent traffic backups, aggressive drivers and I'd probably get lost and then be on my own on the way back. Nooo, I don't think so. I've done her lots of favors in the past and I think she assumed I would do so, but thank God I got my mojo going and said no. It would be about an hour and a half one way.

This first paycheck was a bit bigger than the rest of 'em will be, only because of the day I happened to start work and where that day was in their bi-weekly pay cycle.

So it was net $449 for 4 days of work. Yippee.

Tomorrow's my work at home day. Today at the office I worked straight through without breaking for lunch, so i got in a solid 8 hours of work.

This past week has been pretty intense. Everything is just new, every process, every procedure, and the brain can only take in and absorb so much at one time. Quark is still new to me, and so is FileMaker. Remembering what it's like to work on a Mac... and since having two computers with monitors side by side is conducive to doing this job, I've using one mac and one PC.

The PC is a pain to use. The keyboard is so old some of the letters have worn off the keyboard. The mouse is not working properly and causes things to bounce up and down when you try to use the center scroll bar. I'm not sure they want to buy a new one. The monitor is so small that you can't bump up the font size, which i like to do cus i can't read mousetype anymore, or else you lose the edges of the website andhave teo keep scrolling back and forth to read it.

The internet/DSL is super slow. Everything at this company is old, and acts like it.

Then there's learning a thousand new procedures, having to keep 2 time sheets (1 for paycheck purposes and 1 to track how much time you're spending on different things, research vs. database, etc.), plus remembering to punch in and out of the digital time clock each day/lunch.

The place is so dingy; I still haven't gotten used to it. There's a tacky, dusty old fake pot of flowers on my desk, but I don't want to start dragging a lot of stuff in there, like a nice houseplant, cus I really hope i don't stay there that long and want to be able to leave quickly and easily when I find a real job.

Half the wallpaper is torn off the bathroom walls, as if someone had started to re-wallpaper but then thought better of it. The floors are not level and the carpet is saggy and wrinkled in places.

The editor seems like a very uptight, edgy person. You can hear it immediately in her voice and the way she speaks, in clipped, terse tones talking 100 miles per hour all the time. That's how it was when I first walked in the door this morning, she and another person. It kind of stresses me out. Luckily, we both like classical music, so we had both tuned in our computers to the local classical music station to soothe the soul. There are just 5 of us in editorial.

But I think the worst is over in terms of the learning curve.

Had a couple of quickie emails to edit for the IT guy when I came home. the United Health Care job evaporated into thin air. Got an email from the recruiter saying the company had decided to put it on hold for now. So I basically have no active leads going on right now, which is so discouraging. The jobs come and they go.

I'm sure I must be becoming awfully boring, like a one-trick pony, cus all i can talk about is work and job prospects. Sorry, folks.

http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/family-money/should-you-boycott-valentines-day-1329174458509/

It's worth a thought.

Here's the yummy soup I made today, cauliflower and cheddar soup.



It's really easy, and super yum.

Cook a whole cauliflower head, broken up into flowerets, or 2 16 oz. frozen packages of cauliflower, in 1 cup water til soft. Reserve 1 cup of the cooked flowerets and put the remaining cauliflower with its liquid in the blender to puree. Set aside.

Saute a chopped up onion in one-quarter cup of butter til soft, then gradually add a half-cup of flour and stir. Then add 1 cup of chicken broth, 2 cups of 2% milk, the pureed cauliflower, the cauliflower florettes and 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese with 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.

Heat but do no boil. Garnish with green onion.

Today, after mulling it over all weekend, I decided not to pursue 2 jobs I had interviews set up for Monday and Tuesday.

You may think I'm being awfully fussy for someone who's been out of work so long. But I ended up bowing out of both jobs for 2 very different sets of reasons, which I think are valid.

1. The crossword puzzle editing job.
When I applied, I thought the lowest this job could pay would be in the $40K range, but I was wrong on that. When I learned the pay was just $29K, it didn't sound like it would be enough to even cover my expenses. But I like to keep my options for as long as possible, til I'm ready to make a decision, so I didn't reveal any hesitation to the editor when i spoke to her on the phone last Friday.

My net monthly pay after taxes would be $1928 (based on $29K a year gross)

My MINIMUM monthly expenses are $2400.

That's a monthly short-fall of nearly $500. And this is a full-time job!

Add in likely monthly savings of $250 a month for cheaper health insurance with them, but deduct $143 a month for gas, and I would net just $2035, still short of my minimum monthly expenses.

I would have little time or energy to do freelance to make up for the shortfall.

Next spring when my mortgage is paid off, it will be different. My monthly minimum expenses would fall to $1800. So, ok, I'd have an extra $235 a month in my pocket. Just not enough.

When I figure my minimum monthly expenses, I DON'T include things like: car repairs, retirement/IRA savings, clothing, home maintenance, Netflix or occasional lunch out. Nothing like that. I'm getting tired of living like this. What's the point of a long commute and full-time work if it doesn't even alleviate some of these budget shortfalls?

I just don't want to get back into that kind of daily grind/commute if I'm getting so little back for it. Quality of life is a really big deal to me. If I'm earning so little, it should at least be a local job to compensate for that.

The only reason the editor called me for this job is becus a very good friend of mine put in a call to the wife of a very good friend of his, and the wife happens to be #2 in the company. While the editor I spoke to on the phone seemed super nice, she did question my wanting to drive all that distance, and at that time i just tried to allay her concerns.

2. The senior writer job at large IT research firm.
This job would be over an hour drive, so in this sense, the long commute would be a similar issue, though more so. But there are other issues: it appears a regular part of this job would be traveling to conferences and interviewing analysts attending them so I could write up white papers which are later sold to their clients. I don't much care for business travel, would have issues getting someone to take care of the cats and it's just not something I enjoy. The other thing is, while I apparently met all their requirements (like being someone who worked at a large firm and agency before in financial services or some other heavily regulated field), I don't have a lick of background (or interest) in IT stuff, and that's what this company is all about. So I'm passing on this one too, although the money for this perm job would be quite good.

So what's left? I'm still very much interested in the United Health Care contract job and will call the recruiter for that one to see if he's gotten feedback from the company on my resume yet.

What really miffed me is this guy insisted on knowing how much money I wanted (on an hourly basis). I tried to sidestep that and just bluntly said if he could tell me their range, it would probably expedite things. He ignored that. So I ended up telling him $30s, meaning somewhere between $30 an hour and $39 an hour.

I guess that was really much lower than I needed to go, becus I saw that the company has also retained not one, but TWO other headhunters to find someone for the job, and one of these other headhunter agencies posted the job as paying $48 to $53 an hour!!

So, I decided to apply for the same job with these 2 other agencies. If all these submissions result in an interview with one of the other 2 agencies rather than the first, then I will of courses, up my salary requirements. As it is, if something comes thru with the first guy, I will insist on $39 an hour. Becus I'm quite sure that they and United Health Care have already worked out what UHC will pay them. A portion of that payment will go to me and the rest the agency keeps. So obviously, the less I earn the more the agency gets and I'm sure they like it that way. But if the company talks to me and decides I'm the one they want, I don't see how the agency could refuse to pay me at the top end of my scale if I insist. They'd be forced to give me what I wanted becus if not, then they don't get paid either.

The other job I'm now very interested is a 100% remote job with unknown company doing marketing writing. Unclear whether it's p/t or f/t but it is contract work through a recruiter. This looks like a highly desirable job to me. The only thing is the job posting was old, 23 days old. I checked the recruiter website and it seems like it's still an active posting. I somehow hadn't seen it earlier.

In the meantime, I still have the 3 day a week publishing job. With the weekly quotas they've set for us for the number of listings they want us to complete, it's not an easy job and a bit of a grind. I barely met that quota at the end of my 3 day workweek, and the quota will only rise over time. I'm hoping I'll be gone before it rises in early summer, but who knows? Like just about every other place I know, they're trying to squeeze the maximum amount of work out of you for the least amount of pay.

Just trying to do the best I can. It ain't easy.

I have another possible deadbeat client on my hands, the husband/wife Century 21 team from a low-rent type city about an hour away from me. I wrote a blog for them. I can't believe they'd actually try to stiff me out of a measly $50 (I discounted my rate for them) and it pisses me off to no end.

I have a complete paper trail with them accepting those terms of payment but of course not worthwhile to pursue in small claims.

I made a point to verbally ask him on the phone before i started to pay in 2 weeks time. He agreed. I sent invoice. When they didn't pay, i emailed him and he said oh sorry, i will have it out in tonight's mail. That was last Monday. By Friday (yesterday), when i still didn't have it, i emailed again and this time got no response at all from him.

They may actually think i don't know how to find them becus i answered their Craig's list ad and they never provided contact info. (Not even a phone, I don't think. When we agreed to discuss the project on the phone, he said he would call me. I figured it didn't matter becus I had already researched who they were online.I found the wife realtor on the website of Century 21, complete with office address and phone.

So if i still don't get the check by say Wednesday next week, i can email them and say oh, i have reason to be up in Your Town next week, so if i don't get the check from you, i can drop by your office on Name of Street. That may scare them becus they may not now know that I know where they work, and they might not want a disgruntled me showing up at their office and possibly embarrassing them.

What do you think?

I don't have any intention of actually schlepping up there but i do want my money.

Any ideas of other ways I could make sure they pay their bill without going to a lot of trouble (driving up there) or expense?

sure, I can write it off, but in my current state of underemployment, every dollar really counts.

Worked all day at home, first on writing up some bios for freelance, and then back to the p/t publishing job.

Hey, guess what?

The annual directory that I edited/updated on a contract basis last Nov/Dec.? It's the 2012 edition and it's published now and I just discovered that my name appears in the book as a Contributing Writer. If I ever go for any other publishing jobs, it will be very impressive.

There's a slew of job opportunities lately, although from past experience, these spring forth like delicate seedlings from the earth and many shrivel up just as quickly.

#1 on my list: An agency in Minnesota contacted me about a United Health Care contract position near where I live. Pay is in the $30s, meaning $30 something an hour. He's submitted my resume to the firm. Would love to work there and would quit my p/t job to do so, even though it's just a 4 to 6 month gig.

I have an interview lined up with the crossword puzzle book publisher Tuesday, but it's a 50-minute drive and they told me the pay is $29K. But it's full-time with benefits. So I don't know. I may still decide to cancel the interview. It's the drive that really bothers me.

Then I have a phone interview with HR at a big research firm for senior writer. That job would also be quite a haul, but it would pay much better.

Still have heard nothing about the contract job with Prudential; it may die away.

I've got over $1,000 in projects I've either already invoiced or will bill out soon, all with the same client. I may have to do quarterly estimated tax payments this year.

Looking forward to some time to myself this weekend, though I don't know what to do with myself.

I started the 2nd p/t job today at the publisher's. There's quite a bit to learn. It was a lot to take in but I think it will come over time.

The company can't be doing that well. I learned they are no longer making free tea and coffee available in the kitchen and remaining supplies are dwindling down. Hmmm.

It's not that interesting, but it'll have to do.

It'll be 2 days there, 1 day at home to start, and then as soon as I feel I've got the hang of Quark and FileMaker and everything else, I can make it 2 days a week at home, 1 day there. I figure after 2 weeks I should be working at home for 2 of the 3 days.

FileMaker resides on their server and can't be taken home like Quark can, so that's why I have to spend 1 day a week there, to transfer the Quark listing updates to FM.

I decided not to wait til Friday to give notice at the job I started yesterday, so tonight I sent a note to the owner and the gal who trained me, nicely worded, but to the point.

They both wrote back and said they understood. They will mail me a check for the day worked, so no biggie. All the owner said was that 1 day was not enough to judge how much $$ you could make, and that he said i could make $15 when he interviewed me, but I know he said to me $17 or $18/hr. becus I immediately mentally compared that rate to what I knew I'd be making at the publishing job.

I feel like I made the right decision. The publishing job requires a great deal of attention and focus so i feel like I have my hands full with that anyway, and this way, I'll still have time to pursue my freelance jobs as they come, and pursue full-time work opportunities.

the cats don't like being home alone all day after having me around for so long. Well, Waldo is probably ok cus he sleeps quite a bit anyway, but Luther, I am sure, is climbing walls.

Today was my first day at the transcription job. I worked in a room with a total of six work stations/computers which they hope to have all filled; they are still hiring and interviewing.

The other gals were very nice and the woman who served as manager did what she could, I think, to make the work environment enjoyable and friendly.

But it was a long and tiring day. The chairs are cheap ones, not very comfortable. Everyone brings in pillows for their backs. There were at times 4 of us in the room.

When one person started randomly talking to another, well, I started having difficulty hearing what was being said in my earphones on the tape I was transcribing. We're all in the same room, and people weren't talking in hushed tones. So you basically had to wait until they were finished talking to get back to work. When someone walked into the room to talk to the manager, it was the same thing. I didn't think it was my place to say anything, it being my first day on the job.

When i interviewed a few weeks back with one of the owners, he told me if you typed at least 60 words per minute, "you should be able to make $17 or $18 an hour." Well, I type north of 80 words per minute and that's not what I made today. Um, yeah, you might make that per hour if you were simply typing.. But they want the text to be pretty much perfect, and I do make little typos here and there, so i was fixing those typos as I went. And then when I was done, I ran spell check, which took some time. Plus I took a few short breaks, plus a half hour lunch, just to stretch. But they aren't paying me for any of that time. They just pay by the total number of words I typed, x a half a penny per word.

So today, i felt I had achieved something, having typed 13,962 words in 7 hours. When i ran that on my calculator at home, it came out to just $69.81, or $9.97 per hour. Which was quite disappointing, given how tired I am.

Paying by the word is cheap and tight-fisted, IMO. And with that pay structure, it's like a disincentive to be very careful because the more care you take with the text, the less you make. But if I try typing any faster, I'll likely just make more errors, which would again require more time to fix. So I don't see how I could really improve much on my speed, or my pay.

If it paid at least what they said it did, or at least $15/hr, which is what I'll be making at the 2nd p/t job, it might be worth it, but given the long drive, the nature of the work and low pay, ....i just think my remaining 2 days a week would be better spent doing my freelance, which pays so much better and continuing the job search.

The freelance won't be enough, even with the other p/t job. And by giving up so soon on this one, i run the risk of again falling short come spring when my benefits finally peter out. (I guess they'll last a little longer, maybe til June, now that I'll be working 3 days a week at the other job.)

The transcription job initially seemed appealing becus, right now at least, there is unlimited work available, and i saw myself going up there weekends, too. But gosh, I'm not a work machine. I question whether I could do it now. I'm not 20. It was very tiring.

Having come to these conclusions, I'm thinking it would be better for me to quit right away, before I go back, rather than wait a few weeks and stick it out. Because I haven't even given them all their paperwork for taxes and stuff. I took it all home with me tonight and had planned on filling it out and bringing it back when i next went back there, which was to be Monday. They don't even have my SSN yet.

I think I should quit right away because if I wait and then quit, I'll have to explain the whole situation to the unemployment office and there's a possibility they might withhold the rest of my benefits becus i quit the job. If I quit now after working just one day, chances are the company won't want to bother processing all my paperwork for a p/t employee (W4, etc) and they'll just want to cut a check and be done with me. I can then just report the income to DOL as a one-time contract job and leave it at that.

So my plan at this point is to wait til Friday, which is my work at home day with the other new job. Then i could call the woman at the transcription job and just be candid with her. I'm sure she'll be disappointed and try to talk me out of it. I will ask to be paid for the one day I worked, and I hope I can get them to agree with me it's not worth it having me fill out all the W4s and other paperwork for a p/t employee just for that 1 day of work. This way, I don't risk complications with DOL.

I'm bummed out, but also feeling what i KNOW will be a short-term feeling of relief. Short-term because the pressure will be right back on to find something better.

My friend did this kind of thing when he took a $9/hr job at Home Depot. I encouraged him to as well. But what in theory sounds like a good idea often is not when you actually try to do it.

In other news, I wrote an email to the IT director whose emails I've been editing, explaining that with these 2 p/t jobs i'd be working full time and would be unable to continue doing his emails, unless i could do them nights or weekends.

he wrote back and said, I don't want to lose you. I'll pay you more! (The 4 words every man, woman and child in America wants to hear, right?). And he asked me to tell him what times I'd be available again and let's try to work it out. So that was nice.

Now I'll probably be able to tell him I quit the one job and can still do his emails most of the time. he should be happy at that.

Well, I got the transcription job. And i start tomorrow, 1 day before I start my other new job. This should be interesting, and i hope not too tiring. But between the 2 jobs,I'll be working 40 hours, 5 days a week. Which hopefully should be enough to pay my bills and stay alive when my unemployment benefits finally trickle out this spring. So, despite the low pay, both these jobs came none too soon.

I can work them both until June 2013 if need be, but I will be constantly looking for a f/t job because I need the all-important health benefits. June 2013 is when my ability to continue with COBRA runs out. So it's imperative to find a salaried job with health insurance before that day, about a year-and-a-half from now.

Here's what the transcription job is all about. Before a network airs a season's worth of a TV show, they tape hundreds of hours, much of which they end up not using or editing down to just so many episodes per season.

The tapes I'll be transcribing are Q&A sessions between a TV producer and a contestant on a top chef reality show on the Food Network. This would be my baby for the next several months. Each time someone new starts talking, I have to hit the time stamp; this helps the producers find the right spots on the tape when they decide where to winnow it down and do their editing. You can at times hear the producer coaching the contestant about what to focus on when he answers their questions. So much for reality.

I'll have to sign a confidentiality agreement becus I'll know how a show ends before it airs, essentially. So this will be the last time I'll be able to talk about it.

It was a little tricky to start off because I had to get the hang of using a foot pedal to stop and start the tape as needed, if they were talking too fast, or to rewind, or if something that was said sounded garbled. There were also a lot of false starts, meaning, someone would start a sentence and then shift into saying something else.

As a natural editor, I have a strong tendency to edit as I type, but they don't want the tape edited, they want it verbatim, although they DO want you to fix grammar, punctuation and spelling. So I'm going to have to watch that becus they said someone else who kept doing that didn't work out.

I gave up trying to figure out my hourly rate. I'll just have to see how it goes. They pay a half penny per word, so i guess if I typed 1 page, about 250 words, I'd earn $12.50. It's really hard to tell how much I could do in an hour. I figure if it's only for 2 days a week it won't kill me.

It may not even come down to this, but I'd like to know in advance which of the 2 p/t jobs I should choose should it end up being an either/or scenario.

I've already concluded that working both jobs would be best if I could swing it, due to various benefits and advantages of both, but I don't know if it would work out that way.

So here again are the basics.

Job #1, Updating an annual directory for a publisher's.
Pros:
Much closer to home (20 minutes).
Flexibility to work part of the time at home.
They would deduct 1/2 the FICA taxes out of my paycheck.
As a p/t employee, I'd be earning unemployment "credits" which could ensure some small benefit should I again find myself without a job sometime in the future.
Cons: Lower rate of pay at $15/hr.
Hours fixed at 25 a week.

Job #2, transcription of taped TV shows.
Pros:
Would be full-time work at times.
Likely pays a bit better, from $2-3 more dollars per hour, but I don't know that for sure until I do it. That higher rate of $17-18/hr is based on what the owner said, and he could be sugar-coating it.
Cons:
Likely won't pay my FICA taxes.
Likely considered contract worker, so I wouldn't build up unemployment "credits." Which means if I were laid off down the road from this job, i might find myself in a situation where I could collect NO unemployment benefits, unless I also worked somewhere else as a regular employee. So this is actually fairly important, becus it's a crucial safety net should another layoff occur.
Could possibly drop to under the 25 hours a week I'm guaranteed at the first job.
Longer commute (40 minutes)
No option to work at home for probably 1st year.

Let's look at the key differences and see how many more hours a week I'd need to work at the transcription job in order to make that the better choice from a strictly financial point of view.

1. Gas expenses. I calculate it would cost me $2 per round trip to the publisher's but $7 per RT to the transcription job, so the transcription job would need to be at least 26 hours a week (at $16/hr) in order for it to pay more than publisher's.

2. FICA taxes. Half of FICA taxes is 12.4%, so this means the publisher's job would put an extra $23.25 in my pocket each week.

So in order for the transcription job to be the better choice in terms of the FICA taxes AND longer commute, I would need to be assured of averaging over 27 hours a week there (at $16 an hour).

The final key difference between the 2 jobs is one I don't really know how to quantify. It's the added potential benefit of working at publisher's as a p/t employee (not contract worker) resulting in my ability to earn unemployment "credit" as I go.

For now I guess I'll disregard it since it would only be a benefit if I got laid off from the publisher's job and that seems a bit unlikely since I sense the directories I'd be working on are a mainstay of what they do and an important revenue source. (If I got fired, of course, I wouldn't collect unemployment anyway.)

So when I go see the transcription people again on Monday, I need to find out if on average it's more than 27 hours a week.
I guess that job would still be better, even if it was over 27 hours a week for just half the year, right? I think they will only offer vague assurances and not really be able to specify exact hours, which is a little troubling. if I could work both jobs, that would be great, but I'd hate to give up the other one for this one, only to find myself working 15 or 20 hours a week.

Working a single job is so much simpler but since these are low-paying jobs with no benefits, I can't afford to just wing it and possibly make the wrong choice, if that kind of choice ("either/or") is given to me. I'm inclined to think the transcription job would be better, as long as I can assure myself it is, in fact, a year-round job and not more temporary in nature.

If i could convince them to accept my working for them 16-20 hours, including part of Saturday, then I could also do the publisher job and at least be earning full-time income, albeit at a low rate. That's the best case scenario.

January was the best month I ever had in terms of doing online surveys. I earned $146!

I filed my federal tax return online and with the combination of modest deductions on the home office form (thanks to Dido for all her help) and the medical expense reimbursement, the most I could get back in a refund was $425. (I had a lot of untaxed freelance income.) But then I owed $205 on the state form (largely due to the fact they decreased the maximum deduction for mortgage interest and property taxes paid to $300,down from $500), so my net will only be about $220 this year. How sad.

I think I spent about 23 hours on taxes, which is close to the average of 20 hours. I feel like I learned a lot by doing them myself again this year, particularly with the home office deduction. I will try to keep better records this year.

I got a final sign-off on the latest press release I did and can release it today. Then I can bill them.

I decided to slightly raise my freelance rates this year. Not across the board, but some things seem a little out of kilter. So I'm raising my fee on press release writing and distribution from $135 to $141.75, a modest 5% hike. These take a little more time than I think I'd allowed for, plus I often send my client links to places where I see the PR published, which I've never included or charged for becus I can't always access certain online publications which charge an access fee, and stuff like that. Plus I just don't have the time to monitor publication hits. But I do it enough for my one client so I figure, the rate increase is justifiable, especially since I haven't raised my rates since 2007-2008.

I may keep the rates on everything else the same, for now. Press releases probably represent about 50% of my freelance work, so the rate increase should be noticeable in my bottom line.

Besides distribution of the press release, the other big thing I want to accomplish this weekend is ghost-writing another article for the real estate exec. It will be the third such article I'll write under his name and which will appear in CT Builder Magazine. I like doing these becus I can charge a little more.

I didn't hear back yesterday afternoon from the woman at investment management subsidiary whose name/email I got from the woman who hired me Q4 2010. I sent my resume and a writing sample, one of the stories I wrote analyzing state housing trends for CT Builder Magazine (see above). I hope she doesn't look at my heavy marketing background and decide I'm not well-suited for writing white papers. That's why I sent that particular writing sample, to counter that possible impression.

Now the woman who hired me last time talked to me on the phone and then I was hired; there was no in-person interview. It would be nice if this worked out that way as well; if it's off-site work, it makes it even less necessary to meet me in person. I have no way of knowing how tenuous a thing this referral is, so I'm trying not to count on it.

In the meantime, I have a Monday appt. to go to the potential transcription job and do a typing test using their special transcription equipment. I'm a little irked, becus in their email they said it was a full-time job, but on the phone she said full-time now, but it could slow down and become part-time later. I really need to pin them down on just what the average hours might be, because I might have to decide between the transcription job and the 25-hour-a-week publisher's job, where I start on Wednesday. The transcription job reportedly pays $2 or $3 more an hour, but that's an estimate and it's all based on word count; it's not an hourly rate, so I have no way of knowing for sure til I do it. If the transcription job ends up average just 25 or 30 hours a week, it might not be worth it to take it even though it could pay slightly more, due to the longer commute...about 40 minutes vs. 20 minutes to the publisher's.

So it's a bit of a toss-up between those 2 jobs, unless I can pin them down and learn that the transcription job is likely to be at least 30 hours a week, on average. One thing against it is that I have to drive to the transcription job to do that work, while I will be able to work at home some of the time to start, maybe more later on, at the publishing job.

Yet another complicating factor just occurred to me. I'm due to start at publisher's on Wednesday. If in the near future I'm offered the transcription job, I may have to quit publisher job,and that may be problematic as to my remaining unemployment benefits. I have a remaining balance of about $7,000 now. Because if I work anything less than 35 hours a week, I may still receive a small mount of unemployment for any particular week.

Maybe I'll call DOL. If I explain I quit one job for a better paying job or more hours, that shouldn't penalize me. It's important for me to know, becus with either job, I'm likely to still rely on unemployment benefits in those weeks I work less than 35 hours.

Oh, the complications.