I think I was getting a little too complacent after having had my yard perimeter sprayed with either an insecticide or water. It's part of a Yale tick study; I was thinking positively that it was the spray because I've noticed an obvious lack of carpenter ants this year and I read that the insecticide that kills ticks also kills ants.

But anyway, I've been berry picking in the backyard on pretty much a daily basis. I think I got too careless, even while sweating my butt off wearing the hip boots at times (!) because this early a.m. I was still in bed and noticed a very itchy spot on my finger. I figured a spider or mosquito had bitten me. When I got up and looked, there was a tiny, tiny black speck in between my 2 fingers. I scraped it with my fingernail and watched it. It moved. I freaked.

I put it in the toilet bowl and flushed.

I've had Lyme disease twice in the last 5 years. Luckily no lasting effects, just 3 weeks on antibiotics and avoiding the sun. I know they have to be attached to you for at least 24 hours before they can transmit Lyme, assuming they are positive for carrying the virus (at least half of them are).

I don't want to pay a $30 copay + the cost of meds if I don't need to. So I will watch for symptoms but not run to the doctor unless I notice any symptoms, which for me has always been persistent headaches.

I also have some leftover herbs (Andrographis is one) from last time I had Lyme and the antibiotics didn't seem to work. I had read a book about treating it with various herbs, and about 4 weeks on them after 2 rounds of antibiotics, 3 weeks apiece, in fact did the trick.

Don't assume that just because they're herbs, they aren't heavy-duty. I had taken too much of the Andrographus last time (you're supposed to ramp up gradually) and I broke out in horrible hives/rash. So it is potent stuff. It's anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial. And according to the book author, who I corresponded with, the herbs can also be used as a preventative, not just after the fact.



Isn't this a pretty pot of marigolds? I did not plant flowers, nor seeds. They all sprang up in different pots I had last year where the dried up flower blooms had reseeded themselves. I carefully transplanted them all to this one pot and they've done wonderfully. They're so cheerful!


Here's a window box on the side of my garage. It gets the full brunt of the southward-facing sun, and most annuals fry in this location. You just can't water enough to keep them looking healthy. So I decided to try succulents,and they've exceeded my expectations. You can see here a large hen and chick along with some creeping red sedums. (There's also a few pots of strawberries below, on the driveway.)

In the center there's a round rock, one of about a dozen I took as a "souvenir" from a beach somewhere in northeastern Canada. I remember that a Border Patrol agent yelled at me when he inspected our trunk as we returned to the States, but he didn't take them from me. I still use those exceedingly round rocks in various Asian style rock formations around my yard. I really like them.

So a few weeks ago the Honda dealer replaced the rear right wheel drum because it was rusting and bits of metal that had flaked off were getting inside the wheel and making a noise when I drove. I had to bring it back a 2nd time becus afterwards, it made a funny noise when I applied the brake. They had to file down the wheel becus it's possible it was warped, he said.

Then I had to bring it back a 3rd time and it seemed fine. But then I look at the drum yesterday, which you can easily see thru my rims, and the drum is all rusty. Just got it a few days ago. I'm guessing it rusted while sitting around a warehouse for who knows how long, but I'm not sure I should be paying $160 for a rusty drum. Called the dealer, he confirmed it was a new part, and said i could bring it by and he'd take a look. Which I will do this afternoon, after I meet with grad student to get supplies for the nutrition study.

So for those of you who followed by heat challenge yesterday, I ended up turning off the AC around 9 pm although it was still 80 degrees outside. I took a cold shower and slept in my upstairs bedroom where it is most comfortable. It was 88 degrees all night long and by the time I woke at 4:45 a.m., the downstairs was a muggy 80 while the outdoor temp was now down to about 75. So I flung open every window in the house, but had the AC going again around 7 a.m. It's that hot.

So the downstairs, set at 80, is comfortable, but not much to do down there! My kitchen is there and i can listen to the radio. But my upstairs office is still hot. Oh well.

I noticed mold growing on both my toilet bowls.

For anyone who is still reading at this point, I mentioned earlier a noticeable absence of those disgusting carpenter ants this year. I really think that spray is the reason why. But now I'm battling the tiny sugar ants. They're small in size but not in number. I actually had one rather large population attempt to colonize my living space as I discovered a trail, coming in from the corner of the front storm door, continuing along the front wall of the living room, then down the length of an Indian area rug, down along the fringe of a small Moroccan rug, along to the kitchen, past the cat food bowls, up the cabinets and along the bottom of the counter where they finally ended up on the counter where I'd been killing them and not knowing where they were coming from.

I deccimated that group, but i was still getting ants in the kitchen near the sink area. AFter doing some caulking of cracks, I FINALLY figured out they were coming in from behind 2 different wall outlet switches! I sealed them both up with extra wide packaging tape and thought I had licked the problem, but i'm still getting ants and STILL don't know where they're coming from. Unless you're staring directly at possible openings/crevices/cracks, you can't tell for sure because they just seem to wander aimlessley. It's very frustrating.

I have some ant bait and will have to sprinkle that outside around the house but i'm not sure they go for it as much as carpenter ants do. I need to get some pure boric acid, but not sure where to get it.

OK, I caved.

Meaning, my 1 small AC window unit is in my downstairs dining room window and blasting relief. Together with just 2 box fans, I've cooled off the downstairs core of the house (about 725 sf) to 78 degrees and it feels tolerable. I did close off the family room and sunroom, which get very hot.

I have one of the box fans in the basement at the foot of the stairs, blowing the much cooler air of the basement right up the stairwell into the kitchen. It's working pretty well, I must say.

I'm rather surprised that 1 small unit I have (an Energy Star unit, thankfully), which I bought years ago at Costco for $99, is doing the downstairs pretty well. As you ascend to near the top of the stairs to the 2nd floor, it gets noticeably hotter and more humid. Wonder how I'll sleep tonight. Well for now, my cooling "system" is working.

I didn't want to put any more holes in the window sills to hold that AC unit in place. It's quite heavy. But I put it in the window with no screws, closed the window on top of it, and on the outside, I put a metal folding chair with a 2 x something to prop up the AC unit on its back end.

I got the idea from my author, who I met for iced tea this a.m. in a very warm coffee shop. We chit-chatted for 2 hours, mostly about her various books. But there are some funny coincidences here.

After living in town for 15 years, I still know just a handful of people in my adopted hometown. Cus normally when I work f/t, it's somewhere else and I don't have much free time to get around here.

But I was referred to D. by my neighbor who was taking D.'s painting class at the senior center. Then a while back I discovered that D. and I both use the same handyman. Then today, I learned that the guy she had mentioned whose bathroom she was redesigning, and who had said he'd help her publicize the book via radio/TV when she's ready, well, I discovered that man was my old boss when I worked at a TV/radio PR agency 2004-2007! She couldn't have picked a better person to do it. He really knows his stuff and all the right people. We both got laid off at the same time and from what she tells me, he's still doing the same kind of work but for himself this time. It's just so funny that we know the same people, considering that I know so few here!

Like most of the country, it seems, it's been really hot and humid for the past few days, and it appears more heat from the Midwest will be rolling in tomorrow and Friday.

So far, I've managed to do without the AC (!!) but I suppose if I were going to cave, it would happen during the next two days. As it is, all I have is a small AC I usually put in the bedroom for sleeping.

I wouldn't mind trying it in another room, like my office, where I spend a lot of time, but I don't want to start putting holes in more window sills.

Would you happen to know if there are AC units out there that don't require you to drill a hole in the sill to hold it? Guess that's a dumb question, but I was just wondering.

I had plans to see Thor at the $2 movie theater in town but my friend cancelled out. It was just as well, I suppose, as I had been mowing and collecting berries and was pretty hot and sweaty by the time 6 pm rolled around.

Still, I haven't been to the movies in ages. Maybe we'll make it later this week.

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting the author at the coffee shop. I'm not sure the purpose of the meeting, altho she did say she wanted my feedback on the book. Well, she's getting all my edits, so not sure what else she's looking for, but maybe this is an overture toward friendship, so I will go. She's a very nice person.

She seems to love my edits. I was afraid maybe I'd overdone it. She especially liked one of my comments, which was "Show, don't tell." In other words, don't keep explaining what all your characters are thinking, just communicate that through their words and behavior. She tends to explain everything, which I think makes it less interesting because there are fewer surprises.

I wrote up another press release yesterday and haven't heard back from the sales director of the townhouses I wrote about, which is a little unusual. I find myself falling in love with many of the new complexes I write about, including this one.

The big selling point here is, where else can you get NEW construction, 2- and 3-bedroom townhomes across the street from a public beach for $250,000 to $350,000 in New Haven County? S/S appliances, granite counters, natural gas heat, central air, hardwood and tile floors, Colonial style. This particular neighborhood is undergoing a kind of renaissance; they're trying to make it an artist community and in fact there are now 2 galleries and the first level of these townhomes, which is retail, will include artist loft space.

Otherwise, not much else new. I've been picking wineberries nearly every day, though to get a real haul, I need to don my hip boots so I can wade into the thicket without worrying too much about deer ticks.

I'm still eating lettuce from the garden. Altho it has bolted, it tastes fine to me.


Well, with the elimination of cable TV, there is absolutely no further expense I can cut. Which means I either have to focus on reducing utilities, like electric and water, which of course I've been doing all along, or focusing solely on ways to make more money, which always seems harder to me than cutting expenses.

Which is one reason I haven't dragged the AC down from the attic yet.

Joan observantly pointed out that in times of worry or fear about the future, making lists can be a good way to take control of one's circumstances and ease those feelings of helplessness that sometimes envelop us.

(And as an aside, in relation to my 4 a.m. post, I know I will get by, more or less, for the rest of 2011. It's what happens AFTER that that has me getting fearful. Cus my unemployment runs out for good in January 2012.

Of course, I will hope for the best, hope I find another job, etc., but here's a quote I love, which perfectly explains my phiilosophy:

"Hope is not a strategy."

In other words, you've got to grab life by the horns and take control of the situation.

But back to my lists. I've been a lifelong list-maker. There's something in me, perhaps because I'm a writer, that I feel a need to record, track and monitor. Everything.

Not only do I have many and various lists related to my income, net worth and monthly expenses, down to the dollar, but I also kept "lists" of a sort when I was actively dating men online. I would make a grid and rank them on various attributes important to me, including their geographic desirability, shared interests and age and so on.

If I rummage around in my desk, I could come up with a list I made years ago of all the things that make me happy. I refer to it sometimes as a pick-me-up. It contains things like enjoying a cup of tea to travel to playing with my cats.

I have a list of my anticipated monthly and annual expenses in my semi-retirement (age 60-67) as well as in full retirement (age 67 on).

I have a list somewhere of major anticipated expenses for the next 5 years. This includes stuff like a new car, a new roof and a new driveway.

Every single day, of course, I create a little list of things to do and a day when I can scratch off everything on my list is a day well lived!

When I was dating different men who shared my interest in hiking or kayaking, I created a journal that included photos and text describing each trip we made, the date, the distance and location.

I have a list of all the foreign movies I've seen, becus a few times I'd rent one that I only later realized I'd already seen.

I have a list of all the perennials, shrubs and trees I've planted on my property over the years, and where they are.

I have another list recording all the different animal and bird species I've seen on the property, and I'm still adding to it with recent additions like the gray fox.

I have in the past considered writing my own obituary. Not that I have a death wish or anything, but who else could write it better?

I'm probably a little neurotic, but what about you? What kinds of lists do you keep?

For the most part, I'm pretty good at putting on my smilely face. But every once in a while, the fear and dread rises up in me like acid reflux refusing to be quelled. This is one of those times....

OhMyGodOhMyGodWhatAmiIGoingTtoDo?INeedaF******JobAmIGoingToBeEekingOutAnImpoverishedExistenceInMyOldAge?AfterAllMyHardWork.Downthetubes.

The first early risers are merrily chirping in the darkness outside.

I got out of bed because I was worried about not having access to my local news and weather reports after going cable-less. So I added an RSS weather feed to my Yahoo home page, where I frequently visit, as well as a subscription to NOAA severe weather alerts in my email inbox. Hopefully that will cover me as far as weather calamities. But what I really need is protection from financial calamities.

I watched an episode of So You Think You Can Dance on Hulu last night. It seemed to go well.

Sometimes long-term unemployment can seem like a bad dream I still haven't woken up from. Inexplicably, it sometimes hits me like a ton of bricks, as if I'm just discovering my predicament.

The wee hours of the early morning are when I have the greatest clarity.

It's one of those stifling warm and muggy days herein Connecticut, the kind of day where I won't venture outside except to get the mail around 2:30 pm.

I did go out and pick about a cup-and-a-half of wineberries, and made mental note of where more ripe berries were, so I can go back after donning my hip boots (for protection against ticks).

I'm feeling a little more upbeat today because I got a new (small) assignment to work on, after sending a "just touching base" email to a client. It's a press release for a new townhome community right across from the beach. Two- and three-bedroom units for $249,900 to $399,900. I'll call the sales director in a little while for a few more details.

Otherwise, not much happening. Am disappointed that the slew of p/t writing jobs I applied for before leaving for my dad's yielded no phone calls from prospective phone calls.

So today I applied for a legal secretary and doctor's assistant job. I found both in the local paper. I figured it was worth doing because I'm guessing the vast majority of job-seekers wouldn't bother looking in the local newspaper anymore for jobs, so it will cut down drastically, I hope, on my competition.

It's sort of an experiment. I wrote two highly personalized letters making a case for why i'd be good at the job. I did finish a year of law school, way back when, and I do have a health-related blog that focuses on preventative medicine.

If I could find a job that was local, paid modestly ($45 to $50K) AND provided healthcare benefits, I'd be more than happy. I'd be THRILLED.

I see I have 3 more small zucchini forming in the veggie garden. And I have enough yellow wax beans now that I think I'll make a three-bean cold salad tomorrow. I've got the chickpeas (cooked from dried and formerly frozen) and will soak the dried kidney beans tonight.

The lettuce is bolting, and yeah, it's gotten a bit bitter tasting, but ya know what? A lot of salad greens can be very bitter, so it doesn't really bother me.

I have no reason to leave the house this week except for Friday, when I have to meet the research assistant at a midway point at a diner for her to give me supplies for that nutrition study I'm doing with UConn.

I don't know that I'll be able to, but i really need to mow the front lawn today. They're calling for "severe" thunderstorms and a possible tornado (great...) this afternoon. But you never know.

I don't know, maybe I can muster the energy to mow now.

You often don't realize how attached you are to something until you yank it away.

Like cable TV.



I cancelled my basic service a week ago. It was about the only discretionary regular expense left that I hadn't already cut due to my work situation. I would be remiss to keep it, given my financial situation. So I cut it after they said the best they could do was $18 a month. (I was paying $13, a special promo deal, but that expired.)

So I went cold turkey, but each day I turned the TV on, it was, well, still on, and I continued to devour all my favorite shows and even some others. All along thinking, I made a big mistake.

The Bachelorette, The Office, So You Think You Can Dance, Parks & Recreation...I overdosed on the reality TV stuff and then some, knowing this was my last fix. I squeezed in some daytime TV too, loading up on Judge Judy, Judge Pirro and Judge Alex.

I finally called the cable company to complain, yes complain, that I still had cable. Because I didn't want to be charged for it. They assured me I wouldn't be, but explained that a guy has to come out and disconnect me at the box that's on my house, and he couldn't do that. Until yesterday.

Nice young man. He asked me if i was getting a dish. I explained that no, I was out of work and needed to save money. Did you consider cutting back to basic, he asked. This WAS basic, I said.

We proceeded to have a nice conversation about the job market. He was sympathetic, as he had been out of work for 6 months after being laid off. Just 6 months? Oh, that's the minor leagues.

Anyway, I'm finding it difficult to adjust. I hoped in vain that I might perhaps get a single New Haven or Hartford channel so I could still get the local morning news, but alas, everything is a solid wall of gray static.

I could return to www.antennaweb.com and take a chance buying an antenna, but I know you have the best chance with a full sized antenna you can mount on the roof of the house, and I don't want to mess with that. It's unsightly and attracts lightening.

I registered at Hulu.com and made a list of Favorite shows and now they'll email me when a new episode becomes available. How cool.

And I will hit the library tomorrow for some DVDs.

I took the small TV I kept in the kitchen and moved it elsewhere, freeing up counter space. I moved a small Sony radio to the same spot and have begun turning on the radio instead of the TV when I'm in the kitchen cooking or eating. I'll have to reacquaint myself with public radio. Caught Prairie Home Companion tonight, which was sort of poignant, since I have memories of tuning in to the same show 25 years ago when I was a young and lonely single living in the boonies of Vermont.

I'll keep the second TV in my upstairs bedroom so I can watch DVD movies on occasion. But staring at that lifeless screen sure gives me the shivers. I'm breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

I just returned from a short getaway to the Jersey shore, visiting family.

I loaded the kayak up on the roof of my car the day before, feeling a little trepidation about the 3-hour drive ahead. I've driven around with it before, but I had my Merchant Marine boyfriend with me in the past when we did any kind of long distance travel with the kayaks, and so he was always there to make sure everything was tied securely.

But I resolved not to do more than 65 on the Garden State Parkway and for the most part I stayed in the far right lane. It stayed put and I was rather proud of my knots and fastenings. It's not too bad a ride except for the 7 or so toll booths along the way. And of course the Tappan Zee Bridge toll is now up to $5.

We did some canoeing and blueberry picking, had a great seafood meal out as well as Chinese buffet lunch and a blueberry pancake breakfast at a funky joint called Shut Up and Eat.

I met K.'s new cat and of course her two dachshunds were overjoyed to see me. But I'm left feeling sad. It's hard to see your parents grow old. There was my mother's 4-day stint at the hospital just before I left, and I can see after this visit that my father's macular degeneration is getting worse. Well, actually, he is still driving, and I know he's having a tough time thinking about giving up his independence. he's extremely stubborn and also more than a little fatalistic. He doesn't usually wear sunscreen, for example, even though he had a melanoma removed from his nose. So I was pleased when he agreed to let me drive his SUV a few times during our visit.

We talked about it a little and I tried to put as positive a spin on it as I could. I told him I would love to give up my car (if I lived in an area where you could get around without one, which I don't), and he doesn't either. I said it would be good if he had some neighbors or friends he could go to the grocery store with. I was trying to just get him thinking of the different ways he could get around. He did say they have a local transit service that stops at all the shopping centers, and he mentioned a friend of his that would probably help him out also.

Losing your sight has to be incredibly depressing, but he is not one for self pity or complaining. He uses a magnifying glass now to read anything and has to sit 3 feet from the TV to see what's going on. I left him some info I printed out from a website for Centrasight, which is about a transplantable tiny camera they put in your eye, for certain people with late stage macular degeneration.

It was also upsetting when me and my dad were carrying his canoe from a little gravel path on the side of his house to the car. He lost his footing and fell back on his butt. He said he was ok, but it still left me feeling upset. Lifting and carrying that canoe, which weighs about as much as my kayak, he said gee, I guess I'm not as strong as I used to be, because it was a little tough for the 2 of us to get it on top of the SUV. No doubt he has lost a lot of strength.

I've seen it in my sedentary neighbor, who's in her late 60s. She put off knee replacement surgery for 3 years, until she was hobbling around with a walker and cane (totally unnecessary), and as a result, post-surgery, she can still hardly walk, not because of the knee now, but because she allowed herself to become even more out of shape than she was. She lost muscle strength while trying to keep off her bad knee. If you don't use it regularly, you most certainly lose it.

But getting back to my dad. I was in fact hesitant to do the kayaking/canoeing with him when he suggested it a few months back. And I think this will be the last time we do that. Cedar Creek is a meandering river with a slow current that feeds into Barnegat Bay, but it has many hairpin twists and turns. Navigating those turns with a 14-foot canoe was difficult. We ended up multiple times slamming into the bank of the river and getting caught up in the brush. We also went under many fallen logs that were suspended just 3 or 4 feet over the water's surface, so if you didn't duck your head in time as the boat cruised under them, ramming into one of them would have knocked you out.



I wanted to take lots of photos, as I remembered from the last time we did this river with K. and my boyfriend about 4 years ago, that there were 3 or 4 picturesque bridges the river flows under, but I didn't dare take my hands of the paddle! It was a 2-hour trip without much break and some very strenuous paddling. I wasn't worried about me, but more so for my dad, who's not used to that kind of exercise.

Thankfully, when we disembarked at a little park with a sandy beach and picnic area, a man saw my father getting up stiffly out of the canoe and came over to help us get it on top of the car. It just really hit me that my dad's too old for this, even if he says he can do it. I have a feeling that he realizes it himself now. For so many years, dad was the boss, and everyone deferred to him. Now I can sense that things are shifting; like it or not, Dad's going to have to bend a little and acknowledge there are some things he can no longer do. Giving up driving is going to be one of those things.

K. now lives apart from my dad in a nearby town. So after dinner, dad and I went back to his house and were talking and watching TV. As I pet Louie, his cat, he mentioned that K. thought the cat was going blind. He's quite old and overweight. For all i know, if the cat is losing its vision, it could be diabetes-related. The irony wasn't lost on me, since I think my dad's macular degeneration may also be diabetes related. Earlier on, my dad ignored the diagnosis and didn't check his insulin and didn't change his eating habits. I think he pays more attention to it now (to a point), but he also generally has a fatalistic attitude. He's outlived his own father by many years, and I know he doesn't want to live longer if he's bedridden or disabled.

So between the 3 of us, we picked 12 pounds of blueberries. I took home 6 pounds and spent all day yesterday rinsing them, drying them outside in the sun and then freezing them in zip lock bags for winter use when blueberries cost a premium (if you can even find them).

On the return trip home I happened to turn on the radio and WCBS was reporting a 5-car accident at Exit 136. One car had gone airborne and was now completely submerged in a pond of some sort to the side of the parkway. If I knew the area, I would certainly turn off and get back on later, but this was a part of Jersey I didn't know, so I had no choice but to head straight into what they were describing as a 2-mile backup.

By the time I got through it, it had become a 7-mile backup, and I could see a small crowd of people standing on an overpass looking down at the nearby accident.

Yesterday it was quickly back to "business as usual" here. I had a doctor's appointment in the early afternoon and was able to get an appointment at the Honda dealer for them to take another look at the wheel drum they replaced for me the week before I left on my trip. There was a new rubbing noise whenever I applied the brakes that wasn't there before. Luckily my trip was uneventful in that regard.

So I had to wait 2 hours at the dealer while they took it all apart; he said they think some of the rust from the old drum hadn't been cleaned out well enough and had slipped inside, creating that noise. It appears now that the sound is gone, but it seems i feel a vibration now on the brake pedal. Good gosh almighty.

I started picking wineberries in the backyard yesterday but they've just started ripening, I think, becus there's not a ton of ripe ones out there yet.

Yesterday I also continued work stripping the old wallpaper lining out of the inside of an old antique wood trunk I have. It always had a musty smell when you opened it up, and that's one reason i never stored anything but Xmas ornaments in it. But I noticed recently a bit of that musty smell when I walked by it, so i decided that, given this spectacular dry, sunny weather we've been having, it would be a good time to put it in the sun and start removing that wallpaper lining.

I've been using a sponge soaked in vinegar to soften the paper as I've heard that kills the musty smell. The musty smell is caused by bacteria eating the paper; the same thing is what causes old books to smell. I got most of the wallpaper off, and now the wallpaper backing is left. I'll probably haul the trunk outside again work on it.


That's a picture of me and the trunk, taken about 4 years ago. (Behind it is a wall mural my mother painted on my living room wall.)

Today I'm thinking about using up about a half gallon of wood preservative on my stockade fence. There won't be enough to paint the whole 40 feet or so of fence, but I could do just the tops where the water tends to collect and could lead to rot. I figure I already bought the stuff and it's not doing anything sitting in the basement, so I might as well use it up. I painted it when the fence was installed, but that was a good 8 or 9 years ago. This is the best weather to work in, sunny but DRY.

Was up early again and around 6:15 a.m. I spotted the gray fox I'd seen a few weeks earlier. This time, he/she was trotting briskly through the front yard. I was surprised it turned down the driveway and into the road. From there, I lost sight of it and couldn't see where it went. I wonder if it's a young male scouting for a new territory.

It's still pretty exciting and amazing to me that even after 15 years of living here I can still be surprised by the wildlife I see here.

I live just 3/4 of a mile from the historic center of town but it's still a pretty woodsy area behind me. There have been fairly regular sightings of black bear and bobcats in town, too (photos in the local newspaper), but I have yet to see those!

As is my habit in summer, I stay busy indoors during peak sun/UV hours, around 11 am to 4 pmish. But after that I went outside and got a ton of stuff done. I'm so exhausted.

Here's what I did from 4 pm on:

1. Finished mowing the front lawn.
2. Used the trimmer on front lawn.
3. Crammed as many cut branches from my tree and shrub pruning into my Civic trunk as would fit. They didn't all fit, will have to make a second trip.
4. Swept up more leaves from shrub pruning in the driveway.
5. Tidied up the garage, including more sweeping. It gets messy in there so quickly, mostly becus I don't put things away.
6. Dragged outside an antique trunk I have that has always had a musty smell. I used a scouring tool you use with wallpaper to scour the paper lining inside, which I'm fairly sure is causing the musty odor. (The fungus is actually eating the paper, just like in old books.) Then I wiped down the lining with vinegar and started scraping it off. Still not done, but will continue tomorrow.
7. Put a coat of paint in the area of the kitchen door, part of my repair work from last winter's ice dam. Also used joint compound on some trim nail holes. I do believe one more coat should do it.
8. I transplanted a small shrub that was too close to a patio walkway in the back to a more spacious spot on the south side, in an area where I pulled out a bunch of pachysandra.

My mother's in the hospital. She will stay one more night. She had extreme pain in neck, shoulder, hip, hand. She assumed it was arthritis. They did all sorts of tests on her and everything came back normal. They think what she has is polymyalgia rheumatica, an inflammatory disorder that is mostly treated with steroids. Not a good option, though, when you have osteoporosis.

Confirmed with my dad that we are on for Wed/Thurs. I'll be loading up the kayak Tues. night so I'll be all set to go come morning.

Talked to K., my dad's girlfriend, who wants to rearrange her work schedule so she can go blueberry picking with us on Thursday. She works p/t as a school nurse substitute, although she's basically retired now.

K. and my dad used to live together, I think for 5 years, but she got her own place about a year ago. They were always arguing when they lived together, mostly becus my dad is low-key guy who doesn't like a lot of drama and K. is very much in your face and "I need to talk" kind of gal. She's a good person, but spending more than a certain amount of time in her company can be very draining. It's a little hard to explain.

But anyway, she and her 2 dachshunds now live in a nearby town and my dad still has the cat. It's better this way becus i think the dogs, while he loved them, could really stress him out. There was always so much commotion and chaos in the house. Actually, those dogs clearly demonstrate the difference in temperament between my dad and K. My dad basically treats a dog like a dog, but K. felt it very important that both dogs go to obedience school and learn all the commands. She's constantly reprimanding them if they pull on the lease or that sort of thing, whereas my dad is more laid back about it and doesn't really care if they "heel." K. also put the dogs through therapy school so now both are certified to visit patients in hospitals and nursing homes.

So I brought my car into the dealer this a.m. after hearing a funny rattling around noise coming from the rear right tire. They said the drum was rusting, and that bits of dust and dirt were getting inside the wheel and that there's no way to clean it, just replace it. The left tire was also showing signs of rust but isn't as bad, so I opted to just get the new drum for the right tire. Since Honda drums of the right size were out of stock, he said they had a generic type drum, same quality, etc but cheaper, so even better as far as I'm concerned. It came to $158, which is relatively cheap when it comes to car repairs.

I still had to sit around there for 2 hours though. BORING. I took a walk around the Honda dealership lot and ended up talking to a Hyundai salesperson at the dealership next door about the Elantra, which, at 40 mpg, could be my next car.

After I got the car fixed, I went to Wal-Mart. I could really use a pair of shorts and a summer top that actually fit. I now take a size 10 short (used to be 8) and i won't tell you what size top, but anyway, I ended up spending $43 on 2 shorts and 2 tops, something I wouldn't have thought twice about if I were working, but something that now makes me feel a little guilty. But it sure will be nice to wear something presentable. When I knew I was going to be home all day, I'd wear any old thing, and often that was something I wouldn't be caught dead in in public. As for what to wear in public, I had, it seemed, just 2 or 3 items I felt looked decent.

So now this purchase will get me through the rest of the summer. I'm saving it now for my trip to see my dad next week.

He called me back today and next Wed./Thurs. looks good for him, so I'm going. The weather and especially humidity look very nice those 2 days becus neither of us feels like doing much when its muggy out and i am really hoping we do both the kayaking and the blueberry picking.

On my tight budget, I am considering this my "vacation." My dad always treats ) (go dad) so my only expense will be the gas to get down there. It used to cost me about $30, but gas prices are higher now so let's figure $40. I usually try to go down there with no more than a half tank of gas becus NJ gas prices are much cheaper than CT since they don't have the high gas taxes we have here. So I'll fill up down there, right before I come back to CT.

I'm sitting here typing with a cup of tea at 5:20 pm. There's a thunderstorm going on and the rain's coming down. It's so funny how Waldo is really very sensitive to thunder and once it starts, he heads for the basement. Luther, on the other hand, is wholly unperturbed by it and is lounging on some furniture near my desk. Go figure.

I got a surprise drop-off from my gardener sister the other day in my driveway: a whole mess of plants which I'm guessing were leftovers or unwanteds from her job gardening on a private estate. There were maybe 2 dozen annuals, 4 different varieties, not even sure what they are, but they're all very attractive. I potted them all up and it brings a lot of joy to my entry way. I hadn't wanted to spend money on annuals.

But the heat's been so bad i really need to water daily, and am wondering how they'll fare when i'm away for 2 days next week. I think I'll move everything to a shady corner and hope the slugs don't molest them. And of course water them thoroughly just before I go.

I really need to mow the lawn. Tomorrow, an absolute must.

We've had a few uncomfortable days, but so far, I haven't felt like dragging a very heavy AC down the narrow attic stairs.

I've made use of 3 ceiling fans and 2 large floor fans but on some days, it's just like blowing hot air around.

I've tried putting a pot of ice in front of the blowing fan but haven't noticed any difference.

I'm in the next phase of the nutrition study. This week and next, the only thing I have to do is make sure I eat 54 grams of protein daily. To do that, I still find I need to write down the protein content of each meal, but it's easier than recording everything I eat, period.

So I have a 2-week period relatively free. Still not done editing that book, but it's sounding more and more like she needs to earn money to pay me, so while she didn't say "stop," or "I can't pay you right away," that's sort of what it sounds like. So no use rushing through that. I'm not quite at the two-thirds mark in the book,and I don't intend to send her the second 100 pages edited until she makes the next payment.

So, it looks like I may head down to Jersey shore to visit with my dad next Wed/Thurs. The temps will be in the 80s with little chance of rain and tolerable humidity (considering it's summer).

I've been trying to get a hold of him but with his vision problems, he doesn't see the digital message indicator on his phone, so I need to try to catch him when he's home.

My mother's having some serious pain problems with what she thinks is arthritis in neck, shoulder, hip. She says it's extremely painful getting in and out of bed. It all got a lot worse after she saw a chiropractor that a friend highly recommended. The pain meds she got aren't working at all, and the 2 docs she trusts are fully booked til September, so she's waiting to hear back from a nurse with one of them. It sounds like a pretty intolerable situation and I'm a little worried about heading down to Jersey for even the 2 days I'm planning if she's still in bad shape. Not that there's much I can do.

Recently I've been noticing a funny rattling noise coming from a rear tire of my car. Don't know if it's a shock or something else, but I'm pretty sure it's not the brakes. I'm bringing it in to the Honda dealer later this morning. (I can use my AAA membership to get a 10% discount on repairs there.) I hope it's not a humongous expense, but with lots of 1.5 hour trips to UConn coming up, I have to make sure it's safe and in working order.

Oh, yeah, I sort of inadvertently cancelled my cable but I'm not undoing it, at least right away! I got a bill from them for $30. Up til now, I was paying $13, a promo price they gave me last time I called to cancel. (I've found that if you calmly tell them you'd like to cancel and once you let them know it's due to cost, they'll usually come up with a better price for you.) So after some investigation, she said she could give me a rate of $20, but not the $13 I'd been enjoying for the past 6 months or so. Just on impulse, I dug in my heels and said no, I'll only keep it if you can give me the $13 rate. Well, they couldn't, so I just let them cancel it.

That was on Tuesday, and I still have TV. Hmmm, what's going on? Each day I turn it on and wonder how much longer I'll have it. I'm a little fearful as I will DEFINITELY miss being able to watch the news, both over morning breakfast and in the evening, plus I'm a big reality TV fan (American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Next Top Model, The Bachelorette are my regular must-sees).

But it's hard to justify even cheap cable when you've been mostly unemployed for 1.75 years. So I'm gonna try doing without. It will be hard, but there's Hulu, and I guess I'll just have to get back in the habit of listening to public radio again.

Not much else new. Yesterday I spent some time pruning out dead wood in assorted mountain laurel, dogwood and viburnum on my property. Now I have another pile of brush I'll have to squeeze into the Honda for the landfill. I hate to just throw the larger branches out in back or on the sides of the property because they take forever to break down.

I see my Bibb lettuce is starting to bolt, but I'm still eating it; it's not bitter yet. Also started harvesting some yellow wax beans. There are a fair amount of small green tomatoes on the vine, but I also see the dreaded fungus thing tomato plants often get. That's because I allowed lower branches of the plant to touch the ground, and when it rains, it allows these fungal spores to splash up on the leaves, and that's how it starts. I was remiss in not putting hay down around the plants much sooner. Now all I can do is cut away those yellowed branches with mottled spots. It will eventually kill the plant. There was that one spring 2 or 3 years ago when that disease took off really early in the spring due to wet cool weather, and no one had tomatoes that year in the Northeast.

My broccoli and kale are hanging in there, perhaps better than I thought, but they're also getting eat up pretty bad by something. I made an onion/dish detergent spray in the blender yesterday and let it sit for 24 hours, so as soon as this rainy weather is over today, I will be out there spraying those plants in an attempt to save them from further bug damage.

The snap peas are growing, but I planted them much too late (like June) and they don't do well in hot, humid weather, so don't know if I'll get anything out of them. I haven't even seen a blossom on them yet.

I DID see flowers on what is either zucchini or acorn squash the other day, but they open in morning and are spent by day's end. So I was out there early yesterday morning with my q-tip becus I saw that both a male and female flower were open. (They look distinctly different.) So I hand-pollinated to make sure I get a fruit forming there. In the years I didn't think to hand pollinate, I can't tell you how many blossoms came and went and still no veggie becus insects weren't sufficiently pollinating.

The cucumbers are doing well, but are also a little behind schedule. They're just reaching outward and getting ready to climb.

It occurred to me that I could have planted soybeans this spring, but I had never really eaten them much and didn't know how much I'd like them until I tried a free handout at Trader Joe's using edamame beans with black beans, corn and tomato with Goddess dressing. Absolutely loved it and and have made the recipe several times since. Well, those edamame beans are not cheap. I don't know why, since soybeans are a staple of American agriculture.

Did some quick online research yesterday and soybeans look pretty easy to grow in Zone 6 here in CT. But it's borderline too late to plant. They need at least 65 days to harvest. They like hot temps.

I will definitely make room for them in next year's garden.

I was able to enjoy an impromptu handful of blueberries from a bush that's doing very well. Usually, the 4 or 5 bushes I have don't produce much and what berries there are are usually devoured by birds. But this year the birds have been totally preoccupied by the 3-year-old mulberry tree that's already 20 feet high. Catbirds, robins and even a Baltimore oriole have been in there going nuts. The outer branches aren't strong enough to support such (relatively) heavy birds, so you can see the birds fluttering around flying from one branch to the next. I love watching.

Was annoyed to see that my 6-month bill from car insurance company (MetLife) once again reflected a premium increase (this time, 10%) for no reason at all. I have a stellar driving record, a 12-year-old car that's not used for regular commuting. Their explanation was that my town apparently had more car accidents, resulting in a higher risk rating. Well, when have i EVER seen a rate DECREASE? Never. One would think it would work both ways, that if rates increase due to higher risk, they should at least some time also decrease when risk falls. I noticed the rep didn't have an answer for that.

Overall, it's cheap insurance (about $450 a year) but as I said, old car, not driven much, minimal coverage.

Also have been monitoring heating oil rates and trying to figure out best time to pull the trigger and fill the tank. It has come down in recent weeks, but the question is, will it drop lower? Right now it's still very high compared to previous years, to the tune of $3.21 a gallon.

I hope you've all found a nice way to enjoy the long holiday weekend and celebrate our nation's founding.

I read an interesting story about how there's a movement afoot to make America the Beautiful the national anthem because The Star Spangled Banner is incredibly hard to sing, and most people forget the words. Plus it celebrates some obscure battle during the War of 1812 while America the Beautiful has some beautiful imagery.

From memeory...
Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountains' majesty, above the fruited plain
America, America, God sheds his grace on thee
And crowns thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

I still remember when I was in grade school and the teacher asked if anyone in the class could recite The Star Spangled Anthem. There was silence in the room, and then I raised my hand. I recited the following, from memory then also:

Oh say can you see
by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous night
GAve proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'ver the land of the free and the home of the brave.

OK, this time, I don't think I have it just right. There's a line or two missing,....something about ramparts. Or perhaps that's another verse.

I used to know these lines cold as a kid because one of the ways I used to entertain myself was to sing all the patriotic sounds out loud. Yes, I was an annoying little kid.

I went to my mother's for lunch where I can always count on a healthy meal. We had a shrimp salad with celery, black rice with coconut oil and a small bowl of bean/tomato soup. I had a biscotti for dessert with my herbal tea.

I'm home now and preparing a favorite cold summer salad, which consists of:

whole wheat berries
chickpeas
goat cheese
golden raisins
scallions
chopped pistachio nuts,
all on a bed of baby spinach and topped with a dressing that's equal parts balsamic vinaigrette and honey.

However, in an effort to save some money on some of the pricier ingredients, I'm substituting Egyptian walking onions from my garden for the scallions, skipping the pistachio nuts entirely and using lettuce from my garden instead of the baby spinach. I'm also out of honey so will try some real maple syrup instead.

I much prefer using dried chickpeas to canned. I promise you, once you taste the ones cooked from dried, you'll never go back to canned, which taste like mush to me now. Plus, dried is healthier since you're not eating canned food, and nearly all canned food these days is lined with, you guessed it, BPA.

I'm on page 169 of my book editing.

After lunch with mom, I made a deposit at the bank, returned a library book, filled up the gas tank and picked up a few things at Shop Rite, including some yummy fruit popsicles and mmm, rice pudding.

All week long I've been editing the book for that author I told you about. It's 300 pages, and I'm at about page 121. It's easy reading, but it gets a little tedious because she keeps making the same kinds of mistakes, lots of misspellings, lack of commas and a strange fondness for using lots and use of adjectives (often the same ones), like 3 or 4 before a noun.

I assumed I'd be working on the book more or less full time, since the sooner I get it done the sooner I get paid. But I have yet to work more than 5 hours on it in a single day. My back starts bothering me and I feel like I need a break after an hour or so.

I'm also into Day 4 of the UConn nutrition study. Which means that I'm wearing my "belt" all day long. It records my movements and senses intensity as well, sending back all sorts of data to their computer. It kind of makes me feel like I'm being tracked, but they really don't know what I'm doing.

I've also been carefully recording everything I eat and drink with careful measurements as to time and quantity. Gee, when you write it all down, it sure makes you feel like you're pigging out!

I also have to record any "exercise" I do.

So I do all this for a full week. Then I get to drink an isotype and collect my urine overnight, then collect it all for a full 24 hours, storing it in the fridge! EEwww. But it must be kept cold, including when I transport it.

Then the next day I bring my urine, food and exercise logs and me to the UConn campus for my baseline strength testing and some other stuff. I'll get my first payment of $150, too.

When I go to UConn on Wednesday, I'm leaving very early, 6:30 am. I'm supposed to roll out of bed and head over there without eating and without doing any kind of exercise, to the point where they will come and carry in your urine for you and open the doors, cus my doing this will somehow mess up their testing. The whole study has to do with how the body metabolizes protein, which I think has a bearing on weight loss/obesity.

I won't have to do the exercise and food logs during the entire 6 months, just 1 week out of each month. Same, I think, for the urine stuff.

Earlier this afternoon I got out the electric trimmer and a wood ladder to trim 2 shrubs in front of the house, and 4 in back. Then I had to sweep up all the trimmings and dump one wheelbarrow full of the stuff behind the tool shed.

The guy who's supposed to do my vinyl siding, sometime in June, he'd said, now tells me he'll know end of July when he can do it. We had some bad storms here a few weeks ago and although I heard no mention of tornados in this area, he said one touched down where he lives and the walls of his house collapsed, so he is trying to take care of that and keep up with his customers' jobs.

I'm tempted to just drive by his house, just to make sure he's not feeding me a line. No reason really to think so, but I don't want to be bumped by some other customer, and I want to get this done this season.

I added up my June income a day early. It was a great money month. Great, considering I don't have a full-time job, or even a regular part-time one. Here's how I grossed $3,790 this month.

Net unemployment: $2,178.
Yeah, this was still the lion's share, and it was also basically a five-week month.
Freelance writing: $1,218. Wow. I never make close to this but this includes the chemical distributor website copy, an advance on my book editing, and two real estate copywriting assignments.
Marketing focus group: $100. The subject was household cleaning products, but they always overbook to ensure they have enough people and they ended up not calling my name. They still paid me and I'm free to do another one real soon.
Product testing: $120. This was the one where I sat around in a small room with a bunch of middle-aged women testing a new moisturizer on our legs/arms and enjoying complimentary lunch. There are worse ways to make money.
Online surveys: $115. It requires a month long effort to earn this kind of money doing those online surveys, usually at least an hour a day.
Medical study at Yale: $48 net. This was a computer-based study on emotions.
Other: Got credit for some stuff at the grocery store: $11

My expenses this month were mostly very reasonable. Groceries were out of control, though, at $285 for just me! The only other non-regular expense was $80 for my annual landfill sticker and $165 in borough taxes.

I'm going to do my darnedest to produce a repeat performance in July!

Oh, and I'll be getting a free color and haircut at local hair salon just for being a secret shopper. I picked up the gift certificate today from the owner.

And there's a complimentary dinner at local Italian restaurant hosted by an asset management company looking for new clients. I had cancelled my attendance when i learned my neighbor couldn't go with me. I'm still mulling over whether I should call them back and go alone.

Meanwhile, "real" salaried jobs with benefits that I am qualified to apply for seem to be in very short supply.

Today I started Day 1 of a nutrition study at UConn that will continue through year's end. It's a long commitment! I have to keep a very detailed food diary and exercise diary, wear an exercise monitor around my waist except when in the shower or asleep, collect ALL my pee for certain 24-hour periods and make a few trips to the UConn campus. I'll get my first payment of about $100 at my first appointment there a week from today. Total payment will be $500 at completion.

Yesterday I met the grad student research assistant at a local diner in town as she was returning to Connecticut with her boyfriend from New Jersey and passing right by my town, so her willingness to meet me there, to give me all my instructions/supplies, saved me (and her) extra driving trips.

Enjoyed a delicious "Taco Night" dinner at my friend Frank's last night. We're supposed to walk with his dog tomorrow morning.

As I wrote on my nature/gardening blog, you never know what's going to show up in my yard. This morning, I was up quite early, around 5:30 am. A short time later, as I ate my morning breakfast cereal, I caught sight of movement just outside the kitchen window.

It hurried on by over the blue stone footpath that runs along the north side of the house, just 5 feet or so from my home.

A gray fox! I've only seen fox a handful of times here in the past 15 years, and they've always been red foxes at that. So this was quite a special sighting. He was gone in a flash.

In other news, I began editing the novelist's book. I can see it's going to take me several weeks to do. There's quite a bit of editing. She doesn't always use complete sentences. I suppose that might be all right if you chalked it up to one's own unique "style," here and there, but I don't think it should be so prevalent throughout the entire story.

So it's just stuff like that. The picture I am getting is that while she says the stories just flow out of her effortlessly, she's more of a story teller than a writer, because when it comes to the nitty gritty of working with the English language, she doesn't seem that interested in getting it right. I think she's more interested in telling the story.

Although I'm getting paid a flat rate, I'm keeping track of time spent on it anyway because I want to see what it would work out to based on actual time spent. It could come out to very little!

Mowed the grass today and came upon the smallish toad I saw hopping about the other day, so I gave him wide berth.

Did some grocery shopping this morning. That was my Sunday.

Yesterday morning I washed up with the free bar of Dial I was given to prep my legs for product testing lotion with Unilever. Then I brushed my teeth, using the free tube of Tom's of Maine I was given to use prior to answering a Pinecone survey.

Yesterday i sat around for 5 hours doing the lotion product testing ($120). It was a smallish room with about 15 women in it. They fed us a nice freelunch (chicken parmesan). I met 2 nice women there my age, and exchanged contact info with one of them. We seemed to have some things in common.

This morning I met with the author I last saw over the winter and she gave me an advance of the first third ($333) of my payment for editing her first book. She has already written the 2nd book AND is well into the third. She says the stories just pour out of her. We met at a local coffee shop and talked for an hour or so about her books, her characters, menopause, veterinary prices, contractors, etc., then I headed for Costco, where I forgot to buy half the stuff I went there for.

Aside from that, I managed to do nothing the rest of the day except make a pitcher of iced tea and read the weekly paper. I'm telling you, if it's lousy weather, my energy level is the same.

One of the things I was supposed to do, but didn't, was run over to a local high-end salon in town and pick up a (free) gift certificate to get a cut and color, in exchange for answering a survey about their services. they advertised for secret shoppers on Craig's List. (Amazing what you can find on CL.). I called and he explained how it works to me, although it still sounds a little too good to be true. It's basically first come, first serve, and they do it for 2 months each year, he said. They must be hurting for business, and maybe this is a way to try to get back people who could become regular customers, and at the same time really find out why others are no longer customers. (A lot of people might not say if they weren't happy with the cut.) So anyway, I plan to go 1st thing tomorrow or I may lose out.

On Monday night, the research assistant I'll be working with on the nutrition study will be driving back to CT from visiting her boyfriend in NJ, so she said she could meet me in my town at a diner off the highway, since it's on her way home. It will save me one driving trip of the 14 total I'll be expected to make during the next 6 months. So that is great, it cuts down on my gas bill which will eat into my reimbursement for the study. I sure hope she sees her boyfriend often!

Mom's coming over tomorrow a.m. for some lettuce from the garden.

There was a craig's list ad for a job i could tell i wasn't quite qualified to do, but what attracted my interest was that it was right in my hometown, and my hometown is hardly the jobs mecca. So I decided to email the guy after viewing his YouTube ad where he talks about what kind of job candidate he wanted. It's an Internet start-up. He emphasized they are a small (10) group of young people, some of it is family, and no one is over 35, so you should be young or not mind working with young people. He also said the first interview would be done via Skype and that if you don't have Skype, you're probably not the kind of person they want. I found it all a bit offensive, especially the age thing, but i decided to email him saying if you ever need a writer for those websites, I'm just over the hill from you on the other side of so and so farm, and included my resume.

He actually responded and said they DID need a web writer and he was going to post that job but didn't get a chance to. But that it was for a different website and would i be interested and let's talk. I wrote back and said yes, i was interested but didn't have skype, how about next week, and i haven't heard from him since. Wierd. I guess I'm not too broken up about it. Even among 20-somethings, I don't think Skype is something a ton of people have.

But anyway, looking forward to getting started book editing on Monday. It will add some real depth to my resume. The work keeps coming my way, but not the permanent kind.

Today I turned in the press release I was working on yesterday after getting sign offs from 3 people I quoted (the sales director for this particular community and 2 happy new homeowners who bought there).

Exchanged a few more emails with the grad student coordinating the nutrition study that I plan to participate in. It took repeated questions to get her to answer plainly how many trips to UConn would be required, but I finally got it out of her. It's a 6-month study and during that time it would be 4 trips up there and another 10 where we could meet somewhere halfway, for her to give me various supplies.

So that's a lot of driving, 14 trips in all. UConn is 1.5 hours away from me and the meet-you-halfway trip will be half that, obviously. So, knowing I average 38 miles per gallon in my car and that today I can buy gas for $3.99 a gallon, I used MapQuest to calculate mileage and I determined that my total gas cost for participating in this study would be $138. They'll pay me $500, and they pay it in increments as you go along, so if for some reason you had to drop out of the study, you'd still receive partial payment. So I'll net $362. I guess it's worth it, altho it's added wear and tear on my car, of course.

This a.m. I dropped off the consent form at my primary care doc's office. I put it in a sealed envelope along with a brief note telling him about the study and asking him to sign it for me. I brought it to the office, gave it to the nurse and verbally explained what it was. I was annoyed becus she proceeded to open it up when it wasn't addressed to her, but i guess she was used to doing that with their mail.

I had hoped I could return later today to pick it up with his signature, but she said, no, you should be able to get it on Thursday. Actually, she initially said i might need to make an appointment with him just to have him sign it! And what, make me pay for it? I was about ready to have a meltdown. I've only been going there for 15 years. Anyway, she called tonight and said it was ready for pickup tomorrow.

I also stopped in at the library to pick up a book to read when I spend 5 hours hanging around doing product testing with lotion on my arms and legs tomorrow in a different study testing a new moisturizer. They don't allow you to leave, and no laptops, so it's either read or talk. They do feed you, though.

I returned the phone call of someone who called me after I answered a very vague Craig's List job ad, something to do with helping people budget and handle their money. They were looking for teachers, but since I've written about this stuff for a living and have a strong personal interest in it, I thought I'd look into it. Turns out it was Primerica Financial Services. She wanted to schedule an interview with me, but I told her I'd get back to her. For some reason, I had a hunch, or maybe in the back of my mind I recalled something sketchy I'd heard about the company, and sure enough, an easy Google search revealed all sorts of bad commentary on their business model, it being a pyramid scheme that depends on constantly recruiting people (like me), etc. I don't plan to call her back.

Otherwise, I did start mowing the front lawn but didn't do any other yard work as it was uncomfortably warm today.

I picked more lettuce for another large salad (my 5th using homegrown greens) and had that for dinner with toasted walnuts and tomatoes, plus a pork chop, and to top it off, a Trader Joe's cannoli, which I'm hooked on now. (They're in the freezer section.)For something that tastes so good, they're a relatively healthy dessert, given that the cream is actually cheese and it's very low in sugar. And no artificial sweeteners, of course. They're a fairly small serving, so it's instant portion control, too.

Purely by accident, I learned yesterday that a sales brochure I'd written had won an award in 2010 by my state's Home Builders Association!

I was perusing an issue of the group's online magazine and spotted mention of it there. My real estate client neglected to tell me this!

This is going on my resume and Linked In profile. It shows that I can produce stellar copy, even when I'm working freelance.

In other news, I had a nice talk with Dad yesterday and he reminded me that it's blueberry-picking time in New Jersey and that we could go kayaking. I could definitely use a "holiday," so I'm watching the weather forecast and looking for a 2-day period during the week free of rain, humidity or thunderstorms. Looks like this ain't gonna happen anytime this week or next. We seem to have a long string of days with frequent thunderstorms.

July is wine berry picking time here in my backyard (!) so my trip may overlap somewhat, but it'll just be 2 days.

Not much else going on. Yesterday I continued pulling out rampantly growing Virginia creeper that's making a mess of my pachysandra beds. I'm not a fan of either, but the pachysandra looks much tidier when the Virginia creeper isn't in there.

The veggie garden is coming along quite nicely, although the cucumbers, snap peas, string beans and Swiss chard are probably a bit behind where they should be for this time. The Swiss chard in particular took an awfully long time to come up and is still quite small. Tomato plants are growing gangbusters and have a few small, yellow blossoms, the broccoli is looking surprisingly good with little bug damage, something that deterred me from trying broccoli in the past and of course the lettuce is in its prime. I'm out there every day, and with a nice blanket of grass clippings, weeds are under control.

I'm calling University of Connecticut today about a nutrition study I may qualify for. It's a long drive up there so i don't think I'd do it if the pay was less than $75. I already calculated my gas costs based on the distance. $18.04 for 1 round trip, and I see it's a 6-month long study.

I can already tell that my June income will be very nice. Well, "very nice" is a relative term....certainly not what full-time income should be, but considering my lack of a regular job, not too bad.

I was paid $885 for freelance work (4 jobs), I made $71 thus far in June on online surveys, $100 from a market research focus group and $50 from a Yale study on emotions. Add that to my unemployment and I will have more than covered my monthly expenses. Phew.

What's nice is that when i showed up for the market research focus group, they didn't call my name. (They always recruit extras, in case there are no-shows.) So they still paid me, but I didn't have to stay for the 2-hour focus group, PLUS I'm able to participate in another focus group right away, instead of waiting 5-6 months.

Today I finished ghost-writing a story for CT Builder Magazine, for my client, on what's going on in the housing market, at the state and national levels. It was fairly difficult to do because there was so much to cover: foreclosures, distressed sales, the jobs situation, etc., but my client wanted me to put a "positive spin" on it, which I was able to do with background info he provided. (Average prices for single family homes in my county actually increased by 15%, though number of units sold was down statewide.)

This morning I traveled to qualify for a different kind of study, this one doing product testing on a new skin lotion. Today they looked at the skin on my arms and legs and then i go back next week for 1 more visit where i have to sit in their room (they feed you breakfast and lunch) for 5 hours with lotion on my arms and legs. Then I collect $120. But you can't talk on a phone or use a laptop in this room, which you can't leave except to use the bathroom, so all you can really do to pass the time is read or talk to people there.

I'm not positive I'll be able to do the study. She said my skin didn't look that dry, and that's what they're looking for. She said, well, it's raining, so I'll pre-qualify you again when you come back. If I don't qualify next week, then I guess i only get $25. My gas for going there and back 1 time is roughly 20 miles, so I figure that's about $5 worth of gas. I get about 36-38 mpg. Hmm, maybe I'll put some retin A on my arms and legs.

Got another email from the local book author who sounds like she's ready to have me start editing her first book. I'm meeting her at a local coffee shop next week to get the thumb drive, and my advance retainer.Cool!

So unlike large portions of my jobless past, the work seems to be rolling in fairly steadily. I hate having too much to do at once, so I like to have one thing to work on at a time, and then look for the next project, and that's exactly the way work has been falling into my lap.

A recruiter called me about 2 jobs. One was a contract job (4-5 mths) for an RFP writer for a financial services firm. I have no experience doing RFPs (Request for Proposals), so I'm pretty sure that will go nowhere.

The other job was working as a web content writer for an insurance firm about an hour's drive from here. I initially didn't consider it becus of the low pay ($20-something an hour) but then changed my mind because it's certainly better than nothing, but by the time I called her next day, the window of opportunity had already closed.

You can see my pix and story here:
http://owlhollownews.blogspot.com/2011/06/paddling-housatonic-and-naugatuck.html

My arms and shoulders are so tired. I was paddling for two-and-a-half hours!

1. Vacuumed the downstairs
2. Mowed the back lawn
3. Put the 1st coat of clear shellac on the wood threshold by my kitchen door.
4. Scraped, sanded and caulked above kitchen door, in preparation for painting. This was damage caused by winter ice dams in the gutters.
5. Made some cereal.
6. Sent invoices to 2 clients, including the web developer guy, based on your input! (Got a check for $95 from a client in the mail today.)

Otherwise, I enjoyed reading my local paper tonight. It covers exactly one town (mine!) and has 3 sections and is extra wide. I'm convinced this is the winning model in an industry that is seeing newspapers go out of business left and right. It's the model used by Patch online, micro-coverage of single towns.

I picked some lettuce from the garden and enjoyed a salad, also made another salad with chick peas, chopped cucumber, feta cheese and cherry tomatoes with a salad dressing poured over it.

I also ran out to a local garden nursery/gift shop that's sadly going out of business. They had a 75% off everything sale but it was extremely picked over. I bought nothing. On the way home, I used a coupon at Dunkin Donuts good for a free frozen hot chocolate.

Tonight I'll be watching Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.

That's all, folks!

A while back, I found a web developer on Craig's List who was looking for a writer he could work with, on an ongoing, periodic basis, to write content for websites he was hired to build for different clients.

We discussed his current need, a website he was building for a small chemical distributorship. We went back and forth over my price, and eventually he said he wanted to work with me.

So on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I met "J" for the first time in the parking lot of the client's location. We went in together and I interviewed the client about his business for about an hour, using J's laptop to type my notes. He then emailed my notes to me, and I told him I'd start work that evening, a holiday weekend, and likely have it to him in a few days.

When we met, he gave me an advance deposit in the amount of $300, a check which hasn't bounced. The agreement was that I would bill him for the balance, which would probably be another $250 to $300, when the job was done. I presumed this to include any possible changes the client might want to make.

So I sent J. my copy 3 days later, on the following Monday (still during the holiday weekend!) and he said he would drop my copy into the site he had built and then said he'd send it to the client for review; this would take a day or two, he estimated.

I waited a week, then emailed him June 3, asking if he'd gotten any feedback from the client. To my surprise, he said he hadn't done the work yet or sent it to the client, but expected to do so in the next day or two.

This morning, 6 days later, I again checked in with J., asking if he'd gotten feedback/review from the client. He again said he was still working on it, but should be able to do finish in a day or two, without any further explanation.

I'm beginning to feel anxious that this guy could be using this as a tactic to brush me off and avoid paying me the balance of what he owes me. Or maybe I shouldn't assume that other people share my work ethic, but it's been not quite 2 full weeks since we met with the client. My feeling is that it's always best to do the work as quickly as possible in case the client changes their mind about something, and simply because the sooner you finish, the sooner you get paid.

I've saved most of the emails I've exchanged with J. which indicate we agreed to move forward and the estimated time I said it would take, so I think I'm covered if I had to pursue this guy in small claims court.

I just don't understand why this guy could be taking so long. A little hard to believe he's so busy with other projects that he hasn't had time to do what i would have to think is the easy part, after building a website from scratch, of just dropping in text and sending off to the client.

Since he again said he'd do the work in a day or two, I'm thinking I may wait until Wednesday of next week, and then send him my invoice for the balance of what he owes me, with a note saying that if the client subsequently has changes he wants to make to the copy, I will do that, but that I am sending him my bill for work completed.

Am I jumping the gun? Should I wait longer? I mean, I made an effort to do my part very quickly, on a holiday weekend, and here this guy has still failed to do his end of it after almost 2 weeks time.

We're talking small potatoes here, folks, but when you're underemployed, every dollar counts.

For years, I subscribed to Better Home & Garden, a mag I've always liked. I let it go a few years ago. I received a subscription offer that was hard to pass up, the kind of thing I wouldn't think twice about doing were I working full-time: a full year for $5.99.

I let it sit on my desk while I mulled it over, but in the end, I trashed it.

After that, I got the AAA newspaper that reminded me I can get 20% off Payless shoes. It's a brand I'm embarrassed to admit even considering. It's mostly all plastic and fake leather from China. I thought I'd just go and browse, since it's in the same plaza as the bank. I found a cute pair of slip on, laceless sneakers, something I've wanted for a while but can't seem to find. They were just $12.99, for gosh sakes, and of course they have the buy 1, get the 2nd at 1/2 price off. I came very close to buying just the one pair of shoes, but then I realized the 20% AAA discount wouldn't apply to a sale item, so I walked out the store before the very encouraging sales manager saw me leave.

Spending averted!

My old friend informs me he will now live to be 80. That's a big improvement, since for the last few years, ever since he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he's been telling me he's going to die an early death, probably within the next 5 years.

We got together yesterday to walk on a new riverwalk in a blue collar town in between him and me. (I was passing through the area driving back home from a medical study at Yale, so it was convenient.)

I woke up this morning ruminating about our visit, and I realized that something was different about this time. Meaning, it was a pleasant visit, through and through.

My friend has always been an extremely argumentative kind of person, the kind of person who would have been president of your high school's debating team. He's combative, loves to drag you into arguments over politics and often seems to relish challenging people.

There were any number of times, after a get-together with my friend over the years, that I kind of grit my teeth, shook my head and profusely thanked myself for having the good sense not to marry this guy many years ago when I fell in love with him.

It's one of the reasons I broke up with him over 25 years ago when we were dating. We just got into too many arguments.

Even getting together as friends, he has this way of controlling situations, making me very aware that he is controlling the conversation by steering it toward certain topics and watching the clock so that our visit ends at a certain time. Nothing is left to chance! It certainly never helped that he's a Republican and I'm a Democrat; he would often bait me with inflammatory comments, which I've long ago learned to ignore.

But, like most people, he's got many sides. People are not black and white, they are many shades of gray. Despite the impression you may have gotten from what I've written just now, he's a very good person. I was initially attracted to him because aside from his extremely handsome good looks when he was younger, he was also very, very smart and had a great sense of humor. Although he has no children, he was always very devoted to family and especially to his 2 nieces, who lacked a father figure in their life. He's a great piano/organ player, and would love to wow strangers in a hotel lobby or some other public place by sitting down at the keyboard and launching into some tune. He also was fluent in several languages, which proved very helpful when we traveled to Europe together at least 3 times. He's also extremely outgoing and can quickly put people he's never met at ease with a quick joke.

I remember one time at the end of a long vacation abroad and disembarking from a European flight in New York, my friend broke out singing "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty..." as we walked with the rest of the passengers from the plane to the airport terminal. He somehow captured the sentiment most of the other passengers were feeling, that glad-to-be-home feeling. People turned around to look at him and laughed. He loved that kind of attention.

So we've remained friends for all these years. But his sunny disposition changed for the worse in more recent years after his wife left him, not once, but twice (meaning, she left him, she insisted they divorce, which they did, then they reconciled, eventually remarried, and then she left him again). Left him with no warning, becus she apparently couldn't stand his controlling behavior either. There was lots of therapy involved, and anti-depressants for him, and all-around very trying times.

Then he got prostate cancer, and she had a life-threatening medical issue that's left her now on permanent disability and with chronic health problems. He stuck with her; I'd say she's extremely lucky to have him. He goes to BJs and buys her groceries, takes her to her doctor's appointments, and is whisking her off for a few days in Newport Rhode Island next week, although they live completely apart, she in her condo and he in hers. Those are her wishes, not his.

My friend had some cutting-edge laser surgery for his cancer. He sued his insurer (representing himself) to get coverage for the procedure, and won. But the surgery didn't work, and now he's on a medication to keep the cancer in check. His doc said it will eventually start losing its effectiveness in about 3 years, and after that they'll have to turn to another medication, but there aren't many other medications right now they can use. So he needs to hope that something new will come down the pike.

But anyway, according to my friend's new calculations, he will now live to be 80. This, despite the fact that his father, age 94, is still alive and kicking; they regularly play golf together.

So I'm relieved to see that my friend is sounding a little less morbid when we get together. He had earlier told me in great detail how he was disposing of his assets in his estate when he dies. I kept warning him that he shouldn't give away too much money while he's still alive because he may surprise himself and live longer. (See, there is a money thread here.) He has a niece he dotes on, and has given a lot of money to.

But anyway, getting back to what struck me this morning, I realized that in yesterday's visit, it was a kinder, gentler R. He wasn't argumentative, combative or controlling the way he's always been.

I wonder now if it's this drug he's taking for the prostate cancer. It contains female hormones that make him put on weight, but it could also be mellowing him out. Or maybe, given his new, self-proclaimed life expectancy calculations, he's relaxed a little because he realizes he's got another 15+ years. Or maybe he's relaxing a bit simply due to the passage of time, something I observed in other older males like my own father.....all the fire and brimstone of their earlier years gives way to a more sensitive, less testosterone-driven person. Or maybe because he's finally come to terms with the new reality of his 2nd marriage to the same woman, although they live apart and maintain a platonic-style relationship that centers on time spent sharing their dog and occasional getaways to places like Newport or Maine.

Whatever the reason, I really like it.

OK, this past Sunday marked Week 2 of my Newspaper Coupon Contest. I think it's over, and if so, that means JustErica was right!

But I'm not sure I'm doing it right. In the Sunday circulars, I clipped a coupon for a bottle of fish oil, on sale for $10, plus you get $10 in Reward points.

Being out of work, i wouldn't normally be buying fish oil (it's not on the "permitted" list), but i bought it today since I'd get $10 in "cash" to spend at Walgreens. So it would appear I already paid for the newspaper subscription ($10 for the year) by getting the $10 in Walgreen's "cash."

But wait. I'm reading the coupon and it says, "Save $10 off your next in-store purchase over the value of coupon." So umm, does that mean I have to first spend $10 and then I get to apply the coupon for the next $10? For example, buy a $20 item and get it for $10?

Or does it just mean that I can buy a $10 item for free? I'm confused! (doesn't take much) Could someone who knows how Walgreen's rewards work please explain?

If it means I have to spend an extra $10 just to be able to use the $10 in savings, I don't consider that much of a deal at all, because it's making me spend in order to "save."

Today was a longish day. Left the house at 9:45 am and got to Yale for a 2-hour series of mostly computer exercises on my emotions and how I handle them. Walked out with $50 traveler's check (I guess they don't like to keep cash there), so net of gas to get there and feeding the meter, I netted about $40.

Stopped at Big Lots on way home but didn't buy anything cus I didn't think the prices were anything special and they didn't have Pepperidge Farm bread there. "Treated" myself at McDonald's cus i was starving. Passed a gas station with gas at $3.95 a gallon and I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED TO FILL UP, BUT DIDN'T. Dumb. Prices back home are about $4.16 a gallon.

Arrived at new riverwalk and killed an hour in oven-like car waiting for my friend Ron to show at appointed time, getting way more sun than I am used to getting. We did a shortish walk on a nice enough, paved urban-style river trail (aka "gritty"), but i did learn where a boat ramp is where I could put my kayak in. It's in a little bit of a down at the heels town, but he thinks it's safe enough in the daytime.

We drove around a little where he showed me various things, since this is near where he lives, then I headed home a different way and hit 2 different Walgreen's I passed by.

Yes, I am talking about that critter that makes many people squirm....a s-n-a-k-e.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a snake in my 15 years here, but this morning, as I trudged up the side yard with my wheelbarrow, I caught sight of a rather large (large for a garter snake) snake catching the morning rays near my stone wall. It didn't move, and I kept moving.

About an hour later, I decided to check on it and possibly take its picture for you folks, but I was disappointed to find it gone.

I figured it had moved on, but later this afternoon, I caught sight of it again, just a foot or two from where I originally saw it. I went to the house for my 1. camera and 2. binoculars.

I watched incredulous as a really dumb chipmunk approached it on top of the stone wall. He seemed unsure whether the snake was real. The snake was frozen still but it had its head raised. I wondered if a snake of this size could kill and eat a chipmunk, which is considerably larger than, say, the many mice around here.

The chipmunk froze, then had the good sense to jump down off the stone wall; it ran into a crevice in the wall; I think he lives in there somewhere as I often see it in the vicinity.

I continued watching the snake through the binoculars (from the safety of inside my garage, looking through the window), but the snake didn't move at all, so after a time, I lost interest and went on with doing doing something else. About a half hour later I again went to look at the snake, and again, the disappearing act. Darn.

I'm very happy to have a snake in the yard; to me, it's an indicator i have a healthy environment here.

Still, I admit I'm feeling a little squeamish about doing any gardening in that area. I sure don't want to reach into any tall weeds with my hand and uncover a snake. And now I'm worried about possibly running over it with the lawnmower.

The other garters I've seen in my yard have been small, about a foot long and the diameter of a pencil, to give you an idea. I couldn't tell how long this one was, but its diameter was considerably larger, like maybe 3 pencils together.

I'm at a bit of a lull in the freelance work. True to his nature, the client who had said he would call me yesterday to discuss some work he wants me to do never called, and he didn't call today, either.

I checked in with the web developer to see if he'd gotten feedback from the chemical company client about the website copy I'd written, and I was surprised to learn from the web developer that he hadn't even finished dropping the copy into the website he'd designed, so he hadn't sent it to the client yet! When I talked to him Monday, he said he would do so in a day or two. Apparently, he's either busy with other stuff or a bit of a procrastinator.

And neither the real estate agent or the builder for whom i wrote a bio for a sales brochure got back to me with any feedback.

So for all those reasons, I turned to doing yardwork all morning; it was a glorious weather day, a bit breezy, sunny and a high of 72 or so.

I did manage to book a 2-hour study at Yale for this Monday. Just answering questions on emotions or something. It pays $50. Since I know my car gets about 36 mpg,the trip to Yale is about 27 miles and gas is going for something over $4 now, I calculate my gas there and back will cost about $8, or 2 gallons of gas, plus I'll have to feed the meter. Can't remember how much, but I'm guessing maybe $2 for 2 hours, so my net will be just $40. Hey, I'm not working, so it helps.

Since I'll be out that way, I can stop at the Big Lots on the way home, and possibly meet a friend for a walk who lives out that way, too. Big Lots has cheap Pepperidge Farm bread that I can freeze.

I also committed to doing another focus group, this one on cleaning products, the week after next. It's about a 40-minute ride and pays $100 for 2 hours.

In response to someone's comment on an earlier post about focus groups, yeah, there are a handful of focus group companies here. They tend to be around urban areas, and probably not something you'd find much in a rural area. I live in Fairfield County, a pretty affluent area, and so there is one I'm aware of in the Hartford area, another one in Fairfield and one in Westchester County, and they're all doing focus groups on an ongoing basis. You're not usually permitted to do them more frequently than 1 every 6 months, so it's nice to have several to rotate among. And yes, Yale does a lot of studies. These are all just things I've discovered in my quest to earn a little money. I also recently discovered a place close by that does clinical trials. They're doing one for menopausal hot flashes, but after talking to her I decided I was not comfortable taking a drug that I won't know anything about. I would have been more comfortable in the study they did on aspirin, but that study's done now. I'll have to keep an eye on their website and see what else comes along.

There were a couple of better paying studies I didn't qualify for: one was an all day focus group talking about social issues that would have paid $250, but they had filled all the spots in my age group. Yale was doing a study that paid $1400 (!!) but it required 4 overnight stays in a month's time plus frequent visits, and it's too far away for me to consider doing that. For the overnight stays, you'd have to be there at 7 a.m. and couldn't leave til 10 a.m. the following day. You had to stay on premises, and,not having a laptop, I can't imagine what i would do to keep busy that length of time.

I got $23 in checks in the mail today from Toluna and Pinecone.

I got some poison ivy on both forearms; it's not the worst case I've had, but it's itchy. I rely on a product called Tecnu. If you think you've been exposed to poison ivy and wash the affected skin with this lotion and COLD water as soon as possible, it can prevent your getting the rash, or at least reduce the severity, becus it washes away the oil that causes the rash. I washed my left arm cus i saw when i accidentally brushed my arm with some of the stuff i pulled up, but even so, i ended up with poison ivy on both arms.

I figured the house wrens in my 2 bluebird boxes had fledged their young and thought i would clean out the old nest so another pair could nest again this season. I took a gardening spade to lift out the nest. Imagine my surprise as I pulled the nest out and peered in to find a fairly large bird sitting there. I assume it was a baby not yet fledged, although it was big enough that I would think it should any day now. I tried to return the nest to the box, but I had pulled it out so far that it did not fit neatly back inside, and I sort of had to jam it back in. I was afraid of hurting the wren sitting inside, so I didn't jam it in too hard, but becus of that, I couldn't close the door fully. So the hinged door is partly open at the bottom maybe an inch. I don't think it really makes much difference and I believe the bird is still safe inside, but i do hope it fledges very soon. It's supposed to rain all next week and I suppose it might get a bit more wet than it would have otherwise, but I don't think that will hurt it either. I feel guilty for having interfered with it before the nest was vacant. I hadn't seen much activity near the box so i figured the coast was clear. Have to be more careful next time!

I'm talking about my vegetable garden, of course.
That's it, the fence-in area in the background.

This is actually my front yard, which is much bigger than the back yard. I chose to put the garden in here because it gets much more sun.


Tomato plants (there are 8 of them....cherry, beefsteak and roma seedless) look pretty good. They're staked and hooped and I'm just waiting for the little yellow flowers.


Lettuce: I planted more lettuce (3 rows) than I ever have before, mainly because I had the seed, I guess. It's looking good, but pretty small, not ready for picking. Some of the seed was left over from last year, so the germination rate, as you can see, was ot 100%.


Broccoli: Umm, some plants look better than others, which are riddled with insect bites already.

Bell peppers and string beans: These look worst of all! I mean, how easy are string beans? But both have been attacked by insects quite a bit. I planted another row of string beans just to ensure myself of harvesting something should the first planting not make it.

Today I planted snow peas, somewhat late, I know, but they grow quickly.


After chalking it up as a "miss," I see my Swiss chard, some of it anyway, is actually coming up. Very, very tiny.

There's one potato plant coming up and looking healthy, from a potato tuber in the ground that I missed last year, apparently.


I squeezed in some zucchini and acorn squash; the seedlings look very healthy at this point, though it's just the first two leaves.


Cucumber seedlings are up also, and i planted a few more seeds after seeing that 2 of the 3 hills only had 1 seedling up.


Egyptian walking onions are thriving; I actually pulled up one plant cus they were "walking" a bit too far! I tried slicing up one of the stalks just the other day and it added the expected oniony flavor to some coleslaw I made. They don't have much of a bulb, but you can east the flowers and stalks, which are quite a bit thicker, with a hollow inside, than a chive.

I have chives, too, but use them infrequently in cooking.


I love to make my own pesto in summer, so I planted four pots with basil. They're coming up, but they're very tiny.

That's about all I could fit in the fenced garden. I love growing my own food. Maybe there's still time to plant some corn??

Elsewhere in the garden, the peonies are in bloom.



This boxwood is three years old. I was sitting in the little Contemplation Park at the Episcopal church and snipped off a one-inch piece of boxwood from an established shrub there. i dipped it in rooting hormone and planted it. Voila! It's barely a foot tall now and I can't bring myself to start shearing it to shape it. Pretty soon, little friend. I only regret not planting a dozen more cuttings at the same time.


This is the area under the canopy of a large white pine in the yard that I recently cleared out. It always looks so messy and unkempt due to the variety of weeds that grow there. There's always been some poison ivy there, lots of wild garlic mustard and this spring I pulled out tons of Virginia creeper. Eventually i hope to have those ferns encircle the whole area under the pine.

A woman's work is never done.

Sorry, but more discussion on my work life.

The freelance work continues to dribble in more steadily than before. Which is nice, as I've done absolutely nada to promote myself.

Here's a status update of what's cooking:

I wrapped up the website copy for the chemical distributorship and sent it in on Monday; hoping to get some client feedback this week from the web developer who hired me. Hopefully it will be favorable and will require zero edits.

Today I wrote two pieces that will form part of a sales brochure for a new condo in a certain shoreline town in Connecticut. It was interesting to do because the renovated building was built in the 1800s as a private school, made of the same granite that was used to form the base of the Statue of Liberty. So it has some historical interest, plus the units are absolutely posh. Too bad they weren't more in my price range at over $700K.

Briefly spoke to my VP client at same real estate company; he wants me to do some promotional work for him, though he wasn't too clear and will call me back tomorrow as he was driving. It could mean updating his bio and doing a press release on something.

Also tomorrow I'm going to try contacting the builder of the condos at the stone schoolhouse and interview him so i can write up the builder bio, which will go in the same brochure.

Today I responded to 3 Craig's List ads posted by Yale University for people to participate in various studies. I don't always qualify, but I did a few last year. The pay varies, depending on how much trouble or how invasive the study is. One of the studies I applied for today requires 4 separate overnight stays and a full day (ie, 7 a.m. to 10 am the next day) at Yale in a single month; but they pay $1400. Not sure yet what's involved, but it's not a medical study. There was also something involving a Hartford area focus group (an all-day thing) that paid $250, so i applied for that as well.

Otherwise, it's stifling hot and muggy here. Connecticut apparently narrowly missed being hit by tornados, while 2 caused a lot of damage just north of the border in the Springfield, MA area. The next few days are supposed to be super nice.

I've been trying to trim Luther's long fur to help him keep cool, but he gets annoyed when I try to cut his hair. I do a little at a time, and then he runs off. Just like last year, I'm collecting his fur in a plastic bag, just to keep track of how much I'm cutting off. It's more or less like trying to shear a sheep, one that bites. His fur is incredibly thick.

It was a little late in the day for photos, but the sun had gone done and a nice breeze was blowin'....


This is blue milkweed in the foreground, and giant allium behind it.


Here's a closeup of the pretty, star-shaped blue milkweed flowers.


You've seen my doublefile viburnum before.


Mountain laurel quickly follows the bloom of rhododendrons.


My favorite rhododendron


Another shot.


More rhodies.


Still more!


This is wiegela,an old-fashioned shrub.


Wiegela closeup. Hummingbirds like the funnel-shaped flowers.

I spent most of today writing website copy for that chemical company, and guess what? It's done! So now I can enjoy the rest of my holiday weekend (not that I'm doing anything special).

I started mowing the front lawn and will continue it tomorrow, along with the back. A woman's work is never done.